The Young Turks - Compassionate Capitalism

Episode Date: January 26, 2022

Covax is reportedly out of money. This could lead to a potential disaster for low-income countries that have come to depend on the United Nations-backed initiative for access to covid-19 vaccinations. Billionaire Mark Cuban launched an online pharmacy aimed at lowering generic drug prices. Hosts: Ana Kasparian Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. What's up everyone? Welcome to TYT. I'm your host, Anna Kasparian. And I just want to start off by saying that today, the Associated Press is reporting that Ukrainian leaders are trying to ease the nerves of their citizens by saying that a Russian invasion is not. not imminent. So in other words, for everyone who was angry at me yesterday for not beating the war drums, I was right again. And look, I'm not doing that to take a victory lap, but I am mentioning it because, well, two reasons. Number one, I'm never going to come on the show

and just fly by the seat of my pants. Is that what they say? I'm always going to ensure that I have research and data to back up my points. Okay, the moment I don't have the receipts, I don't have the data, you can call me out and I'll deserve it. The other thing is, I forgot with the other, oh, this is the other thing. Listen, when you hear corporate media pushing for something in unison and it seems to be almost like an orchestrated effort towards something that's going to involve quite a bit of our resources, question why they're doing it. Question why it is that they don't ask why or how we're going to pay for something like

another war, this time with a nuclear power, while they simultaneously ask about how they're going to pay for policies and provisions that we desperately need, including universal health care, including universal pre-K, all of the things that got blocked in the Senate in Biden's buildback better agenda. So this isn't me trying to tell you, I'm better and I know what I'm talking about. This is really about trying to get you guys, for those who might be a little more skeptical of the point of view I had yesterday to like read the way media reports these stories with a critical lens. Don't take things at face value. Make sure you don't believe what they say regarding sources from like various think tanks that are oftentimes funded

by the defense industry. Just be a little more critical when you read these news reports and don't fall for that culture of fear that we get from corporate media, especially when it comes to foreign policy matters. Anyway, with that said, we have an awesome show ahead for you guys today. We're going to have a guest on the show today in the first hour to discuss one of the little talked about issues involving homeless people in the country, some of the failed policies that we're seeing in states like California. So we're going to address that. In the second hour, Francesca Fiorentini will be joining me again, super happy and grateful that I get to host with her two days in a row. And then in the bonus episode for our members, John Iderola will

join me to answer your questions. So if you're a member, you can actually send in your questions and we're going to try to get to as many of them as we can. So yes, today is our monthly Ask Me Anything. Jank isn't here, so John will be here to help me with that. So without further ado, why don't we get to our first story? Because it's a perfect example of how we can't just rely on charity programs or mutual aid to do what we need, the government to do, to do what we need in regard to nationalizing pharmaceutical companies. So let's discuss. COVAX, the organization behind this global initiative to push for worldwide COVID vaccination is in a lot of trouble. Turns out that this global organization has run out of money.

And this is not only a disaster when it comes to really combating and getting past COVID, it's also a disaster because it shows the vulnerabilities in place when we rely on a charity driven model as opposed to really rethinking the profit model behind vaccinations and behind pharmaceutical companies. So Seth Berkeley, who is the chief executive of Gavi, that is the vaccine alliance that helped form COVAX, said that COVAX will no longer be able to accept new dose donations that come without syringes or other components because it doesn't have the cash left to afford such items which donor countries often do not provide. Asked how much money the project has left, Berkeley answered bluntly, none. And how much money does COVAX need to

operate? How much money do they need in order to fulfill their objective of getting the low income countries fully vaccinated. Well, Berkeley said that coax will need a whopping $5.2 billion to fund its vaccination efforts this year as the world continues to fight the highly transmissible Omicron variant and looks ahead to potential new mutations in the future. Now, in order to really understand the point that I'm trying to make with this story, I think it's important to see how it is that wealthier countries across the globe are needlessly making this pandemic last longer than it needs to. And how they're essentially hoarding vaccines. How are they able to do it? A lot of it has to do with the money that wealthy countries are willing to pay

upfront in the form of research and development and also in the form of purchasing mass quantities of the vaccine ahead of time. They essentially get to jump ahead of the line. And this video explains in greater detail how that happens. By January 2021, 96% of the Pfizer-Biointech vaccine doses that were scheduled to be produced by the end of the year had already been bought, and 100% of modernis. Countries representing 16% of the global population held over half of the doses from the most promising vaccine developers. Basically, rich countries got vaccines?

