The Young Turks - Stuck in Limbo

Episode Date: December 9, 2021

Conservatives have a new bogeyman: critical energy theory. Inside ALEC’s new campaign to push anti-climate legislation across the country. Big Oil raked in $174 Billion in 2021 profits amid rising gas prices. Despite candidate Biden’s vow to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” following Khashoggi’s murder, the White House says it “strongly opposes” Congress’ attempt to block the $650 million missile sale to Saudi. Just days after receiving a $750 million cash infusion, a tech startup valued at $7 billion laid off hundreds of employees via Zoom. 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. Welcome to TYTYT. It is good to be back, especially for solo hour. Wednesdays where we're going to rock it. I'm going to talk about the MLB lockout. Yeah, that's right. It's a sports story, but it's also a labor story, which I'm going to get to the nitty gritty of. It's a fascinating story. And honestly, the first lockout for the MLB in over 30 years. So we'll talk about what that labor dispute is and more. In the second hour

of the show today, John Ida Rola will be joining me to talk about the craziest example of revisionist history you've heard from a right winger in a long time. And that's saying something because that's really their bread and butter, revisionist history. We're also going to talk about how someone has in fact been arrested for smoking trees in New York City. What is the deal with that? Well, it has to do with the alleged war on Christmas. Was Fox News correct about that? You're just going to have to wait and find out.

Again, that's in the second hour of the show. But as always, please like and share the stream. If you're watching us on YouTube, get the word out about the show. help us in any way you can. It helps to keep the show sustainable, and it also helps to get our message out there. And as always, thank you for helping us remain sustainable and independent. You could become a member by clicking on that join button if you're watching us on YouTube or by going to t.com slash join. All right, without further ado, let's get to our first insane story. Fossil fuel companies, along with Republican lawmakers, are planning on further co-opting anti-woke rhetoric in an effort to protect the lucrative business model for fossil fuel companies.

This story is absolutely insane, and it revolves around an email that was obtained by Alex Koch, former colleague of ours, does great investigative reporting. And the email was written by the director of the Texas Public Policy Foundation. This is a right-wing group, and they're very much in favor of protecting fossil fuel profits. What it says is this. This morning at the Alec Committee meetings, you'll have the opportunity to push back against the woke financial institutions that are colluding against American energy producers. Now let's stop for a second and just discuss what he's referring to there. There's been one avenue in which activists have been incredibly successful in essentially

persuading banks to stop investing money in fossil fuel companies, stop lending money to fossil fuel companies. We've seen some movement there, and it's been positive movement. But as always, whenever there's some positive movement for activists, lobbyists get together with these corporations and try to figure out a way to squash those efforts. And that's exactly what we're seeing here. Let me give you some more details. This email, again, obtained by Alex Koch for the Center for Media and Democracy,

indicates that, you know, they're trying to make an argument that the anti-fossil fuel activism is really just discrimination. So on one hand, they're claiming, oh, you know, these woke, these woke activists. Activists are awful, they're so terrible, and also poor fossil fuel companies they're being discriminated against. I'm not kidding, that's really what their argument is. And there are ramifications for this, especially when you consider the fact that our Supreme Court has deemed corporations human beings.

Let me give you more. So they've looked into how Glenn Yunkin succeeded in Virginia's gubernatorial race by manufacturing a culture war, right, by really leaning into the fear mongering on the right regarding critical race theory. And so fossil fuel companies, with the help of Alec, a lobbying group, decided, well, why don't we just use that same strategy to protect fossil fuel companies? Alex's energy, environment, and agriculture task force voted to back two pieces of model legislation that portray climate policy, even climate policy that doesn't even exist, as unfairly discriminating against fossil fuel companies. So what exactly is this legislation?

