The Young Turks - Constant Crisis

Episode Date: September 21, 2022

The New York Attorney General has filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump. A report states that America is losing billions from the decline in refugees and immigrants. Workers at a Philadelphia Home Depot have petitioned to unionize. Median rents have crept into the $2,000 range. Marjorie Greene moves to Impeach President Biden over the oil crisis. Host: 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 up, everyone, you're watching, TYT, I'm your host, Anna Kasparian, and we have not only a fantastic show for you today, we have a fantastic show for you for the rest of the week, including tomorrow where I'll be debating. Debate is a strong word considering we're not going to have some moderator situation. It's not going to be a formal debate, but it's likely going to be an argumentative discussion with Dennis Prager. So he was willing to come on the show. I'm looking forward to disagreeing with a lot of his positions and sharing my point of view.

So it'll be great. It'll be in the second half of tomorrow show. And it might even bleed into the bonus episode for our member. So if you're not a member, you should definitely sign up. You can click on the join button if you're watching us on YouTube or go to t-y-t.com slash join to become a member. But let's go back to today's show. It's going to be fantastic.

Yes, we're going to talk about the civil lawsuit filed against Donald Trump and his family members by Letitia James in New York. We'll also get into Marco Rubio's thoughts about Venezuelan migrants. You know, it's really important to hear what people who come from, you know, who's families took advantage of amnesty after the Cuban Revolution. It's really interesting to hear what they have to say about Venezuela and seeking asylum here in the United States. And then later in the second hour, we will discuss the protests that are currently taking place in Iran following the death of a 22-year-old woman who was taken into custody by the morality police in Iran

for wearing her hijab incorrectly. But there's more to the story than that. So don't that it's an important story to talk about. First, let's get into the civil suit and why all of these Democrats on Twitter who are celebrating it as if it's a massive win should calm down a little bit. There's nuance to this story that I want to discuss, so let's get right to it. We are filing a lawsuit against Donald Trump for violating the law as part of his efforts to generate profits for himself, his family, and his company. The complaint did. demonstrates that Donald Trump falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars to unjustly enrich himself and to cheat this system, thereby cheating all of us.

You just heard from New York Attorney General Letitia James announcing that she will be filing a lawsuit against Donald Trump and his children related to the alleged financial fraud they engaged in. Now, aside from naming Donald Trump himself, Letitia James also mentioned how his children have been implicated in this civil, not criminal, civil investigation. Let's watch. He did this with the help of the other defendants, his children, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Eric Trump, and former Trump organization, CFO, Alan White, Weisselberg and Trump organization controller, Jeffrey McCannie. Mr. Trump and the Trump organization repeatedly and persistently manipulated the value of assets.

To induce banks, to lend money to the Trump organization on more favorable terms than would otherwise have been available to the company. To pay lower taxes, to satisfy continuing loan agreements, and to induce insurance, insurance companies to provide insurance coverage for higher limits and at lower premiums. So let's look at the bright side of the story. The bright side is, finally, there's an investigation into financial issues, financial fraud. That is something that I wish the Mueller report looked into more, not in regard to his alleged financial fraud here in the United States. But more importantly, any business ties that Trump could have had with the Russian government and whether those ties had any influence on Donald Trump and his leadership,

that would have been an interesting investigation. Now fast forward to today, and we finally have an announcement indicating that Letitia James has concluded her investigation and she has enough evidence to bring forward a civil suit to hold Trump and his children accountable for their actions. Now, I would also like to see a criminal invest, a real criminal investigation into this, because fact of the matter is any normal, ordinary American who's caught defrauding the IRS or defrauding banks in order to qualify for mortgages, I'm sorry, for loans that they otherwise would not have qualified for, or insurance that they otherwise would not have qualified for. We would all go to prison for that. We would all be criminally

investigated for that. And so Letitia James is focusing on the civil suit, but there should be a criminal investigation. And there allegedly is, but there are some issues with that. And I'll get to that in just a moment. Now, what does Lechisa James hope to accomplish through this civil suit? Ordinarily, we will hear about fines and those fines tend to be a quick slap on the wrist and everyone moves on. But it appears that she's calling for something that goes a lot further than that and I'm in favor of it. So the suit asks the New York Supreme Court to bar Trump, as well as Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump, and Eric Trump from serving as executives at any company in New York and to bar the Trump organization from acquiring any commercial real estate or