Poor countries didn't. Most countries can't afford to make multiple high-risk investments early on, so they wait until the vaccine is further along in the approval process. And by then, they're already at the back of a very long line. Peru, for example, made a bilateral deal with AstraZeneca, but won't see those doses until at least September. Those that purchased first or made the biggest orders or invested into the research and development are standing at the front of the line, which is why the U.S. has gotten 200,

40 million doses of vaccine so far at least. And most of the poor countries in the world don't have 240 million doses combined. So that video is a little outdated. So when you hear the figures there, just understand that it's a video that Vox had put out in April of 2021. But it did a good job explaining in detail how this process works, why it is that wealthier countries are able to jump ahead of the line and get access to these vaccines before low-income countries are able to do so. It is because of these, you know, deals that they make with pharmaceutical companies while providing a significant portion of the funding for research and development for the vaccines. And it also has to do with the fact that they have the resources

necessary to buy mass quantities of the vaccines ahead of time in these deals. Now, Kovacs came along, right? Covax formed in response to the inequality that we're seeing in regard to vaccine distribution. And I want to be clear, look, Kovacs is failing in its objective, but that's not to say that the individuals behind it are bad people, but it is to critique how we can't rely on the whims of charity or goodwill by private institutions or private companies to do the right thing. We need to actually have a system in place that puts people over profits. And unless we deal with that systemic issue, really we're going to keep running into the same problem over and over again. And if you happen to be someone who's not concerned about the inequality that impacts

low income countries and you're only concerned about yourself, well, think about the fact that this leads to future mutations. This leads to coronavirus continuing to thrive. And it really doesn't matter what happens within the borders of your own country. This is a global pandemic and we need all hands on deck to ensure that we combat it in the most equal, but more importantly, effective way possible, right? Now, with that said, it's important to understand what Kovacs tried to do, and then we'll explain why it failed. Let's watch. One program underway is designed to work as a sort of middleman between countries and the drug companies making vaccines.

It's called COVAX. It's an initiative formed by three global health groups, including the World Health Organization. And its main objective is to provide vaccines to 92 middle and low-income countries that were shut out for making their own deals. It does this using a two-part system. The first part allows high-income countries to buy into and access multiple vaccines at once.

So instead of one country giving $2 billion directly to AstraZeneca, they'd give the money to COVAC. which would use it to fund several different vaccines. This way, if one or two of them failed early on, it wouldn't be a total loss. The other vaccines in the portfolio would make up for it. It's a multilateral system that's much lower risk for those countries than a bilateral one. The idea is that Kovacs could use that larger purchasing power to negotiate deals with manufacturers and developers on a global scale,

which would drive the cost down and fund vaccine development. The second part buys vaccines for lower income countries. It's funded by donations from wealthier governments and charities. The U.S. alone has pledged $4 billion to this fund. That $4 billion clearly was not enough. As I mentioned early on in this story, Kovacs is now broke and does not have the funding necessary to continue on with its mission of purchasing vaccines on behalf of low-income countries and then distributing them. So this is a huge issue and there are solutions to this. One of the solutions our president, Joe Biden, purported to be in favor of.

And then he did absolutely nothing about. We need to waive vaccine patents to share that technology with low income countries that are seeking to manufacture it on their own. That is a simple solution to it. But as we know, there is a very aggressive lobbying effort to prevent that from happening, not just here in the United States, but also in several wealthy European countries as well. As an epidemiologist from Yale says in this tweet, this is why the charity model of vaccine delivery cannot work. We hoarded doses, made big promises, and yet shared that technology now for M RNA COVID-19 vaccines, Pfizer and Moderna are prolonging this pandemic with their greed.

And that's absolutely true. And again, let me just reiterate, Biden supports waiving the vaccine patents rhetorically. I mean, he put the language out there, but he needs to do more than that. Is he willing to go further to ensure that he actually follows through and this actually happens. Well, despite benefiting massively from public funding, the corporations have refused to share their vaccine recipes with the world, and the Biden administration has thus far declined to use its legal authority to force their hands. Again, saying that you support waiving the vaccine patents is very different from actually using the power you have to make it happen. And Biden has not made it happen. And of course, there's also been pushback from

wealthy European countries as well. Now there are other issues with Kovacs and I wanted to get into that. Since its inception in 2020, the vaccine delivery effort has been hindered by internal dysfunction as well as pharmaceutical companies not living up to their contractual obligations, leaving coax with fewer doses than expected. And doses also frequently arrived in recipient countries later than planned or close to their expiration dates leading to significant waste. Seems like there's a far more efficient way to do this. Let me continue. And if you want to take a look at how much this inequality, vaccine inequality impacts low-income