Understand that during this meeting with Alec, with Republican lawmakers, with fossil fuel companies, they voted on this resolution. They voted on this draft legislation, which they're now going to push Republican lawmakers to both introduce and pass through Congress. What does this entail? Well, the Energy Discrimination Elimination Act direct states to compile a list of entities that are supposedly boycotting fossil fuel companies, explicitly citing banks that are increasingly denying financing to credit worthy fossil energy companies solely for the purpose of decarbonizing their lending portfolios and marketing their environmental credentials. So step number one, try to find the banks, the lenders,

the potential investors that are taking a stand against fossil fuels in the name of doing something about climate change. And then after you list who they are, it's time to target them. But to do so through legal means based on this proposed legislation that in their minds would ideally pass. The act also cites institutional investors that are divesting from fossil energy companies and pressuring corporations to commit to the goal of the Paris Agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050, and large investments that are colluding to force energy companies to cannibalize their existing business or businesses. And what this legislation would do, should it pass in Congress, is it would allow for state controllers to be, would be directed

to create and maintain a list of all financial companies that boycott energy companies, further allowing them to, quote, request written verification from a financial company that it does not boycott energy companies. Any company that does not reply to said request within 61 days per the model bill would be presumed to be boycotting energy companies. All right, great. So they've got this nice little list. And let me just make sure you all know would be a very short list of financial institutions or investors who refuse to do business with fossil fuel companies. And then what would they do with that list? What would happen to these financial institutions or to these investors who don't want to invest in fossil fuel

companies? Listed companies that don't stop boycotting energy companies within 90 days would then be subject to losing state contracts or investments. State agencies would then be required to sell, redeem, divest, or withdraw all publicly traded securities in qualifying companies unless that would result in a loss in value or a benchmark deviation. In fact, attorneys general would actually be empowered to enforce rules mandating that state agencies report which companies are refusing to invest in fossil field companies and essentially go after them if they are in fact boycotting fossil. fuel companies. So what this proposed legislation written by Alec would do is punish any financial

institution or any investor who based on a political point based on wanting to do something in regard to climate change has refused to invest in fossil fuel corporations and companies. That's what this is. Punish them for not investing their money in fossil fuels. Think about how insane that is. And this is something that is going to be championed by members of the Republican Party. And listen, we have a ton of criticism for Democrats. We do not discriminate on this show when it comes to political parties. There's corruption and bad behavior on both sides.

There's no question about that. But when you consider the fact that the Republican Party consistently argues that they're the party of freedom, that they believe in free markets, that they believe that, you know, it's wrong to censor people. It's wrong to force people to do things they don't want to do. They are literally, in this case, pushing for legislation that would punish financial institutions and investors who refuse to invest in fossil fuel companies, who boycott fossil fuel companies. Both draft laws, by the way, exhibit the emerging right-wing argument that policy that reduces emissions is discriminatory, right? So that's the argument that they're making here, and they're using the precedent set by anti-BDS legislation to make this argument. So major banks and investment firms, Isaac, the gentleman we heard from earlier, argued in his email to participants, urging them to vote for the measure are colluding to deny lending and investment in fossil fuel companies, using their market power to force companies to make green investments.

The model legislation opposes that, he adds, by setting forth a strategy in which states use their collective economic purchasing power to counter the rise of politically motivated, and discriminatory, discriminatory investing practices. So some of you might wonder, how the hell can anyone discriminate against a corporation? Like corporations aren't people, right? Except our Supreme Court has noted in their Citizens United ruling that corporations are in fact people. How disastrous is that? But it goes further. As I mentioned earlier, this is modeled after anti-BDS bills.

What is that? Well, the legislation is modeled explicitly on anti-BDS bills written to counter the boycott, divest sanctions call from Palestinian civil society groups for economic sanctions against firms complicit in the Israeli occupation there. So corporations are like, ooh, that is delicious. Look at what they're doing in regard to political activism for human rights for Palestinians. Maybe we can expand upon that and use it to our advantage and pretend that a, that woke activists are attacking us unfairly and we're being discriminated against. And so those who are discriminating against us by boycotting us need to be dealt with appropriately. That's what this story is about. And it's terrifying.

Again, because of two different reasons. Because of the Supreme Court deeming corporations human beings, which is insane, and because this is modeled after anti-BDS bills, which haven't completely been struck down by our Supreme Court. And our Supreme Court is an issue as well because, as we've learned, the conservative members who were confirmed as Supreme Court justices are very very, very much pro-business, pro-corporate, I would be a little concerned about them voting in favor of protecting the corporate interests in this case, as opposed to the freedoms of financial institutions or investors. It's pretty incredible. And by the way, if you're wondering whether

this has been tested at all, it actually has in the state of Texas. Texas already has a similar law in the books, arguing in favor of the bill, Texas State Representative Dennis Paul said there was a need to, quote, stand up to this wokeness. It's incredible. This country is governed by corporate greed and corporate interests. And while we do have a problem with discrimination in this country, in regard to actual human beings, in regard to actual disenfranchised groups of people, that just gets pushed. aside, in fact, not just push aside, the messaging and activism surrounding that gets co-opted in order to protect corporate interests. In this case, fossil fuel companies. It's absolutely sick.

