Grubstakers - Episode 47: Stewart and Lynda Resnick

Episode Date: December 25, 2018

This week we talk Stewart and Lynda Resnick, the billionaires who use more water than the city of LA. They want to squeeze every drop of water from the Californian public to keep a stranglehold on the bland nut market. They want to starve the people of Iran for the same reason. They also went to the supreme court to fight for the right to lie about how good pomegranates are for penises. Also, we recorded this in Andy's room for the first time so we did a live intro for the fuck of it. Happy Holidays!

you're listening to the dollop on the all things comedy network uh you can watch video of this podcast on the all things comedy youtube page and now just shut your mouth aaron there'll be no more demands wow you heard him back there actually i can sort it okay yeah yeah i hear myself when is the intro come in? Now. Because of my success in the private sector, I was able to become the mayor of New York's largest city. And that's just not true. You know, I went to a tough school in Queens Where we used to beat up the little Jewish boys

You know, I love having the support of real billionaires Yeah In three, two, one. Hello, welcome to Grubstakers, the podcast about billionaires. Sean P. McCarthy here, joined by my friends. Andy Palmer. Steve Jeffers. And this is the final Grubstakers of the year.

We are very excited to be here with you. And there's really no billionaires that we would rather spend the last waning days of 2018 with than Linda and Stuart Resnick. And Linda and Stuart Resnick are essentially... Stuart Resnick is a guy who saw the movie Chinatown as a business plan and uh very successfully implemented it and managed to become a billionaire and that's of course he's a a water farmer in california who uh made billions of dollars off essentially subsidized or even basically free California state water. And so we'll kind of go through all... It just comes from the sky. Yeah. And we'll kind of go through all of that.

Though I should mention, so Andy hit us up with the idea for Stuart Resnick, and then I just saw yesterday that The Dollop just did an episode on the Resnicks as well. Fuck them. So I think it would be great if we just plagiarized them so much that we left their ad reads in. We're like, you know what? And while we're on this subject, do you have problems waiting in line at the post office?

But hopefully not too much overlap. And it is just a fascinating subject, the Resnick's. And I guess just like a couple illustrative statistics before we kind of go through their life story and what that all means for the state of California and the planet. According to Forbes, the Resnick's own, among other companies, what's called Paramount Farms.

And according to Forbes magazine, they use... The pictures were taken. company is what's called paramount farms and according to forbes magazine they use the pictures were taken they use 120 billion gallons of water a year this is in central valley california and that would be enough water to supply every single resident in san francisco with water for a decade every year that's how much they use and apparently apparently, like, you know, farmers in California use about 80% of the water for about, like, 2% of the economic activity. But for our listeners in California,

it's very important that you take a five-minute shower and turn the water off while you're brushing your teeth. When you get to the water temple, just skip it. The only non-restriction on water is you can spray homeless people with your hose for as long as you want you got to get them off your property somehow yeah that's that's like 90 of bay area water usage is spraying people who can't afford five thousand dollar rents right so like and it's just kind of a unique situation with California, where essentially about two thirds of rainwater in California falls in the north. And you know, it has to be transported

to the south, you know, for like San Francisco, Los Angeles, but also in the Central Valley, what was initially a desert, the water passes through there and has created like a massive agricultural boom land uh thanks to the california aqueduct in the 60s which we'll talk about briefly but it is just something where it's like i mean this is entirely an agricultural industry that's a result of state planning and of course if you like were to propose maybe uh some intervention by the state in uh this waste of water you would have uh all the the Milton Friedman types up in your face. Yeah, almost all of the market governance basically is facilitated by the state,

wouldn't you say, for the water market in California? Yeah. And by extension, pistachios and all the good stuff. Right. So, like, you know, just one more illustrative statistic it takes a gallon of water to grow one pistachio or one almond and so it's like and and the these things are so water intensive and we'll get into the pistachios in particular but these things are so water intensive because essentially they you have to like um plant these uh trees and make like a

major investment in the trees for them, and they have to be watered constantly. So even in drought season, you can't just leave them alone one year, let them die, and then replant. You have to put decades of water in every year, even in drought season. So it's a major water investment paid for not only by California taxpayers, but just taken away from people without clean drinking water. I mean, you say that now, but

just wait until you want a shitty version of soy milk. According to the documentary Water and Power, there are one million plus people in California without access to clean drinkable water. The only people in in California without access to clean drinkable water. The only people in the world without access to clean drinkable water. That's right, folks.

This problem is contained solely to the geographic region under discussion today. Thank God we live in New York. Won't be seeing any of these problems. Hell yeah. won't be seeing any of these problems oh yeah not until our single pipeline from 500 miles upstate finally collapses in on itself in three years it would be great if just to fuck with us Jeff Bezos

starts a pistachio farm at HQ too like not only am I driving up your rents I'm going to take all of your water and there is nothing you can do about it the amazon packages come with like middle fingers they're all like dripping wet but there's no clean water anywhere in our houses so people will like suck water out of the bottom of amazon packages

and at the ceremony like de blasio just hands him a water bottle with a big bow on it and thanks him for bringing jobs to New York. I'm imagining, like, you know, Mad Max, where there's all, like, the thirsty people, like, begging Jeff Bezos to release water down on them. That's definitely how Jeff

Bezos is gonna age. He's gonna have that mask thing it is fascinating in that uh the the pistachio industry that they've built is entirely a result of uh jimmy carter's iran sanctions um i guess like just to kind of give you that quick story before we start from the beginning, essentially Iran was the big pistachio exporter in the world up until, you know, I mean, it still is, but it was the major one to the United States up until 1979, where, of course, the Iranian Revolution happened. Jimmy Carter put sanctions on Iran. And what Stuart Resnick and his wife Linda Resnick recognized is that there was a market opportunity here because... People love

weird nuts that you can't bite into if they're not cracked, at least partially. Yeah, they recognize that as long as the forever war goes on, people will buy the pistachio ice cream from them.