receiving loans from any New York registered financial institution for five years. Now that last part is kind of irrelevant for Donald Trump specifically because no one wants to loan him money because he never pays anyone back and has gone bankrupt six different times. But I'm sure it's going to sting for people like Ivana Trump. I'm sorry, Ivanka Trump, because she is very much a businesswoman. I'm sure that she still qualifies for loans. And this will have an impact on her. Now, we need to see more proof, obviously, of the alleged fraud that Leticia James is tying the children to. I'm not denying that there was fraud taking place that they engaged in it. I'm just saying that so far from what I've seen in the public,

the evidence indicates that Donald Trump, with the help of his financial guy, the Weisselberg individual that was mentioned in that video, he's the one who essentially lied to the IRS and lied to banks. And so there should be consequences for that. Now, the lawsuit also seeks to recover more than 250 million in what James's office says are ill-gotten gains received through the alleged deceptive practices. While the lawsuit itself is not a criminal prosecution, James said she has referred possible violations of federal law to the Justice Department and the IRS. In fact, with that said, I do want to go to the last video here because in her press conference, She also sent a message to both the DOJ and the district attorney in Manhattan.

Let's watch. As part of demonstrating illegality under that section of Law 6312, we show that they violated several state criminal laws, including falsifying business records, issuing false financial statements, insurance fraud, and engaging in a conspiracy to commit. each of these state law violations. We believe the conduct alleged in this action also violates federal criminal law, including issuing false statements

to financial institutions and bank fraud. And we are referring those criminal violations that we've uncovered to the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York and the Internal Revenue Service. So right there, she's clearly saying our investigation while focusing on, you know, the civil investigation that we're doing, we also notice there's enough evidence here to pursue criminal charges against Donald Trump, both federally and through state prosecutors.

Now, the idea that the Justice Department will indict Donald Trump and his children on criminal charges related to his financial fraud, in my opinion, is inconceivable. We have gone through multiple days of the January 6th hearings. We have seen endless evidence of Donald Trump's role in the riots that took place on January 6th. And so far, we haven't heard a peep from Merrick Garland, the attorney general, in regard to whether or not Trump will be indicted or face any criminal charges related to that. So the idea that he'll face criminal charges from the DOJ, regard to his financial fraud, again, I think is inconceivable, I could be wrong, I would be pleasantly surprised.

But the federal government is pretty notorious for giving individuals engaged in financial fraud a pass, or if anything, a small slap on the wrist. Now let's talk about the state though, because I think that criminal investigation is a little more interesting, because believe it or not, there was a criminal investigation by the district attorney in Manhattan, and it turned out that he just kind of backed off that criminal investigation. And I'm uncertain as to why he made that decision. So who I'm referring to here is Alvin Bragg. And we've talked about his criminal investigation before. Jenk and I have been very critical of the fact that he decided to kind of pull out of the

investigation. And after there was backlash, he kind of changed his tune and purports to still be investigating him. In fact, let's go to graphic four here. The inquiry faded from view after signs emerged, suggesting that Trump was unlikely to be indicted, based on what, by the way, unlikely to be indicted based on what? But Bragg said in April that the investigation, which began under his predecessor, Cyrus Vance, was continuing, though conveniently, he did not offer a clear sense of its direction. And remember, we also shared the story of two different prosecutors who resigned from Alvin Bragg's office because Alvin Bragg had backed off of the criminal investigation into Donald Trump. Bragg's comments came after two prosecutors who had been

leading the investigation left the office. One of them, Mark Pomerantz, said in a resignation letter published by the Times, the New York Times, that he believed the office had enough evidence to charge Trump with numerous felonies. Pomerant said that Mr. Bragg's decision was contrary to the public interest. And it appears that Letitia James agrees with that. That's why she included the necessity of a criminal investigation, both federally and through the state. So will Alvin Bragg feel the pressure to actually move forward with the criminal investigation, knowing full well that Letitia James says there's enough evidence to pursue criminal charges against Trump? We'll see. We'll see what happens. We'll see what his reaction is. But I think it's all.

also a far more interesting question, something that should be answered. Why did he decide to back off the criminal investigation in the first place? What's going on behind the scenes? And this idea of, well, I mean, he was unlikely to be indicted, so you're not going to try? We're not even going to try. We're not even going to try. You have Trump's former personal attorney on the record testifying under oath. I'm talking about Michael Cohen.