countries, to date, just 9.7% of people in low-income countries have received at least one, just one coronavirus vaccine dose, according to our world in data. One recent analysis estimated that the world needs around 22 billion additional MRNA doses to end the global pandemic. It's just so abundantly clear that what's standing in the way of dealing with this pandemic effectively is the profit motive that's been in place for a while. We've all experienced it on a personal level, when we have a medical emergency, when someone in our family needs a pharmaceutical drug to stay alive and they can't afford it, we've all experienced it on a personal level. Now, for the first time in a very long time in this country, we're dealing with it

on a mass scale, and it's not just about this country, it's about the globe. When you put profits over human lives, this is what you're going to get again and again. You're going to have a shortage of hospital beds because it just doesn't make sense profit wise to have hospital beds that typically sit empty for several years on end. Okay, you're going to have a system in place where some people have an abundance of access to vaccines and other countries have no access at all. You're going to have a situation where a pandemic could be dealt with effectively, but is needlessly prolonged because there is a profit motive in place that makes it so.

That is the real problem. This is not a negative commentary on the good intentions of Kovacs, but it is to show that when we just sit back and rely on charities to handle things, we're going to see failure and we're going to see people die. And so the next time you hear someone whining about how COVID just won't end, let them know about what's really going on. Let them know about how this is a easily transmittable, an easily transmittable virus. something that is impacting not just this country but the world and the profit motive and the

systemic issues that we have in place is preventing us from getting past it. All right, we got to take a quick break when we come back. I'm going to have a guest on Michael Schellenberger to talk about his book, which has a super provocative title, and we'll discuss the homelessness issue in California and what he has found through his research on the issue. We'll be right back. Welcome back to TYT, Anna Casparian with you. And I wanted to get into a topic that some progressives have deemed taboo, but it's a topic

that's near and dear to my heart because of the fact that I live in Los Angeles and I see pain and suffering on the streets that I think is unacceptable and is not being addressed effectively. And hopefully through conversations like the ones that we're about to have, we can find some real solutions. And so let's do it. Let's get to it. I want to share some data with you. The homeless population has exploded in the United States in recent years, certainly during the pandemic where we have seen encampments grow larger and suffering on honestly every street corner in places like Los Angeles and San Francisco. One thing that's undeniable, though, is the prevalence of severe mental illness and also deaths from drug overdoses.

These are things that are studied. These are things that are provable through data. Yet it's something that seems to be ignored by the very advocates who claim to care about the well-being and welfare of those who end up on the streets. So let's take a look at the numbers. The Los Angeles Times examined more than 4,000 questionnaires taken as part of 2019's Point in Time, count and found that about 76% of individuals living outside on the streets reported being or were observed to be affected by mental illness, substance abuse, poor health, or a physical disability. Now that is a broad range of categories, as you can see, right? So let's get a little more specific. Individually, substance abuse affects 46% of those living on the streets.

More than three times the rate previously reported, and mental illness, including post-traumatic stress disorder, affects 51% of those living on the streets, according to the analysis. And as we've shared on the show before, the number of drug overdoses has also exploded, especially during the pandemic. It is incredibly heartbreaking. And these numbers I'm about to share with you are actually a little outdated. They're from 2019. But here's what we know.

Drug overdoses have been the leading cause of death among the homeless in Los Angeles County since 2017, increasing 84% between 2016 and 2019. According to the county, a person experiencing homelessness is 36 times more likely to die of a drug overdose than a person in the general population. Now, recently in San Francisco, Mayor London Breed declared a state of emergency over drug overdose deaths among the city's homeless. In fact, drug-related fatalities are on the rise and outpaced COVID deaths in the city last year by two to one.

This is real. This is happening. But for some reason, just bringing this up tends to be one of the most taboo things you could imagine online. Ignoring this problem doesn't make it go away. And I also want to be fair to the advocates who are a little afraid of talking. about these issues. They're worried about stigmatizing. They're worried about stereotyping. And I think that that is a legitimate concern to have. But unless we actually address the reality

on the ground, unless we can properly diagnose what the issue is, we're not able to provide the services or the solutions necessary to keep people healthy and alive. Simply allowing people to die on our sidewalks is not acceptable. It is not. And that is what's happening in Los Angeles. That is what's happening in San Francisco. And I'm tired of pretending like it's not happening. I'm tired of pretending like just offering housing is the only solution. We need to do more than that. Yes, housing is a problem. I have addressed that on the show many, many times. But that is not the only problem. And that's why I want to talk about this today. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which conducts its own annual report,

interpreted the data to produce much lower numbers. So they do their own. And so when you compare the Los Angeles Times and its analysis to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, you'll notice a significant difference. In its presentation of the results to elected officials, the agency said only 29% of the homeless of the homeless population had either a mental illness or substance abuse disorder. Therefore, 71% did not have a serious mental illness and or report substance use disorder. For example, and this is the methodology that they use, disclosures of having serious mental illness, depression, or PTSD were counted only if they also answered a secondary question stating that it was permanent or long term. that omission reduced the mental illness rate by 11.4 percentage points.