But so, essentially, there was not really a U.S., there was not major U.S. pistachio production until the Iran sanctions came along. We thought the Shah was going to live forever. We thought the Iranians liked getting tortured for no reason just a couple other uh illustrative statistics and then we'll start from the beginning here uh the resnick's stewart and linda resnick are worth about 5.6 billion dollars according to forbes uh they have about 70 000 acres of pistachios and almonds they They have about 48,000 acres of citrus, you know,

oranges, pomegranates. We mentioned Paramount Farms. Paramount Farms owns Sunkist Oranges. They own Fiji Water, which we'll talk about a little bit. They own the Palm Wonderful brand. And according to, I believe, their own estimates, about half of American households buy their products. So they're, you know, you really just can't avoid giving these people money. And it is just kind of like one part of their global empire where they're taking water from the people of Fiji from their military dictatorship. And I guess to kind of start from the beginning It is kind of great that they're The couple is, they're fairly prolific democratic donors And most of their business comes from working with dictatorships

Very out of character for democratic donors Not what you'd expect. And so basically to kind of start from the beginning of this story, Stuart Resnick's born 1936 in New Jersey. And I read a short book by Yasha Levine. It's called A Journey Through Oligarch Valley for like a dollar on Amazon. I recommend if you're just kind of curious about you know how california got to be this way but according to him uh yasha basically um stewart resnick's dad

was like a bar owner in new jersey who was like a drunk and a gambler who like you know made decent money but also like lost it on gambling and stuff but apparently his dad also had ties to the Jewish mob. Stuart Resnick does. And that'll like, basically there's like a small organized crime part to Stuart Resnick's story, but I don't know how much you can actually tie him to that. But I'll get right back to that in a second.

But just like one quote from Stuart Resnick about his father, quote, my father was a great negative role model. The lessons I got from him were all what not to do. And that's what. Respect people's water rights. Yes. Yeah, I noticed when my dad was behind the bar, he kept giving water to people instead of taking it away from

them but uh my dad said sanctions ultimately hurt people more than help example of what not to do here my dad was like you know ratcheting up the tension with iran and you know belligerently promoting a neoconservative foreign policy and funding think tanks that promote false flag attacks in the United States in order to spark a war with Iran is ultimately counterproductive for any sort of agricultural benefit. That drunken idiot. But so, yeah, so like his dad, you know, a drunk gambler, loses a lot of money,

is a bad influence on Stuart Resnick. Didn't know when to hold them or fold them. Opposed sanctions against Iran. All-around idiot. My dad was telling me about how the UN mandate of 1948 clearly establishes Israel's borders, and that expansion beyond that is clearly in violation of international law. And I told him, you've been hitting the Jack Daniels too much tonight, Dad. Israel has a right to defend itself.

There'd be nights when my dad would come home drunk and just lecture us on the rights of Israel pre-1948. My dad said, one gallon of water for one almond is clearly too much. But so, basically,

he's trying to get out of the household. Originally, Stuart Resnick is going to college at Rutgers, but's trying to get out of the household. Originally, Stuart Resnick is going to college at Rutgers, but he transfers to UCLA at the age of 18. Basically, what happens at UCLA, in 1955, he goes to UCLA. Again, this is from The Dollop. I didn't list all the episodes,

but thanks to you guys for the research. Basically, he meets a um a friend at um at ucla one of he's in a fraternity stewart resnick's in a fraternity and one of his frat brothers his dad has a janitorial company which is like yeah i mean this is how connections work you know you're just like yeah man my dad's got a janitorial company. You know, in between like surfing and, you know, pounding the brewskis. He's like, yeah, my dad, he pays for everything. Pounding the brewskis.

Pounding the brewskis. That's how you get the initiation. But so, yeah, so his frat brother has, you know, this janitorial company. And what happens is Stuart Resnick and his frat brother, they like originally start working for this guy's dad. But what Stuart Resnick and him do is they buy like some cleaning equipment from this guy's father, obviously for cheap. And they start their own janitorial company while he's still in college at ucla and then eventually stewart resnick actually buys out his frat brother because they're making enough money to the point where uh he graduates ucla 1960 he's making about 40 000 a year which adjusted for inflation is about 320000 as soon as he's a college graduate.

Fuck. So, like, you know, he managed to kind of hustle his way into, like, a decent paycheck, you know, even out of college. And, you know, so he goes on to UCLA Law School. He's still running. That's gonna do it two more times.

We just got a shipment of pomegranates. That's nice. That's a good pistachio. My cat feeder plays You Know You're Right by Kurt Cobain. Oh, she's here. The cat's here. But so getting back to this story. So basically, as we mentioned, he starts up this janitorial company.

And he's making money. It's doing very well. He eventually sells this cleaning business for about $2.5 million. And what he does is he starts a security company because he realizes, you know, like a lot of the places that he's contracted out to clean don't really have security. So he starts a security company. And this is where things get kind of interesting because from Oligarch Valley, basically the company was highly connected.

It employed former Secret Service agents and for a time was run by a former LAPD chief of police. And as we all know, the LAPD, notoriously not corrupt organization throughout the 70s, 80s, up to the present. And so what happens is he's running this security business in the 70s and they get a bunch of...

