The Daily Zeitgeist - Hollywood Scandal Spreads, How Trump's Tax Plan Screws You 10.18.17

Episode Date: October 18, 2017

In episode 8, Jack & Miles are joined by writer and comedian Jackie Koppell to discuss Hollywood scandals, trickle down economics, Trump's tax plan, and more. Plus five stories they're keeping an eye on. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing.

They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. They're just dreams. stigma, and silence around sex and sexuality in Latinx communities. This podcast is an intergenerational conversation between Latinas from Gen X to Gen Z. We're your hosts, Viosa and Mala. You might recognize us from our first show, Locatora Radio. Listen to Señora Sex Ed on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, the internet, and welcome to Season two, episode three of the Daily Zeitgeist for Wednesday, October 18th, 2017.

My name is Jack O'Brien, a.k.a. Potatoes O'Brien, and I am joined by my co-host, Mr. Miles Gray. Hey, if anyone knows where to get a Hertha Berlin jersey, holler at me. I'm trying to represent because they were the only Bundesliga team to kneel in solidarity with the NFL. And we're thrilled to be joined in our third seat by Jackie Koppel. Yes!

What's up? What's up? How are you? I am good. I am great. I am debating on whether or not I should tell you you mispronounced my last name. Yeah, no, don't do that. I'm always right. How is it pronounced my last name. Yeah, no, don't do that. Okay, cool. I'm always right. Okay. How is it pronounced?

Coppell. Coppell. All right, take two. Take two. And we are thrilled to be joined in our third seat by Jackie Coppell. Yay! Boom, nailed it. Yeah.

We got nervous before. You guys ever notice how I always nail the pronunciation of people's last names when I introduce them? It wasn't like that time I called Edgar Edward. Yeah, that was awesome. I wasn't there for that. Yeah, thank God. So, Jackie, what's the weirdest thing you've searched in the last week?

The weirdest thing I pulled up was a stray dog that crashed a wedding, but then got adopted by the couple. Because who doesn't love dogs and weddings? Now, is that a thing that you knew existed, or were you just like, you know what would warm my heart? If a stray dog crashed a wedding. No, in fairness, no. I happened upon the story, and I went for it, but it is in my Google searches.

What's something that you find to be overrated, Jackie? Okay, so overrated, I find find to be overrated jackie um okay so overrated i find uh sun to be overrated the sun the sun and let me let me go on a uh giant cancer causing organism that is slowly killing us all thank you and we'll one day explode and consume the entire solar system yes yes see i mean all right so i guess you just did that yeah also i'm extremely pale. So the very, very like I've gone the like, oh, it's like Nicole Kidman. So it's all good.

I'll just like maintain my paleness. But the sun doesn't like me. I really can't tan. Sun doesn't like you and you don't like the sun. I mean, we have a love hate relationship. When the sun comes out, I'm like, oh, great. And then I get FOMO if I stay inside. So then I feel badly about myself because I'm staying inside. But I cannot tan.

It is a physical impossibility for my skin. Just go straight to burn? Pretty much, yeah. I mean, after the burn, you could argue the leftover is a little tan. Like the scar tissue from the dead skin? Yeah, but it's uncomfortable. And also, living in L. LA, it's just always sunny. Yeah.

I'm from New York and that gets boring. Yeah. You're telling me I'm from LA. That's why I love a fucking jacket. Like I love going places where the weather's shitty. Right? Oh, a jacket. A jacket.

I've never worn such a foreign article of clothing. People from other places don't realize this, but LA's weather is so good that we're like desperate for bad weather. So we like we'll put on a jacket when it gets into the 60s. Oh, yeah. So underrated is rain in L.A. How great is it when it rains in L.A.? I love it. I don't think.

Yeah, I guess personally. Yeah, I'm a rain lover. I love it. I mean, Shirley Manson. I'm only happy when it rains. I love it. I'm like Shirley Manson. I'm only happy when it rains. I love it when it rains. People drive terribly because it's like, oh my God, there's a droplet of water. I'm going to die.

But I love it. My favorite thing, this is so weird, but my favorite thing is when it's raining on a Friday night and I can hang out at home in sweatpants and order in Indian food. So your FOMO is pretty intense. Oh, yeah. No, it's like real. Because you basically described a situation where you use the rain to justify why you can stay at home and then not have to feel bad because it's raining. Yes, absolutely.