And remember, we're talking about surveys that are being answered by the homeless population. Any survey that relies on a person to answer about him or herself is going to have some human error involved. And the methodology here for the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority is a little flawed if you ask me. So let me give you some more data because it's not just the Los Angeles Times and its own analysis that found higher numbers. UCLA actually did its own study into this and they found even higher numbers. So let's take a look at this graph that compares the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, the Los Angeles Times and UCLA when it comes to mental illness. The new BMO, V-I-Porter MasterCard, is your ticket to more. More perks. More points. More flights. More of all the things you want in a travel rewards card, and then some.

Get your ticket to more with the new BMO ViPorter MasterCard and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months. Terms and conditions apply. Visit bemo.com slash ViPorter to learn more. As you can see, UCLA has far higher numbers. 78% of the homeless population, according to UCLA, has, a mental health issue, the Los Angeles Times had it at 51%. And, you know, I'm sorry, the Los Angeles Times had it at four, sorry about that, at 51%. And then you have the homeless authority, services authority at 25%. And so you can see the numbers there. When it comes to substance abuse, UCLA has higher numbers than the Los Angeles Times. And so there's, Just this weird disconnect happening.

And it's incredibly frustrating to see it. Because again, this is more than just a housing issue. We need to provide mental health services. We need to focus on drug rehabilitation. And so I came across a book, a book that was recommended to me by a friend. And I had a knee-jerk reaction to it. Didn't like the title, just gonna keep it real. But then I forced myself to read it.

And after reading it, I realized that there were valid points that I wanted to discuss with the author. So joining me now is Michael Schellenberger, author of San Francisco, Why Progressives Ruin Cities. Michael, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me, Anna. So Michael, I actually want to start off discussing just briefly the title of your book, because I've read your book and in it, I think you make an important point, an important distinction, in terms of what is being advocated for by homeless advocates, which is really this libertarian

policy. So on one hand, you define it as libertarian, but then you blame it on progressivism, at least in your title, and then a little bit throughout your book as well. Why do you do that? Sure, and let me just start by saying that I come from the radical left. In the late 1990s, I worked for George Soros' foundation to advocate drug decriminalization. I worked with Maxine Waters to advocate needle exchange, organizing civil rights leaders. I still support the decriminalization of marijuana. I have always favored a rehabilitation

approach rather than a criminal justice approach, and I still believe that. I also support more housing. In fact, I wrote a column in 2019 calling for more housing an emergency declaration by the governor of California for more housing. But as soon as I did, I had a number of people email me and say, hey, you know, you can't just describe the people living in open drug scenes, what we call homeless encampments on Skid Row in L.A. or the tenderline in San Francisco is simply not being able to afford the rent. This is a problem that's driven by drug addiction and untreated mental illness. I asked, I interviewed one of the major homeless service providers in Los Angeles, what percentage of people he thought living on the streets were suffering

from substance use disorder, which is what we call addiction these days. And he said 100%. And I thought that sounded crazy high. So I thought maybe he was conservative. So I interviewed a very progressive woman who became a character, a real person. Susan Partovey, harm reduction advocate, works with people on the streets. And I asked her, and she said 100%. She said, people don't come to live here if they can't afford the rent. People come here for the open drug scene, which is people living in the open air drug market. So there's definitely a housing part of this. But I think we're doing a disservice to people suffering late stage addiction and untreated mental illness to suggest that they're on the street because they couldn't afford the rent. People who can't afford the rent,

as you know, millions of people can't afford the rent in California and have moved out of state or moved into a lower rent apartment or moved in with friends and family. The folks that end up on the street overwhelmingly are people who, because of their addiction and untreated mental illness, ended up on the street. And look, I see it anecdotally. just by living in Los Angeles and experiencing it firsthand, but anecdotal evidence is not really indicative of a larger trend. But then you look at the data and you see a larger trend. And so talk to me a little bit about the response that you're seeing from local lawmakers in California, which of course is being fueled by activism and organizing on the ground, and why you have deemed it, and I think this is an accurate interpretation. a libertarian rather than a progressive approach. Yeah, I mean, we've seen a huge response.

