The Young Turks - Wall St Over Main St

Episode Date: December 23, 2021

First-time homebuyers used to live on this block then global investors bought in. How a drugmaker gamed the system to keep generic competition away. Sen. Joe Manchin’s political action committee saw a surge in corporate contributions this fall, ahead of his decision to oppose – and apparently kill – President Joe Biden’s $1.75 trillion social safety net and climate-change bill. President Biden extended the federal student loan payment pause through May 1st. The Food and Drug Administration has just authorized Pfizer’s COVID-19 treatment pill. 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. You know, I'm going to be. I'm going to I'm What's up.

everyone, welcome to TYT. I'm your host, Anna Kasparian, and we have a roller coaster of a show for you. There's fire and fury. There will be a lot of fun in the second hour where Wozni Lombre will be joining me to talk about these second hour stories, including a Mormon leader who has defected from the church, and he gives his reasons why. We'll get into that. We also have a story regarding drug monopolies in this country. And no, this is not the drug monopoly created by myelin pharmaceuticals and the EpiPen. This is yet another drug in this regard. It is a anti-cancer drug. So we just, we continue to live in this disgusting culture of greed. I am sick of it and we are going to talk about it in great detail today. We're going to talk about Joe Mansions corruption. Shockingly, CNBC touched on it just a little bit, not in any of their programming, but in a print article that we'll get

into, and Joe Biden has decided to do a little bit of backpedaling in regard to student loan payments. They were supposed to begin again on February 1st, but after pressure from progressives, he has decided to implement another extension. So we're going to get to all of that. But as always, I just want to encourage you guys to like and share the stream if you're watching us on YouTube. It's one of the best ways to help us out, super quick, super easy, and it gets the TYT message, the progressive message out there, and we're always super grateful for anyone who does help out in that way. And the bonus episode for our members, that's exclusive members-only programming tonight, is going to be a lot of fun. So we're going to talk about Christmas

cards, some of the more controversial ones. What do you do with Christmas cards after the holidays are over? Do you just save them in a massive box of, you know, basically Christmas cards featuring pictures of families that you're like acquaintances with or do you toss them out? I think it's a big controversy. We need to talk about it. And also, if one of your colleagues is letting them rip at work because they're gassy, do you have a right to ask them to stop? Big controversy in the UK. We'll get into those details as well, but only for our members. You can become a member by clicking on the join button if you're watching us on YouTube or go to t.yt.com slash join. All right, without further ado, let's get to the first topic today, which is one of my favorite stories to talk about.

So, as we know, the housing market continues to be a pretty devastating place for anyone either looking to buy or rent. So the Pandora papers revealed that billionaires across the world, incredibly wealthy individuals across the world, were relying on tax shelters to avoid having to pay. their fair share of taxes on their earnings, on their lucrative, you know, fortunes and all of that. But now we're also learning about how institutional Wall Street investors and foreign money is essentially pouring into U.S. real estate and not only pricing ordinary Americans out of the market, but more importantly, they are taking certain opportunities away from working families, especially in neighborhoods that used to be affordable to an average American. And the latest story, it's an in-depth, fantastic piece of reporting by The Washington Post, believe it or not, goes into detail

in regard to Progress Residential. And if you do a quick YouTube search on Progress Residential, You'll see how many of the renters across the country have to deal with the slumlords that essentially run these properties after they purchase them from the market with all cash, all cash offers. Now, the venture, progress residential, acquires as many as 2,000 homes a month, okay, 2,000 homes a month through the use of a computerized property search algorithm and swift all cash offers. Progress executives boast that the company's efficient management practices have been a boon to their tenants who cannot afford to buy one of the entry-level homes. And then what do they do? Look, we've covered similar stories in the past. These institutional investors buy these single residential homes in bulk, and then they don't even flip them. They just turn them into rentals, and they essentially become slumlords.

So progress residential has been ringing up substantial profits for wealthy investors around the world, meaning foreign investors, while outbidding middle class home buyers and subjecting tenants to what they allege are unfair rent hikes, shoddy maintenance, and excessive fees. And we're also going to get into some details in regard to how these foreign investors are able to skirt paying their fair share of taxes as a result. of the industry essentially pushing to ensure that these investments get taxed differently from any other type of income. So let me get to some more details about what one resident, for instance, told the Washington Post about this whole situation. All we can tell you is it's been bad, said Ashley Baltimore, a delivery driver, who with her husband, rents one of the company's houses on Tammy Sue Lane for $2,020 a month.