We need some bleach. Get rid of the guy we hired to kill Biggie. It was like he made the fake reports, the fake timesheets to cover for the guy who assassinated piggy he was like yeah we'll uh we'll let you take over this public water bank you just have to cover up the help us cover up the murder of this rapper i'm still struggling with how he became like you know an average frat brother and then bought some equipment right and then so like only a few years later was earning the equivalent of 300 000 per year well you know the booming 60s or i guess like yeah he goes to ucla 1955 he graduates

1960 i mean it is like the best time in the American economy. You know, the best time to start your own business. You know that like condescending advice, start your own business. Yeah, just do it in the middle of like the biggest expansion in economic history. But yeah, I mean like, you know, hard work. Entrepreneurial spirit. You know, knowing a rapist with the right dad. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry to all our frat brother listeners. But so basically it's like what happens is we mentioned this company is, you know, highly connected. He's got like the LAPD chief of police working there, running it for a time. And so what they get is they get a very lucrative contract for the security for LAX. This is in the early... Was the guy simultaneously the LAPD chief of police? The former LAPD chief of police was running it for a minute. And they get this very lucrative contract in the 70s for LAX, the airport security. And this kind of goes on until 1976. Three of their agents, three of their security agents at LAX are busted trying to sell two pounds of China white heroin

to an undercover officer. And so there's like a federal investigation into this. He says, you know, oh, these three employees, you know, these were rotten apples or whatever selling two pounds of heroin uh you know while they're working for my company but they apparently told investigators that they like had access to like hundreds of pounds of heroin and they were like bringing this in through commercial airlines and so there's a federal investigation he's ultimately well that answers your question steven how did he go from a guy with some janitorial equipment to... He brought some equipment and also five pounds of heroin. You see, while he was out there,

he met a man who was bringing it in on the caskets of service members from Vietnam. He met Denzel Washington in Hollywood. And this meeting would change his life. But basically, there's a federal investigation, and they don't really link him to any of this, but it's very suspicious. And it is just kind of something where it's like we mentioned,

his dad had Jewish mob organized crime ties. So you don't know if he was at all linked to any sort of organized crime organization but it's just kind of we're just asking questions but it is nice that at least he was working with a less water intensive crop for a time he was doing much less damage to the people of california when he was bringing in china white by the fucking pound but i'm sure it's much healthier than black tar does not help with erectile dysfunction though environmentally conscious from a young age forget it heroin trafficking forget it jake it's china

white but uh yeah so i mean basically uh partly as a result of this investigation he sells the security company again this uh investigation 1976 is when these agents get busted and then this is right around the time that he switches to agriculture so he's actually able to make like a decent multi-million dollar fortune before he even touches California agriculture and starts robbing the state blind. But like, you know, apparently he like got after this security guard company. He also sells like an alarm company for I think like 100 million. And so, you know, multimillionaire. But what he does in 1978, you know, it's the Carter, it's the stagflation where, you know, the country, it's not mourning in America yet. People are losing these vast fortunes that they have exploited through the stagflation and, you know, the malaise, as it's called.

But so basically what happens is in 1978, he buys up, I believe, what is it, 250 acres? 2,500 acres? Yeah, 2,500 acres of orange trees in Kern County, California. And he says at the time that he was just buying this up to park money against inflation. He was buying real estate to protect his investment from inflation in 1978. And it's an interesting thing where this land that he buys, you know, he buys the first purchase in 1978, but he's buying more land throughout the 80s. This first purchase essentially is at an area with no groundwater. So it's his farming empire would become, you know, later he would buy some

places with groundwater, but at least initially he buys places with no groundwater entirely depending on the state to provide him with water. And what essentially happens, and I guess we should mention, he marries his wife Linda Resnick, 1974. She was the daughter of a movie producer, grew up very wealthy. This is the guy who produced the Blob movie She also owned an ad agency On Melrose Avenue Which interesting anecdote about her She was dating Aaron Russo

Which was the guy who helped Daniel Ellsberg copy the Pentagon Papers So apparently She was dating this guy Aaron Russo And he took Daniel ellsberg to her copy shop uh for her ad agency because she had a xerox machine which you know they were rare at the time and so they copied all the pentagon papers at her ad agency even to the point where like at

one point a security guard showed up and she was there and was like no it's all fine yeah yeah ellsberg ellsberg is very complimentary of her. She helped a bit too, materially. Yeah, yeah. Like with the declassifying or something like that. Right, she like clipped the top secret thing off. Oh, off the top of them? Yeah.

And she continued this anti-establishment. Disinformed her later marketing. Yeah. You know, it was my work on the Pentagon Papers that really made me believe in the need for a war with Iran. But, yes. When Daniel Ellsberg showed up in the pop copy that I was working at, that's when it really began.

Daniel Ellsberg pounds his fist on the table and he's like those pentagon bastards are only using half a gallon of water per nut but yeah so that's you know random anecdote but of course she would uh break up or break up with this guy aaron russo and uh they would get married lyndon stewart resnick get married in 1974 and as we mentioned she had like you know a marketing agency and um she would help you know much of the marketing of um stewart resnick's crops so you know they're a power couple as it were but basically they buy up these citrus groves 1978 1979 jimmy carter puts the sanctions on Iran. And so just again, quoting from Oligarch Valley here, the Resnicks see a massive opportunity. They begin to snap up thousands of acres

from Mobil Oil in Texaco because they own these plots in California, originally to drill for oil, but they're actually like, their timing's pretty good because they're able to buy up all this land during drought season where it's like unusually cheap um and eventually they uh are able to by the 1980s they have over a hundred thousand acres you know growing cotton pistachio almonds oranges lemons grapefruits uh but they you know didn't just grow the crops they package

process distribute them as well it's's from Oligarch Valley. And they're like, man, nobody has any water. Looks like an opportunity. Just like out of habit, Stuart Resnick sells the crops by shipping them in the graves of soldiers killed in the Vietnam War. In the fucking caskets, Jesus.

