Grubstakers - Episode 46: Michael Milken

Episode Date: December 18, 2018

On this episode we cover the capitalistic escapade of Michel Milken. How he cheated his way to billions why people defend him to this day, and we rag on this dudes face a lot. Join us on another episode asking the question is there such a thing as a good billionaire? Enjoy!

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. Four, three, two. Hello! Welcome back to Grubstakers, the podcast about billionaires. Sean P. McCarthy here joined by my friends. Yogi Poliwal.

Andy Palmer. Steve Jeffries is absent this week, so we apologize in advance for the episode we will release next week, correcting all of the errors we make. But we are very happy to be doing this and with you here in this December. And we have a very special topic. Is it Mr. Michael Milken? I would also like to say hello to all of our new followers

who are here because I told a guy that he was lying about his income to bully someone on Twitter. And then he doubled down on it and then I tripled down on it. Tripled down, eh? Yeah, and then I dragged the podcast into it because I thought it would be funny.

Yeah, you told a guy who was lying about his income. And that was the first hour of the Twitter fight. And then that extended into hour eight, in which it seems to have morphed into something else. Well, eventually in the Twitter fight, it became him musing on white guy psychology based on every tweet i made and so i actually felt honored to be like the director of what constitutes white guy psychology cishat white dude psychology well andy yogi and i have a surprise for you that's right on skype right now is disco socialist um but yes no i had and got in a big thing, but we are very happy to be joined by a man who has been called an aggro unfunny asshole

by Twitter.com, who has a podcast that sounds like a great concept if it weren't hosted by an aggro unfunny asshole. To quote Kit Mylar, wow, this sounds right up my alley, but you seem like an aggro unfunny dick, so I'll pass. Oh, I got the quote wrong. Yeah, but then this sounds right up my alley, but you seem like an aggro unfunny dick, so I'll pass. Oh, I got the quote wrong.

Yeah. But then again, it's easy to get things wrong when you're part of the Grubstakers crew. I mean, what's sad is that you guys didn't catch on that I'm an aggro unfunny dick this whole time. Oh, we caught on. But, you know, someone's got to do the drops. But we are very happy you're joining us. Especially if you're a new listener it's indispensable to have someone who does that shit

yes yes indispensable you took the word right out of my mouth oh I forgot I was gone last week I listened to the episode you guys did on Vince McMahon it was interesting so you guys were talking about how

Vince McMahon made all of his employees take steroids. You know, very illegal and dangerous. My wife told me about there was a Brazilian comedy show. And the gag is that they would get hot women like models to take steroids so that they would become really swole and buff. And that was like funny. And then they had to stop doing it because one of them got cancer oh my god i was like you know they have a much more pure sense of humor down there than we do the only reason they just stopped because it was because the

joke got too funny when somebody got cancer i mean it was just you couldn't stop laughing wait would they do challenges once they've gotten roided up? Or what was the... I will say, that is one hell of a closer. On our season finale. Well, like, yeah, like, because she watches the reality show. It was like a Brazilian Big Brother where they're, like, in a ranch or something. And one of the contestants on it was, like, a woman who had, like, been on this comedy show and got steroided out. I love that it's a comedy show.

Yeah. I love that that's the notion. What are we going to do for humor here? How about steroids and models? Yeah, well, did they also do bits? You know, I didn't really watch. I do think they were doing some sort of feats of strength or something. Some prop comedy?

They did bits on the show in addition to just having the steroided out women, but I don't know if they were doing that. Yeah, because that seems like a flimsy premise to hang a whole show on. Who's on first? I don't know. Last Comic Standing with steroids might be a better show. They do who's on first, but the woman is so aggressive because of the steroids, she just crushes his skull.

I am telling you, the man's name is who! Seems like a great place for an aggro unfunny dick. But moving along. So this week's topic is Michael Milken. And you might have heard of Michael Milken vaguely from junk bonds in the 80s. But I think he's very important for a long time. Did you lose money in the 80s? Greed is right. People who lost money in the 80s? Greed is right.

People who lost money in the 80s remember this. Greed works. He's very important for a variety of reasons. A couple chief ones among them is the fact that he's still a billionaire. Forbes today estimates him at about $3.7 billion net worth, and it should be noted that this was entirely the result of a criminal conspiracy and scheme that defrauded, you know, billions of dollars, both out of public money and investors, which we'll get to. Yeah, one thing you learned by Milken is he really capitalized on the fundamental

aspect of crime, which is steal more than you'll be fined. Yeah, I mean, he like he was smart in that he got to the table the bargaining table with the government right when they were like okay so we're gonna do like a thorough audit of your assets he's like no yeah i'll pay 600 million yeah that sounds fair um but so yes that's the mafia's main problem is they don't make enough money and they kill too many people i mean it's like hey they made more money and killed less people they would get away with it every time. I think so. Yeah, definitely. But so, I read this book called Den of Thieves.

It was written by James B. Stewart. He's a Wall Street Journal reporter, I believe former. But it's a fascinating book. I very much recommend it, especially if you want to understand, you know, Wall Street in the 80s. And the interesting thing is, so Den of Thieves was written in 1991.

It was a national bestseller. And the thing you can't help but realize going through it is everyone who's either a criminal or just a viciously corrupt asshole in Den of Thieves has gone on to like much bigger and better and more successful things from 1991. Wow. And it's just weird because it's like, it's not like it's an obscure book. This was the bestselling book in America. And then all of these people were like, yeah.

So just as a couple examples, David Solomon is the current Goldman Sachs CEO, the incoming one. David Solomon, we'll get to, he's involved in a fraud with Milken where Milken was like, they were doing what was called parking where to create phony losses for tax purposes, they would transfer assets to other people's books, but they both knew that they belonged to the other person. So they would show fake losses, and then they would report these

losses to the IRS. And then after tax season, they would just pass it back. So David Solomon, I believe he didn't pay taxes on like $800,000 worth of income in 1985 because of this scheme with Milken. And they were doing that. They were also kind of like defrauding investors within the fund that Milken put him in charge of. And the only reason David Solomon didn't go to prison is because he ratted on Milken. And this is something you will find in zero profiles of the new ceo of goldman sacks um one thing that did happen though is he he did threaten to cut a baby in half like a magic trick no no to settle an argument andy

it's too bad that guy won't listen to the podcast so he can't learn who the real aggro unfunny dick is me so and just like a quickly a couple other characters in the story who are doing better uh carl icon is involved in uh some milken insider trades he's ultimately not charged but he is like a lot of suspicion is uh put on him as this book We've done an episode about Icon. Henry Kravis is another leveraged buyout guy from KKR, billionaire, future episode. Alan Dershowitz, the lawyer, would go on to represent Milken. Alan Dershowitz, famous for always respecting. Oh, yeah, famous aviator. Owns the sky, Dershowitz.