Wow. Yeah. The FOMO is real, folks. The FOMO is real. And it's like weirdly specifically a Friday. For whatever reasons, like end of week, that gives me the greatest joy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then it's raining and it's dark and I'm like, yes, I have to there are those sweatpants and there's that indian man i will use any flimsy

fucking excuse to stay in though yeah it drives my girlfriend nuts oh it's like oh you know what we should probably just kick it yeah weather's a little too windy yeah want to get cozy a little too sunny yeah i don't know yeah exactly a little too sunny. That's right. The rain in L.A. also like clears out the air so you can actually like it like cuts the dirt out of the air. So then like you can actually see that L.A. is right next to a giant mountain. It's like this beautiful city. You just can't see it most of the time because the air is full of dust and smug. Yes. I've always said L.A. is like my dog. It does not know how to act when it gets wet. It like freaks the fuck out. People just like can't drive there. It's a it's a disaster. So we're going to do something a little different at the top of today's show. We are going to just go through five stories.

We're keeping an eye on rather than doing a deep dive into one story. Through five stories, we're keeping an eye on rather than doing a deep dive into one story. So we wanted to start out with the I guess it's no of the leading actresses in the city are coming out and being like, yeah, I've had to put up with sexual assault. Reese Witherspoon came out and said she was assaulted when she was 16. Jennifer Lawrence was told that she was, quote, perfectly fuckable when she was 15. Lawrence was told that she was, quote, perfectly fuckable when she was 15. Courtney Love made a joke about Harvey Weinstein on Comedy Central. I think it was Natasha Leggero. Yeah, she was interviewed. Went up to her on a red carpet and was like, hey, any advice for young actors or actresses in coming up in Hollywood?

And Courtney Love was like, yeah, if Harvey Weinstein invites you to a party in his hotel room, don't go. And she says that like CAA came at her, the Creative Artists Agency, one of the main agencies out here. And they're kind of brokers of power out here in Los Angeles and basically froze her out. And, you know, this is why you haven't seen or heard from Courtney Love in major motion pictures lately. Same.

It's the only reason. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad you made that joke. I can make the joke. It's a little bit easier. Yeah.

Yeah. I was like, well, no, it's so I don't want to I don't want to take anything away from the seriousness. Yeah. Yeah. Lauren Holly from Dumb and Dumber says that she was assaulted by Weinstein. She was listening to these stories from all these different women who were talking about what Weinstein did to them. And she was like, that is exactly what he did to me. Like it's the same exact thing over and over. I think we talked about last week that it was shockingly systematic when it came to Weinstein. But it also seems like just as an industry, it was also sort of systematized. Like she left being assaulted by harvey weinstein and like had a dinner date with like other people in the industry and like told them about it because she was like

crying and they were like oh you better keep your mouth shut harvey weinstein's like very powerful right um well because she wasn't raped so it was like it wasn't serious right exactly right oh he would he like showered in front of her? Yeah, he made her watch him shower and then like tried to like she had to push him away and like literally escape the room in order to avoid being sexually assaulted. So, yeah. And basically what we're learning is that as an industry, it's it seems like it's systematic to Tandy Newton was apparently when she was 15 dating an adult director. So there's just like nonstop sleaze like everywhere you look. There was the Me Too campaign on Twitter. The news is saying that it was started

by Alyssa Milano. But Jackie, you were saying that it was actually started by a black woman like 10 years ago? Yeah, an activist 10 years ago started it. And I don't know whether Alyssa Milano knew that or not, but it was for the same reason was I, too, or me, too. I've also been sexually harassed or assaulted. And what people on Facebook would ask and Twitter, but I saw it primarily on Facebook. My feed was just full of it. Pretty much every single woman had me to. Yeah. Right. It's not it's not like, oh, and this was the other fascinating thing. And I experienced as well, which is was my the sexual harassment, was it serious enough for me to say me too?

Right. That's sort of how messed up it is and how ingrained it is in our society. It's not, oh yeah, of course I was sexually harassed because that's an experience I had. It was, was my harassment rough enough to say me too? Like, am I part of that? Yes. Any of it. Yeah.