And by the way, a lot of great independent outlets like the New Republic wrote about this, but not much coverage elsewhere. So thank you for supporting TYT and giving us a platform to be able to share these stories as much as we can. All right, let's move on to a little bit of international news, some pretty devastating news coming out of the Biden administration, which shouldn't be so surprising these days. While President Joe Biden ran on holding Saudi Arabia accountable for the slaughter, the murder, of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the White House has actually released a statement indicating that it condemns any congressional effort that would block weapon sales to Saudi Arabia. Now, before we get to the details of what that statement indicated, I just want to give you guys

a little reminder of what campaign Biden looked like. Let's watch. Khashoggi was in fact murdered and dismembered, and I believe in the order of the crown prince. And I would make it very clear, we were not going to, in fact, sell more. weapons to them. We were going to in fact make them pay the price and make them in fact the pariah that they are. Look at that. Tough Biden. Make them the pariah that they are. He's going to hold them accountable for what they did to Khashoggi. That's why he ordered a study to make sure that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was in fact the one who ordered the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. And once he ordered that study and once it was confirmed, he did absolutely.

nothing about it. Tough guy. Did he actually make the Saudis pariahs? No, he did not do that. In fact, the White House, again, condemns any effort to block weapons sales, United States weapons sales, to Saudi Arabia, which then get used in the war in Yemen, which we'll get to the details and the hideous nature of that war in just a second.

But let me give you some more in regard to the statement coming from the White House. the White House. The administration, the statement reads, strongly opposes passage of SJ Resolution 31, a joint resolution prohibiting a proposed U.S. foreign military sales case to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia of defense articles, including 280 advanced medium range air-to-air missiles and related articles and services. So again, these weapons are being used for a brutal war in Yemen, which, by the way, the United States has been helping Saudi Arabia carry out. But the White House pretends as though it's in favor, this is the best part, that they're in favor of approaching that conflict in Yemen in a diplomatic way. I mean, their version of diplomacy

is selling weapons to the aggressor, Saudi Arabia. That is apparently the White House's idea of diplomacy. And they also included this following statement in the exact memo. The U.S. foreign military sales case at issue is fully consistent with the administration's pledge to lead with dis, I mean, you can't make it up, to lead with diplomacy to end the conflict in Yemen and end U.S. support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen. How do you end the war in Yemen by giving Saudi Arabia weapons, by selling weapons to them. That doesn't end war. That exacerbates it, and they know it, they know it.

The fact that that's the second paragraph in their statement, they just brazenly lie to you and get away with it. It's incredible. While also ensuring that Saudi Arabia has the means, has the means to defend itself from Iranian-backed Houthi air attacks. Oh, you mean the Saudi Arabia that is intentionally holding back oil production to ensure that gas prices spike so they can profit as much as humanly possible? That's Saudi Arabia? The Saudi Arabia that gave Biden the middle finger when Biden's like, hey, can you guys produce more oil, please?

That's Saudi Arabia? Pathetic. Oil-rich country needs the United States to help them defend themselves. from who? I mean, it is unbelievable. Now, as we know, Biden's approval ratings, not good, very bad. Very bad. People are saying, people are saying that Biden is not popular. Neither is Kamala Harris. And I would argue that maybe all those broken promises tend to hurt politicians. They think Americans aren't paying attention, but I don't know, I'd venture to say that they are, especially when you see the feelings of the democratic base reflected in these low approval ratings.

Now, the data for progress also found pretty strong majority, a pretty strong majority of people who are against the weapon sales to Saudi Arabia. Let's take a quick look at this graph that gives you a sense of just how widespread the lack of support for this $650 million US arms sales to Saudi Arabia really is. All likely voters, 64% of them oppose. You look at Democrats, 63% of them oppose the weapons sale. 64% of independents oppose the weapon sale. And even Republicans, 64% oppose the weapon sale. But the White House unfortunately got exactly what it wanted. Despite efforts by some lawmakers to block the sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia,

the Senate decided to vote in favor of going ahead with this. Okay, going ahead with the weapons sale. So let me give you the context. There was legislation proposed by a bipartisan group of senators. Bernie Sanders is included in that. You've got Rand Paul included in this effort. You have Mike Lee included in this effort. But it didn't matter.