With his wingman Jeffrey Epstein they're tight yes he does he was in an airplane where Jeffrey Epstein would rape women and Alan Dershowitz was on the flight logs as also being in that airplane and it's very likely that Alan Dershowitz

raped women with Jeffrey Epstein on that airplane allegedly you're just making Yi bleep things in post i was gonna say i was gonna do some tortured metaphor about him being an aviator with storks and babies but you know i think you really kind of got what we were getting at there probably to care that way yeah but uh so alan dershowitz would come on his legal team uh come on his legal team uh his legal team was 13 uh but uh and then uh now leader of the democrats chuck schumer was actually a congressman from new york at the time 1986 who uh savaged the sec for being too vicious to Michael Milken. Rudy Giuliani was,

well, so, and then Leon Black was another Drexel guy. Drexel was Milken's firm, we'll get to, but he's also now a billionaire. He was really given a start by this fraudulent empire, and now he's a billionaire. And then lastly, Rudy Giuliani was the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. He ultimately was the guy who prosecuted on Milken.

But basically what that was is his underlings put the evidence together and he signed off on it. But interestingly enough, Milken is in the news again because now he is lobbying President Trump for a pardon. or like his last day in office gets distracted like yelling at some, retweeting some fucking 1488 Twitter account for like all of the days before he's legally no longer president anymore and forgets to pardon Michael Milken. I think it's almost certain that he will pardon Michael Milken

because fascinatingly enough, Rudy Giuliani is lobbying to get Michael Milken bargained. Rudy! Rudy! Rudy! You know, what happens when you go into private practice or whatever. But it is just something where Michael Milken has spent millions, millions and millions, of both his former firm and his own money creating an incredible PR apparatus to the point where you can't really, even if you listen to like a Bloomberg report today,

like I did a couple for research for this episode, they're always talking about his like charitable bullshit and his health stuff. And I think I even heard somebody on Bloomberg say Michael Milken was a victim of the culture of envy. You know, that famous culture of envy in 1989 when he was indicted. But so, you know, and Milken, again, pled guilty to six felonies, but all his defenders will be like, oh, he just

did that to make the government go away. You know, they were going to ruin him. But the reality is that Milken engaged in an extremely criminal scheme. Ben Stein, we'll get to in a second, estimate that Milken stole more than $5 or $6 billion. And of course, he would pay about $1.1 billion in fines and do about two years in prison. So ultimately, he got punished, which is the difference from the 2008 financial crisis, but he's still a billionaire. That's crazy.

$5 to to six billion. And he's... It's like... That's so much money. Yeah, and so like... I guess we'll kind of get into the details of how he did this. But he is kind of pretty much tied up with what's called the savings and loans crisis in the 1980s. Maybe we'll do like a more in-depth episode on it later. But the long and short is there were like, I believe, 55,

again, this is Ben Stein's estimate, 55 Milken-backed savings and loans that went into default. Savings and loans were basically just regular depository things. They were like banks. They would make home loans and these kinds of things. Right. And because of deregulation they were Able to buy these milk and junk bonds

And so like Charles Keating Famous for bribing John McCain He was A guy who bought the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association It was again a savings and loan in 1984 for 51 million Entirely financed by

Michael Milken. So, of course, when you finance the guy, suddenly you have a captive client because Milken puts him in business and he says, okay, you're going to buy my junk bonds now. And he has an entire network of savings and loans such as Lincoln and I believe Columbia and a few others. These savings and loans would buy up his junk products so he was able to essentially manipulate the market where he would just roll it over forever because he could sell it to all of these different captive clients.

And it's Ben Stein again. So Ben Stein is a former Nixon speechwriter and just a rabid free market Republican. I'm Ben Stein. My brain is a miraculous instrument. It contains the information I use to protect my money. $5,000. I'll put it up, but I won't give it up without a fight. But if you're smart enough, quick enough, and lucky enough,

you can win Ben Stein's money. Win Ben Stein's money by getting him to invest in junk bonds. But yeah, so, I mean, it is fascinating to me, like, just learning this, doing the research. So Ben Stein, again, Nixon speechwriter, Nixon apologist, rabid free market Milton Friedman guy. Guy who said Bueller. Yes. Bueller. anthropologist rabid free market milton friedman guy guy who said bueller yes the guy who is a very boring to a matthew broderick so boring that he put matthew broderick asleep at the wheel of his

car in ireland where he murdered that woman but uh clear-eyed spokesman ben stein it doesn't count if you hit an irish person um but so you know so like i saw a video on youtube of of ben stein talking about michael milken and your kind of like stereotype reaction is like oh of course he's going to defend you know free market government overreach but surprisingly enough ben stein wrote probably the most uh vicious takedown of milken um yeah so the book is called let me see if I have it here, A License to Steal. He writes this book in 1992 and Ben Stein's contention,

I think very convincingly, is that in the 1980s, Michael Milken ran a Ponzi scheme. Was this before or after he met Kimmel? It was the same night. But so... License to Steal. Good title.

Yeah. And it was just kind of like surprising to me that this guy probably wrote the most vicious anti michael milken book to the point where michael milken's people apparently like started putting it in the press that ben stein's wife was a lesbian really yeah and they they got it um that uh ben stein he wrote this article about how george hw bush shouldn't take some sort of sleep medicine because he said it fucked with him so milken's people started spreading that ben stein was a drug addict and then one of like one of milken's lawyers said on like some show that like oh you

shouldn't listen to ben stein's book because he's a drug addict paraphrasing of course but you know so i love how milken's people were like let's say his wife's a lesbian that'll really the people on our side you know counterpoint ben stein was in hollywood in the 80s i i guess i'm just gonna quote from ben stein here uh do the voice that's weird oh bueller don't do the voice. I love how anytime you guys ask me to do the voice, I know I can just feel our listeners getting disappointed as I fail to do the voice. But so Ben Stein says,

overfunding uncritically allowed by markets and regulators was very largely a Ponzi scheme in which earlier borrowers and lenders were kept afloat by later borrowers and lenders. It couldn't go on forever, but while it lasted, it was a miraculously simple way for Milken to pull buyers more or less out of thin air and thus create a market for his junk. The scam worked so well that there were periods when Milken could create entities with no operating financial assets to speak of and raise hundreds of millions of dollars for them to be used solely to buy junk bonds. And this is where, again,

we'll kind of get into this a little bit more, but essentially, as we were mentioning, he was able to create these captive institutions where he would put people in business and give them the startup capital and in exchange it's like, okay, you're buying my next issue of junk bonds. And he would also even go so far

as to straight up bribe fund managers where he would give them, say, warrants for stock and that's your reward. So now you're running your corporation, I'm giving you a bribe, but you use your corporation to buy my junk bonds. Vi har en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en avsnitt av en av So, we're going to have a lot of different schemes. And we're going to have a lot of different schemes. So, we're going to have a lot of different schemes. And we're going to have a lot of different schemes.

