The Young Turks - Tax Bill, Medicare For All, Facebook Lawsuit, and Real Estate

Episode Date: March 29, 2018

A portion of our Young Turks Main Show from March 28, 2018. For more go to http://www.tytnetwork.com/join. Hour 1: Ana, John, and, Mark Thompson. The relationship between your paycheck and the tax bill. The cost of our anticipated paycheck increase.Support for Medicare for all has become the majority opinion in the nation with shocking approval ratings. Hour 2: Facebook is being sued by the National Fair Housing Alliance for discrimination. New date indicated foreign investment in the US real-estate has dropped significantly, no thanks to US lawmakers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Thanks for watching. Welcome to another episode of The Young Turks. It's Wednesday, and you might be seeing us right now. I don't know for sure. We're going to check in. There's been drama this week with that. There's been a little bit of technical drama, and it is the most understandable drama. Like, I have been looking from the outside of the things that have been happening,

and none of it makes any sense to me, but I know it's extremely complex. Yeah, it's a lot. It's detailed, it's difficult, and I give a lot of credit to the people who are behind making it work. Exactly. And I am most of all, and I want to make this very clear, glad that I am not involved in it. Yeah. Is it more complicated than Anna redoing her home the way you will? I haven't heard as much updates about the studio.

And we don't have as nice sinks, unfortunately. But anyway, I am John Adirola, Mark Thompson, Anna Kasparian, joining me for the first hour. and then it's a big hour, a lot of news that I want to get to. Some, some interesting polling information, including extremely positive polling information. That is not often the case on the show, but we do have it for you today. We have a really interesting and potentially impactful Supreme Court case that's going on right now. They're hearing the arguments literally this week, and then a bunch of other stuff. It's going to be really fun, and then we'll have a second hour as well. So with that, why don't we jump into the first story. Let's talk about your paycheck.

the possible relationship, if any, between the paycheck you get each week or every other week and the $1.5 trillion tax bill that Donald Trump and the GOP just passed. Now, as I like to point out every time, with any tax bill, there are two things. There are the things that actually happen for sure, and then there's the things they say might or could or potentially should happen. So what we know happened is that $1.5 trillion are being taken from, in some cases you, in some cases government programs, some we disagree with, some we agree with, and then it's being given to corporations in the form of lower corporate tax rates and largely the vast, vast majority of it to the wealthiest income individuals in America, and they're getting lower tax rates.

So that is definitely happening. Nobody questions that. But we were told the whole time, as we always are, that we will also get a tax cut. And it'll help us. Our tax bill will be lower, and there will be all sorts of stuff trickling down on us for the next couple of years. Well, we don't have a couple of years of data, but we do have a few months. So let's check in on the stuff they said might happen and see if it is actually in practice happening. So are people actually, when they look at their paychecks, are they seeing the benefits of this tax bill? Well, it turns out some of them are. A third of Americans have noticed more money in their paychecks because of that Trump tax cut.

Of those, less than 40% say it's improved their finances a great deal or a fair amount, which is, in my view, a pretty low. bar to set. So that's 40% of 33%, which I'm no mathematician, but that's 15% of the country says, hey, I notice it and it's actually beneficial for me. So great success. Honestly, 15%, 2% or 3% of that are the richest Americans in the country. What percent of people who are actually middle or lower income Americans is left to make up this ridiculous paltry statistic? Right. What I love about this is that Paul Ryan was excited about how Americans would react to their first paycheck under this new tax plan. And he really thought that it would help improve the GOP's approval numbers just based on what people would be getting back in the form of tax cuts. But the American people were paying attention as this process was moving along.

And the approval ratings made it abundantly clear that no one was buying what they were selling. Most people, including part of, you know, Republican voters who supported Trump, knew that this was going to benefit the wealthiest Americans and not the middle class and the working class. And so the approval rating remained low. And then the checks came in and the approval rating continues to be low because the benefits are not going to those who, you know, the Trump administration claimed would be. benefit the most. Exactly, yeah. Yeah, and it's so right. This is something that the American people in the Maine understood was going to benefit the wealthiest individuals and corporations.