Senate resoundingly defeats effort to block Saudi arm sale, 30 to 67. The vote split the Democratic caucus, but the vast majority of Republicans backed the Biden administration's proposed sale. I mean, look, the GOP is good at GOP, right? Republicans, of course, are like, yeah, let's sell the weapons. Historically, that's where they've been. But Democrats try to present themselves as something completely different when they're running their campaigns. They pretend as if they're different from the Republican Party, but the infusion of corporate cash in campaigns really does lead to a huge portion of the Democratic Party looking a lot like the Republican Party, especially when it comes to bread and butter issues, when it comes to defense issues, national security issues, whatever. Anything that actually has an impact on redistribution of wealth from the bottom to the top. That's where you see corporate Democrats in cahoots with Republicans, even if they campaign

is something different. So why does this happen? Why does this redistribution of wealth from the bottom to the top happen? Why is it that the majority of Americans, both Democrats and Republicans, are not in favor of this weapon sale to Saudi Arabia, yet Congress still moves forward with it? Why? Why? Let's look at the money.

In the past two decades, for instance, according to Open secrets, defense contractors and their extensive network of lobbyists and donors have directed 285 million in campaign contributions and 2.5 billion in lobbying spending to influence defense policy. That's just in two decades. To further these goals, they hired more than 200 lobbyists who have worked in the same government that regulates and decides funding for their industry. Oh, it's interesting that they should mention that. I remember when Joe Biden was appointing people to his cabinet and I raised alarm in regard to how many of those people had very cozy ties to corporate interests. In the case of the Defense Department, the Secretary of State,

I was concerned with the person he chose because that individual had incredibly close ties to the private defense contractors who do quite a bit of lobbying to ensure that they feel fill their pockets, they get to sell their weapons to countries that might end up being a huge problem to our national security in the future. So here's a few examples of the goons I'm talking about. Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken consulted for a private equity firm that emphasized its access, network, and expertise in the defense industry. Austin also had a seat at the United Technologies and Raytheon board, earning more than quarter million dollars from the now merged companies.

And of course, when you look at Saudi Arabia specifically, Saudi Arabia benefits from the influence wielded by major U.S. arms manufacturers that would like to sell to them. Just four of the biggest companies received 90% of promised sales between 2009 and 2019. Those four, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Dynamics, and Boeing happen to make up four of the top five defense-related companies spending the most on lobbying, pouring over 10 million each into their policy influence efforts in 2020 alone. Listen, there are very few politicians who are principled. There are very few politicians who do the right thing. One of those politicians has consistently been Senator Bernie Sanders, and he explains perfectly in this next video why arming Saudi Arabia and allowing Saudi Arabia to use our weapons in the war in Yemen is so disastrous. Let's watch. We should be demanding that they end the devastating war in Yemen, which has killed over 230,000 people. people in one of the very poorest countries on earth.

For more than six years, the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen's civil war has been a key driver of the largest humanitarian disaster in the world, the largest. According to UNICEF, four out of every five children in Yemen needs humanitarian assistance that is over a 11 million children, 400,000 children suffer from severe malnutrition. 1.7 million children have been displaced from their homes by violence from this war. And some 15 million people, more than half of whom are children, do not have access to safe water, sanitation or hygiene. So let's be clear about something. When the Republican Party claims that they care about babies, they care about human lives,

in the context of ending reproductive rights in America, just understand that they don't stand for a damn thing. They certainly do not stand for protecting human lives because they just voted to allow for weapons to be sold to Saudi Arabia to continue that brutality against the many people, including you many children. That's the fact of the matter. I would love the media to connect those two dots,

but they never do. It's disgusting. We gotta take a break. When we come back, we'll tell you why the CEO of Better.com is really the worst. What's up, everyone? Welcome back to TYT Anna Casparian with you. Let's get to our next story.