So, we're going to have a lot of different schemes. So, we're going to have a lot of different schemes. So, we're going to have a lot of different schemes. So, we're going to have a lot of different schemes. So, we're going to have a lot of different schemes. So, we're going to have a lot of different schemes. So, we're going to have a lot of different schemes. So, we're going to have a lot of different schemes.

So, we're going to have a lot of different schemes. So, we're going to have a lot of different schemes. So, we're going to have a lot of different schemes. So, we're going to have a lot of different schemes. So, we're going to have a lot of different schemes. So, we're going to have a lot of different schemes. So, we're going to have a lot of different schemes. So, we're going to have a lot of different schemes. So, we're going to have a lot of different schemes. So, we're going to have a lot of different schemes. So, we're going to have a lot of different schemes. So, we're going to have a lot of different schemes. So, we're going to have a lot of different schemes. So, we're going to have a lot of different schemes. So, we're going to have a lot of different schemes. So, we're going to have a lot of different schemes. So, we're going to have a ton of different schemes, but the long and short is I think Milken was running a Ponzi scheme throughout the 1980s.

Well, at parties he'd introduce himself and he'd be like, Who am I? Bond. Junk Bond. But I guess we should go through in a chronological fashion of Michael Milken's life. he'd be implicated in. He hired a very sophisticated public relations machine that his, again, then firm Drexel was spending millions of dollars a month to keep these PR people on duty. And so that echoes through today, because if you go to the Forbes website and you read the two little factoids they have about Michael Milken. I'm just going to read one of them to you now from Forbes. Milken switched majors at UC Berkeley from math and science to business after the 1965 Watts riots in Los Angeles determined to democratize capital access.

So Forbes or Milken's PR machine would like you to believe that he switched to a finance major because he read about the Watts riots and wanted to spread the wealth to the African-American community. He was so saddened by the lack of capital of the urban communities that he thought, maybe I should have that capital that they don't have. But that's just like on the forbes website printed officially and it is straight milk and pr bullshit and we know it's bullshit because like first of all the book den of thieves talks very clearly about how he was like sean is emphatically poking his finger at the book that is on the table goes on money yeah uh the book den of thieves talks about how he was like at uc berkeley and again the 60s i believe he graduated 68 a very political time at uc berkeley he was uh he was

very apolitical he didn't smoke marijuana or do lsd so we know he was not a leftist in college and um you know so he was like very apolitical and then what happens is in the book when he hires this pr firm they start with this might that sounds like someone who does not want to get laid if you're at berkeley in the late 60s and you're apolitical you're like the only person not having sex at berkeley believe it yeah he married his high school sweetheart so he he was like, oh, I got this locked down. Time to be a workaholic nerd. He also went bald in his teenage years. Right. I mean, imagine going bald

before you're 20. Explains his lack of empathy. I will punish the world for what has been done to my head. Not in a fun way like Larry David. His younger brother has the best head of hair. It's very funny. Whatever stress his older brother took on,

oh boy, that younger brother gets to just live scot-free. Oh yeah, I guess we should mention in this episode, we might even just throw both of them in the title, but his younger brother, Lowell Milken, is a billionaire. He's worth about $1 billion as well. And the only remarkable thing about Lowell Milken is he got a law degree. I believe it was one of the universities of California, but he got a law degree. And so Michael Milken brings him in as a lawyer. He brings Lowell in and kind of like his hatchet man to like do unpleasant tasks, which we'll get to in a second.

But the only really remarkable thing about Lowell Milken is that in exchange for Michael Milken's guilty plea, he demands that the government immunize his brother so his brother basically gets to run the empire and keep all the assets and these kinds of things while Milken does his two years in you know white collar prison bros before hoes yeah but so yes that's basically how his brother became a billionaire was uh being related to the guy who thought of a giant ponzi scheme in the 1980s yeah you know uh hard work and merit as i believe they call it there's a reason he's got a full head of hair this dress wasn't his to have but uh or he bought new hair but so before people with his money or want to do well so one of the things is that uhken, Michael, he was sentenced to prison.

And at that time, he wore a toupee. And so a lot of the younger photos of him have him with a full head of hair. But then there was articles written that said that the court system won't let him take his wig to jail. He had to wear like a baseball cap in prison. Unless it was medically required he wear a wig. So now he just now he's bald once court documents say that you can't have your fake hair you accept that you don't have fucking nerd if he can't like pull off being bald i don't know man that's good head's huge yeah he's

got like a seven head but so just before i lose this the they were mentioning you know like the watts riots and democratizing access to capital so this was entirely a strategy thought up by his PR firm because what happens is when the government starts their case in 1986 they start thinking about the demographics of a New York jury and realize it will likely include several African Americans so he begins a serious black community outreach where he starts like giving all this money to the congressional black caucus and he starts doing all these photo to the Congressional Black Caucus and he starts doing all these photo ops

with minority children and stuff. Tangent. I get it now. This guy's a fucking goblin. Just did an image search. Oh, and then the best one is he takes, I believe, 1,700 disadvantaged children to a baseball game at the Mets stadium.

Andy just showed us a photo of him meeting with Barack Obama. Look up his brother now, Andy. L-O-W-E-L-L. But so it's like entirely like this minority outreach thing was entirely invented by his PR thing. And then the most telling, one of the most telling anecdotes in the book is his pr people shortly after they hire him they sit him down and they ask him to like list all of the good significant things that he's done in his life and he stops at college so they have to be like no you were creating jobs and creative destruction and all of this stuff is just complete pr bullshit that they invented but

he spent so many millions over the decades that it's like this is almost reflexive if you listen to bloomberg or forbes you will just hear this propaganda that milken like created all this value and made some minor mistake and then the government came down card because they were jealous of his success when in reality he stole billions of dollars through a ponzi scheme yeah a lot of milken defenders will say like oh you know other people would do this and get a slap on the wrist but they wanted to make an example out of milken his brother totally has plugs or a wig there's his hair is inhuman it's too good right it's not that it's too good it just well it's it's comparatively to michael that guy's got a great head of hair palmer admit it but it's unnatural it's it's a thick rug it's a rug yeah it is a thick rug it is sean what's

your take on his brother's hair he probably has his little brother has to like make his hair look worse just because milken michael's the one who went to prison right right so you can't be having like a better head of hair than the brother who went to jail for you. You remember the mummy when there was that giant sandstorm that was attacking him? That's what the top of his head looks like. It's just like this insidious sandstorm just bubbling up on top of his head.