They sought for what it was, but the rhetoric was nonstop from the right about how this is going to grow the middle class. When you look at the actual middle class numbers, the amount of money that's actually being returned paycheck to paycheck is less than $15. You just don't. It's not an amount that matters. So yes, it's nakedly clear that this was a money grab. by the richest people in America. Exactly. And look, we talk constantly about income inequality and the American oligarchy. These are not, like, things that just emerge out of the mist at some point. They are created, and they're created through actions like this.

Some money that would have been yours that would have gone to services that regular Americans would have used is instead being funneled to the extremely wealthy. That was the objective of it, and we already know that that's how people are actually perceiving it. I want to tell another number, because you alluded to this, should they actually notice it? So the first question is, are they noticing it? But should they actually notice it? Well, the nonpartisan tax policy center estimated that the typical middle income household would see an after-tax gain of $930 in 2018 as a result of the new law.

Assuming a one-paycheck household, that adds up to a little less than $18 a week. Again, on average for a middle income household, and there could be a broad range of what middle income actually represents, a lot of people are making even less than that, which means that if you go out to a fancy bar, you can't even get one additional drink every other week off of this tax bill. And you'll need one additional drink. You could use it. You could use it.

And that $18 a week, you better not spend it on a drink. You better save it because all the various ways that you're going to be paying more as a result of the states and local areas being starved of resources. then passing that on to you and higher fees and all sorts of things like that, the fact that your health insurance premiums and co-pays are going to go up because they're doing everything they can to destroy the Affordable Care Act and all of that. I hope $18 a week covers all of that stuff or else you're not even going to be able to afford a Chipotle every other week. Right. This just perpetuates regressive taxation, which is what we see not just a Republican administrations, to be fair. You see it in Democratic administrations as well. You know, we already have a system where we privatize gains, socialized losses, but on top of that, you know, that tiny amount of money that you see in addition to your previous paychecks, there is a cost to that. And that cost will be huge cuts in government programs that you think you might not be taking advantage of or needing, but you actually do need and have taken advantage of. And a lot of other people in underprivileged situations desperately needs. So there's a huge cost to that $18 per paycheck that you're receiving now.

Yeah. And so as I was thinking back to the fact that it's, by my math, something like 14 to 16% of the country thinks that they made a little bit more money and it actually makes a difference. That sounds like a big problem for the GOP come the midterms, let alone the fact that the vast majority of working class and middle class Americans aren't going to see absolutely anything. But who is most likely to have actually noticed that? Well, obviously, the wealthiest percentage. The 100th percentile individual is going to make the most from this, so they're definitely going to notice it. 99 a little bit less, 98 a little bit less.

So if we are to actually work that out, according to this, if you're in the 80th percentile, you might well not have noticed anything. If your tax bill can't even benefit some of literally still the wealthiest people in this country, do you really think that that's going to be enough for you to squeak out something that allows you to maintain your congressional majority? I honestly don't think so. This is their entire saving grace, and nobody seems to be buying it at this point. Right.

But I also want to make sure the Democrats don't bet on anything. Like they need to not be complacent. They need to give people a reason to vote for them in congressional races, in local races, and eventually in 2020, their argument can't be, we're better than the other party. It's not going to work for a lot of people. You need to inspire people. You need to have solutions that work, so don't get complacent. Yeah, that was the argument the last time.

in the general election, and it really didn't work. I mean, the Democrats were swept out in record numbers. It is absolutely the case that they need issues beyond look at those bad ideas. We're not going to do that. But to your point, we talked about this on TYT, the fact that we were a little worried that perhaps with a little more money in their pockets early on, even though, as you know, there's sunsets on even these tax cuts for the middle class, as paltry as they are, We were a little worried that with a little more money in their pockets, that voters might begin to go right.

And that's simply because they were feeling richer. But then when you actually see the numbers that John's talking about, that may not have been a legitimate fear. Yeah. And so if you look back historically, how out of the norm is this sort of effect that they pass this big tax bill and then people don't really notice the benefit? Well, I looked back. And back in I think 2009, Obama, I'm not talking about the stimulus here. I'm talking about the make work benefit again, something like that. It was a tax credit that was given to give a little bit more money to working Americans.