But so, and one more quote from Oligarch Valley, the book. Pretty hardcore if he shipped them in the grave. He's got a tunnel going under Arlington Cemetery. Yeah, yeah. It goes, the tunnel that Stuart Resnick built goes under Arlington

Cemetery. It stops at Comet Ping Pong and then it goes on to Central Valley, California. Yeah, there's like a French catacombs underneath his land in California. It's like, you want heroin or you want to fuck the dead troops? So just quoting from Oligarch Valley, Paramount Farming is the country's largest grower, processor, and marketer of pistachios, controlling something like 60% of the industry. Pistachios are very important to the Resnicks, bringing at least 20% of their agricultural revenue. And again, this is an industry entirely possible because of the Iran sanctions, but also the fact that they get all of this heavily subsidized California water. And, you know, water's like a big part of their story from here on.

We can talk about what's called the Kern County Water Bank. So water in California is very confusing and complicated. And it's fascinating where, like, it's entirely... It's three hydrogen and two oxygen. It's entirely like built that way to just keep the average person from understanding. It's very much, you know, Wall Street jargon lingo.

And did we mention like... Shut up and take a five minute shower. And did we mention, did I mention at the top about nationalizing? Yeah, I mean like essentially, I was talking about it before we started recording, but it is fascinating to me where, you know, if you want, like, a hope of having, say, stopping climate change, reversing inverted totalitarianism, restoring democracy,

as a first step in the United States, you have to nationalize, basically, all of Wall Street. You have to nationalize, basically, every weapons manufacturer and producer in the United States, you have to nationalize basically all of Wall Street. You have to nationalize basically every weapons manufacturer and producer in the United States. You have to nationalize every major energy company. And it's like, you kind of lose hope because you realize we can't even nationalize water. Like water in California has essentially gone from the state to the private sector. And the story of that is, you know, it's long, it's complicated, but the long and short... I mean, if you nationalize water, someone might abuse it. Tragic to the commons, anyway. So the long and short of how Stuart Resnick is able to become a major private water owner

and producer is, in the 1960s, Jerry Brown's father, Governor Pat Brown, sets up the California Aqueduct, again, moves water from the north of California to the south of California, but that just so happens to pass through the Central Valley where all the farmers are located. So it's like a very big boon to major agribusiness in the Central Valley. However, the state allocated guaranteed water rights throughout the Central Valley in the 1960s Valley. They weren't always able to deliver what they said they would based on these 1960s projections because, of course, there were drought years and all this kind of stuff. So they were constantly in, like, various legal battles with, you know, these growers in the Central Valley,

which by the 80s included Stuart Resnick because he bought into this stuff during the drought. So they have in 1994 what's called the Monterey Amendments, which are a secret agreement. But basically what happens is in 1994, Stuart Resnick's representative... A man came into town and said, uh, town with money is like a mule with a spinning wheel. No one knows how it got there, and damned if it knows how to use it.

So what happens in 1994, though I should mention, so California in the, I believe the 80s, sets up what's called the Kern County Water Bank. Did you say the dawn in America? The Kern County Water Bank is essentially the idea is it's a

public resource where they would store water during wet seasons so they have access for drought. But Kern County in California, again in the Central Valley, is so corrupt and so controlled by agribusiness that what they did was they refused

to ever give final approval to let the state of california finish this water bank so state of california puts in about 74 million dollars to this water bank but they can't finish it so 1994 we get this secret meeting for the monterey amendments and uh among other things again stewart resnick's uh representative is here but they agree on a few different things. One of them is they end the idea that during droughts, urban areas receive preference.

Because up to 1994, if there was a drought, San Francisco, Los Angeles, they would receive preference over farmers. The farmers would have to cut back. Whereas now they go, no, it's equal. Or major agribusiness gets first dip at the water. That was one important thing.

But the other very important thing is essentially the Kern County Water Bank is moved from the state, public resource, to Kern County municipality and a couple other local counties, as well as a private company entirely controlled by Stuart Resnick. And again, these county contractors for water are so corrupt that they, through a series of shell companies, put majority control of the Kern County Water Bank into the hands of Stuart Resnick, one private individual. So essentially, it's a very, again, this was a non-public meeting. Also, the third thing, Kurt Cobain has grown too powerful And must be eliminated

But So basically This Kern County water bank Capable of storing 500 billion gallons of water Is backdoor privatized In 1994 And Stuart Resnick is able to make a killing off this Like he's able to

I believe in 2001 make about 50 million dollars essentially selling water back to the state he gets water from the state and then as soon as it enters his kern county water bank it's privatized so now it's private water he's able to sell it back to the state at three or four times markup you know so it's wait he gets it from the state and then sells it back to the state. Yes. You know, it's like treasuries or something. Wait, he's water arbitraging? Basically, yes.

Oh, my. And then the one other thing that happens, well, there's other things that happen here, but another significant thing is what's called, quote, paper water is created here in 1994. So basically, up to 1994, if you wanted to start, say, a new development, part of California law was that you had to have secure water access to your new development for residential condos or whatever the fuck. But in 1994, they allow developers to essentially purchase, quote, paper water from any farmer or whatever.

So if you want to build some bullshit, you can just say, oh, this farmer sold, paper water from any farmer or whatever. So if you want to build some bullshit, you can just say, oh, this farmer sold me paper water, so I have water access now. So it's water on paper. Exactly. And it's theoretically backed by the state of California, though, of course, in drought season, you can't always get the water. But this is very lucrative because, again, it allows a lot of people, including Stuart Resnick, to say they are farmers, and Stuart Resnick is a farmer, but to essentially just become water salespeople. Because they will just, like, set up an orchard, and then they have, you know, whatever water rights they have in this area, and then they can resell them to developers so like um there's a there was like a major development in i believe the redwoods california just north of san francisco where

they bought like a huge amount like a 70-year lease of water rights from stewart resnick's kern county water bank and you know again this is state water. It's just being privatized and resold to developers. So basically, this is 1994, and this is, like, so significant for his business that Stuart Resnick, after this 1994 meeting, nearly doubles his cultivated land holdings in three years after 1994. So from 94 to 1997, he almost doubles his cultivated land holdings in three years after 1994. So from 94 to 1997, he almost doubles his cultivated land holdings. And then he's able to become a major Democratic Party donor. He donates to both sides, but he's been very smart. He's a fan of bipartisanship. Yes, exactly.