It is the worst. So, better.com, not doing so good. It's a digital mortgage lender with offices in Oakland, and it just laid off 900 employees, all at once, all during a Zoom meeting. I'm not even kidding. So here's CEO, Vishal Garg, carrying out the mass firing. The market has changed, as you know. We have to move with it in order to survive so that hopefully we can continue to thrive and deliver on a mission. This isn't news that you're going to want to hear, but ultimately it was my decision and I wanted you to hear from me.

It's been a really, really challenging decision to make. This is the second time in my career I'm doing this, and I do not. do not want to do this the last time i did it i cried um this time i hope to be stronger but we are laying off about 15 percent of the company if you're on this call you are part of the unlucky group being laid off your employment here is terminated effective immediately What? I mean, look, don't feel bad for the employees, 900 of them who were part of that call. Feel bad for the poor, poor CEO who raked in a $25 million bonus last year. Because the last time he had to do it, he cried.

And so this is a very, very traumatic experience for him, okay? Let's show some compassion. Let's show some sympathy. What a garbage human being. Really. The foe, oh, I'm just really heartbroken over this. I don't really care too much to meet with you individually. I'm just doing this all suddenly without any warning through a Zoom call. But I want you guys to understand, of course he's not experiencing grief because he's doing this. It's a super easy process for him. He doesn't have to see anyone face to face. He doesn't have to deal with anyone's tears, anyone freaking out in his office over the fact that they have families to feed.

He has to do it through a Zoom call, 900 people. And he just pretends like it's really tearing him apart. It's a really difficult thing to do. Now, he got backlash for this because some of the employees who had been terminated, film the whole thing and put out the video, which is why we have it. So thank you to those employees and I feel awful for them. But since he got some backlash, he decided the best way to handle this is to trash the employees who I fired. Yeah, it's a good, it's a good play. So he wrote this. You guys know that at least 250 of the people terminated, we're working

an average of two hours a day while clocking in eight plus hours a day in the payroll system, they were stealing from you and stealing from our customers who pay the bills that pay our bills. Get educated, Garg wrote, according to a blind post viewed by Fortune. Now, Fortune hit him up and was like, yo, did you, are you the one who wrote this? And he confirmed, yes, he is in fact the person who wrote that callous and disgusting post. I don't believe him, besides which, isn't that a failure for the executive team? If they hired a bunch of people and had them working only two hours a day, it seems like there was some incompetence at the very top.

But anyway, let me give you more. He said this after confirming that he had written that callous post. I think they should have been, I think that could have been phrased differently, but honestly, the sentiment is there. Now, the dude is super wealthy, okay? So he might be really holding back tears, but in reality, the Daily Beast reports that he obtained a $25 million bonus, $25 million bonus in 2020. That's one year, that's just his bonus, that's just his bonus.

And the company's valuation indicates that it's worth a lot of money, $7 billion to be exact, Okay. And why did this happen? I just want to be clear. This didn't happen because, oh, the company is really struggling. We're failing. We don't know what to do. We're not making enough revenue in order to carry all these employees. We just, no, this is part of a deal that the executives have better made with the investors. Because they just got a pretty nice chunk of change. Okay. So let me give you those details. Because this is, this is what really goes on, this is how business really works. Blank check company, Aurora Acquisition Corp, and SoftBank have decided to amend the terms of their financing agreement to provide better with half of the $1.5 billion they committed immediately instead of waiting until the deal closes. Under the new arrangement, capital hits the company's balance sheet now faster than originally planned and puts more money on the balance sheet overall to further to fuel further growth. Now, when they talk about growth, they're talking about an increase in

profits. And how does a corporation increase their profits? By cutting costs. That's one of the ways that they do it. And what is the most costly element of a business? It's the labor. So during these negotiations, I have no doubt, I have no doubt that the argument was, Listen, we can cut a significant percentage of our workforce, which will then increase profits and will provide you a better return on your investment. Capish, does that sound good to you? So this was something predetermined in the negotiating process. That's how it works. And by the way, CEOs usually have their compensation tied to, let's say, if it's a publicly traded company, to the value of the shares in the stock market.