It's passed in 2009 under Barack Obama. And it was estimated that for 2009 and 2010, the average family would see about $1,200 additional income, which is a good chunk more than this. And the New York Times followed up, and less than 10% of households noticed the difference. I mean, they got $1,200. But even in that case, most people didn't even know that it existed. Because, of course, you know, we need more money than just $1,200. But so perhaps these numbers shouldn't be that surprising.

But also the way that they parcel it out, I think, makes it even less noticeable. If they gave you that $1,200 at the end of the year, you would say, wow, we just got $1,200 on the government. But because... Like the stimulus. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Right.

But if I remember correctly, there was a stimulus under the Bush administration. I think it was a $600 check. And it did nothing to stimulate the economy. People either saved it or tried to pay down their credit card debt. So I mean. She's responsible of them? Which was, yeah, exactly. But I mean, people were not in good financial situations at that time.

And also currently still aren't. But yeah, I mean, I guess they felt it more. But I mean, it didn't really help Bush's approval ratings. Great example, because that was a surplus that Bush delivered. And then he essentially dropped it on everybody. as Anna says at one time, but it was $600. I mean, what's really going to happen? And we all said that at the time.

What's really going to happen with $600? But they were arguing, no, no, no, no, no. Don't underestimate $600. Americans are living close to the line, and this is really going to make a difference. And it didn't make a difference in the economy at all. And it just helped erase a surplus. Yeah, yeah, totally. Okay, similar topic.

We're going to move on to a slightly different poll, but it gets into some of the same territory that we're talking about here. Although I feel like, especially on social media, Certainly in the mainstream media, I hear on pretty much a daily basis that Medicare for All and other formulations of single-payer health care are pie in the sky or just a dream or extreme or however people want to phrase it. In the background, even though people aren't necessarily paying attention, support for Medicare for All has become the majority position across America. Let's bring up this chart and you're going to see 59% of Americans support Medicare for All. That is a solid majority. I mean, how many other issues get passed with far less support than that?

60%. And that number is almost certainly only going to rise over time, especially as the Republicans do everything that they can to destabilize the current system that we have. Now, that's Medicare for all, where we just replace the entire thing with a single government plan. So what if we did something where you could opt in? You could be a part of Medicare or some sort of expanded Medicare, but you don't have to. Let's look at that.

That's actually higher. 75% of Americans. It's interesting that 20% of Americans don't want other people to have the option of buying into Medicare, so that's slightly selfish. But 75%, how many issues other than universal background checks

for firearms can you think of that have a 75% approval rating? And that is for this crazy impossible pie-in-the-sky plan that could never actually work, that now, thankfully, not only does the majority, the vast majority of the American people support, but a growing number of Democratic politicians support as well, whether in the House or in the Senate.

Certainly a lot of the candidates, especially the ones we've been focusing on over the past year. But you see how legislators, sorry, I was just going to say that, you see how legislators are out of step with what the public wants? I mean, and that's another great example. Look, in overwhelming numbers, the public didn't want involvement in Iraq in the form of a war, and we went to war anyway. The overwhelming numbers of the public don't want us in Afghanistan.

We're still in Afghanistan. Overwhelming number of the public on every poll want restrictions on guns, on assault rifles, on background checks. And legislators don't even bring it up on the House or Senate floor. And so you end up with legislators essentially blind to these kinds of polls. You're right. There's popular support for this. But we cannot get, this is why the vote and the replacement of these guys is so very important. We cannot get them to pay attention to the people they're supposed to be representing.

Yeah. Yeah, and that's, you know, partially or in a large part due to money and politics, which we talk about on the show all the time. But this poll isn't really that surprising when you reflect on the last general election and how so many people who would have supported Bernie Sanders or voted for Bernie Sanders ended up voting for Trump. Now, I think that was crazy because there are two completely different people. You have one moron, and then you have someone who actually knows the issues, cares about the issues and wants to do something about income inequality and are failing health care system. But there were two candidates who presented themselves as anti-establishment and who wanted to look out for the little guy. And so, you know, that's why you saw a lot of crossover. You saw people who would have supported Bernie ending up voting for Trump.