This is really what's made him a billionaire. This 1994 agreement where he got in on the ground floor of land in california during the drought season and then he took advantage of the fact that california law is completely fucked up when it comes to water and managed to sign a secret agreement with various state agencies oh and then the most fascinating thing about this was essentially california law requires that any kind of major agreement like this go through an environmental review. And so the participants at the meeting knew if they just like put it to a traditional state agency, they might like take a look at this and say, oh, this is going to kill salmon. Or they might just say, oh, this is clearly just a shell game to privatize a public resource. So instead they kick it to one of the completely corrupt counties to just conduct this like

complete sham environmental review. And it's been, you know, tied up in legal battles ever since. But essentially what's been happening is de facto it is still the law of the land that the Kern County Water Bank was completely privatized uh with no public input or anybody know what what was going on but i guess like from there you know wait democrats like to do that in the 90s uh and then from there you just kind of like get through uh various random uh things that they've gone through the resnicks again you know they become billionaires in the 90s.

According to the book Oligarch Valley, they spend a lot of time in their home in Aspen, Colorado. In the early 2000s, the Resnicks fought a legal battle against Aspen over an affordable housing project for local municipal employees. The Resnicks complained that the project, just half

a mile from their Little Lake Lounge property, would devalue their land. So, you know, these people who definitely have never benefited from the government would not like the government to make affordable housing. But so,

from the 1990s, this is what makes them, allows them to become billionaires. Though, I guess we should just minor detour. In 1986, they buy Franklin Mint from their former wealth. And so they're like, you know, selling commemorative coins and shit. And interestingly enough, they are sued by the estate of Princess Diana

because they're selling, you know, this Princess Diana merchandise. But they actually successfully counter-sue the selling this Princess Diana merchandise but they actually successfully counter sue the estate of Princess Diana. I think they get like 25 million from it. But you know. Anti-royalism

all the way. You know how they pitched this idea? So they're woke in a way. What they said when they were deciding to make this idea. So they're woke anyway. What they said when they were deciding to make this acquisition. Uh-huh. Wait for it. The end Major boredom singing Whatever and never They will

Ironically enough, when Elton John sang that tribute song, he had Fiji water on stage. But yeah, so... It was Ben Fultz, but yes. No, candle in the wind. But anyways, the point is, this is, is you know what allows them to become

billionaires in the 90s and you know the franklin mint is a good investment for them but it's really just been kind of california's agricultural wealth and as we've mentioned they're you know selling back private water to both developers and the state in times of drought and this is water that's a state like we like ripping off uh large metropolitan areas and their dependence on water but our real passion is ripping off dumb people with commemorative coins of princess diana really we're anti-monarchists. Ripping off American royalists. But the real engine of their wealth, it seems, is exploiting a complicated public-private partnership over water in California.

And that allows them to do the Franklin Mint bullshit. The theme of this podcast seems to be that that's how 90% of billionaires get their wealth is exploiting a public private partnership yeah i mean billionaires essentially exist at like some choke point in the economy or they've just managed to like infiltrate the state yeah um and so yes like and we've mentioned here but the san joaquin valley is a fucking desert. There was like a Civil War era survey that said essentially that the San Joaquin Valley was, the surveyor said the San Joaquin Valley was an inhospitable desert unsuitable for agriculture. That's from the Mercury News.

So again, it's like this entirely their empire exists because California in the 60s set up this aqueduct and then ever since then has been accommodating this major agribusiness at the expense of the public who now have to take 30-second showers. And so just kind of like going through I guess the greatest hits of the resnick's and what they've been up to as we've kind of mentioned they are major boosters of sanctions on Iran because of the pistachio Empire apparently like Iranian pistachios are so good that even in Israel even though Israel has sanctions on Iran people will vastly prefer Iranian pistachios to American pistachios and so they will often buy them imported from

Turkey where they've been like relabeled so they don't know that they're Iranian but everybody knows they're Iranian guys if you want if you have connections to the Iranian pistachio market shoot us an email

we'll send you Sean's address and send us uh i want to try these pistachios i think jimmy fallon should start hawking iranian pistachios just to take a shot at stephen colbert um but so yeah so like stewart resnick and his wife Linda again this wait oh Colbert has his pistachio ice cream right well he also did the Super Bowl ad for the Resnick's pistachio company really yeah yeah that pistachios remember where he opens his head and there's a pistachio in there that's for their pistachio company and then he does a dance with henry kessinger you know henry you and i don't agree on everything but when it comes to destroying iran's nuclear capability through military force uh but so again from the book oligarch valley stewart resnick and linda uh they're in a bunch of different think tanks that advocate war with iran they're

like board members so they're trustees of the washington institute for near east policy which is an apac spinoff in the 80s i believe uh one guy who worked for that advocated essentially a false flag attack on the united states in order to provoke war with Iran. It also calls for heavy sanctions and military strikes against Iran. The Resnick Foundation gave $20,000 to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. We don't know the full amount that they give, but again, they're trustees.