He said under oath that Trump would inflate the value of his assets in order to qualify for insurance and loans that he otherwise would not qualify for. And he would deflate his assets in order to dodge taxes. I mean, one year he got a massive tax refund from the federal government to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. So really, we're not gonna pursue criminal charges against him? that's super shady and super questionable. And I think the public deserves to know why. but definitely related to the terrible behavior and evil actions of Republicans,

like Marco Rubio, Ron DeSantis. Let's get to it. They're not even here legally. They didn't enter the country the proper way. And they're immediately in court demanding rights and claims under our laws. This is outrageous. What other country in the world would that even be allowed? What other country in the world would even tolerate that? So I think this is, you know, we have a, this is not immigration, what we're saying. This is mass migration. That's a very different thing. Marco Rubio, a United States senator who knows that the federal government has completely

dropped the ball on immigration reform, has decided to demonize Venezuelans who are seeking asylum here in the United States, and by the way, happened to be here legally. They're here legally. He lied about that on national television, on Fox News, no less, of course. These are people who are awaiting their day before an asylum judge to determine whether or not their asylum claims will allow them to remain here in the United States. So it's really important to draw that distinction, okay? This United States senator who comes from a family of Cuban refugees and his family, of course, got to benefit from something called amnesty following the Cuban Revolution, has some thoughts about Venezuela. asylum seekers. And of course, in typical Republican fashion, they love to take advantage of

immigration policies that allow their families to come here and then shut the door right behind them. But remember, Marco Rubio has no problem using Venezuelans as props to talk about the suffering people face under the leadership of a socialist president or socialist dictator, as he would like to say, right? But if they're not convenient props, in any given moment, oh, he'll demonize them. And that's exactly what he did there. Now, he also fails to mention other things. Like, you know, the economic sanctions that the United States has implemented in countries

like Venezuela that ends up causing a refugee crisis, migrant crisis. He doesn't really like to talk about that much. But before we get to that, just so we're absolutely clear about how what Marco Rubio said in that video is a lie. Let's go to this fun C-SPAN caller who had some thoughts to share with a Republican congressman, Clay Higgins. Let's watch. These people that are being bused to other parts of the country were scheduled for hearings in court.

But you don't believe in rule of law. You believe in your kind of dictation. It's about enough for that. Hold on. Representative letter of finish, please. I'm just sorry that you think she's made her point. It's to repeat again what we've done wrong to accept that the law says asylum is for people who are being persecuted. That's enough of that.

You're out of line, lady. You're telling the truth. We're not here for that. I'm here to lie. I'm here to lie about the Venezuelan asylum seekers who are here legally. Okay. Now, let's get to the situation in Venezuela, which Marco Rubio, has definitely had a hand in creating, okay?

Because as you can imagine, the United States, on several different occasions, attempted to orchestrate a coup to do away with Nicholas Maduro in Venezuela and essentially install a puppet Juan Guaido. Luckily, the United States government failed in their efforts to do that. I don't think that we should be in the business of regime change or orchestrating coups in other countries. I don't think that's any of our business. But of course, U.S. business interests don't like the fact that the Venezuelan government

nationalize their oil. They would love to rape and pillage the natural resources in that country. So the United States government, under the neoliberal model, of course, springs into action and immediately tries to engage in regime change through an orchestrated coup. Again, they failed. But after failing, what do you think the U.S. government did? You think they just let it go? No.

Under the Trump administration, they implemented crippling sanctions. that created a humanitarian crisis in Venezuela. To be sure the economic situation in Venezuela was not great anyway, but it was exacerbated by U.S. sanctions. It was intentionally done to cause pain and suffering among the Venezuelan people. Okay? Now, prior to that, the economy was in shambles because of the fact that the oil prices had gone down so much, and Venezuela was high.