I don't know. Because Michael Milken is 72 now, and his younger brother is 70, I think. For 70, he looks pretty good. Would you go to jail two years, white collar, for your brother? For billions? Yeah. Yeah.

I guess to protect my $5 billion fucking net worth. Like, heart to heart, no money on the line. Like, still, I love my brother, yes. But at the same time, if billions of dollars are on the line and I get four times the amount my brother gets and he gets one billion, yeah, I'll do two years in prison for that. What about you, Palmer? I want to go to jail for something cool.

This is the least cool thing to go to jail for. All right, well, I'll keep your billions then don't worry they'll uh they'll send you there for the unsolved murder of disco socialist this podcast will be introduced oh god he's gonna tweet now like they have been threatening me all right so last thing before we kind of get into the chronological biography of michael milken uh so since his you know release from prison, he's founded what's called the Milken Institute Think Tank, because that's what you do there. And the Milken Institute Think Tank has done such important work as a 2004 paper where they contested, they issued a study saying that Charles Keating,

the aforementioned swindler. It looks like his hair is running away from his forehead. A 2004 study from the Milken Institute claimed that regulators actions were responsible for Charles Keating's business failings and that they were overly invasive and they destroyed his business. And he was an honest man and uh again from uh ben stein of all people he describes how uh charles keating when the the fucking walls were coming down and he couldn't get rid of the junk bonds what they did is they would have you know old lady depositors coming in like it's a bank and they would actually set up cashier windows where they would try to sell these worthless fraudulent junk bonds really little old ladies who had no idea what the fuck

they were buying and this is of course who uh michael milken's institute puts out a paper saying yeah the government destroyed this honest businessman and of course doesn't reveal that michael milken put him in business and you know made a lot of money off of him stole a lot of money with him what a chooch that's i think one thing that people in this country should learn is that like corruption it might seem like it disappears but oftentimes it just gets moved to a lower target like uh people look at like cigarettes in this country like being like oh less people smoke now it's like actually cigarette companies have just been selling more cigarettes around the world than ever before so it uh in this same vein sure the junk bonds weren't being sold

to the masses but these old these old ladies were getting fucked. Yeah, and so the other interesting thing that Milken... But they were supporting the first American to orbit the Earth in their own little way. Sure, certainly. John Glenn got a little kickback. So the other thing the Milken institute does the think tank they produce what's called the annual milken global conference in la and it's called by bloomberg among others quote

davos of the of the west and so this what's davos uh you know the the big meetup for like the billionaire uh financier people in switzerland oh gotcha annual where they like talk about income inequality is a huge problem. And we're not going to give our wealth away. Economic and business suck and fuck party in Switzerland. Because Switzerland has a lot less regulations on how much you can suck and fuck. They got like what?

Like no condom rules for pornos like the US got or something like that? It's much deeper than that. Oh, so it's like butt stuff rules. Yeah, yeah, it's butt stuff. But it's not butt stuff rules. It's butt stuff rules. They have the best eyes wide shut parties.

Oh. Yeah. They have a lot of butt stuff rules in Malaysia. Oh, wow. But so this annual Milken conference, and again, this is like a multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme swindler when we talk about Michael Milken. Of course, Andy just showed us a picture of him with Barack Obama. But just this year's conference was in April 2018.

Steve Mnuchin was there, you know, feeding more speculation about Trump pardoning him. David Solomon, of course, was there. Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen were there. Were they? Yeah. Brady and Gisele Bündchen were there. Were they? Yeah, as well as Steve Ballmer and Sean Parker, Wilbur Ross, Chuck Schumer, Kevin McCarthy of Home Alone fame. No, it's Kevin McCarthy of the Republican Party. But yeah, it was a who's who of these people suck.

And also, it was hosted at the Beverly Hilton. And this is from the article that was in Bloomberg. The venue is the Beverly Hilton, the glitzy mid-century hotel where the Golden Globes are awarded. And Milken held the original Drexel conferences. In tribute to the program's equality theme, this year, the lobby will display the bronze fearless girl sculpture. Fresh from her face-off with the Wall Street Bull. Fresh. This year, the lobby will display the bronze fearless girl sculpture, fresh from her face-off with the Wall Street Bull. Fresh.

Fresh from her face-off with those little old ladies in the fucking savings and loans deposit lobby. Fresh from the New York tourists touching those balls of the bull. Fresh from her face-off with the life savings of guards at michael milken's company speaking of face off i'm looking at this picture of him next to obama and it looks like his face is about to fall off he is not in a good way as some might put it but yes of course we we have to honor him and the fearless girl statue uh Not like his company literally had a guy called the company pimp who would procure prostitutes for prospective clients and would actually bring them to this annual conference for every year except for the last two years when the CEO of the company banned prostitutes. It's a very controversial decision. I wonder if he got any for President Obama at the 20th Lake Tahoe Summit on the environment.

But so I guess we can kind of go from there to, again, mildly chronological accounting of Michael Milken's life. Because he's born 1946 in Sino, California. Upper middle class family. Here's how bad he looks in this picture with obama usually someone if someone is like so ugly in a picture they make the person next to them look better true but this he's making obama look worse oh like that's how unnerving his face is is whereas most holes move a mountain up he he brings everything down. Yeah, he brought the most handsome president. I don't know. Taft is the most handsome president.

I'm imagining in the photo Obama kind of like peels back his mask a little bit and shows his lizard face. And then he says to Milken, like, you're making it a little too obvious, buddy. Milken just looks like a human version of Skeletor. That's how I like to think of him he's got like no eyebrows and sunken eyes like his eyes adjusted for the lack of eyebrows by just sinking in he's got one of those faces where it's like i don't know what you would look like with hair that's how prominent your bald head is what if that's like what he's really jealous of like he's like got like fucking four billion dollars right but he'll always envy that we just have full heads of hair

luscious hair none of your fucking cayman islands accounts can buy back what we have he doesn't get prostitutes he just gets makeup artists to like build various wigs for his sex parties. Standing up, he looks like a human bowling pin. So, as we mentioned... Those red bow ties aren't helping. I'm sorry. He was born in California.

His dad was an accountant. So, upper middle class family. From the age of 10,ael milken would help uh with the books you know so he learned accounting from a very early age clearly a smart individual i mean he engaged in incredibly his dad made some money on the side as one of those reflective spherical lawn ornaments and one of the interviews i saw he said that since his dad was an accountant he'd been accounting since he was eight years old, helping with the taxes and stuff. That's child abuse.