They would have to go through that kind of litmus test right yourself yeah and that's and that that was really shocking the other thing was just how pretty much every woman um on my facebook feed had me too and some men had it as well yeah right again even like with the hollywood thing and terry cruz came out and said that it's not a producer just straight up grabbed his job grabbed his crotch in front of his wife. Yeah. James Van Der Beek, too. Yeah.

And actually, there's a clip that's going around that we should play of one of the Corys. Feldman. Yeah. Was on The View and basically said, hey, I was sexually assaulted when I was a kid by somebody who's still very powerful. And yeah, you'll hear Barbara Walters response. I'm saying that there are people that were the people that did this to both me and Corey that are still working. They're still out there. And there's some of the richest, most powerful people in this business. And they do not want me saying what I'm saying right now.

Are you saying that they're pedophiles? Yes. And that they're still in this business? Yes. And that's what you're saying in your book. When you talk to parents, Corey, there are a lot of parents out here who want to put their kids in this business. Their kids are cute. They're great actors.

What would you say to a parent who just has the best of intentions who's coming here with their child? If you're saying that there's a lot of predators in this industry. You know, don't go into it with naivety. Don't go into it thinking that it's all roses and sunglasses. You're damaging an entire industry. I'm sorry.

I'm just trying to say that it's a very important, serious topic. She said you're damaging an entire industry. Well, in that case, let's just move. OK, never mind. Yeah, I mean, I just and, you know, that only just demonstrates what the culture is like within the industry like that. Even someone hearing someone's firsthand account of sexual abuse is their responses. You're damaging an industry. Right. Because she's an old industry that she's been around. Who knows what many of these people have been.

It's also interesting, though. Right. So often these stories are from women. But he was a man saying that that was the case. Right. That that our society, it's really about question. We question the victim. Right. Not the perpetrator. Right. And oftentimes the victims are women. But in this case, it was a man who was a victim. And she just was like, you sure about that? Right. Yeah. So, all right, let's move on to our next story. We have the plague. There's a plague outbreak in Madagascar. It's going off. Yeah. It's going off. Not the bubonic plague. The pneumonic plague. Yeah, this shit is worse than the fucking plague that you think about from, like, the medieval times. Like, the pneumonic plague, it's actually much more infectious because it's spread just through, like, coughing and it can be airborne.

But, yeah, so far, 57 people have died in Madagascar and there's, like, more than 680 cases of infection. And it's, like, it's pretty – it's rapidly spreading. I mean, it's still a low international health risk, but it's something to keep your eye on. And it just kind of got us thinking in general of plagues and things that are coming about. Because one of the reasons why this plague seemed to be exacerbated by, like, the early onset of the rainy season, which drove all the rodents out. So, hey, shout out to climate change there. There are people whose entire job is just watching these little outbreaks of plagues around the world, just deciding when to send people in to contain them. And they were taken off guard because this happened earlier in the year than it ever has before because of just randomly it being warmer, apparently. Nobody knows why.

Speaking of climate change, there is – Climate what now? Sorry, of climate change there is climate what now what sorry the climate change okay sorry i said it too loudly the first time um there is actually concern about uh the melting of permafrost soils that have been frozen for thousands of years and as the soils are melting it's actually increasing the likelihood that ancient viruses and bacteria, maybe even from biblical times, they've lain dormant. They're springing back to life. One example is back in 2016, August 2016, in a corner of the Siberian tundra, a 12-year-old boy died and 20 other people were hospitalized after being infected by anthrax. Their thought is that over 75 years ago, a reindeer was infected with anthrax, died.

The frozen carcass became trapped under a layer of frozen soil. That's known as permafrost. And it stayed that way until a heat wave in the summer of 2016 when the permafrost thawed. So get excited. We have some diseases coming back. We got some surprises coming out of the ice. Yeah. The big question is Black Plague.

When are we getting that bad boy? I mean, it's still out there. So, I mean, we were able to treat it. I mean, you know, hopefully there's some like some space age like alien shit that'll come out and people have like superpowers. Have you ever seen somebody's hand like that was bitten by the Black Plague? Yeah. It literally turns black. It's crazy.