dependent, its economy was highly dependent on the export of oil. And so they do have economic issues, I don't want to minimize that, but again, those economic issues were intentionally exacerbated thanks to sanctions that were supported by people like Marco Rubio. And when people get desperate, do you expect them to not leave the country looking for better opportunities for themselves and their families? I want to go to the next video because there was a great conversation a few years. ago on Democracy Now, Jeffrey Sachs, who's a professor over at Columbia University, talked

about the impact of these types of sanctions and how it leads to migrant crises like the one we're experiencing right now. Let's watch. The US government has been trying to strangle the Venezuelan economy. It started with sanctions in 2017 that prevented essentially the country from accessing international capital markets and the oil company from restructuring its loans. That put Venezuela into a hyperinflation. That was the utter collapse. Oil earnings plummeted. The earnings that are used to buy food and medicine collapsed. That's when the social humanitarian crisis went spiraling out of

control. And then in this year is with this idea, very naive, very stupid in my view, that there would be this self-reclaimed president, which was all choreographed with the United States very, very closely. Another round of even tighter sanctions, essentially confiscating the earnings and the assets of the Venezuelan government took place. Now Venezuela's in complete, utter catastrophe. First, before I make a substantive point, let's just give a round of applause to Jeffrey Sacks for stating what we never hear in corporate media. And the guy's got a great head of hair.

You got you got to hand it to him. You really do. Okay, now let's get to the substance. Everything he said was correct. The United States government creates these crises that then leads to a migrant crisis. And then when they show up to our border seeking asylum, seeking help, the same politicians who fought to implement the disastrous sanctions in the first place, whine and cry about it. People like Marco Rubio.

It's just so incredibly ridiculous. And I want to go to one more clip. The next clip that you're about to watch features Miguel Tinker Salas, same episode of Democracy Now. And I think he also made an excellent point about the impact that this has on immigration. At the same thing is happening in other contexts for Central America, the immigration that's happening as a result of failed U.S. policies. As a colleague was saying earlier, the reality is this was tried elsewhere. The regime change that's being tried in Venezuela, has been tried elsewhere in Latin America

and has led to humanitarian crisis throughout Central America, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador in Mexico until very recently. This is what we do. And when Joe Biden decided fairly recently, all right, maybe we should ease these sanctions a little bit, not because he wanted to do it out of the kindness of his own heart. He wanted to do it because of how expensive gas has been at the pump. He wanted to encourage Venezuela to ramp up the production of oil. So the supply of oil would increase and the price of gas at the pump would decrease.

But of course, when you want something from a country, there's a negotiation that takes place. And in that negotiation, Biden agreed to ease not all of the sanctions, just some of the sanctions. And you want to know what Marco Rubio's response to that was? He did what he always does. Cry. This is what he had to say. President Biden claims to support democracy and human rights. But his foreign policy strategy is actually built around appeasement and giving concessions to dictators.

Yesterday, it was the oppressive Cuban regime, and today, it is the criminal Maduro regime in Venezuela. Simply put, President Biden is strengthening illegitimate corrupt regimes in our hemisphere that undermine American national security. So which one is it, Rubio? Which one is it? Is it, oh, these Venezuelan asylum seekers are victims because they're living under the rule of an evil dictator? and they need help, right? Or are these people who are coming into the country illegally? Are these people who are dangerous? I mean, you're part of the right wing, right? So line of thinking clearly is migrants must be bad news, except for the Cuban migrants.

You know, the ones who came here and didn't have to worry about getting deported because we gave them amnesty following the Cuban revolution, something your family got to take advantage of. I'm so sick of the endless theater in federal government, endless theater, okay? Our immigration system is broken. Asylum seekers do not get an answer from immigration judges for years. That is a problem. You have businesses in the United States exploiting undocumented immigrants because they can

pay the undocumented immigrants whatever they want. It's not like these immigrants have any, you know, recourse. It's not like they're going to go to the authorities about wage theft. So I think there's an intentional reason for why we haven't done anything about immigration reform. I think their donors benefit from the fact that we haven't done anything about it. And in the middle, you have all of these people who are suffering, who get used as political ponds and just essentially are dehumanized, as if they're just objects to use in their little political theater that they engage in, day in, day out on news, on the Senate floor, on the House floor, it's disgusting.