And it is a popular program. It is something that Americans do want. And it's not only something that's being ignored by members of Congress, it's being ignored by media. You see very little coverage of this issue. And I think that's part of the reason why Bernie decided to have that town hall where he talked about his Medicare for all proposal in great detail. That's a really great point about the media. And I hadn't considered it. It really is a great point.

I'm going to discuss. I think I need some health care. Now, thankfully, CNN did do a town hall as well. They had Bernie Sanders versus Ted Cruz, which sounds like a good way to waste most of the time there. But at least they did mention it, I guess. I would like to see that sort of thing far more often than once every cycle. Well, the media leads the debate is just what I was going to say. So that's why I like that point.

I think in this country increasingly, the media leads a debate. You see how much time and energy Trump puts into his taking in media every day, even though it's the singular voice of Fox News Channel. But I think these, the mainstream media leads a lot of the popular debate, particularly among the older voters, you know, I think younger voters are coming to places like TYT and to alternative news sources, and they're trying to get information in other places. But media does lead a lot of this. So I think the more media spotlight on this kind of thing, perhaps the more dialogue there'll be, and maybe something changes. Yeah, I want to run through just a couple more quick numbers to give an idea of hopefully any politicians are watching this and they think, well, but how could this actually benefit me come the next election? As of right now, 75% of Democrats support the idea of Medicare for All, a total system, 58% of independence, which is a nice healthy majority of independents. Even almost 40% of Republicans are in favor of single-payer health care.

Can you imagine a decade ago? Now, when you talk about expanding it to you can opt-in, which is, I think it gets many of the same benefits. It's not as stable of a system. I think there's a lot of reasons why you would want full Medicare for all. and not just a public option. But when asked about that, Medicare for some, support amongst GOP voters goes to 64%. That number is actually pretty shocking to me.

That's what I aim to do on the show. I want to give you shocking numbers, Anna. And that means you can run on that. Yes. That's the point. There comes a point at which you've hit a threshold, which makes it an issue that you can run on, and we're there. Right.

And I think the reason why this is one of those government programs, that even members of the GOP will sign on to is because all of us have to experience what private health care is like in the U.S. All of us have to go through the insurance claims, the authorizations, the insanely expensive nonsensical prices for our prescription drugs. You know, it's not one of those issues where it only impacts a certain population of people. So only those who have empathy care about it, right? So, you know, when it comes to food stamps, the stereotypes persist on the right. But when it comes to health care, we all feel the pain.

And I think that's the reason why a program, like Medicare, is so popular. Yeah. And so one of the reasons I think it's so important to continually talk about this and to fight for this as a policy is these sorts of health care policies, especially Medicare for all, but even weaker versions of it, like the ACA, for instance. I just saw an analysis today that showed that after looking at several years of the data, the ACA was in effect transferring $16 billion a year to the poorest Americans, thanks to higher taxes on high income Americans and subsidies going to those who were at the lower end of

the economic ladder. It wasn't a huge percentage increase in their income, but it was a percentage increase in their income. Something like Medicare for All would be far stronger, of course. So in the same way that passing the Trump tax cuts is an income inequality boosting measure, doing something like the ACA or especially something like Medicare for All, that is the way that you push for at least a little more income equality. It's not some sort of vague, like ethereal issue. There are specific concrete policies that we can push for that actually make things a little bit more equal.

And I want to leave you with one thing. So what can you actually do about this? Well, you can certainly support politicians who will not just run on this, but will actually pass something like Medicare for All when they get into office. But you as an individual, I think that we have very passionate supporters, supporters who follow the news and go out and debate and try to do something with it. And you will probably find that on a lot of topics, that is just bashing your head against the wall, because people have these very solidified opinions and nothing you say, no facts, can actually cause people to change their mind. The good news is that on these sorts of topics, when it comes to things like Medicare for All and health care policy generally, people do actually listen to new information. In a 2017 Kaiser poll, people presented with arguments against similar proposals against single-payer health care became 13 percentage points to 21 percentage points less likely to support the idea depending on the argument.