All right. hand like that was bitten by the black plague. Yeah, it literally turns black. It's crazy. All right. So let's jump forward to our fifth story, which will take us into our middle chunk. And then we will get to the other two stories at the end of the show. So Donald Trump two days ago had a press conference at the White House with Mitch McConnell, his his old buddy.

Yeah. According to Trump, his relationship, quote, my relationship with this gentleman is outstanding, has been outstanding. So Trump has had a change of heart when it comes to McConnell. And so McConnell even was taking shots at Bannon, saying that, like, the way you win the Senate is by finding people who can win no matter where, which is a reference to these crazy people that Bannon is apparently planning on running. Yeah. And he also used like examples of like Tea Party candidates. They ran out to like run against senators like Harry Reid, Harry Reid, like Sharon Angle in Nevada and things like that and sort of being like, we we tried going super right of center or super right of where we are and it didn't work and kind of like that's why i don't know if steve's plan will work right so trump is sort of in a in a

difficult position uh you have to feel sorry for the guy uh but i think that i think the reason trump is making this move back towards mccon McConnell is because he realizes he needs him for his tax plan. So speaking of Trump's relationship with mainstream Republicans, we're going to go to the break on Senator John McCain basically ethering Donald Trump in a speech yesterday. To abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of international leadership, and our duty to remain the last best hope of earth for the sake of some half-baked spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems. This is the maverick we know and love. You should play the beat to Shook Ones underneath that. That was dirty. All right, we'll be right back.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption

that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career,

you have a lot of questions. Like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or, can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do, like resume specialist Morgan Saner. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote.

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What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing.

They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast is an intergenerational conversation between Latinas from Gen X to Gen Z. We're covering everything from body image to representation in film and television. We even interview iconic Latinas like Puerto Rican actress Ana Ortiz. I felt in control of my own physical body and my own self. I was on birth control.

I had sort of had my first sexual experience. If you're in your señora era or know someone who is, then this is the show for you. We're your hosts, Diosa and Mala, and you might recognize us from our flagship podcast, Locatora Radio. We're so excited for you to hear our brand new podcast, Señora Sex Ed. Listen to Señora Sex Ed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. So I wanted to get into this tax plan, as interesting as that sounds, guys. I want to talk about just a couple economic ideas, like what one that's hugely underrated and one that is wildly overrated, because I think they help get at why ideas get over and underrated in America. So first idea is this thing called the dependency ratio that basically says that if you put all the working age people like between 18 and 65 on the other side of the scale will determine how successful a country's economy is.

So in third world countries, you have, you know, families having lots and lots of children because there's such high infant death rates. And so that keeps them at a poor dependency ratio because the families are never getting enough time to basically build up wealth and stuff. So that explains why certain countries are never able to break out of being third world countries. It also explains like hugely successful countries like, for instance, America during the 20th century when America had its huge economic boom. It was exactly when the baby boomers, the baby boom, which is like a huge demographic spike, was passing through working age. was passing through working age. So when the baby boomers hit 18 until basically right now, as the baby boomers are moving into retirement,

America's economy has been going off because that's a good ratio. The baby boom, the huge demographic spike, was moving through working age. So essentially you want more people that are in the working age bracket than you are people who are dependents. So the more people that are contributing is better than having a bunch of wastoid children and old people. Which is the concern as the baby boomers

age. Exactly. And live longer. Another sort of micro way of understanding the dependency ratio is MC Hammer. So people know that MC Hammer went broke like really quickly and they're not totally – they think it was just because he had like a gold-plated pool

and a gold-plated everything. But that wasn't necessarily true. Like, yes, he did, but so do lots of rich people. Yeah, that's how you know you're rich, if you don't have a gold-plated pool or gold-plated everything. Right. How else how you know you're rich, if you don't have a gold-plated pool or gold-plated everything. Right. How else would you know? But the thing that he had was he had an entire – like if you ever went and saw MC Hammer on his Please Hammer Don't Hurt Him tour like I did, my first concert, he had like 90 backup dancers that were – like he put on this huge show, and they were all on his payroll. So he had lots of money coming in, but he was also paying a small village of people. Like they were all on his payroll.