And the people who lose at the end of the day are all of us, because there's never any solution from the federal government on many issues, including immigration. All right, we got to take a break. When we come back, we've got more news for you, including Home Depot. This is some good news. Workers at Home Depot getting active. I'll tell you how. Come right back.

everyone, welcome back to the show, Anna Kasparian with you. Let's get right to our next story because there is more good news when it comes to organizing and labor. Great news when it comes to Home Depot, whose CEO Ken Langone is a questionable figure to say the least. Turns out that workers, over 100 of them in Philadelphia have petitioned to unionize. This is great news because it shows The moment of unionization continuing, these new stories, while they oftentimes get ignored by the corporate media, are definitely getting a lot more attention online and in platforms that young people are paying close attention to. And I think it's inspiring workers in various sectors of the economy to get active, to organize

their workplace. And I especially love to see it at a place like Home Depot. Now, I should note that if their bid is successful, they'd be the first ever Home Depot store to unionize, although I will say that the Home Depot delivery drivers in San Diego specifically did successfully unionize with the Teamsters a few years ago back in 2019. Now the Philadelphia workers are creating their own independent union, similar to what Christopher Smalls and Amazon warehouse workers in New York did. In this case, they would be titling it, the Home Depot Workers United, that's their independent union, and their

demands are exactly what you would expect their demands to be. Similar demands that we've talked about when it comes to other stories, other companies that are unionizing. They want better compensation, they want better store staffing, they want better working conditions, and they have concerns with the treatment that they've been receiving from upper management. Now let's go to Vincent Keyles, who is a Home Depot worker and a union organizer, he says, long story short, we just got screwed over during the pandemic. This company made money hand over fist, and we just feel exploited. A lot of times we feel like we're just a means to an end to make other people a lot of money.

Vincent, you hit the nail on the head. That is exactly how you're treated. That's exactly how pretty much every worker in this country is treated, because you are a means to an end. And the whole point is to maximize profits, because under this system, if it's a publicly traded company that we're having a discussion about, the executives at that company have a fiduciary responsibility to provide a return on investment to their shareholders. That is their number one priority. And in order to maximize profits and provide a return on investment to shareholders, they got to cut costs. And the first place they love to look is labor.

So they look to underpay you, they look to cut corners. They just see the workers who generate the revenue in the first place as a big cost burden, which is infuriating to say the least. Now, according to labor reporter Jonah Furman, he writes for labor notes. You should definitely read his work. He does honestly some of the best labor reporting in this country. He says that workers at the Home Depot in Philadelphia routinely worry about paying bills, having enough food for both their kids and themselves and paying rent.

And to be sure, Home Depot did real well during the pandemic. The starting wage at their stores is around $14, or at that specific store in Philadelphia is around $14.50. The nearby Walmart, the nearby Walmart actually pays more. So while the Home Depot workers suffer, the Home Depot investors are making money handover, Fizz. They're getting that return on investment. Let's see how much. In a meeting with a regional vice president, Kiles questioned why the company couldn't pay premiums for operating machinery like forklifts or for translating for Spanish language customers or for working in multiple departments.

The regional manager touted that the company had spent a billion dollars on employee compensation. You spent $1 billion over 500,000 employees, Keyless remembers saying. And $15 billion in stock buybacks, not to mention $7 billion more on investor dividends. It's their fiduciary responsibility. But look, I say that not to minimize what the workers are going through, of course. I love that the workers are organizing because they need that leverage. They need that power to rein in that corporate greed. But the reason why I mention that fiduciary responsibility to shareholders is because

the way this system is working is not, it's not that it's flawed. There is no bug in the system. It's working exactly how it's intended to work. It is the feature of the system. And that's why it's so important for these workers to organize, because if they don't, if they don't have collective bargaining power, then they don't have the ability to have a seat at the table. They don't have the ability to have a say over their working conditions or their pay. And so this is really great to see.

Now, Kila is closely studied, and this is what I'm talking about, the Amazon labor unions victory in New York. So this momentum keeps going. It's snowballing. And that's why if you're thinking about organizing your workplace, you definitely should do it. Now is the time. There's a lot more attention paid to this issue. People are feeling inspired by what they're seeing around the country. In fact, Keyless said, if Chris Smalls could do that at a warehouse of over 8,000 people,

we could do it in our store of 300. And about a month ago, the Home Depot managers discovered the nascent union. and I wonder how they reacted to it. White collar management was flown into the store to hold captive audience meetings and one-on-one conversations with employees about how little a union could do for them. The store manager was switched out overnight. It's interesting. How about how little you've done for the workers, Home Depot?