So San Francisco came out three months ago. By the way, I still identify as a liberal. I'm independent, not a, not a Democrat, certainly not a Republican. But I, you know, there's been a huge change. The mayor of San Francisco, London Breed called for a major crackdown on open air drug use and drug dealing in mid-December. We've now seen the two progressive Democratic frontrunners for the mayor, the mayor's rate. in Los Angeles. Karen Bass, a longtime community organizer, as well as Kevin DeLeon, come out for very strong policies to basically end what we call unsheltered homelessness,

which is camping on the streets in open drug scenes. Everybody wants to see a treatment first approach, but we're now seeing a very significant shift from a housing first approach, which is the idea that we're going to just provide apartment units for everybody who wants one at a cost of around $750,000 to a million dollars per unit to people in the most expensive housing real estate areas of the United States, we're moving from that, which is obviously unrealistic. I think that's been shown by the reality on the ground, to a shelter-first approach. I think most of us who are on the left or even the center left, I think, believe that people do have a right to shelter. It's immoral to let people sleep on the street. but that doesn't mean that we can provide everybody with our own apartment in Venice Beach or Beverly Hills or downtown L.A.

There are limits to that. It creates perverse incentives. You don't have to be a dogmatic, conservative, free market libertarian to know that that's just not going to work. The cost is just too high. California is lucky to be the fifth largest economy in the world. We have a $30 billion budget surplus. us, we could have anna the same high quality psychiatric and addiction care that Amsterdam, the Netherlands has, and which I use as the case study for San Francisco. There's no reason that we couldn't be world class in our treatment of our most suffering fellow, fellow friends and family. My aunt suffered from schizophrenia. She did okay in a residential home. We can do so much better than letting people live in their own filth, drug addicted, and dying intense on the street. Yeah, I actually want to add a little more to what you're saying in regard to the housing situation because California voters overwhelmingly voted in favor of a ballot initiative known as HHHH. They voted to raise their own taxes in order to pay for housing for the homeless. And so everyone's heart is in the right place. But what ended up happening with that funding is real estate developers who do the construction for the housing inflated the construction cost to line.

their own pockets. And we've seen very few affordable homes or houses or apartment units built as a result of that increase in our own taxes. It's been a complete and utter disaster. I mean, it ended up being a way to do sweetheart deals with the real estate developers that are, you know, funding the campaigns of local politicians in California. It's absolutely disgusting. But, you know, getting back to what you were saying about mental health treatment, I'm noticing something that that it's contradictory. So on one hand, I think that progressives rightly point to the mistakes made by the Reagan administration in California, and essentially cutting off access or shutting down access

to, you know, mental health facilities in the state. And then now it's fascinating because while they simultaneously say that, they'll also mention, well, you can't, you can't force people into mental health. treatment, you have to have individuals consent to it. But you run into a problem when you're dealing with individuals who have severe mental health issues, right? So we're talking about people who might be paranoid schizophrenics, individuals who might not have the mental capacity due to their mental health illness to consent. So what do you do about that situation? Because that does bring up a tricky and uncomfortable, you know, conundrum.

Yeah, I think this is a really important issue. I mean, nobody loves their freedom more than I do. I live in California because I love my freedom. I don't like the stuffiness and conservativeness on the East Coast. So we want that freedom. We don't want people to be put in mental, psychiatric hospitals or into rehab if they don't have any serious problem. I think the bottom line is that people should be free to smoke fentanyl and meth and the privacy of their own homes if they would like to do that. I think it's crazy.

Those are very dangerous and deadly drugs. But I don't think that taxpayers have an interest in chasing down people that are doing so. Nor do I think that people that are suffering mental illness but are following the laws should be subject to the coercive powers of the state. On the other hand, if you're camping in public, defecating in public, using drugs in public, dealing drugs in public, you're breaking the law. That's a cry for help. And we need to respond by offering people the choice of psychiatric and or addiction care or jail. I think people sometimes get the idea that somehow we're just throwing a lot of people for drug possession in a prison for many years. Only 14% of the people in state prisons are there for drugs, only 2% for nonviolent drug offenses.

For the most part, these are laws that we simply aren't enforcing at all, including for meth and fentanyl. But when people are breaking those laws and they're clearly in signs of serious distress, I don't even really like to describe many of the things that I've seen. I kept a lot of information out of the book because it was of such a violent and sexual nature that I just felt like it was hard for people. people to read. But when people are engaged in those behaviors, you know, you don't let our, we don't let our fellow humans do that to themselves. And when they're breaking laws, that's the chance to intervene and provide them the care they need. And they're still free, you know, obviously if they can satisfy, you know, a court psychiatrist to go to jail if they would rather do that. But if people are out of their minds thinking that they're communicating with

aliens or they've got implants in their brain from the CIA, which happened to be two very oddly common delusions, we need to recognize that they are not a sane. We have longstanding common law and other laws to govern how we deal with people that are out of their minds. And it would be immoral to put those people in prison or jail when they clearly are not in command of their basic functions. Do you have any concerns about what continues to be a I mean, I don't even want to be generous in describing it. But I mean, our criminal justice system is certainly flawed. I personally have been physically attacked.