Stuart Resnick is also a board member of the American Friends of IDC, which is a fundraising arm for a think tank with close links to Israeli intelligence and the military establishment, where Sheldon Adelson is also a board member. So again, we don't know how much they're just like very much believers in the state of Israel, but they are clearly giving money to causes trying to provoke war with Iran. These think tanks were major supporters of Obama's 2009 era sanctions. And the author of Oligarch Valley, Yasha Levine, went to like a pistachio farmers conference in California. And he actually documented like how much of it was

just about like iran and sanctions on iran and actually going through like how pistachio revenues in the united states have been linked to like periods of greater tension with iran you know so it's just like this kind of like dry farmers conflict conference where they're also like, yeah, you know, let's get more war. Stephen Colbert is going to go from the White House Correspondents' Dinner talking about how there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to just outright advocating for war with Iran. Yeah, Stephen Colbert is... He had Jeff Flake on the other day.

Oh, did he? Yeah, to talk about how terrible it was that Trump was going to shut down the government. Yeah, if the government shut down, you can't go to war with Iran. Funnily enough, you still could, though. Yeah. Yeah, like if there's a government...

It's an interesting distinction between like, well, the government shut down, but the state is still going strong. Oh, yeah, yeah, the military. Yes, there's, like, essential activities. All a shutdown means is that, like, you can't go to the national parks this week. Yeah, well, all the shit, you know, normal people might enjoy or need. And, you know, maybe you won't get your social security check.

But that's our Grubstaker's big Wall Street tip of the week. You know, know like when tensions with iran mount up all the dumb investors are going to be running after the weapons companies but you the smart grubstakers listeners know get in the pistachio business but they have actually been also a periodic reminder that we are um all on the best brokers app competing with each other. I recommend that you all join and message us so you can compete with us. And let's see.

Currently leading the Best Brokers game with negative 4.20% nice is Grubstakers Andy. Because I dumped all my stocks and invested in the dollar because the euro, which is the denomination in this game, is... Well, Europe's doing worse than America right now. Well, ironically enough, when America crashes the economy, the dollar goes up

because it's considered a safe currency. Hell yeah. So, you know. I like how each of us have taken turns trying to gloat that we're on top of the game. Steven was on top for like five months, and now he's a fourth. At negative 14.6%. And our friend Andy Miller is the short seller king with negative 77.90%.

So back to the Resnicks, because i do want to get through kind of like some of their other crimes in addition to uh oh and uh one other thing uh they the resnick foundation is caring too much about the iranian people they want democracy in iran the resnick foundation funneled 1.125 million to the american jew Committee in a five-year span between 1999 and 2004. The American Jewish Committee is, of course, also rather hawkish on the Iranian question. So again, you don't know where the ideology begins, but it just so happens to line up completely with their farming interests. And so we should just kind of like mention a couple of the greatest hits here. The Lost Hills in California is what is essentially a Resnick company town.

The Resnicks got some bad press there because most of their farm workers live in Lost Hills or a lot of them do. And it's a terrible place with, you know, very little clean water access. And so there was like a lot of bad press. So they like went there, the Resnicks did, and they opened a park. very little clean water access. And so there was like a lot of bad press. So they like went there, the Resnicks did, and they opened a park. They built some roads. And then they did like a promotional video where Linda Resnick looks at the cameras like,

I just thought about what can I do to give back? Which is of course like, you know, peel off like a hundredth or a thousandth of all of the money you've exploited from these people and just dump it back to them in the did you read the mother jones article i didn't read that there's she said she went to a conference uh held by this like this famous uh harvard political scientist who asked like you know is known for asking provocative questions or whatever and he was like if you if

you could live in a town where everything was literally perfect except the fact that you all knew that somewhere hidden there was a child being tortured, would you be able to do that basically? Torture the child? No. Just have knowledge.

Just live there and have knowledge that somewhere it was going on. And she was like, I just couldn't bear that. And so that was supposed to be her philosophical awakening that they should build roads and have either she's never met jeffrey epstein or she's lying i like that that was her awakening that made her want to go to war with iran yeah so she saved the children living in this imperfect world as we are yes and where there are the equivalent

of many children being tortured um you know She's doing what she can, basically. By the way, if anyone has any... While still sitting on $5.6 billion. If anyone has any Rand Corporation documents on preparations to genote fake conflict to invade Iran, I think I know someone who might be willing to help you photocopy those documents to leak them to the public. Maybe that was her contribution to the Monterey

amendments in 1994, is she cut all the top secret off the top of the documents. Now with the Iran stuff, she's taping it back on. So, Lost Hills, California is, again, essentially a Resnick company town, but they made this big show of their investment there. But the documentary Water and Power, it's available on Netflix. I recommend it.

They went there, I believe, in 2016. And they interviewed some people there. And the water in the area is still not drinkable. The water has arsenic in it. People will take showers and it smells like chlorine. The water has chlorine bleach in it. Children will say they it smells like chlorine the water is chlorine bleach in it children will say they won't shower in the water and again this is like right next to their field of fucking uh pistachio trees that are drowning in water and the california aqueduct throws flows

right through the town bringing water from the north of california to their crops instead of to the people who live right there and the residents have to pay like you know average you know 70 bucks a month for water that's completely not drinkable and not usable and so again like hello america the folks at wonderful pistachios have asked me to help sell them but come on they're wonderful i wonderful. They'll sell themselves. I think we're done. Yeah. You were good. He talks to an eagle.

I like the idea of buying a bag of pistachios and trying to squeeze the gallon of water out of each one. Desperately trying to feed or to quench the thirst and you know like remember when that thing came out about how like it was like obama's day-to-day habits and it's like he has exactly six almonds for a snack oh how much of that you think was resnick money so it's six gallons of water yeah yeah per day just from that little meal but they're like hey uh obama wouldn't it be great if you told the press that you eat six almonds a lot of people admire you and want to emulate you and they won't be able to stop at six he was like uh you know every day i prevent myself from getting palm prostate cancer by drinking pomegranate juice.