So that's why he was able to go broke within like two years after making all his money. There was one person bringing in money. So one person who was effectively in like age, and then 85 dependents. That's a really bad working rate. Yeah, you should have just started off with that. Right. I mean, I didn't hear everything until just now. It all makes sense.

Okay. Well, so China is another example. They had this giant economic boom, and the reason that they went from not being that great to suddenly like having this huge economic growth is because they had a demographic spike that was going through working age. And then they all artificially lowered the soon going to have its demographic spike go over the cliff of retirement. And, you know, they're going to have people in the working age. So the people who are actually working are going to be greatly outweighed because they're like the one child policy generation. So China is, you know, probably in some rough shape, as is America. Well, and Japan is going through that, too, as well right now, because they have a contracting population with many old, like with one of the longest life expectancies.

Right. And very, very low birth rates. No one's having sex in Japan these days. Right. Yeah. So the reason I bring this up is because it's a hugely influential idea that can explain a lot about the 20th century. But you never hear about it in America because it is economic theory and economic idea that doesn't make anyone richer. And in fact, it takes away credit from rich people. It doesn't like it makes it so that instead of being like these great geniuses who came up with like all these wonderful ideas that made them rich and made America money. It's just a demographic game. An overrated economic idea is the idea that Trump's tax plan is organized around, which is this thing called supply side economics or trickle down economics. This is a economic theory that has been proven wrong many times over and over again. Forever and ever. richer, that idea is going to come back. I saw a tweet from my good friend Banksy the other day saying that... You know Banksy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have you seen him with the hood off?

No, no, no, no. We're just cool like that. I have. Very handsome. It was a piece of street art that said, rich news equals rich people paying other rich people to tell middle class people to blame poor people. And I think that while I'm not sure that it's always telling middle class people to blame poor people, I think it's definitely rich people basically telling other rich people what ideas to put out there. And they're never going to be ideas that make rich people look bad. And usually they're going to be ideas that make rich people look bad. And usually they're going to be ideas that make rich people look awesome. So trickle down in economics is basically the big idea behind Trump's tax cut is that it's going to be a lower corporate

tax rate. It's going to go from, I think, 35 down to 20 percent. And the way that they're pitching this is they're saying because corporations, giant corporations are going to have more money, they are going to give that money back to their workers through increased wages. their workers through increased wages. Two days ago, one of the sort of economists behind this idea came out and said that each worker can expect to make three to seven thousand dollars more than they would have prior to this tax cut. But it assumes that corporations will necessarily take any money that they save and give it back to their workers, which has never, I've never, yo, I've never, that didn't even happen anywhere. There's a reason that the richest people you'll ever meet are always the stingiest people you'll ever meet. And the poor people, the poorest people you'll meet are always the most generous people

you'll ever meet. And this theory is basically and that that's obviously a generalization, but it's been true the vast majority of times that I've met people in my life. And, you know, this theory is basically give the rich people lots of money and they'll give it to the poor people, which is has just never been how things have worked. And that's vastly oversimplifying it. But also we've seen actually even with, you know, sort of the downturn in the economy that we just went through. People are saving. Millennials are saving money. If we have if we're given extra money, we don't then go spend it in the way that they did decades, you know, decades in the past, as the argument goes, they save it. And likewise, the rich tend to save it, not spend it. So it doesn't, in fact, really trickle down. In fact, there's a guy, his name's Bruce Bartlett, he wrote an op-ed entitled Tax Cut Fever, Republican Trickle Down Theory is Lies.

But he actually has some skin in the game because, he writes 40 years ago, while working for a New York, uh, representative Jack Kemp, he helped originate the Republican, as he writes, the Republican obsession with slashing taxes that came to be called supply side economics. in the late 70s, early 80s, but it's long outlived its usefulness. And in fact, that Republicans used to care about budget deficit and were actually willing to raise taxes and oppose tax cuts to reduce it. And he reminds people that Ronald Reagan, who he did cut taxes in 1981, then supported 11 tax increases to offset a ballooning deficit. So it's important to note that even Ronald Reagan, you know, who's sort of the king of the trickle down theory, then realized, oh, shit. Yeah.