It just happened a few weeks ago by, the thing that happened two weeks ago was with two very clearly under the influence individuals. As I was walking my dog, you know, I was picking up his, his poo. And as I was doing it, one of the guys grabbed me by my waist and shook me. And it was terrifying because I had like no way of protecting myself. I didn't know what to do. Luckily, they went away after that and didn't do anything else. But that was the fourth incident that I've now had. And I never think to call the police because police clearly don't have the training necessary to deal with someone who might be having some sort of mental health issue or, you know, they're in the middle of psychosis because of some hard drug that they're on.

So there's like this issue with the solution that you're, you know, calling for because the very system that we would rely on to deal with this is a system that has deep flaws and is known to use excessive force and abuse. Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, I think there's really, people have to understand that we have sort of two choices, mass incarceration or mass homelessness. If we don't want those, and I certainly don't want either of them, then we need to really lean into three things. I call them the three key peas, policing, psychiatry, and probation. Sometimes when I say, I point out, people, there was a lot of misinformation about Portugal. I interviewed the head of Portugal's drug program, and I said, what would happen if you're shooting heroin in public in Lisbon or Portugal? And he said, you would be arrested. You'd be brought to the police station.

Arresting people is not the same thing as throwing them in prison. You can arrest people and get them the care they need. It just means to stop them and intervene in some action. So if you have better policing, you both deter crimes. You also get people the help that they need when they need it. If we do more in terms of psychiatry, then we can get people to help they need. Antipsychotics now are quite good.

They last a long time. That minimizes the need to be in prison. And then finally probation, it allows for kind of constant checking in. What we see in places like the Netherlands and Portugal, which are very progressive in their approach to drugs and mental illness is you see the police becoming more like social workers and social workers becoming a bit more firm. It's not anything goes. There's consequences for behavior. There's also rewards for good behavior.

So there is a role for subsidized housing. I support a strong role for subsidized housing, but it's as a reward for people making progress on their personal plan, either in terms of getting off hard drugs, taking psychiatric meds that they need, getting a job, getting independence, which is really what we should hope for every. everybody, but it's not just giving people housing as an entitlement. Shelter is an entitlement, housing is something that earned. And I think the final part of this that I think most of my progressive and liberal friends understand is absolutely necessary, we need universal psychiatry. We needed it like yesterday.

This should be an entitlement, this should be a right. I have actually found a significant amount of support among left, right and center for significant improvements to psychiatric and addiction care. It needs to be a universal service. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size? Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. It's time to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca. We can afford it. We're a rich country that anybody who wants single payer or socialize, socialize,

medicine and healthcare, we should start with psychiatry because we are in the midst of a very serious psychiatric and drug addiction emergency right now. Yeah, I definitely agree with you on that. Final question for you, is there any movement toward that? Because there's a lot of work to do in order for the solutions you're proposing to work. On one hand, you know, there's the policing issue which desperately needs to be reformed. And I would argue that in order to reform policing, you actually have to use a little more funding and ensure that you're hiring the right people, you're training the right people. And then on the other hand, when it comes to universal psychiatry, I mean, that takes a considerable amount of resources as well. You're correct in stating that a place like California has the resources necessary to make it happen.

But I'm curious, is there any movement working toward that as we speak? Very significant movement. And in fact, there's been a really lovely history, a secret history in some ways, or a little known history of Republicans and Democrats working together to expand mental health care. It's an issue that had been shrouded in shame and taboo for many decades. But there is a law in the books that says that we need what's called so-called parity in terms of health insurance providers, including the government, providing each. equal treatment for mental health issues, as well as physical health issues. The system

hasn't responded in the way that it needs to, in part because we've just got some very radical libertarian demands that people not face consequences for their behaviors when they are suffering mental illness. They need consequences for their behavior for mental illness. When people of schizophrenia are engaged in taking off all their clothes or violently attacking people, whether it's from schizophrenia or from meth, there need to be consequences because that's how people get their help. So I've seen a significant amount of support on the right from groups like Manhattan Institute, American Enterprise Institute, on the left from Brookings Institution, Center for American Progress. All of these groups want to see a significant expansion of psychiatric care.