On the other hand, when they were given arguments for something like it, they went up 9 to 17 percentage points. That represents, depending on who is providing the information, a gigantic swing in favor or against these sorts of policies. Don't let those on the other side of the aisle be the only ones actually out there communicating on these topics. You can help every single day to do that and to get it more and more likely that something like Medicare for All becomes actual policy in America. And there's certain issues that people are dug in on and you're not going to take them over on. The issues with guns, regrettably, it's so hard to bring over the other side to any kind of responsible gun legislation. But what John's saying is on the issue of Medicare for all, it is possible to bring people over to the other side. They are responsive to those arguments.

So pick your battles if you're an advocate. And I think, while you have to fight all the battles, that's a battle you have a good chance of winning. Yeah. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The Republic or UNFTR. As a young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom.

In each episode of Un-B-The-Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be, featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must unlearn what you have learned.

And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. Yeah. Okay, with that, unfortunately, we are going to have to throw to our first break,

but you're going to want to stick around because we've got a lot. on one of the worst corruption scandals coming out of the White House involving Jared Kushner. What is or is not being done about that? We've got an update on a gerrymandering case before the Supreme Court right now that involves Democrats doing some gerrymandering and what might come out of that. And then the car companies, which are doing a lot in their commercials to show how clean they are. What are they actually doing behind the scenes when it comes to carbon emissions and climate change? We'll break down that and more when we come back from this break.

Thanks for listening to this podcast. You're only halfway through. So hold, hold, stay right here. Just want to remind you if you want to get all five segments of the Young Turks commercial free, these are just two of them. Every day we do it. So go to tYT network.com slash join and you get the whole five segments, two hours. Add free. Do it now. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to TYT. I want to read from TYT. YouTube super chat. Macell says one of the things I never hear people talk about is how Medicare for all could eliminate the horrible VA health system.

Absolutely. So if you genuinely care, or if Trump genuinely cares about fixing the VA system, something that he talked about during his campaign over and over again, then maybe consider a better health care system for Americans in general. Because it kills about the veterans, right? Like they all care about the veterans. Not the transgender ones are the ones that are suffering on the streets, but those, those ones. Right. And then Bob F says the ruling class doesn't want an educated workforce or electorate, get a clue, keep the workers ignorant.

I like to get a clue part, like frustrated with us. No, I know. We know. We know. That's what we said. Yeah. We said that very thing is in the comment. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, when you price the middle class and the working class out of an education, then you get rid of. any type of ladder people have to pull themselves out of poverty. Education leads to more opportunities. And if you don't have access to it, then you're less likely to pull yourself out of a disadvantaged situation. All right, moving forward, it's been a tough month for Facebook. And now the social media platform is facing yet another lawsuit. And this time it has to do with the type of ads people are allowed.

to put out on its platform and the way that they're allowed to target those ads. Now, this specifically has to do with the housing industry and how Facebook has allegedly enabled members of the housing industry to put out discriminatory ads. I'll explain. In the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in New York, several fair housing groups accused Facebook of allowing landlords and real estate companies to illegally tailor their advertisement audiences on the basis of sex, family status, number of children, and other factors. So let me give you some examples. Let's say you are a landlord, you have a building that has multiple units up for rent, and you want to put out an ad on Facebook and target that

ad to certain audiences. This group, the National Fair Housing Alliance, is arguing that Facebook has these predetermined groups like disabled vets, for instance, or single moms, that they can exclude from seeing those very advertisements. So Facebook provided the fake realtors with pre-populated lists of groups they could choose to exclude from seeing the ads. Now let's stop for a second. When we say fake realtors, we're talking about the group that investigated Facebook. So the National Fair Housing Alliance did this investigation by posing as landlords or realtors. Obviously, they're not, but they wanted to see whether or not they could put out ads that discriminate against certain groups of people. Let's continue. So they choose to exclude from

seeing the ads, including women or men or families with children. They could also opt to exclude people with certain interests, including disabled veterans, disabled parking permits, or learning English as a second language. Now, how does Facebook determine whether or not you fall into those predetermined groups? It's based on what you post on your page or what you like on your page. So if you are a single mom, for instance, and you're posting about being a single mom, well, then Facebook will include you in that group, which will then get excluded from seeing certain housing ads. Now, this is problematic because there are literally federal laws against it. So let's go to that. The groups behind the lawsuit claim Facebook's practices

violate the Federal Fair Housing Act, which prohibits disseminating housing ads that indicate any preference, limitation or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, family status, or national origin, or an intention to make any such preference, limitation, or discrimination. So that is a very clear federal law. And it seems as though through this investigation, the organization does have a case against Facebook. For its part, Facebook is denying any wrongdoing. They say that the lawsuit is without merit, but we'll see how it goes. Back in 2016, I believe, ProPublica, a journalistic organization, did their own investigation into this and did find wrongdoing on Facebook's part.