That's up more than 30% from when they moved in in 2016, roughly in line with the area's rapidly rising rates. Now, it's interesting, why is that area experiencing rapidly rising rates? Well, it could be because so many homes in that county have been bought out, bought up by this Wall Street investor. So let's take a look at the specific street that was mentioned, okay, Tammy Sue Lane. The homes that are highlighted there are homes that were purchased by Progress Residential. Okay, so almost the entirety of Tammy Sue Lane in Tennessee has been purchased by the Progress

Residential, you know, institutional investor here. But why don't we actually zoom out and look at a broader map. of that area and see just how many, oh wow, look at that. All of those red marks indicate the homes that have been purchased by this Wall Street investor, homes that used to be affordable, homes that used to be obtainable by working Americans in Tennessee, and now they are out of reach. Now they are only available as rentals. And since you have this one Wall Street investor buying up most of the homes in this area,

they essentially monopolize the market in this area, right? And they get to not only jack up the rents, they can basically get away with essentially just neglecting the properties that they buy. And you will see story after story, video after video of renters who are furious at the conditions that they're living in and the lack of attention and care they're. receive from their slumlords. That's who the, that's who these institutional investors are. And, and again, it's not just investors here in the United States. We're talking about foreign investors as well. So let's get to some more details. Well, what's the result of all of this?

Well, Rutherford County, where Tammy Sue Lane is located, ranked as the fifth least affordable U.S. county for homebuyers when considering wages in the area, according to the real estate data firm, Adam Data Solutions. In all, Progress Residential owns more than 1,500 houses in Rutherford County alone. Okay, but we're just talking about one county. They're doing this across the country. And we're just talking about one Wall Street investor, institutional investor. As we've talked about on this show before, there are many. So when we talk about a housing crisis in this country, understand that these institutional investors play a huge role. Foreign investors looking to launder their money play a huge role. And right now, we have

Democrats in charge of Congress. We have a Democratic president who claims he cares so, so much about doing something about affordable housing. I mean, the proof is in the pudding, right? His build back better agenda, which just got, which just got blocked by Joe Manchin, included about, you know, $150 billion, which was supposed to be allocated to build affordable housing. But you could build as much affordable housing as you want. If you don't deal with what's taking place right now, with these all cash offers being given by these Wall Street investors, you're not going to solve the affordable housing problem at all.

Okay, it's not even on Biden's radar. You don't even see Democratic lawmakers talking about this issue. That's what's so infuriating about the debates that you see going on right now about the lack of affordable housing. All they talk about is, oh, I don't know, let's just throw some money at it. Maybe, maybe if we can convince Joe Manchin to put his corruption aside for one second and do something that helps the American people. But even if they were able to accomplish that, it still doesn't solve the problem. Because you still have a systemic issue with Wall Street greed, with these investors pouring in, snatching up all available homes, and essentially cornering the market as these slumlords.

Now, the county's property assessor, who by the way, is a Republican, this isn't a Democrat or Republican issue, okay? This is a corporate greed, Wall Street greed issue. The county property assessor says this, these ventures are equity mining our community, removing generational wealth for an entire demographic of people. For the average person starting out wanting to start their family, the choice is no longer, can I purchase a house? It's instead, can I afford to even rent a house? That's how dire this situation is. Now, what is the deal with Progress Residential? Like, what is this corporation, what is this institutional investor? Who's behind it? I think it's important to know. Now, behind Progress Residential is Predium Partners, a New York-based investment firm whose business plan

and investors are revealed in the Pandora Papers, a trove of offshore financial records obtained by the international consortium of investigative journalists. Okay, so there's been a lot of reporting about the Pandora Papers. If you maybe miss some of that reporting, you can definitely check it out on our YouTube channel. We've talked about it. We've covered it. And it gives you a sense of just how far the greed goes, not just, you know, obviously

there's greed in the United States. But it's an international problem, these tax shelters, all these games, all these tricks that the most wealthy people are across the globe engage in just to avoid paying taxes. It's pretty incredible stuff. Now, the plan sought to exploit, and this is an important part of the story, the plan sought to exploit the 2008 U.S. housing crash, which forced millions of homeowners into foreclosure and left a glut of cheap houses for sale. The financiers plan called for buying up tens of thousands of these properties at depressed prices and then renting them to families who had lost their homes or because of tightened lending practices could no longer qualify for a mortgage. So at that point, you know, you see these institutional investors reaching out for capital,

reaching out for the money necessary to make these all cash offers and snatch up all of these homes that American families had lost for the lowest price possible. And they have seen incredible profits as a result of this venture. So Preetia made legal arrangements so such foreign investors would have limited exposure to U.S. taxes, according to tax experts. And look, what's sick about all of this other than the fact that Americans are getting priced out of their own neighborhoods, other than the fact that Americans are finding it increasingly difficult, to pay for a roof over their heads is the fact that the very people who crashed the economy in 2008, the very crash that foreclosed on millions of Americans across the country,