How about that? I mean, they made record profits during the pandemic. So, I mean, maybe share some of that revenue that was generated by the workers. But no, they're not going to do that. But Keyless thinks the move is backfiring. He says, now it's funny. Corporates walking around the store and talking to people. And they think they're doing something, but it's backfiring.

People are like, oh, we filed for a union. Now all of a sudden you care? And here's how Home Depot has decided to publicly respond to the news. Sarah Gorman, who is a spokesperson for Home Depot, says this. While we will, of course, work through the NLRB process, we do not believe unionization is the best solution for our associates. And look, the sweetest part about all of this is Ken Langone. I never thought I would ever say that sentence.

But in this context, it makes sense. Ken Langone, that guy. Terrible person. I mean, he's proud of how terrible he is. Huge Trump supporter despises the idea of sharing the wealth with the workers who make his wealth possible. Okay, Langone is, my notes referred to him as a certified bastard. Okay, he donated to Joe Mansion and promised to throw him a massive fundraiser after he tanked the Build Back Better program. He claimed that discussing income inequality in America is actually the same rhetoric that Nazis used to gain power. Real classy guy, real classy. He called Bernie Sanders the Antichrist. He claimed that Bernie Sanders would make America like Cuba, Venezuela, and Russia.

And he also criticized policies like free public and community college or a single-payer healthcare system because Homeboy's rich. He's rich off the backs of the workers that he's trying to prevent from unionizing. So let's teach him a lesson. Let's unionize. And I love that the workers are doing it. I love that they're fighting back. I love that they're doing what's necessary to get a seat at the table and have a say over their paychecks and their working conditions. So more power to them. Love reading about this, love hearing about this. Let's keep it going. All right, let's take one more break in this hour. And when we come back, I will talk about the reemergence of risky mortgages.

Casparian here with you, and I want to give you a little bit of a warning about something that's transpiring in regard to mortgages, because it could lead to another housing crisis somewhere down the line. It's an important thing to keep an eye on. The Federal Reserve has just announced that it will be raising interest rates yet again, which means that the cost of borrowing is going to cost more. Now, that has an impact on things like, mortgages, for instance. So if you're looking to be a home buyer, taking out a mortgage will cost you more because the interest rate associated with it will be higher. But as a result of this, what we're noticing is more and more banks are offering up adjustable rate mortgages

because they seem a lot better because they have a lower interest rate than a 30-year fixed mortgage. Now, an adjustable rate mortgage is named accurately. because the rate is adjustable, meaning that you might pay a lower interest rate for a specific period of time. But after that specific period of time is over, your interest rate can go up. And while there are some regulations in place to ensure that these arms, they're called arm mortgages, adjustable rate mortgages, don't cause the kind of pain and suffering they did in the financial collapse of 2008, there's still a lot to be concerned about, especially. When you look at how much housing has increased in price, so associating, you know,

those high costs with a mortgage that has a higher interest rate in the future is a problem. So let me go through the details. Hopefully you guys can understand this. It's easy to digest because this is an issue. I see this is a big problem. So the average rate on a 5-1 arm, adjustable rate mortgage, one of the most popular adjustable rate loans was 4.93% this week, more than a full percentage point lower than the 6.02% average rate for a 30 year fixed loan, and that's according to Freddie Mac. Now, a 5-1 arm has a lower

fixed rate for the first five years and a variable rate based on one of several market indexes for each of the remaining years of the loan. Okay, so one thing to keep in mind is sometimes you'll hear bankers say, you could always refinance, though. You could always refinance. Or they'll argue, well, you know, it's an adjustable rate mortgage. It doesn't mean you're going to be paying a higher interest rate after the five years are up. Interest rates could actually be lowered. You might end up paying a lower interest rate, except that's not going to happen. It'll be a higher interest rate. Okay, 100% it will be a higher interest rate. Now, again, the 5-1 refers to two key things that you should keep in mind. So the five number represents the fixed period

of the mortgage, okay, the fixed interest rate for the first five years. And then the one in that five one adjustable rate mortgage represents how many times a year the interest rate can change after those five years are up, okay? So they won't be able to, under an agreement with a 5-1 adjustable rate mortgage, they won't be able to change or adjust the interest rate several times in one given year, which is good. But there are different kinds of adjustable rate mortgages. And if anyone is proposing that you go for one of those mortgages, just make sure you're fully aware of what you're getting yourself into. Now, this time last year, homeowners were getting mortgage rates as low as 2.86%. So as you can imagine, if interest rates go up to 6%, then