Yes. He lied about it, and it was actually from 10 years old, but he deducted the extra two years to fuck with the IRS. Yeah, I've been doing an accounting fraud since I was 11 years old. I mean, 10. yeah i've been doing an accounting fraud since i was 11 years old i mean 10 um but yeah so he according to the den of thieves book he helps his dad with the accounting from age 10 onwards he learns a lot about accounting and these kinds of stuff and again it's very complicated criminal scheme that he pulls off that certainly requires some intelligence and it requires intelligence to mostly get away with it and still be a billionaire.

Um, but so he goes to, to high school there. He marries his high school sweetheart. He's on, he's, I believe the head cheerleader in high school. Yep.

Um, and, uh, it's a Birmingham high school. Uh, and then he goes to university of California, Berkeley. UCB.

Yep. He graduates Phi Beta Kappa 1968. With his best friend, Aaron Glazer. All right. So he graduates. He gets an MBA from the Wharton School of Business at University of Pennsylvania. And from the Wharton School, through one of his teachers, he lands a summer job at one of the- You're the first dinosaur that uses its cranium as a weapon given a master's

degree he has like special conditions for taking the test at wharton where he's like cold-blooded so he has to go out in the sun for at least an hour for long tests it's like he just starts screaming in the middle of class and then becomes apparent that he has laid some sort of egg oh god that is one leathery man like he started giving like fucking no work jobs to a bunch of alligators in the office like no they're family um but so uh yes so he graduates uh with a with an mba from wharton and then one of his professors

at wharton gives him the connection to drexel so drexel is his company and he essentially like he never actually sits on the board at drexel but eventually he's making so much money that he's de facto running drexel because he is the profit center for drexel right and at the time it was called drexel harriman ripley but it was for most of his tenure there called Drexel Burnham Lampert. But again, just Drexel, but he gets the job there. Why'd they kick out Ripley?

It was like some mergers going on in the sixties and seventies. You know, it doesn't matter. They're tired of believing it or not. The board called a meeting and by a five to four vote they determined that they don't believe it um but so yes uh uh he's he gets this job 1969 and um it's interesting where essentially what i think the debate is because again we've kind of talked about what his PR machine asserts. What his PR machine asserts is that he was the guy who discovered this market in junk bonds.

He realized that junk bonds were undervalued and this kind of stuff and created all this liquidity and all this wealth. And then the government came in because of one minor slip up that everybody does and you know crack down on him to set a message and um what i think is debatable is that essentially when in the early 70s again he starts here in 1969 excuse me in the early 70s maybe that's uh persuasive and uh and i'm not even endorsing. I don't entirely know one way or the other. But here's what I will say. Essentially, from his time at Wharton, he reads some papers by a couple different economists, academic professors. And what they say is this about so-called junk bonds. And I guess I should just start from the beginning is that at the time, there were two ratings

agencies called Moody's and standard and pores and they would issue ratings you know say triple a double a whatever they said spending too much time with these uh products can cause serious hair loss but but so basically anything that is not rated by these two agencies, that's a bond for a company that is not rated is called, quote, junk bond or a high yield bond. And they have to pay a higher yield and interest to get people to buy it. account for the default rate and after you account for the higher interest payments these so-called junk bonds are actually undervalued or they're actually returning more than traditional investments if you look at like a portfolio from say 1945 to 1965 and by so-called junk bonds you mean junk bonds yes uh so essentially what michael milken does at drexel is he becomes an expert in these junk bonds. Like most of the major firms wouldn't really touch them in the early 70s. And then most of the firms would like not really have serious research departments devoted to the companies that were issuing these junk bonds.

So Michael Milken becomes like a one man research department for companies involved in junk bonds. He would, you know, bring binders full of junk bond of information on the companies offering these junk bonds he would bring these huge binders back and forth from the office you know and like make you know these these pitches and talk about again the academic papers we just mentioned saying that this is wait this romney's like all right our new hire junk bonds And then Milken comes in and he's like, I ended up with a binder full of women. I think it's got mixed up. Romney kicks him out because he thinks the bonds have sugar and caffeine.

But so, yes, so he's doing all this heavy research and the company's involved in junk bonds. And what Milken says at this time is the only problem with the market is there's no liquidity. Again, these like big firms won't really touch these. They won't really buy in. So what happens is by 1973 Milken persuades his

boss at Drexel to let him... As someone who is technically an amphibian, he needs some liquidity. By 1973 Michael Milken persuades his boss at drexel to let him set up a quote high yield bond department again junk bonds high yield bond junk bond it's the euphemism uh so they set up a high yield uh bonds department uh he's given two million million in capital to start up. And pretty soon Milken is generating almost, you know, 100% rates of return. Like he's making a shit ton of money on these junk bonds by, you know, selling them to like non-traditional clients and, you know, like not insurance companies in particular. And, you know, he's a good salesman and he makes some money. And what

happens is like eventually he gets like by 76 he's got an incredible bonus structure where again from the the den of thieves book uh him and uh the employees working under him and his department get 35 of all drexel profits attributed to their activities plus another 15 to 30 finders fee for clients they bring to Drexel. So he's getting upwards of up to 65% of all of the profits from his deal just for kicking Drexel like 30 or 35%. Really? So even in 1976, he's making like $5 million a year in 1976 dollars. And what they say in the Den of Thieves book is that by 1977,

his operation controls 25% of the market in junk bonds. So the turn essentially happens here in 77, 78 and again, I think it's debatable whether or not he really did anything that, I mean, you know, financial capitalism, you could have an entire debate about it, but within the rules of the game of financial capitalism, if he did anything of value from, you know, 69 to 77, but what happens is 77, 78, he, again, controls 25% of the market.

He becomes a market maker and engages in a giant illegal scheme to manipulate prices, insider trade, do a Ponzi scheme, and all these other things that take it into just a giant theft of billions of dollars. Also during this time, they use his likeness for Nosferatu. But so what happens is like, he's making these huge returns for Drexel. They were trying to remake, but they had to can it because it was too scary. His lawyers argued that the government was being anti-Semitic prosecuting Milken was just one step more to concentration camps.

Wow. Exact quote. And it is just interesting how quickly these fucking people are to invoke the goddamn Nazis every time they get caught. With Milken, it's more of a concentration kennel. Interestingly enough, about Arthur Lehman, it just kind of shows you how our government works. He was also the so-called good guy in the Iran-Contra hearings. He was the lawyer who interrogated Oliver North and such on behalf of the Senate for the Iran-Contra hearings.