Facebook claimed that they would change things and that they wouldn't do this anymore, but it appears that they have continued doing this. So we'll see how it plays out in court. They want, obviously, there's practice to end, and that it would seem Facebook could do fairly quickly. They also want money of which Facebook has plenty. So we'll see how this ultimately comes down. But, you know, you hate sometimes to see these big lawsuits, but on the other hand, sometimes that's the best way to make a point. And they want to make the point, I think, in a very heavy way. And they deserve to be able to make the point in a big way.

And that means a big fine. Well, I'm just wondering from this, like Facebook is already in an enormous amount of scrutiny with Cambridge Analytica, last, with what's going on with that. But it makes you wonder, if this is what's happening with advertising for housing, like, what stage does this go on to with the next advertiser? Like, how many advertisers are able to discriminate based on whatever they look at? Because for years, I mean, one of the comments that was Diane Hooke, who was one of the plaintiff's attorney, she said for years, this may have been a bit of, their platform and violating civil rights laws, but have just kind of played dumb on the instance, right? And I know that seems like a small statement to make on a huge company, but look how much they've gotten away with. Like, they have, they literally gave information

over to a research publication so that they could manipulate advertisement in order to skew political votes and in order to manipulate minds of people who are using their platform. But I, the reason that I have trouble over this is, because I don't even know where to start and what the answer is, because with Facebook, the way it started, it was always going to lead to a level of what, at what point are they overreaching? At what point do they know so much about you that they can manipulate? I mean, I'm always hesitant to criticize because Facebook has turned out to be one of my primary platforms to portray news, right? And I, and my audience itself has continuously messaged me saying, I no longer see your posts. There's something happened

where it no longer pops up on my feed. Facebook have become, became so big, so fast that they didn't they had to work their way back in order to cleanse what they were pushing forward. That's where this whole fake news cleanse happened where certain videos were being hidden and certain videos weren't. And certain videos were being pushed and those weren't. So I really don't know what the answer is. I just think that it's an example of a company that grew so large that it began to be, allow manipulation factors that come in to make more money.

And now they're trying to write those wrongs. Right. It is, it's a great point that it's one of those companies that we didn't know a lot about. We kind of thought it was sort of neutral, things would show up on the feet as they did. It's a little like a lot of other internet companies that also are managing the way videos are seen and information gets out there. This is a business, though, that's all about data. That's what they sell. They sell.

We know all this about our group. The reason you go on Facebook and it's free is because you're the product, right? Yeah. I mean, so your information is being sold to advertisers who find that you're an adventurous person, so they'll serve you. maybe an SUV ad or an outdoorsy vacation ad or something like that. But what's happening is that, as Francis says, we don't really understand how Wild West the whole thing has been. They've been able to do whatever they want.

There's going to have to be some controls put on all of that targeting. Right. And also, regardless of where you work or what kind of company you are, you have to follow federal laws. And in regard to these housing advertisements, You have to follow federal laws. You can't discriminate against certain groups of people. Now, that's very different from being a specific brand that wants to target an audience that's more likely to purchase your product.

So if you're huggies, of course it makes sense to tailor, you know, the settings and target certain people who are more likely. Advertisers have always done that. That's fine. But it's a different story when it comes to housing. If you are excluding certain ethnic groups or certain individuals who may be the LGBT community, that's obviously discriminatory. You're not allowed to do it based on federal law. And Facebook had already been caught doing this.