You know, there, again, their pay is tied to the equity that they have in the company. And so it's really killing two birds with one stone. It's providing a higher, you know, return on investment for the investors, which is what they want. And based on how the compensation package is set up for the executives, they get an increase in pay as well. So they get rewarded for doing what the CEO did here. And by the way, the backlash wasn't just from ordinary Americans like you and me. Apparently, three different executives decided to resign after this whole debacle, all of them working in the PR area of the company.

And I can kind of understand why, who the hell wants to do positive PR or do spin after the story has exposed the callous nature of how this business really works. But it's not just this business. This is how the model works in most companies, in most corporations. The CFO, for instance, his name is Kevin Ryan, said this. We pulled forward the funding of our SPAC deal. With this new structure, the company will fortify our balance sheet and position us as extremely well capitalized in a tough mortgage market. Surviving is winning and capital insures survival.

But the end of this, by the end of this week, we, expect to have $1 billion of cash on the company's balance sheet. And then later, while talking with TechCrunch, he said this, having to conduct layoffs is gut wrenching. Really, they're really torn up about it, especially this time of the year. Remember, Christmas is coming up. However, a fortress balance sheet and a reduced and focused workforce together set us up to play offense going into a radically evolving home ownership market.

So guys, just again, every time you hear about the great resignation, every time you hear about workers refusing to go back to the companies that they used to work for, we're working for during the pandemic or before the pandemic, this is the reason, this is the messaging that workers get across the country in various companies, various businesses. they're told over and over again that they're disposable, that they're not valued, that the companies that they devote their time and energy for not only refuse to share the wealth generated by their labor, but that they could be fired at any moment through a Zoom call with hundreds of other colleagues.

And it doesn't matter. They'll pay lip service about how torn up they are about, oh, we're so torn up. I cried last time, I cried last time. But at the end of the day, they don't give a crap about you because they want to provide the return on investment for the investor. 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. And ensure that the executives get a nice little compensation package. They're not crying about it. This is how it really works. This was predetermined through the negotiations. And I love seeing the CEO get dragged the way he deserves to. I hope more of these executives take a stand and step down. Who the hell wants to be associated with a company like this?

But again, it's not just about this company. This is what goes on in most major corporations, most multinational corporations, you know, throughout this country. Workers are considered disposable, even though they're the ones who generate the revenue that allows for the corporation to exist and thrive in the first place. Anyway, we got to take a break. I can go on about that story much, much longer, but we got to go. So let's take a break. when we come back, I'm going to take a stab at the MLB lockout story. So stick around. You don't want to miss it.

All right, guys, I am not a sports reporter. In fact, I'm a little terrified in covering this next story because while it is a sports story, it's also a labor story. And I care about the labor angle. And I want to share it with you guys. So if I get anything wrong in terms of phrasing, or maybe I use the wrong word because it's a sports thing, forgive me. But I think the angle here, the heart of the story is important, and it has to do with the MLB lockout. So let's talk about it. Thanks to an ongoing labor dispute, Major League Baseball is undergoing its first work stoppage, its first lockout, in more than 30 years. Commissioner Rob Manfred, who has no chill, announced a lockout after a five-year

collective bargaining agreement between the owners of the 30 clubs and the players expired. Now, this does have negative ramifications for the players. For instance, right now, the calendar favors ownership. Okay, players can't sign free agent deals, and they're going to get anxious about that. And that's according to Professor Michael Leroy, who's a sports labor expert over at the University of Illinois. Now, there's also other ramifications for the players. For instance, teams are not allowed to talk to players, make major league signings or swing trades.

And facilities where the players usually train in, those are shut down, they can't use them. I mean, it's gonna be a difficult situation for the players. And I think in the near future, potentially a difficult situation for the owners as well. The reason why right now the owners get the advantage is because of where we are in the year. So this new baseball season isn't for a few months. And so owners get to do this and the players might in their minds be persuaded by the leverage that the owners are using.

But it doesn't seem that way so far. So if players are able to hold fast through late January or even February, the advantage will shift to the players in the negotiating process. Now obviously professional athletes, let me just get this, address this elephant in the room, professional athletes obviously make a lot more money than, let's say, workers for Nabisco. Those workers are also striking the ramifications for them have been pretty brutal. But when we look at these athletes, what I really want you guys to focus on is the parallel dynamics, because the dynamics are the same. You really have this issue of the owners versus the workers, the capitalist versus labor.