And then he went back and took millions of dollars to compare Milken's prosecution to fucking treblinka um but that's jumping ahead a little bit basically what happens is that milken his his operation is so profitable that in 1978 he gets the uh firm drexel to let him move his operation to beverly hills uh california so he leaves new y let him move his operation to Beverly Hills, California. So he leaves New York. He moves his operation to Beverly Hills, California. That's where he wants to be? Yeah. He wants to be in Beverly Hills, California.

Beverly? Yes. Beverly? Living in Beverly Hills. He's like, you know, my access to the sun will be much easier to take care of uh all right all right uh but so what happens is again 78 he moves out here he sets up the so-called junk bonds department in uh in the west coast for drexel drexel still on the east

coast and um what happens is like he's built this network of junk bond buyers he controls a lot of the market and he also in this time you know we have no way of knowing if he was doing it before but for sure he starts by the late 70s early 80s a massive insider trading conspiracy where milken would you know say drexel's investment banking side would be working with a client. Well, Milken would start trading on that inside information, or he or his other contacts would have contacts with other investment bankers, and they would start trading on the inside information. And like another remarkable thing about Den of Thieves is that it just kind of goes through how endemic insider trading was in the 1980s and you have to believe it still is but like just as one example the largest uh single

profit on a deal at golden sacks in 1984 was on an illegal insider trade and that guy a guy named freeman would go to jail for i think four months but essentially like there was just a huge network of which michael milken was part of, uh, a guy named, uh, Yvonne Boski would eventually go rat on Milken, but he was also part of this. And so they were all just like kind of passing information back and forth. And, um, eventually they were engaging in these leverage buyouts, you know, um, well, I might be jumping ahead a little bit here, but we've kind of talked about we did an episode on private equity or leverage buyouts there was this big boom in leverage buyouts

in the 1980s and much of that was funded with michael milken's junk bonds because he had this network of junk bonds he could raise so much money overnight and because he also had all these captive clients who he as we mentioned earlier would, hey, I put you in business. Please buy some of my junk bonds now. If he said, we're buying junk bonds, he could get hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars raised overnight. So he started funding all these leveraged buyouts like KKR and stuff would buy public companies and hostile takeovers, taking up a ton of debt and raising money with Milken. And then what would happen is Milken would know that was going on, so he would start insider trading on it,

or he would get his connections with the corporate raider world to be like, hey, put pressure on this stock because I have a position here, or make it look like you're going to do a raid on them, or et cetera, et cetera. So he started a lot of, there were a lot of crimes going on all at once is what I'm trying to get at here. A multi-criminal mastermind. And the other thing is like, so he moves out to Beverly Hills and they have a workaholic culture over there. Like Milken's a fucking psychopath.

Right. like milken's a fucking psychopath right uh like so one of his traitors uh again from the den of thieves book um one of his traitors finds out his mother has cancer he's leaving the office and michael milken's first question is to him uh is where are you going he says my mother has cancer i want to spend some time with her and milken's first question is when are you going to be back uh he says he did not express any concern or sympathy for his trailer and that trader would later um come to work on time the day after his baby died stillborn uh because quote that was uh he had learned because quote he had learned that milken expected nothing less and you just imagine like making billions for this psychopath right right i mean like again you'll get thrown a few million

of fucking criminal spoils but like it's it's kind of amazing how much he was ripping off his own employees in addition to everybody else well they're heartless i mean if there's nothing we've learned about these billionaires is that uh they think that if you're not working constantly, that you are an idiot and that if you have any emotion for anything, that's not profit, you're an idiot. Yeah. So like Milken would only leave it.

He was a workaholic. Like he didn't really know anything outside of work. He would only leave his desk during work hours once a year. Typically once a year he would get anniversary lunch with his wife. Other than that, he was at his desk the entire time, which is, of course, what we should all strive to when we're doing a giant criminal conspiracy. And so the other thing is that to move to Beverly Hills, because most of Milken's employees were in New York, so they had to go out into California, get houses. So Milken generously lent them all money to buy houses.

But then one day his brother Lowell, who we mentioned as the hatchet man, just kind of showed up to all these people, gave them invoices for the loans plus interest, and demanded immediate repayment. What fucking snakes. Yeah. And we'll get to. they kind of even rip people off more but it's just i mean it's remarkable and these like early years like uh james b stewart in the book he writes about there were a lot of affairs a lot of like nonsense going on there's

also a story about a stripper if we want to do that oh yes um but so you're getting so hard I'm looking at pictures of reptiles what should my next metaphor be I tried reading the name of that dinosaur that's bald it's very difficult it's like P-H-O-T-E-X damn if you could have nailed the reference I'm going through his personal photo album

on his website and I'll like his pictures and for whatever, there aren't any from 1991 to 92. But there is one teaching inner-city youth math skills. It says Mike has been teaching inner-city youth math skills for more than 15 years. I guess part of the skills were how to avoid venomous predators. Andy, find a drop. Okay. Mass skills like, so kids, when this little old lady asks,

you just lie to her and tell her it's insured by the federal government, okay? Or like, if you've swallowed whole five eggs from an endangered bird, and there are nine eggs in the nest. How many more eggs do you have to swallow before its mother comes back? The traders and the salesman who worked in his office decided to celebrate his birthday by hiring a stripper to come into the office.

And the stripper was doing her act when the phone rang for Milken. It was a client wanting to execute a junk bond trade. Milken took the call, and then when he was distracted by the stripper, he actually crawled under his trading desk. And the stripper, who by now had taken all of her clothes off, crawled under the desk after him,

and he still managed to stay on the phone and complete the trade, even with this pandemonium going on. So, yes. Oh, and the other part, that was James B. Stewartart the author of the book he says milken was compulsive and workaholic yeah what was he hiding like was she just like giving him a hand job and he's like well i can't tell her to stop but i have to get away from it while

i'm doing my trade he was fleeing from her because she was dressed as an fbi agent um but so you know and again like even at this early time in the early 78 they move over there according to the book like securities dealers guidelines at the time permitted only a five percent markup but because milken was controlling so much of this mark of this market for junk bonds he was able to be a market maker meaning he would buy the bonds and he would sell the bond so he could set the price he's one of the few people you could sell junk bonds to. So he was doing, instead of this recommended 5% markup, he was doing a 25% markup. And then his head trader wouldn't sign off on this because it was unethical against guidelines. I'm not sure if it was straight up illegal.