They said that they would correct their wrongs and they didn't do it. And to your point, Mark, last year, Facebook brought in $40 billion, that's with a B, $40 billion worth of revenue. And all of it was brought in through advertisement. Okay, yes, it is a free service for us, but nothing's really free. What we're essentially doing is giving away our data so Facebook could utilize it for advertisers who want to optimize and target their ads. That's the way the business works. And, yeah, there needs to be some oversight to make sure that that kind of process isn't being abused to our detriment. You know, last point on this, the internet world is full of these startups that kind of came up as rebels, you know, and that was sort of a cool thing, right?

It was birthed in some college dorm and then they came up and before you knew it, you had crowdfunded and it became a big deal. And it's Facebook and it's Uber and it's Google and so on. But because they came up that way, they had a certain romance about them that allowed them to get away with a lot of stuff. Look at Uber. I mean, they completely ignored local restrictions and legislative demands associated with. permitting and all. They just went into markets all over the world and just started this with this app. And they ultimately were brushed back. They had to pull back on that. And that is what you're seeing with Facebook. I think they feel as though in the beginning they could do

all of these things without much oversight. Now there is oversight. As Anna says, they're in violation of federal law. Hey, there's a new sheriff in town and it's going to have to clean. They'll have to clean up that act. Absolutely. We have more housing news today. Jenks not here and I could talk about housing all day if I wanted to. All right. Let's move on. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your

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That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. New data indicates that foreign investment into U.S. real estate has taken quite a dip, and it's not because our lawmakers here in the United States have done anything to protect real estate for Americans. It has to do with the fact that the Chinese government realized that some of their wealthiest individuals were trying to take their money out of China. and either launder it or put it into real estate in other countries.

So China passed some regulation and some laws, preventing that from happening, and it's had an impact on some of the real estate here in the United States. Now, that sounds like it could potentially be good news because it could increase inventory of homes for people who are looking to buy. But if you dig a little deeper, unfortunately, there's still a little bit of bad news, and I'll get to that in just a minute. First, the numbers. There was a 55% drop in new Chinese investment.

in U.S. commercial real estate in 2017 compared with the year before. Spending fell from $16.2 billion in 2016 to $7.3 billion last year. China fell from first to third place among foreign investors in the United States behind Canada in Singapore. If you look at Los Angeles specifically, acquisitions by Chinese investors declined 67% last year. And so again, This is something that I've been kind of following because I've noticed in a lot of major cities, metropolitan areas, not just in the United States, but throughout the world, a lot of wealthy individuals in places like China or Russia wanted to move the money out of their own country. And the way that they do it is they will buy homes in cash, right? And when they buy those homes in cash, you don't got a chance. Middle class doesn't have a chance. You don't, you can't compete with them. that. Most people have to take out a mortgage. And it also makes the situation even worse because it inflates property values throughout the country. So when I saw this, I was like, oh my God, this is good news. I mean, our lawmakers aren't really looking out for us, but at least there's regulation

on the Chinese side. No. Okay. So the numbers are still pretty bad when it comes to residential property. That's different from commercial property. Now, commercial property includes apartment buildings. It also includes offices and hotels. Now, it's a mixed bag when it comes to that side of the story because oftentimes some of these foreign investors would buy failing hotels and then they would revive it. And that would actually be good for our economy. But when it comes to single family homes, we're still dealing with a pretty devastating situation. So let's go to Graphic 45. Foreign buyers actually made up 10% of the dollar volume, 10% of the dollar volume of all residential home sales across the United States.

And the time frame that we're talking about is between April of 2016 and March of 2017. In fact, foreign buyers bought 284,455 homes for a dollar value of $153 billion. That was actually a jump of 50% over the prior year. We're talking about homes now, guys, okay? Now, 42%, this is the frustrating part, 42% are non-residents who may indeed be leaving their properties vacant, some or all of the time. So they're just looking to put their money in these homes. They don't want to live here, they're not moving here, they're not doing anything beneficial for our economy whatsoever. This is not me trying to do some isolationist argument against foreigners.