And you see that in professional sports as well. So what is this labor dispute really about? As I mentioned, the collective bargaining agreement has expired. And what the owners want is a continuation. They want the status quo to remain. Whereas the players are like, yo, we've noticed our pay drop considerably while revenue has gone up for MLB. What's up with that? We want to change the way these agreements are signed. And moving forward, we want to make sure that there's something that's far more fair and equitable for the players.

So we have some details on this in the next video. Listen to it, and then I'll help decode a few elements of it. Well, the player salaries over the last four or five years have actually declined by four or five percent. And at the same time, franchise values, sponsorship revenue, TV revenue has gone up. So I think they probably want to recalibrate that situation. What's taken place, actually, Scarlett, is that the owners have really kind of manipulated the structure of the payment to young players, meaning the transition from minor league to major league baseball and the restrictive elements of that process. And they've actually been able to bring the cost down that, plus analytics and being more efficient in spending. and targeting players has resulted for young players, a real decrease.

Of course, you're hearing about all these big deals with the veteran players. They're being paid well where the problem is with the young to middle players. It is stunning that the actual revenues for players have gone down over the last four or five years and the numbers have really gone up for the owners. So I really do think an average person looking on saying, hey, if the owners are making more, the franchises are making more, the players should actually make more. So it really does look from the outside looking in that an adjustment, more equitable adjustment needs to be made.

And look, I agree with that. There is no baseball without the baseball players. And we're not talking about the high. Again, you hear about the high paid contracts, but we're really talking about the younger players that are expected to play more games. They're paid far less. And at the same time, they're noticing that these clubs are raking in the dough because they have various revenue streams, diversified revenue streams, in order to make this happen.

So we're not just talking about ticket sales here, okay? We're talking about licensing, we're talking about other ways of making money. And as we've noticed in the overall economy, that wealth doesn't end up trickling down to the very players that we're talking about. Let's watch. Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Major League Baseball was making money like never before. In 2019, league revenues totaled $10.7 billion, according to Forbes, marking the 17th consecutive year of record revenues for the game's owners, all of whom, it's worth noting, have seen the value of their franchises increase exponentially in recent years, too. So that financial growth has to have trickled down to the players, right? Wrong. According to the

Associated Press, the average player salary has actually dropped more than 6% since the start of the 2017 season. While the median salary has plummeted, a whopping third. 30% since the start of the 2015 campaign. In fact, while many fans tend to view these labor disputes as billionaires versus millionaires, nearly two-thirds of the players on last year's opening day rosters had salaries under $1 million. And if you pay attention to the graphic that was flashed at the end of that video, not only do two-thirds of the players make less than a million dollars, 35% make less than $600,000. Now again, we're talking about huge chunks of money.

I don't make $600,000 a year, right? That's a lot of money. But the longevity of a professional athlete's career is incredibly short. And remember, they're the players, they're the ones who are generating the revenue. And it looks as though the clubs, the owners, are just taking in a massive portion of that revenue for themselves and not sharing it with the players. That's the issue at hand, right? And there's also a lack of transparency. The clubs refuse to be transparent about the financial situation of the clubs.

And the players are like, well, it's really hard for us to know if you're treating us fairly or paying us fairly if you refuse to be transparent about the financials. Now, I do want to talk a little bit about the longevity of players because it's not as if they have lengthy careers. It's not like they play baseball until they retire at 65. not how it works, obviously. But how long is the average baseball player's career? Well, a rookie position player can expect to play 5.6 years. One in five position players will have only a single year career. And at every point of a player's career, the chance of exiting is at least 11%. Remember, they can get injured at any time. And the injury could even be a career-ending injury. Position players who start younger and begin their

career in more recent decades, all have longer and more stable careers. Nevertheless, baseball careers are not compressed versions of normal careers, but are substantially skewed, but are substantially skewed toward early exit. So in other words, players do have a far, far shorter period of time to earn money, build a nest egg, to basically take care of themselves and their families for the rest of their lives. Now, considering that the MLB, is raking in some big bucks, which again would not be possible without the players, owners should be sharing a larger piece of that pie with the players. That's the big argument here.