So Milken would forge his head trader's signature to sign off on these huge markups. And this is like right after he started so he was already you know uh deeply on the bone exactly corrupt to the rationalized it by going like well i've got plenty of heads so i can i could stick some neck out yeah but so um by uh 1983 he's talking to this guy yvonne bosky uh two or three times a day and again this is like a big insider trading ring that the two of them are running from at least 83 to 86 when Boski would plead guilty and cooperate with the feds. And we mentioned they were doing what was called the Predator's Ball. There was

another book written about this. But basically, the junk bond people and the leverage buyout people would have this annual conference in California where prostitutes would be at the after party but mainly it was a place for their industry to get together and like you know network and like work on corporate raids and trade on inside information and all this stuff yeah all this stuff you know carl icon would come there steve winn the casino rapist was a guy who got his fucking startup capital from milken and you know future episode will mention but he would come there and all these other all these other people and the prostitutes weren't actually there for sex they were then there to turn them on their backs so they get hypnotized and then rub their belly that's right

um but so uh milken is de facto making so much money again through a ponzi scheme for drexel that according to the, he is running Drexel by 1984. Again, he's not sitting on the board, he's not a CEO, but the actual CEO of Drexel has to, like, run everything through Milken. Milken's making so much money, there's so many loyalists, he can't cross Milken,

so Milken is de facto in charge of Drexel. And so, what's happening, like, with Ivan Boski, we don't have time to get through all of the crimes because it is just a huge list of crimes. But learn more at your local library or on our Tumblr. So what happens with Ivan Boski is like he would file what are called 13 D's. He would lie on 13 D's with the SEC. So like when you like buy, I think it's more like a five or ten percent stake you have to like

to file this public thing with the sec that says like if you're working in concert with anybody if anybody has like say guaranteed you against losses um if you have any other like certain interests and so he would like routinely lie on these forms on behalf of milken like milken would direct him to say buy something and he would say yeah don't worry if you lose money i'll take care of it and it's an illegal market manipulation because you know people should in theoretically even in the capitalist framework you know perfect information buyers and sellers arms length when you're fucking with that that's why securities laws exist because anybody who buys into the market is just getting robbed in a casino. And they made a mockery of this throughout the entire 1980s. There's also a line on the SEC form that was,

do you smell through your tongue? And he directed his subordinate to write no. And so the other thing is, like, I believe by 85, or maybe it's just by 85, he's already, Michael Milken is already setting up these private partnerships. And these are secret private partnerships where nobody really knows what's going on, but Milken controls them.

And he was doing this to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars in these secret partnerships that were in his friends' and family's names. So just one story here. So he helps KKR, the corporate raider firm, do a leverage buyout of a company called Beatrice. And Beatrice, and so in exchange, KKR gives him the right to warrants, which is the right to buy the stock at a low price before it goes up,

to warrants for $650 million of Beatrice stock. And the idea is that he can give this to people to get them to buy the junk bonds really but milken has all these captive clients so he can just sell the junk bonds to any of them so what he does is he keeps the 650 million and squirrels it into this private partnerships that are in his friends and family's name and just hides it from people and doesn't even tell his employees because of course his employees are doing you know all the work on this and he gives them like you know a million out of this 650 million that he keeps just for himself on this one deal robin blind yeah and he paid himself on that same year he paid himself 550 million so he made 1.1 billion dollars in 1986 wow at least and um you know and also there was a ton of insider

trading on this on this deal so he has like i believe they they discovered more than 40 partnership accounts that were in the name of milken's wife and kids and again this is all just illegal money being like a man who loves his family the legal money being funneled out and stolen even from his fucking employees and then just like one other thing about this is he hires his brother-in-law, a dentist, for a no-work job where his brother-in-law at the firm would be observed leaving for lunch and taking a several-hour nap in his car every day for which he was paid $2.5 million a year. Oh, my God. Man, imagine being paid to nap. Yeah, but imagine hiring a dentist and getting all the free nitrous you

want would be worth it yeah yeah um and then like we've kind of mentioned uh again these captive savings and loans columbia savings uh lincoln savings um they would also do these parking arrangements where in addition to like doing this to do tax fraud to make it look like they were doing um uh tax that they were losing money so they could write this off they would also do this to like avoid net capital requirements and all these other stuff to like disguise true ownership of assets and um oh and then like the one other thing from this period i found fascinating is that while he's making billions of dollars i believe james stewart puts his net worth at about three

billion dollars in 1986 he was one of the 10 richest men in America. While he was doing this, he still argues for like several months with his boss over $15,000 worth of bonus money that he feels he is entitled to. So he's a compulsive psychopath is what I'm saying. Again, $15,000 when you're making over a billion dollars in a year but basically what happens and you know it's it's weird where compared to what has happened with white-collar crime enforcement this feels like true justice because Milken would go to jail.

But, you know, even then it's not really true justice. So the basic story is Ivan Boesky, this guy that they were in this big insider trading conspiracy with, the federal government wraps up some smaller fish in that who like implicates Ivan Boesky. Ivan Boesky for his turn in 1986 pleads guilty and then begins cooperating. He even wears a wire to one meeting with Milken. And the government starts coming after Milken. And the only reason, well, not the only reason,

but the big break they get is one of these captive Milken clients. Let me just see if I can find the name here. Oh, yeah. It was a milking firm called Princeton Newport. So what Princeton Newport does is they keep phone records of all their traders conversations because sometimes, you know, clients have disputes. Uh, so because, uh, uh, Princeton Newport has, uh, has these phone records, uh, the government raids them,

like they send in the FBIbi before they can destroy them and uh seizes all of these phone records and they listen to the tapes and then of course the traders are just blatantly incriminating themselves all over the tapes and then they get one of milken's traders to turn on milken and uh eventually milken pleads guilty to six felonies in 1989 and he serves he's sentenced to 10 years he serves two years ben stein talks about like he went to college uh at columbia and he said that the cells that milken went to were nicer than the dorm rooms at columbia you have a picture in your book it looks like a dorm room i went to columbia college in new york and i must say it's a heck of a lot nicer room that he had there at

pleasant and then i had at columbia it's a heck of a lot nicer room that he had there at Pleasanton than I had at Columbia. It's pretty fascinating where there's that and then oh yeah. Milken also needed like a little pool or else his skin would dry up. That's right. That's right. You can't. And a hot lamp. And so like what happens in like by I believe 86 might have been