Which like, so that's the next thing. And then there's just a couple other things. But so basically, we mentioned they own Palm Wonderful. You've probably seen those little, you know, pomegranate juice jars, very distinct marketing. Hourglass-shaped jars.

They were lying all over the place about the benefits. The most fuckable bottles. They were lying all over the place about the benefits. The most fuckable bottles. They were lying all over the place about the benefits of this pomegranate juice because they happen to own these pomegranate orchards. Real snake oil has curves. Yes. Like, Stuart Resnick, for his part, has had prostate cancer, and then he stated that he started drinking pomegranate juice every day

and has never had a cold since. So, of course. Champ. Yeah, I'm sure, like, the fact that he was a billionaire pomegranate juice every day and has never had a cold since. So, of course... Champ. Yeah, I'm sure the fact that he was a billionaire had nothing to do with his ability to beat prostate cancer. And they even lied about the instance of prostate cancer

and made probably a bunch of men who are never going to get prostate cancer worry about prostate cancer. Yeah. Turns out when you drink juice and seek a doctor, you have a much better odds of surviving cancer. But so –

And then Linda Resnick went on Martha Stewart. She did, yes. And it was one of the rare occurrences where Martha Stewart has a bigger financial criminal on screen with her. But the medical benefits even outweigh the mythical benefits. Oh, they do. They do. I mean, it is the magic elixir of our age and of all ages.

And we know that it helps circulation, it helps Alzheimer's, it helps all sorts of things in the body. Antioxidants, polyphenol antioxidants, off the chart. And if you know a man that you care about, or you are a man, make him drink

eight ounces of pomegranate juice a day because what it does for prostate cancer is amazing. Look, if you... If your man likes it, when you strap it on and slap his face with it and tell him he's a dirty boy before plunging it in, make sure he drinks pomegranate juice to keep that prostate healthy.

So they were advertising pomegranate juice as reducing the risk of heart disease, prostate cancer, erectile dysfunction, saying that they had clinical trials that proved this work. None of that was true. The federal trade, which is a shame because even if it doesn't work for erectile dysfunction, if it helps with prostate health, you know, there's still the back door.

The federal trade commission for their part actually acted on this. The commission found that Paul marketers had made deceptive claims in 36 advertisements and promotional materials. And it was interesting. Like, I remember being in college and being a dumb college kid and reading some article on the Internet. I remember you being a dumb college kid, too. About how if you smoke cigarettes, you should drink pomegranate juice to reduce your risk of lung cancer. And, of course, I just read this article somewhere and never thought, Oh,

this was just planted by a fucking marketer. So, you know, I was like, I don't smoke anymore, but I was like chain smoking in college and like drinking fucking, uh, palm.

Like that's gonna like save my life. Uh, and you know, I and millions of other Americans were taken for a ride by these dastardly marketers like linda resnick but fortunately the ftc slapped the hammer down and said no you can't blatantly lie about your products anymore which the resnicks appealed all the way to the supreme court and then the supreme court didn't hear the case so the resnicks lost by the way to the Supreme Court, and then the Supreme Court didn't hear the case, so the Resnick's lost. By the way, if you want to know what Sean was like in college,

imagine a 19-year-old Marc Maron with vocal fry. But, yes. And not lung cancer, because I drank pomegranate juice in between all those American spirits. But so, you know, in addition to lying about their pomegranate juice, they're also, you know, owning a company town in Lost Hills, making lots of money off the state of California, especially during drought season where they're able to sell their water, their privatized

water from their water bank back to the state at three to four times what it costs to get it from it like essentially for water they just pay the state for transport it's basically free yeah um in addition to all that uh two other things that i want to get to i mean why would anyone charge you for water they uh they bought the company fiji water in 2005 and it's just water's. Why would you charge for water? Water is a human right for the Resnicks. They bought the company Fiji Water in 2005. And it's just interesting where it's like Fiji has a military dictatorship. And unsurprisingly, much like the state of of California There are lots of people in Fiji without

Access to clean water But they're still able to like tap This aquifier in Fiji And they Ship according to Forbes about 250 million bottles of Fiji Water worldwide every year Which you know

Not like anybody else might want to be Drinking that not like there's might want to be drinking that, not like there's going to be any sort of plastic buildup or anything. This has been a boon for the arsenic industry. I mean, they had a slight downturn when people realized you can just get arsenic out of apple seeds. But, Steve, you took a quick look at the fiji thing i think like that's i mean that's basically the story like the fiji military dictatorship uh put a tax on them and they like threatened to move and laid off a bunch of people like the fiji government wanted to impose

a one-third of a fijian cent tax which is essentially nothing. That's racist. Every liter of water pumped out of the aquifer they use there for their bottling. Fuji water went up in arms about this and there are waves of lockouts of their facility

to protest it. And a capital strike. It actually didn't work. The Fuji government prevailed. Nice. facility to protest it. And a capital strike. It actually didn't work. The Fiji government prevailed. Nice. Welcome to the resistance. And they were able to actually get 15 cents per liter beyond, I think, 150 million a year.

This is like tanky heaven, where it's like, oh, the military dictatorship was able to prevail over the corporation. Yes, I think the lesson from this episode is we need a military junta in California. If the National Guard could depose Jerry Brown. Yeah, well, I mean, so originally, this is a great investment still for Fiji Water.

They bought it from David Gilmour, a Canadian millionaire, for $50 million. And it averages about $85 million in sales a year since 2009. And what was the thing about Ohio that we were talking about before the show? Oh, Cleveland. They advertised it like the water doesn't come from Cleveland. Was that the slogan? Yeah, they said...