Now, what else are the players taking a stand on? Well, according to the New York Times, players feel that too many teams are receiving tens of millions in revenue sharing from their counterparts, yet purposefully aren't competing for playoff spots. So this was a complicated element of the debate that I didn't really understand because you would think that the teams would want to be as competitive as possible. But when you're basing the sport off of this business model that seeks to increase profits for the owners, they're going to want to do what? they're going to want to cut costs, including costs associated with the players. And so what they're noticing, what the players are noticing, is that the money is not being invested in, let's say, drafting players that are going to give them a competitive advantage,

instead of paying for, let's say, veteran players who might help them win some playoff spots. Yes, playoff spots, what they're doing instead is they're paying for players that are cheaper. Another thing that's interesting is when they share the pie, there's a minimum amount that is shared through the revenue sharing agreement. So if you're a team that isn't really performing well, you're still going to get a minimum amount of money from that pie. And the argument here is that it's unfair, right? because it's an anti-competitive provision that's included in the now expired collective collective bargaining agreement. So I hope I explained that correctly or did so in a way that articulates what's really

going on. So essentially the players are arguing that there are certain anti-competitive incentives within the current collective bargaining agreement and they want to do something about it. This next video explains it in a little more detail. Today, instead of paying up for veteran studs, many teams would rather take their chances with some unestablished youngsters. After all, the current CBA allows teams to pay players the league minimum for their first three seasons in the majors, and their salaries are capped by the arbitration process for the next three. And of course, with those perverse incentives, many teams are

content to just flat out tank. In fact, Super Agent Scott Borst recently characterized the current state of baseball as a race to the bottom. We've got problems. And we're We don't ever want a system that rewards being a lesser team. We want a system that always rewards being the better team. With so many teams tanking or just generally avoiding veteran talent in the name of cost effectiveness, you're left with an increasingly disgruntled group of players who have watched their earnings drop off, while the game's owners have gotten richer and richer thanks to the lucrative broadcast deals and corporate sponsorships. Yeah, what that guy said.

He said it way better than I did. So I'm glad I chose that video because it's a good explanation of why the players are so frustrated, especially if you're a player for one of these teams, one of these clubs that is very clearly not doing what it takes to be competitive to make your way to the playoffs. Players want to win clearly. Clearly they want to win. And so look, the dynamics here are just so similar to what we're seeing in other workplaces. If you use this kind of business model, and this is the business model that prevails in almost every company, there's going to be this concentration of wealth at the top. And the workers, yes, while they might be better paid workers in the case of professional athletes than other workers, end up getting a smaller piece of the pie, even though they're the ones who are generating the revenue in the first place.

And because of this interest in increasing profitability in concentrating that wealth at the very top, less of that money that's earned by the players gets invested into the players. That's what the players are frustrated about. That's what they're angry about. And that's the reason why they refuse to continue on with the status quo. They wanted better because they've earned it. And so I'm actually proud of the players for sticking to their guns here. It is a difficult situation because as I explained earlier, you have the owners who have the advantage considering where we are in the season, right? In the preseason, I guess you could say. But this is not the first time there was a work stoppage for the MLB. The last time that happened was in the 90s with a 232 day work stoppage that actually ended up canceling the 1994 World Series. And I guarantee the owner. do not want to see that happen again. The viewership for the MLB was destroyed for a long period of time after that work stoppage. The owners, by the way, of the Chicago White Sox were pushing for a salary cap on the players at the time.

Again, this is back in the 1990s. The players went on strike as a result of that. And then the owners decided to unilaterally install salary caps on their own, but get this. Then a district court judge, Sonia Sotomayor, ruled against the owners, which kickstarted a shortened 1995 season. But as the Washington Post reports, owners continue to manipulate players' service time by which young stars have their free agency delayed all the while by making rosters younger or cheaper. And that's the other issue here. The players want to be released from this service time earlier so they can actually take advantage of their youth and the peak of their athletic careers to make the money that they deserve to make as free agents, right? But, you know, the owners want to lock them down in these service agreements that last longer than they should.

So we'll see where this goes. Definitely check out Ricky Strom and all of his sports. reporting on this. I'm sure that he's on this. It's a fascinating story and I love an opportunity to talk about something labor related in an area that I am not an expert in and that's certainly sports. Anyway, we got to take a quick break. When we come back, John Iderola will join me for some at first disastrous news, but I promise you some crazy fun news later in the show as well. We'll see you for the second hour. 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.