an adjustable rate mortgage with a lower interest rate for a certain amount of time might seem more desirable. Now, the use of adjustable rate loans surged in recent months. As of August 2022, more than 9% of all mortgage applications were for adjustable rate mortgages, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, which was up from 3.3% this same time last year. And what I keep appearing from business reporters is, but we don't have anything to worry about. We shouldn't be worried. No one should be worried. Like, divert your eyes. It's not a big deal. Because we passed super weak sauce regulations. You know, the Dodd-Frank bill insured that the predatory behavior, the predatory lending that was taking place by these big banks would stop.

And you know what? They're right about the big banks. But they forget to mention these so-called, non-bank institutions, or they're sometimes called shadow banks, where they're not considered one of the big banks, but it's a financial institution that will lend money. And if you look at the data, they typically lend to people who are a little risky. Their credit scores are much lower. There's evidence of them defaulting on loans in the past, but they go for it anyway. And they don't have to abide by the same regulations that the big banks have to abide by under Dodd-Frank. So that's another thing to be a little concerned about. Now, months ago, the New York Times reported this.

They reported that last year, no more than 4% of mortgage applications for adjustable rate mortgages. There were, let me read that again. Last year, no more than 4% of mortgage applications were for adjustable rate mortgages, said Michael Frata Tony, who's a the chief economist over at the Mortgage Bankers Association. This year, he said, the share has risen to about 10%, driven by the rise in interest rates, which of course is fueled by the Federal Reserve, attempting to do something about inflation. So let's talk about the safeguards. I've talked about it a little bit already, but let's talk about what regulations are in place

today that weren't in place prior to the 2008 economic collapse. So first of all, those risky adjustable rate mortgages that let borrowers pay an interest rate of their choosing for a brief period of time, that's gone. Those were so-called teaser rates. And I mean, if the bank tells you you get to choose what your interest rate is for this period of time, it's probably going to lure you in and persuade you to take out a mortgage that could actually end up having an interest rate that makes your mortgage unaffordable. gone. That part is gone. They don't allow that anymore. Now, compared with adjustable rate mortgages

available before the financial crisis, which offered low teaser rates and allowed rates to be reset quickly, today's adjustable rate loans are safer, mortgage experts say. They typically have a fixed rate period of at least three years and limits on how often and how much the rate can rise after that, such as one change per year of no more than two percentage points. But not all of those adjustable rate mortgages follow those guidelines. So there are some examples of the interest rate increasing significantly once that fixed period, fixed rate period is up. Some loans allow a larger increase at the first reset, often five percentage points above the starting rate. Guys, that is huge. Five percentage points is massive, absolutely massive. That will

definitely make a mortgage to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars far less affordable for the typical American. I mean, before the pandemic, nearly half of Americans were living paycheck to paycheck, couldn't even afford a $400 emergency. And that was according to a study by the Federal Reserve. So a mortgage increasing its interest rate to something that's five percentage points more, that would be devastating for people. But let me continue. So five percentage points above the starting rate then allow increases of no more than two percentage points. And that's according to Sean Block, a mortgage broker on Long Island. So he's a mortgage broker. Homeboy knows, some of these adjustable rate mortgages, they might screw you.

And so I tell you this, number one, to just tell you to be careful if you're looking to take out a mortgage. But the bigger picture, I think, is also incredibly important. Our economy goes through cycles and will experience a devastating economic collapse. Congress will come in and do a little bit of tinkering with regulations and congratulate them. for doing something big when in reality they haven't done enough to rein in corporate greed. And then you see the same behaviors take place again. And I've been seeing this creep up more and more. I've seen a lot of questionable activity with these shadow banks. I've seen a lot of questionable activity with the increase in the number of adjustable rate mortgages. They love to say

that they have stricter lending standards, but do we just take their word for it? And keep in mind, what led to the economic collapse was that the big banks were giving out predatory loans. They were bundling up those loans and trading them on the stock market in the form of mortgage-backed securities. You had pensioners, you had retirees invested in mortgage-backed securities that were full of mortgages that were going to default. And guess what the big banks did? They bet against those mortgage-backed securities because they knew they gave out loans to people who are likely going to default in the future. So mortgage-backed securities, still a thing, still in the stock market, people are still invested

in them. So if the same activity happens again, if we're starting to see it bubble up again, it could be yet another devastating economic crisis in this country, and it'll just show us that we've learned nothing yet again. All right. Let's move on. Marjorie Taylor Green. She's added again. Let's talk about it. I just introduced articles of impeachment on President Joe Biden. Joe Biden is selling our strategic patrols.