they're also the same people who turned around and benefited from that economic collapse. In fact, someone who's associated with this specific investor, institutional investor, was very much involved in the predatory practices leading up to the 2008 economic collapse. While the documents do not identify most of the other investors, they show that an outsized share of the potential profit was earmarked for Donald Mullen Jr., founder and chief executive of Predium Partners. Mullen is well known in financial circles for his tenure at Goldman Sachs, where he helped oversee that firm's lucrative bet against U.S. housing and mortgage markets ahead of the 2008

crisis. That bet, a strategy popularly known as the big short, allowed Goldman to profit as markets plummeted. And look, we also need to address the fact that in 2008, Democrats had an opportunity to help ordinary Americans, okay? 2008, you've got the Obama administration, okay? You have, I mean, you have a super majority in Congress. Democrats are large in charge, and they can actually respond to the 2008 economic collapse in a way that regulates Wall Street in a robust way. Of course, they didn't actually do that.

Dodd-Frank, which is the only regulation that came out from that economic collapse. was a joke, okay, incredibly weak, which is why you continue to see sky high profits in Wall Street. But they also had an opportunity to ensure that Americans got to keep their homes, while the very people who crashed the economy would get punished. But they didn't do that. So as a result, in 2008 alone, lenders foreclosed on the loans for more than 3 million homes. That's just 2008. And home prices, of course, sank.

and that trend continued into the Obama administration. Obama didn't bail out ordinary Americans, but he did bail out Wall Street. And I have a huge problem with that. And how did he do it, right? When I say bail out, I'm specifically referring to the Federal Reserve's policy of easing, QE, where they literally, they want to provide liquidity to these banks. They want to make sure these banks have the capital necessary. to lend to people, to ensure that small businesses can keep running, ordinary Americans can

qualify for loans and maybe buy a modest home. You know, it's supposed to keep the economy running because you want to make sure that there's enough capital for these financial institutions to give to ordinary people. But that money never trickled down to ordinary people. They use the money to snatch up the real estate out there. The foreclosed homes on the cheap, and what did they do? They just became slum lords. That's all they did with it. Did it help the ordinary American?

Part of the reason why we're experiencing the housing crisis today is because we had and continue to have a government that favors Wall Street investors over ordinary American workers. And so I don't think just throwing a couple hundred, you know, billion dollars at our housing crisis is going to solve a damn thing. It's putting a band-aid on a gushing wound. We now have institutional investors, several of them, that are buying up all of these homes across the country, all cash offers. You can't even compete with them. And this isn't just about owning a home, which, by the way,

was really the last vehicle for American workers to build wealth in this country. It goes beyond that, because when you have this type of inflation in regard to properties that are available on the market to buy, that also bleeds into the price of rentals, which is why so many Americans are experiencing a huge spike in their rent, even in the middle of a global pandemic. No, housing should be, and I consider it to be, a basic human right. Everyone deserves a safe place to live, a roof over their heads, everyone. I mean, we keep hearing all these stories about how fantastic this country is, how this is the land of opportunity.

This is the greediest country in the world. It really is. We allow pharmaceutical companies to have monopolies on life-saving drugs. We allow pharmaceutical companies to charge us whatever the hell they want for life-saving drugs. We don't treat health care as a human right. We don't treat housing as a human right. In this country, if you don't have the money to compete with the demands of Wall Street investors, you're screwed. No roof over your head, no life-saving drugs to keep you alive.

This is the American dream. And it doesn't matter if there's a Democrat or Republican in the White House. It's always the same, and it'll continue to be the same unless there's outside pressure. Congress isn't going to do a damn thing for us, unless there's outside pressure, unless there's organized efforts to essentially apply the pressure necessary to force them to actually represent us. Otherwise, all we're doing is fighting with each other on Twitter, okay? indulging, you know, easily hurt children who can't handle words like Cracker and feel like they're the ones who are aggrieved. We're always constantly just distracted with garbage, okay?

What really matters right now is ensuring that people's basic needs are met. And while we are distracted, we're allowing these Wall Street investors to run amok day in, day out, with the help of Democrats and Republicans, and I'm sick of it. We've got to take a quick break. We'll be right back. Welcome back to TYT. I'm Anna Kasparian, and I want to talk about the greed of pharmaceutical companies and how aggressively they fight to maintain monopolies on life-saving drugs.