This is me saying that it's negatively impacting the housing market for the vast majority of Americans who are earning average incomes, okay? Now, foreign buyers purchase homes that are more expensive, an average of about $537,000 overall compared to the U.S. average of $27,000. But this number is higher for non-resident foreign buyers than it is for immigrants who live permanently in the United States. And also nearly two thirds, 64% of foreign buyers bought conventional detached homes and another 12% bought townhomes. More than half of these foreign buyers do fit the image of all cash offers. Okay, when is our government going to do something about this? Canada actually took some action. They realized that their property values were heavily inflated because of foreign investment

by people who have no interest in actually living in Canada. So they imposed a pretty huge tax, and that helped to kind of correct the market. But in the United States, no one's even talking about this. No one cares. No one's talking about. It's driving me crazy. Well, the big thing is for this story is like we're focusing specifically on Los Angeles here, right? And we've lived in L.A. now for a while, I just moved out of it, which is no better in New York either.

But to even think about buying a home in Los Angeles, it's out of control. It's one of the most petrifying things in the world. Now, I have friends who are in the real estate business, and they deal with a lot of real estate north of the 101, which happens to be a lot of where the Chinese investments have been involved in. Alahambra area, Pasadena, Arcadia, and I know real estate agents there who, they jump because they're buying all cash. So they will sell because they don't have to worry about stalling an escrow and them not getting their commission. They want, and I'm not throwing him under the bus, because they're close to me, so I'm going to chase him back and find out what they're doing. But that's what their business is, is to make that commission and make money.

And Chinese investors are coming in and buying houses and cash. And not only are they doing that, Anna, what they do a lot of the time is they buy these houses and they'll tear them down and they'll build insane mansions, right? That immediately takes up the value of the property there and they're about. Did you know that from 2003 to 2015 in L.A., Chinese companies were the largest investors by far and away from anyone else in Los Angeles because they were just trying to, to move that money in order to buy homes. And as a result, people are like, well, why is it so expensive to buy homes in LA? Well, part of the reason is, is you have these investors coming in,

buying these properties, pushing up the value, and a lot of the time not living in it, just having a place to store money. And as you mentioned in, a valid point, this is not to demonize a group of people for coming in and buying property. The idea is that there should be regulations so that it gives everyone a fair and proper chance. Just because you don't have that, you don't have the ability you're going to buy a $450,000 one-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles for up in cash, if you're able and willing to pay for a mortgage and give yourself that opportunity, you should have a fair shot at it just because you're not whipping out 20s and throwing at the real estate.

Yeah, the tax base, I think, is improved also. So politicians and councilmen and those representing various local areas don't necessarily have an interest in changing this. You know, they see it as, well, the price. is going up. The tax base is increasing. That's more money for my district. So that game is being played out. And you're used to seeing it, now that's

kind of a surprising about this story. We're used to seeing it at high-end real estate. Like I'm talking about really high-end real estate, where you'll see some house sold for $28 million or whatever it is, and it's a Chinese investor or used to be a Russian investor, but now it's Asian money. But to see it on what you

consider a single family home level, where if we're talking about half a million dollars, that's the inflated price. I mean, the general average prices, $275 or $300,000 is surprising. I mean, it's a- It's insane. And honestly, something really needs to be done because while these local politicians are, you know, loving the extra tax revenue that's coming in, and that is positive. The tax revenue from property taxes specifically is a good thing, especially because it goes to schools and all that. But there's a huge,

huge problem with homelessness in areas like Los Angeles. And it's because people are getting pushed out of their affordable homes. So for instance, oftentimes what will happen is these investors will come in, they will buy rent controlled apartment buildings. They will then demolish those buildings and then, you know, have developers build these high-end apartments or condos that no one can afford. A lot of them actually remain empty. If you look at downtown L.A. specifically where this behavior has been going on, there's currently about a 10 to 12% vacancy rate, meaning that they're just sitting there empty. And it's very ironic considering the fact that this is the area where you have Skid Row.

You have streets full of people living in tents. And then you just look up at these luxury apartments and condos that sit empty. It's disgusting and something needs to be done about it. Anyway, we got to take a break. Let's do that. We'll be right back. Thanks for watching what I hope was a lovely edition of The Young Turks. Now, you know that that is two of the five segments that we do because that's free.

We want to have you support independent media and come watch the whole show that we do every day. That's five segments overall. No ads at all. That's at t-y-tnetwork.com slash join. Come become a member. Thanks for watching either way. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work.

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