Oops. We just recently got a really great live experiment slash illustration of how supply side economics works in Kansas. So basically works. Right. Right. Right. Right. So basically they cut deeply cut already low taxes, completely eliminated state income tax for owner operated businesses and just basically cut tons of government services that relied on taxes to, you know, because they were cutting the amount of money that the government was making. And that means everybody's gonna start spending and helping each other. Right. Right. It's going to work. Its deficit grew immediately to like unsustainable levels. No, it started trailing behind surrounding states that it had usually beat or at least been extremely competitive with. usually beat or at least been extremely competitive with.

Neighboring states just started demolishing them economically. And they immediately, like after only a few years, had to basically overturn and go back to actually, you know, funding the government. I mean, even the Supreme Court, the cuts to education services were so extreme that the Supreme Court actually ruled it in unconstitutional. I mean, yeah, they're like, that's how bad they're like, fuck out of here. What were you thinking? Our children need to learn. Right. on a day-to-day basis that 90% of the brilliant people who make our lives possible were probably educated by public education, but we're just like – because we don't see that, there's no way to make that visible.

It's easy for people to just be like, oh, what's the worst that can happen if we cut all taxes down? happen if we cut all taxes down. So the other big problem that America has that this plan only makes worse is inequality, obviously. The former Clinton Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, said that as in the 20s, so much of the nation's income and wealth are going to the top that the vast middle class doesn't have the purchasing power to keep the economy going. So what he's referring to there is one percent of America, the top one percent of America has 40 percent of the nation's wealth. So even if the thing we were saying before wasn't true, even if the top one% weren't incredibly stingy and like spent that money quickly, like they wouldn't be able to spend enough. Like there's just not enough people who have all that money. Right. The bottom 80% of people, eight out of every 10 Americans

makes up only 7% of the nation's wealth. So that's I mean, that's insane. The top one percent take home 24 percent of the income. Now, in 1976, that figure was nine percent. The top one percent own half the country's stocks and bonds and mutual funds. The bottom 50 percent of the country owns point five, half a percentage of the stock's bonds and mutual funds. Sounds to me like we should give the rich more money. Yeah. It's going to come down.

It's going to rain down. It's going to rain down. So well. Right. And a 2012 Treasury Department study basically said that less than a fifth of corporate tax falls on the workers. So the idea that this corporate taxation is driving down workers' wages, the Treasury Department said that's not true back in 2012. And that study that they put

together was recently taken down off of their website for some reason. And then a Congressional Research Service report last month concluded that the effects of corporate taxes fall largely on high income Americans. So essentially, by taking away the high corporate taxes in America, we're not going to be giving more money back to the workers. back to the workers, we're actually going to be giving money back to the richest, the 1% who already owns a insane disproportionate amount of the wealth in America. Well, right. And there's, and this, all this feeds into just sort of like the systematic dismantling of the middle class that's, that's happened, right? Because the most, you know, like when America, when people say, oh, America was great. I think a lot of people referring to this time like up until the 80s when you could be a janitor and straight up raise a family of four and like they can go to college and that just doesn't exist anymore because the tax rates have

just plummeted you know like basically the top tax rate you know uh was between 74 and 91 percent and that was like that was in the era when the middle class was growing in this country. So it shouldn't be any surprise that once Reagan comes in and starts slashing the tax rates, we've seen like this entire, this period between Roosevelt and Reagan, where there was a middle class being built, just completely go lopsided. And Reagan can like dismantle that within like 35 years. Right. Right. It's also when we had a huge boom in our infrastructure and infrastructure had to be paid for. And we have crumbling infrastructure and not really any way to pay for it right now. I know infrastructure is something that both Democrats and Republicans hope that they can find middle ground, but they have to find the money.

Infrastructure being like the roads. Right. And bridges. Electrical grid. Make life possible. Right. Yeah, it's all falling apart. And all right. So that's why I think this tax plan is a terrible idea. We are going to go to a quick break and then close things out with two more stories. We're keeping an eye on. I just want to add just one thing to the whole idea of what happens when there is like proper wealth distribution, right? If when people are in a system where there is greater wealth distribution and there's more equality in terms of what people have access to financially, people begin demanding more the consumer movement, anti-war movement, environmental movement, all these social movements, they grew out of the wealth and sort of these rising expectations people had coming out of World War II and this new middle class.