87 the walls are starting to come down on Milken like the government starts serving him subpoenas after Y Boesky turns rat. And so Milken brings one of his traders into the men's room and he turns the water faucets on all the way up and tells him to destroy documents that had been subpoenaed, which is, of course, another crime. It's an instruction of justice to destroy documents

after you've been subpoenaed. And then he, like, with David Solomon, the aforementioned Goldman Sachs CEO slash rat, what he would do with these partnerships, because again, we mentioned they have like these parking arrangements where it's like secretly X, this other person owns an asset,

but they tell the government that they don't, you know, in order to create phony tax losses. So they had like a blue ledger book that they kept track of all this stuff. And so Milken has it destroyed for this David Solomon deal. tax losses so they had like a blue ledger book that they kept track of all this stuff and so milken has it destroyed for this david solomon deal as soon as the government starts sending subpoenas but um it's it's pretty fascinating and then like the uh the pr firm that he really takes on in 1986 what happens is like the the savings and loan collapse happens around i believe

89 um and so like these junk bonds like he's able to keep the ponzi scheme going until like The savings and loan collapse happens around, I believe, 89. And so these junk bonds, he's able to keep the Ponzi scheme going until 88 or so. So his PR firm thinks up this idea to write a PR kiss-ass book about all the companies he was able to fund and help with his junk bonds. But the funny thing is, they keep trying to write this and the companies keep collapsing. So like any company that they like are trying to like talk up as like the fucking Milken success story just implodes. And I believe, as we've mentioned,

about 55 savings and loans that were linked to Michael Milken collapsed. About more than a thousand out of more than 3,000 savings and loans in the U.S. collapsed. It was a $130 billion bailout. And this was heavily because of these junk bonds. He was losing companies faster than hair follicles. Some say it couldn't be done, but he pulled it off. Oh, and then the other desperate gamble they do is uh michael milken starts paying huge bonuses

to every employee who's a potential witness in the case like their bonuses suddenly increased like 15 million dollars and then he also gets them all to uh take on lawyers that are repping him so it's a clear conflict of interest where his lawyers would like appoint the lawyers for whatever witness so of course the lawyer would be like, yeah, you've got to fight this subpoena. You can't implicate Milken. You should expose yourself to serious legal danger. So, essentially, what he did was Tony Soprano's divorce strategy. Oh, yeah. But, so, yeah, I mean, that's basically the story of Michael Milken.

You know, now he's like Now he's on a redemption tour. A dead redemption tour. He's already accepted back by the establishment. Of course, every profile of him starts with his bullshit prostate cancer research, which out of the five, six billion you stole, you threw some crumbs to medical research. That should have just been public money in the first place. But, you know, so now he wants to get this pardon

to get the criminal record completely expunged so he can go back to trading and securities. And, you know, we will see if he's successful, but it is just something where it's fascinating how much work you have to do to find out that this complete criminal and fraud is a criminal and fraud. Because he's spent one of the most sophisticated PR machines of modern times has spent decades rehabilitating and whitewashing his image every second of every day. It's like he sheds his skin on a regular basis.

Oh, God. And yeah, and I guess just to kind of wrap this up, according to the James B. Stewart, author of Den of Thieves, junk bonds actually, including defaults, returned lower than U.S. Treasuries from 1980 to 1990. Wow.

So if you invested in his products, you got taken for a ride. I think like Drexel junk bonds defaulted from 24 to 35% of the time. So it's like he had this elaborate charade to cover up something that wasn't actually there. Somewhat like a tail that could regrow. Anyway, enough about his wig. So he's sentenced to 10 years in 1990. He serves two years.

He pays $1.1 billion, $600 million criminal, $500 million civil. And then he's free. And he turned his predator's ball into the fucking Davos of the West. And now many of his defenders, such as Chuck Schumer, have been disgraced and are not in positions of power within our government or influence of any kind. And, you know, hopefully... Wait, so what did Chuck Schumer do? He actually wasn't a significant part of the story.

I just found he was a congressman in New York who said that the SEC was being overly aggressive and harassing this decent businessman. And he was also at that Davos of the West thing. Did he feed chickens to Milken? Yeah. Chickens and flies. Yeah, what did Chuck Schumer do?

He was like, you know, I can't see the bald spot at all, Mike. I think your hair follicles look beautiful. So a part of Gordon Gekko, obviously, likeness for Nosferatu, and his movements were used for the movie Rango. Well, I guess that about sums it up. But you know what? Hey, credit on Ben Stein

For writing the fucking most vicious Milk and takedown book And you know Bueller We hope he finds out where Ferris Bueller is And if he wants to come on the show Come on Ben Stein be on Grubstakers Maybe you can win our money

Bueller We hope Ben Stein is not Accosted in a restaurant by Antifa thugs who say, you're a bad man. And the premise of your show was far too little money given out in prizes for a man who is supposedly worth $20 million. Ben Stein, come on our show and tell the truth about global warming. And with that, this has been Grubstakers. My name is Yogi Poywal.

I'm Andy Palmer. I'm Sean McCarthy. Thanks for listening. My name is Bob. James Bond. My name is Bob. James Bond. Can I help you?

Yes, my name is Bob. James Bond. Oh, by the way, we haven't been properly introduced, Melina. My name is Bond. James Bond. Oh, by the way, we haven't been properly introduced, Melina. My name is Bond. James Bond. Is that Bob? Michael Milken certainly milked the system to win his billions. Yeah, let's milk that Milken. 600 million dollars.

Milk that Milken real good. Milk that gherk. Milk that sucker to death. I'm roped out and sunk in a dick. Det er en av de større problematikene som vi har hatt i dag. Det er en av de større problematikene som vi har hatt i dag. Det er en av de større problematikene som vi har hatt i dag. Det er en av de større problematikene som vi har hatt i dag. Det er en av de større problematikene som vi har hatt i dag. Det er en av de større problematikene som vi har hatt i dag. Det er en av de større problematikene som vi har hatt i dag.

Det er en av de større problematikene som vi har hatt i dag. Det er en av de større problematikene som vi har hatt i dag. Det er en av de større problematikene som vi har hatt i dag. Det er en av de større problematikene som vi har hatt i dag. Det er en av de større problematikene som vi har hatt i dag. Det er en av de større problematikene som vi har hatt i dag. Det er en av de større problematrt i dag, men det er en av de fleste som har vært i dag. So big news last night. Mitch McConnell was at a restaurant in Kentucky. He was accosted by protesters. They took his food, threw it out.

Any opinion on that? Disgusting mob rule. Antifa is becoming like the brown shirts in the early days of the Nazi party. Very, very disgusting, shocking behavior. Stunningly horrible. But you can also say that this is non-violent protest. I consider it violent to go to somebody while he's having his meal and take his meal away

from him and throw it away. I consider that as close to violence as I want to get. You don't see this as maybe democracy in action? No, absolutely not. Holding our elected officials accountable? No, democracy in action is voting. It's not violence. It's not taking people's food away from them

and throwing it away. These people are gangsters. They are mob gangsters. They're not decent people.