Hold on a second. The slogan was... The label says Fiji because it's not bottled in Cleveland, implying that Cleveland's water system was somehow more impure or worse quality. And some scientists did some testing on it and found that there are higher levels of arsenic

in Fiji water as opposed to Cleveland's water system. And Fiji water did its own study and it still found that there was some arsenic in there. But it was not nearly as high as what the Cleveland scientists claimed. So, yay. Sounds like Cleveland rocks.

Indeed. They have the special fiji bottles that they sell to their workers with the extra arsenic yeah um but yeah so i mean and then the other uh quick story here is essentially what's the other part of california water law and again there's a lot of it. There are plenty of people who have become billionaires off of either just inheriting California farmland or, in the case of the Resnick's, buying into it and exploiting this. So we will have future opportunities to talk believe the 1800s has a very uh not really relevant or let's say not applicable to the current world anymore state of water law where essentially if you own a piece of property you have complete right to ground water beneath that property like you can drill it up and then now that california has quote paper water and the ability to resell water,

essentially you can pretend to be a farmer, buy up your land right, and then just drill into the water, and then you are a private company that sells water now. So Jerry Brown has signed a law that will do away with this, but it doesn't fully become implemented for another 20 years. So you still have people, including the Resnicks, scrambling to essentially tap all the water in California out of the ground. So just one example, again, from the Water and Power documentary is there's a winery called Paso Robles in California. And this has been heavily invested in by not only not only the Resnick's, but also

several Wall Street firms, Harvard University, fascinatingly enough, you know, it's not enough to like destroy the world through their foreign policy graduates. But they want it to go right to the source and, you know, dehydrate the entire state of California. But so they buy up this winery, and what happened was this winery just so happens to be at the deepest part of the aquifer for the entire area of California. So because by the law, for like another 20 years, they have access to all this groundwater,

they can just drink the milkshake for the surrounding areas. They can drill down and get all this water, and then none of the surrounding farms will have any more water, and that's what's currently going on right now. And it's interesting, you also have essentially the grounds... 90% of that water is consumed by Paul Giamatti pouring it in the form of wine in a bucket to his face. So you also have what's called subsistence or subsidence,

which is the ground sinking. So they, you know, take all this groundwater out of this aquifer and then the ground around it starts to sink because it's partly resting on that water. So you have like entire areas of california that are like falling several feet every year you know and which will pose no problems for you know infrastructure or all that but it's like you know the resnick's uh they they've started scaling back their pistachio and almond uh empire because as we mentioned they're taking like 120 billion gallons a year and i think like you

can't really address california was so-called water problem without starting with the fact that california probably should not be exporting pistachios at all you know but pistachios and almonds are like the heavy water consumers and this is a private industry where all the profits are going to private individuals like the resnicks with state subsidized water that's you know completely unnecessary so you have to like start with the pistachios and almonds but the ultimate question is like yeah water is a human right and a public resource and uh before we can nationalize wall Street, I think we need to nationalize water and make it a public good. But you know what?

That's just me as an apologist for the Iranian regime. Talking about how the Republican Guard, how it's a good thing that they hang gay people in Tehran. Tendentially, there's a big controversy about UCB having to lay off about eight different workers. They don't pay their performers. And the business is being run into the ground. of UCB needs that money to fund her 170,000 gallons that she uses to water her property every year. She uses 170,000 gallons? Yeah, so much it made Business Insider in 2016 in the midst of the California drought. What does she do with all that?

Feminism. She's a girl boss lean in yeah she leans in she was like no but you see my neighbor was yes anding me with their water consumption so i had to keep going you know sean in terms of magic the gathering what would you call the resnick's blue deck that he's built up? Is it like he's just went full countermagic? Yeah, 59 islands, and then everybody else who plays magic gets one and a half to share between all of them. Yeah, the Resnicks just have a red dick blue dick right now you need to counter them they can they cast control magic on jerry brown

but yes so in summary they've essentially the resnicks have built a multi-billion dollar empire on the backs of Californians getting out of the shower very quickly. Make sure if you're listening to this, 10 seconds is enough to wash your hands because the Resnicks need to make pistachio

ice cream. And I guess unless there's anything else on the Resnicks you know this is uh we started this podcast uh late january this year it's been a it's been a great uh success it's been so much fun to do i've learned so much doing this podcast this year like it's been very fascinating where like i started the year as i always do thinking i know everything and then i read a bunch of books and realized i was just like bullshitting for probably the first half of this year. I've read a lot of books about finance, about billionaires, about all this stuff.

And, you know, so I apologize for the completely misinformed back catalog that I have left, that we have left for you. But I would encourage you. I just want to thank all our listeners. We've had a wonderful year. We've gotten so much positive feedback on the podcast. We hope you're enjoying it. And we hope you'll check out, if you're a new listener

or you haven't checked through the back catalog, we've really put together a small little encyclopedia on one slice of the billionaires in this world. And we're going to continue doing that next year. So hit us up on Twitter at At GrubstakersPod. Give us feedback. Suggestions for what you'd like to see in 2019. And just thank you for listening.

And you know what? Get the fuck out of the shower. So I started this podcast thinking I was pretty decent at guitar. And after a year. Nobody's complained about our theme song. So it turns out I was right. Anyway, we're going to do a little bonus episode next week, a little musical bonus episode.

Otherwise, we're going to be taking a break. No official episode. No official episode. But Andy Palmer has sat down and made you a Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa present, or he will. With the help of one of our beautiful listeners. So I look forward to that. And with that, I'm Andy Palmer.

Steve Jeffries. I'm Sean McCarthy. Shout out to the San Joaquin Valley. Shout out to Fiji water. And we will see you in 2019 when hopefully all of your thirsts are quenched. Thanks for listening. Have a good new year. Bye-bye.