So let's get right to it. One of the most important provisions in the build back better agenda, the social spending bill that just got blocked by Democratic Senator Joe Manchin was the notion that maybe, just maybe, this country can lower pharmaceutical drugs, lower the cost of pharmaceutical drugs. It was supposed to allow for Medicare, for instance, to directly negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies, something that the Medicare system is actually banned from doing as we speak. But you have a Democrat, a Democrat, Senator Joe Manchin just clearly stating, no, no, I have problems with this bill, okay? And by the way,

before Manchin noted that he was going to block it and vote no on the social spending bill, it had already been stripped of so many of these important provisions, including the provision meant to lower the cost of prescription drugs. So it's not just about Manchin. There are several Democrats in the Senate, several Democrats in the House of Representatives. In the House of Representatives, who are bribed, legally bribed by pharmaceutical companies to screw you over, to ensure that our Medicare system overpays for pharmaceutical drugs, to ensure that you and I overpay and get price gouged from pharmaceutical drugs. So the corruption certainly impacts both sides. But for the purposes of this discussion, why don't we focus on the type of corruption that we

see with Joe Manchin and then tie that into how cancer patients, are getting screwed over by it. So CNBC, shockingly, in one of their print articles, decided to touch on the kind of corruption that has impacted Joe Manchin and his decision to block the social spending bill. They write that Mansions' leadership pack, Country Roads, received 17 contributions from corporations in October and 19 last month, according to a CNBC analysis of federal

election commission filings. None of the four months prior to October saw as many corporate contributions. Wow, I wonder why. Could it be that all of these corporations were terrified at the thought that maybe just maybe the Democrats could pass legislation that materially improves our lives? Now, who did these donors include? Well, they included financial giants such as American Express and Goldman Sachs, Aerospace and Defense Leader Lockheed Martin, health insurance companies, United Health Group, and Blue Cross Blue Shield, and natural gas company CNX resources. The PAC raised over $110,000 in November alone. And so this corruption and corrupt politicians like Joe Mansion enable the pain in

suffering that so many Americans are experiencing today, especially when it comes to our privatized healthcare system, especially when it comes to pharmaceutical drugs. So let's talk about that. In fact, I want to share a very specific story. We've heard about the EpiPen, okay? You know, Mansion's daughter was the CEO of Mylan Pharmaceuticals when she decided to create a monopoly for the EpiPen and price gouge the hell out of Americans. But there's another story. that I want to share with you all because, you know, pharmaceutical companies monopolizing certain drugs, life-saving drugs is not rare, but there are some stories that I think a lot of people don't know about, haven't heard about. And this one strikes close to home, especially since

someone very close to me just got diagnosed with blood cancer and needs this specific drug every single day in their life in order to live, in order to survive. But there's a monopoly for this drug. Let's talk about those details. So there's cell gene. Cell gene is one of these pharmaceutical companies, and cell gene is behind a blood cancer medication known as Revlimid. Revlimid is a drug that helps with people who are suffering from multiple myeloma, for instance. It could help slow the process of leukemia. It is an incredibly important pharmaceutical drug and does help to keep people alive. The only problem is you're not going to find a generic version of that drug. There is a very aggressive effort by cell gene to maintain patents to prevent

generic drugs from being produced. In fact, cell gene has been dealing with multiple lawsuits for many years as a result of its antitrust practices. Now, when Selgin Corporation first started making the drug Revlimid to treat multiple myeloma back in 2006. The price was $6,195 for just $21 capsules, a month's supply. But by the time David Mitchell started taking Revlimid in November of 2010, Seljean had bumped the price up about $8,000 a month. But that wasn't enough for them. When he took his last month's worth of pills in April of 2016, the sticker, price had reached $10,691. That's for one month. But by March of 2018, the list price had reached $16,691. Just one month for that drug. No generic versions available. Now in Maine, between

2015 and 2020, the price of this cancer drug, Revlimit, soared from $185,574 per year to a whopping. $267,583 a year, which is why the AARP, which is also a lobby representing elderly or senior citizens in this country, was urging, absolutely urging Congress to pass Biden's social spending package. Because so many of our senior citizens across this country have experienced the price gouging that takes place. Even with the wildly popular Medicare program, there are senior citizens who are still hit with insanely high co-pays related to their pharmaceutical drugs, especially if we're talking about a pharmaceutical drug that does not have generic versions available because these companies monopolize the market. Now, the pharmaceutical company is able