We saw that President Biden has just announced a major increase, a proposed increase in funding for the police. You're absolutely right. If you're narrowly concerned around police violence, you should want more police. The evidence shows that you need more police, not fewer to reduce violence. One of the things that we discovered that's extraordinary, nobody knows, is that Europeans spend more money on police and have more police per capita than we have in the United States. So there's a perception sometimes that we over police ourselves. It's not the case. So I think we're seeing significant movement. I think we're seeing big bipartisan agreement that defunding the police was a bad idea. We need to refund the police. And we need to improve policing,

Absolutely. But that means you need more police so you can have more time for trainings. You've got to have more police to weed out the bad apples. And then I think we need to see expanded use of probation. Nobody wants to use electronic monitors or drug testing if you don't have to. But those are certainly much better alternatives than locking people up in prison. It means that people can be at home with their families, even after they've committed sometimes even serious offenses. There is a significant, I believe, a strong amount of middle ground between left and right and these issues. I think now that we're a year and a half since the George Floyd, killing, there is more willingness on both sides to pursue these really sensible middle ground approaches that when you really look at them, it's hard to figure out whether they're liberal or conservative or just common sense. Yeah. Yeah, and I would say, you know, it's not just about throwing more money at police departments, but ensuring that they focus on having higher standards in regard to who they hire. I mean, if you look at police departments that have higher standards for education, for instance,

They typically have less incidents involving accusations of excessive force, which should be considered an incredibly important job, and the vetting for that job should be far more extensive than what we're seeing now. And I think that it does require more resources in order to push for that type of system as opposed to what we're seeing today. All right, Michael Schellenberger, thank you for being generous with your time and sharing your perspective. And I just want to note, this network is known as a very progressive network, and we gave you a platform to share your perspective. I know, yes, I know that you were concerned about progressive censoring you, but I think it's important to have these conversations. Thank you so much. I appreciate the dialogue very much. So do I. Thank you again. And everyone, we're going to take a brief break. We'll be right back. back to the show, I just want to read a quick comment from our Twitch community. I was reading it

during the social break but ran out of time. Dragon Annie writes in and says, my mom who is homeless has a significant bipolar disorder which led her to drug problems because she had no way to shut out the paranoia and have some kind of balance. And I think that that's what a lot of people end up resorting to as a result of the lack of access to mental health treatment and mental health care. I mean, think about how hard it is to find a therapist, for instance, and have the resources necessary to pay for a therapist. So many people in this country go without when they desperately need the help. And in a lot of cases, it's something like depression and anxiety, which I don't mean to minimize. But imagine what it's like for someone who's experiencing

bipolar disorder, schizophrenia. I mean, it is absolutely devastating. And to pretend like that that problem does not exist, I think is a disservice to the very people that we're trying to do right by, which is why I want to have these conversations. And they might be uncomfortable. And to be sure, that conversation was a little uncomfortable, right? It really does challenge some of the preconceived notions that I myself have had. But I want to find solutions because what we're seeing on the streets right now is not humane. It's not right. And we need to start thinking outside the box. We need to think about ways to get people the specific treatment and care that they need. All right, well, speaking of which, let's talk about Mark Cuban, who thinks he's the solution.

Apparently, compassionate capitalism is the answer, according to this entrepreneur. So, if you're worried about not being able to afford the pharmaceutical drugs you need to stay alive, have no fear. Businessman Mark Cuban is here to rescue you. At least, that's what he would like you to believe with his latest business venture. So this was something that one of our members had recently asked me about, and I knew nothing about it. it until recently when I decided to look into it and really understand what Mark Cuban is up to here. Now, the Mark Cuban Cost Plus drug company will offer more than 100 generic drugs that will be purchased directly from the manufacturers and sold online with just a 15% markup across the board and a small pharmacist fee. So yes, Mark Cuban has introduced his online drug company, essentially, his online pharmacy is a better way of putting it.

And the whole idea behind it is, I'm going to cut the middlemen out. We're going to buy directly from the manufacturer, and then we're going to sell it to you for the low, low price of just a 15% markup in a pharmacist fee. Now, it sounds all good and dandy for now, okay? the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company does not process insurance claim. So if you're hoping your insurance pays for the drugs you purchase off this website, that ain't going to happen. And it also requires its customers to pay out of pocket. But the complete prices that they're offering are lower than many co-pays that insurance companies currently require.

Now, of course, I'm not going to take a media platform or anyone in corporate news at Facebook. value. I wanted to look into this myself. And look, this was just launched. And for now, it looks like the prices are actually a lot more affordable. Remember, we're talking about a hundred generic drugs. So it's very likely that some of the drugs that you or a family member might need aren't even included on the website. But here's what we do know of some of the drugs that are on the website as of today. A common cholesterol medication that goes for $55 will be sold on Cuban's site for $4. Sounds pretty good, right?

And why is Mark Cuban doing this? Well, Mark Cuban's an entrepreneur. What do entrepreneurs look to do? They're looking to launch businesses and make money, but he claims that's not what this is about. Cuban told Forbes last year, when he originally became involved in the creation of a low cost drug company, that he wanted to show capitalism can be compassionate. And what I find so fascinating about that statement is how easily members of corporate media

just regurgitate it, verbatim. In fact, here's an example. Let's watch the video. You know, I think a lot of people don't kind of know how it might work in other countries that in countries like the UK, like Canada, France. The government comes in and negotiates the price, right? There's a government body that does that. That may make a capitalist like you, Mark, shudder a little bit.