And these things, they fucking terrify conservatives, right? So because the more you don't have to worry about other shit, you're like, okay, hold on. We're doing good. How can we do better? How can we do better? When you're struggling to make ends meet's everything is far too chaotic to begin thinking about progress when you yourself aren't don't have equal footing financially to other people and i think it's it's a it's another interesting way to

look at this because ever since the conservatives have sort of taken power in terms of like dictating what our financial policies are it's it's it's been a very clear gutting of working people uh out of the middle class. And I think that's how people in power want to keep it, because you don't want people to begin questioning who is really at the levers of power here. And so I think- Illuminati. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. So I think that's just another thing to kind of keep to consider is that some of the greatest things have come out of when we've had a very strong middle class. Right. And yeah, I mean, I don't even know that there's anything necessarily conservative about the idea that, you know, we need to funnel all this money to like a one percent of the population and starve the bottom 80 percent of the population, give them only 7% of the wealth. I think a lot of that is the conservative movement being hijacked by, you know, extremely wealthy people. We're trying to literally rewrite the Constitution. Koch brothers. I like that we just equated the Illuminati and Koch brothers. Well, you know, it's another deep dive we'll do later.

The Illuminati is like the fun thing to believe instead of, you know, the reality of the Koch brothers. All right. That is all the time we have for that depressing shit. We are going to take a quick break and be right back to close things out. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia.

I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for

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I had sort of had my first sexual experience. If you're in your señora era or know someone who is, then this is the show for you. We're your hosts, Diosa and Mala, and you might recognize us from our flagship podcast, Locatora Radio. And we're back. All right, real quick. I want to hit two other stories that we're kind of keeping an eye on right now. Puerto Rico is still scrambling to recover from the hurricane that sort of demolished it. And there's a new article in Newsweek that describes the situation where people are basically living in mold infested homes where food, water, medicine are running out. All the wealthy people have basically left the island.

So there's, you know, they're counting on charity for a lot of their resources. on charity for a lot of their resources. And then people just, the charity, even when people are donating to them, the charity is not getting to them. Like the surgical ship USNS Comfort that we talked about a few weeks ago that Hillary Clinton was like, yo, why is this not down there? So they finally got this big ship down that is for, you know, disaster relief. And only 33 of the 250 available beds have been filled because they just can't figure out how to, you know, get the people who are sick onto the boat. And, you know, the same thing is happening. Like we

keep hearing that there are these huge shipping containers full of resources, but there aren't the trucks to drive them out to the people. And I don't know, it just seems like it's the, the relief is being completely bungled. But yeah, there's just a really bad communication problem because even in San Juan, they don't know who to talk to, to get these people onto the surgical ship. Like when they barely have electricity to deal with their patients. And it's just there's like massive communication problems that's holding everything up, which is really sad. Because the other part of this story is like there are people in remote areas that are just they do not have access to proper medical care and their nutrition.

Areas that are just, they do not have access to proper medical care and their nutrition. Like, you know, if you're diabetic or you have other issues, people are just slowly dying from the lack of proper nutrition and medical care. And that's kind of obscuring the actual body count of what this hurricane is doing, because these are just going to look like, you know, deaths that are from medical complications rather than actual, like the relief being completely bungled and people are just slowly expiring. like the relief being completely bungled and people are just slowly expiring. So that's another thing to really think about because I think they'll probably spin those numbers too by saying, oh, those aren't hurricane-related deaths. They can point to these other numbers that aren't as heartbreaking. Like the body count is the only thing that Trump is using as the barometer for how much sympathy they should have. He was like, well, you guys have what, 13 deaths? Well, Katrina had a couple thousand. And, you know, first of all, that's not how we should determine how much we,

how hard we're trying when it comes to getting sick people food. Yeah, they're human beings. They're Americans. They're humans. I mean, as of right now, literally Bethany Frankel from The Real Housewives of New York, a show on Bravo, has coordinated over 40 planes delivering food and medical supplies to Puerto Rico. J-Lo and several Pitbull. And I mean, I think J-Lo and company raised like 20 some odd million dollars in a benefit. I mean, the U.S. government should be doing this, not celebrities.