petroleum reserves. This should never happen. He is draining our reserves and selling our oil, Americans oil, to foreign countries and China is a top buyer. China is our enemy. They are not our friend. They're buying Americans oil. But are they? Are they? Now that's Marjorie Taylor Green announcing her intentions to impeach Joe Biden. Good luck with that. I'm really looking forward to seeing how that plays out. Now, we should investigate whether her claims about Biden selling our precious oil to China, our precious petroleum reserves to China, if that's accurate. Is that accurate? And does she know that the United States is the top exporter of fossil fuels in the world? We're the top producer, top exporter. And it's not the president of the United

States who's making that decision. It's private fossil fuel companies. Because we don't have nationalized oil here. We haven't nationalized our natural resources. And so how does this really play out? I'll tell you. So in late March of this year, Biden agreed to release one million barrels of crude oil from our strategic petroleum reserves every day for six months. Okay, and the whole point of that is to increase the supply in order to bring prices at the gas pump down. And prices have gone down. I'd like to see them come down a lot more, but they've come down a little bit, right? Now the oil is sold.

Okay, that oil that we take out from our strategic petroleum reserve, that gets sold. Not directly to China or any other country. It gets sold to eligible companies, private companies, follow along with me, Marjorie, follow along. that make their highest offers. Some of the companies are U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies, and some that purchased oil have then exported a portion to buyers overseas. Now, some of those companies decided, yeah, I'm going to frittance, I'll sell it to China. Because, of course, they'll sell it at a premium.

They buy it from the federal government, and then they get to sell it to the highest bidder. Why not? And that's exactly what they're doing here. Now, there's also a role that Congress played. And if Marjorie Taylor Green had two brain cells to rub together, she would, A, know this, B, maybe do something about it. Because Congress made it possible for these private companies to export these resources. Okay, so since Congress lifted a nearly 40-year ban on most U.S. crude oil exports in 2015,

the Department of Energy, which maintains the stockpile, cannot dictate whether companies can export oil purchased from the Petroleum Reserve. I mean, look, we could nationalize oil. You know, the American people could actually profit from the natural resources that private companies have hoarded for themselves and then export to the highest bidder globally. But I'm pretty sure she wouldn't want that. It's amazing. She never really thinks any of this through. But let me continue. Green had a little bit more to share about her rant.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is our emergency supply for if something goes wrong in this country. It's now down to 434 million barrels of oil. That is nearly half of what it was when President Trump left office. Yeah, that's also not true. I actually thought maybe it was true. I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, but that would have been a terrible, terrible mistake. I looked into that as well.

There was actually a net decline in the strategic petroleum reserve when President Trump was in office. When he took office in January of 2017, the reserves contained 695 million barrels. When he left office, four years later, it contained 638 million barrels. So it went down. So not only is the claim of filling it untrue, but the level of the strategic petroleum reserve actually declined while President Trump was in office.

In fact, if you look at the numbers, the reserves actually increased significantly under Obama. But look, to be honest with you, sure, we can have a debate about. what we're doing with oil and fossil fuels. But wouldn't it be better if we were having a conversation about being reliant on other forms of energy? You know, things like renewable energy, things that don't destroy our climate, things that actually help to respond to the climate emergency accurately, while also dissuading us from engaging in global conflicts just so we can control natural resources like oil in other countries.

Wouldn't that be nice? I think that's where the conversation should be. But anyway, Marjorie Taylor Green, I'm really looking forward to those impeachment proceedings. I'm sure it's going to be very entertaining. It's going to be great, really going to be great. Looking forward to that. In the meantime, she should probably, I don't know, read something. And for us in the meantime, we're going to take a break.

We'll be right back with John Adirola, Dragon Daddy's back. We're going to have a lot of fun. Don't miss it. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon. Thank you.