And I know that one of the things that you wanted to prove is that capitalism can be compassionate here. So I want you to talk to us about cost plus drugs.com. We discussed putting together a pharmacy specifically for generic drugs where we go out and we buy them from the same manufacturers that others are buying from, but really keep our costs low and just sell it at a 15% markup. Compassionate Capitalism. Now, when one of our viewers asked me to share my thoughts on this story, before I had actually read into it or really understood what it was about, the question was, what do you think? Is this a good thing or is this a scam? And what I want you guys to understand about capitalism is the system and what the incentives

and disincentives are, how the system works, right? So compassionate capitalism doesn't really make sense because capitalism, because capitalism isn't about compassion. It's not about morality. The system is about maximizing profits. And as we know, the executives, the business owners have a what? A fiduciary responsibility to return on the investors' investment into the company, to provide a return on that investment. And so the question is, all right, cool, he launched this. Is this some sort of nonprofit? Obviously not, he's referring to it as compassionate capitalism, which means that there are funders, right? And by the way, no outlet that reported on this touched on what I'm about to talk about at all.

Not even for a second. Everyone's like, oh, Mark Cuban, he's such a good guy. He's able to do what Congress can't do. And by the way, Congress, I'm not giving them any brownie points. They don't get any cookies. Congress hasn't done anything in regard to making pharmaceutical drugs affordable for Americans. They can't even allow for Medicare to negotiate drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies because they're so beholden to the private pharmaceutical companies.

They take the legalized bribes and then they do the pharmaceutical companies bidding. We know that. However, Mark Cuban, not the solution. Why? Because there's a profit motive always when it comes to capitalism. For now, the prices look great. The prices look cheap. It looks like it's affordable.

But let's not forget about the fact that let's go. go to this next graphic, Mark Cuban Cost Plus drug company actually does take some money. Now, Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company has not announced any IPO plans as of now, making it a private company. Hence, retail investors will not be able to buy stock yet and may have to wait for the company to go public. So that's not even out of the question yet. So it's a private company, but that doesn't mean that there aren't investors. It's actually backed by venture capitalists. So let's take a look at the next graphic, which will give you an overview of the company. It says that it was founded in 2016. I'll tell you why in just a second. It actually

had a different name with the same scheme behind it. But as you can see, the latest deal amount, $1.3 million. It has three investors. So there are three individuals who have invested a considerable considerable amount of money to launch this business. At the end of the day, it is a business. Now, did those three investors provide the seed money for this out of the kindness of their own hearts? Or are they expecting a return on their investment? And in order to get a return on that investment, what do you need to do as a business owner? Cut costs, maximize profits. So for now, they have five employees, according to this overview. They claim that they're going to continue to keep their costs low. But if you're planning to be the solution to a broken system that puts

profits over people, how is this one small company with five employees going to provide the pharmaceutical drugs necessary to keep Americans alive? You're going to have to hire more people. Labor ends up becoming the most expensive part of running the business. That cuts into profits. Are they going to go public? It seems like it's something that's being considered. It's not about whether Mark Cuban is a good guy or bad guy. It's about how the system is supposed to work. That's what capitalism is. They need to return on that investment.

That seed money wasn't provided out of the goodness of their own hearts. If it was, this wouldn't be a company. This wouldn't be identified as a capitalistic venture. You guys get what I'm saying? So just think about all those Silicon Valley companies, all of those app-based companies that came out with all these great products like, oh, Uber's so great, Lyft is so great, I'm able to use an app, and all of a sudden there's a car that shows up at my front door

and takes me from point A to point B at a very, very low, low cost. What happened with that? They wanted to monopolize the market, and as soon as they got close to it, the investors stopped subsidizing the ride sharing app. They stopped paying for, partly paying for each ride that you take, with either Uber or Lyft or whatever other app-based program you're using. So my point is, it might start off as something that looks shiny and new and exciting,

but pay attention to the system that's propping it up because all you need to really look at is what that system forces the executives at that company to do, maximize profits, because they literally have a fiduciary responsibility to do so. so who knows they might prove me wrong compassionate capitalism is not something that i'll ever buy into because again it's not about compassion it's about how the system works all right i went super long with that and didn't expect to we got to take a quick break but when we come back Francesca furentini will be joining me to talk about a whole host of stories including a great piece of news in regard to the Kroger worker strike so we've got that and more when we come back

Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.co slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.