It's great that the celebrities help and as well they should. Are you saying Bethany Frankel does not usually get involved in disaster relief? No, that's not her. I'm always thinking any time I see a disaster, I'm like, well, where's Bethany? We need to get her involved. I mean, after the Haiti earthquake, all that skinny girl Margarita showed up. Right. Thank God. But I mean, yeah, she's kicked up now that she sold that brand get her involved. I mean, after the Haiti earthquake, all that skinny girl Margarita showed up. Right. Thank God.

But I mean, yeah, she's kicked up now that she sold that brand. But yeah, I mean, it is amazing. Yeah. That private citizens are taking it upon themselves to fill the gap because of the U.S. government. The greatest military in the world can't find a way to get some fucking planes. Yeah. And some trucks on an island.

Just remember, it's an island surrounded by water. Lots and lots of water i forgot about that's the problem yeah but yes we want to fight a lot of people don't know that a lot of people don't know that yeah yeah and obviously uh the wildfires are continuing to devastate california we talked about uh we haven't heard anything from the president on that either right it's just california it's fine yeah So last story, we wanted to just keep an eye on Kaepernick is suing the NFL. Colin Kaepernick is basically saying there's has to be collusion because a hot word. around uh that i i am you know at least one of the 25 best quarterbacks in the world and uh like look at how shitty these other quarterbacks are and like aaron rogers recently got hurt and uh mike mccarthy was asked are you going to bring in the obviously better quarterback uh who is

clearly better than you the backups you have. And he's like snapped at the reporter. Yeah. He was like, did you listen to the question I just answered? Right. And he's like, I got three years invested in these like other quarterbacks, these bum quarterbacks who like one of them hasn't even played a real actual game like in the NFL.

So yeah, good. They got some solid arguments against not hiring this man. But how fun will it be to be in that courtroom when they're like, well, this player's terrible. This other player's even worse. Right. And I'm great. It sounds like a bizarre fantasy football draft. Like, well, look at his numbers.

And how are you going to tell me objectively that you want this man over this man? Okay, well, they're bringing some like mad, like, yeah, Stephen A. Smith is an expert witness. Fly on the wall of that one. He threw 16 touchdowns and four interceptions last year, which that's a way better ratio than, I'd say, 90% of the quarterbacks in the NFL right now.

Alright, that's all the time we have. Jackie, thank you so much for joining us. Where can people find you? Ah, you can find me on the Internet. If you check out Newsy News on Facebook, go to NewsyNews.TV. It'll redirect you to Facebook. You can find Newsy News. It's N-E-W-S-Y-N-E-W-S.

Find it on YouTube. And then you can find me on Twitter and Instagram at Jackie Coppell or Coppell, you know, whatever. It's J-A-C-K-I-E-K-O-P-P-E-L-L. And I look forward to your follow. So thanks. Awesome. Miles, where can people find you? You know, this time I'm actually going to tell people where to find me.

You can find me in the bathroom because I've been drinking way too much coffee. It's a diuretic and I have to be really bad. But also you can find me on Instagram, Twitter at milesofgray, M-I-L-E-S-O-F-G-R-A-Y. You can follow me at Jack underscore O-B-R-I-E-N on Twitter. And you can follow the Daily Zeitgeist at Daily Zeitgeist on Twitter and at The Daily Zeitgeist on Instagram. And we have a Facebook page that is The Daily Zeitgeist. And go into Apple Podcasts, you guys, and give us a review. Let us know what you think of us so far.

Good reviews help our rankings and allow other people to find our show, which is important because it's a brand new show. We appreciate it. We're still working on the footnotes. We will have those out to you soon-ish. Otherwise, we will talk to you tomorrow because it is a daily show. Thank you. Abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe

to refuse the obligations of international leadership and our duty to remain the last best hope of Earth for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find skateboards than solve problems. Thank you. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state.

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then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. or wherever you get your podcasts. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. How do you feel about biscuits? Hi, I'm Akilah Hughes, and I'm so excited about my new podcast, Rebel Spirit, where I head back to my hometown in Kentucky and try to convince my high school to change their racist mascot, the Rebels,

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