to charge whatever it wants. Because if there are no other competitors, if there are no generic options, well, if you've got cancer and you need this drug, you're going to probably pay whatever you need to pay in order to get your hands on it. You might sell your home. You might borrow against your home. You might go into bankruptcy, just go into debt in an effort to just stay alive. That's what this country does to people. It's just fantastic, really, the land of opportunity. And so Seljean has gamed the system by preventing other drug manufacturers from getting the materials that they would need in order to test the generic version of the drug. So let me tell you how they're doing this. So Rev Limit is derived from a drug originally

prescribed to treat morning sickness that was banned in 1962 because of its connection to birth defects. To reintroduce it as a cancer treatment, cell gene had to put strict controls known as REMs on distribution to ensure that it was not taken by pregnant women. So for instance, if you are prescribed this drug, you have to fill out a survey every six months, making it abundantly clear that you're not pregnant, that you're not planning on getting pregnant because of the birth defects associated with taking this drug. It's one of the side effects, okay? And so what cell gene has done is they have used that excuse, that regulation, meant to keep people safe as a way of essentially preventing other competitors from getting

their hands on the materials necessary to develop their own generic version of the drug. Generic drug makers need supplies of brand name drugs to conduct tests and prove to the food and drug administration that their version works. Cell gene appears to be using REMs to keep generic drug makers from getting the samples they need. And that's according to to what the FDA said. Now, is our federal government really doing anything about this? I mean, do they do anything about the fact that there was a monopoly for the EpiPen? And that monopoly led to the price gouging carried out by Myelin Pharmaceuticals under the leadership of Joe Manchin's daughter. They didn't do anything about that. You know, they had their cutesy

little hearings because we all know, Congress loves to have hearings. You know, we're mad at Mark Zuckerberg. Let's do a hearing. Oh, we don't like, it seems like some of our constituents are upset about being price gouged. Let's do some hearings. Let's just give our constituents the illusion of doing something without actually doing a damn thing. That's what Congress does day and day out. That's all they do. Okay?

That's all they do. This has been going on forever. Just keeps going. No, there isn't even a fine. There are no consequences. They're able to do this. oftentimes because there are patent laws and certain things that allow them to do it. Okay?

So to be clear, as far as we know, Seljean hasn't even done anything illegal. Mylan Pharmaceuticals might have done something illegal in regard to the EpiPen. But in this regard, Seljean is just taking advantage of the laws that are out there. They're able to, you know, use those laws to their advantage. In fact, fairly recently, not recently. This was an interview from years ago, but the former CEO of Seljean went on Bloomberg. And understand, when it comes to Bloomberg and CNBC, these are not news networks meant to inform you. Bloomberg and CNBC is all about helping investors decide whether or not they should invest in certain companies.

So pay close attention to the tone of this interview, the line of questioning. Because the reporter here, the anchor here, isn't concerned about the price gouging, isn't concerned about the monopoly, isn't concerned about the cancer patients who might not be able to pay for this life-saving drug. The Bloomberg reporter here just has this line of questioning to help investors decide whether or not the monopoly is going to last long enough so they get a nice little return on their investment. So here's an interview from 2012 featuring the former CEO of Seljean.

and look at him bragging about how he's monopolized the market. Let me ask you about revelma, I'm going to jump right in, because that's your top seller, a big chunk of your revenues. But you guys, I think, put out a lawsuit in terms of defending it against, you know, patent protection. Yes. How worried about are you about generic competition anytime soon for this one? We feel very good about an intellectual property estate. We've built it over 15 years, and so we will very vigorously defend it.

We've got composition or matter patents, polymorph patents, use patents. We have a very strong estate. We'll vigorously defend it. We're very confident of our position. So years, easily years before we're seeing any kind of generic. We believe our patents will hold until 2027 on the issued patent. So we feel good about it. We're in litigation.

We can't get to the specifics. But we're confident about the investment we've made and we've made the right investment feel very good about this quality of our intellectual property. Oh, she's so proud, so proud. Nice, you know, bragging rights, bragging rights. I mean, don't worry, investors, we're going to deliver for you. And if cancer patients don't have the money to pay for this life-saving drug that we're price gouging them on, well, they can go ahead and die. They can go ahead and die.

Who cares? Who cares? Maybe there'll be some mutual aid to help them out. But other than that, Congress ain't helping you out. Other than that, you think these pharmaceutical companies that have a clear profit motive are going to help you out? But you think they care whether you live or die? He's just bragging about it right there. Who knows how many Americans have already died of blood cancer because they couldn't afford

this one drug that is obviously unattainable because there's no generic version. Okay, and this company can charge whatever it wants. Now, this reminded me a lot of why I get so furious with Congress and how they just do these hearings over and over again and nothing results from the hearings. I was curious to see if Congress ever held a hearing on Revlimid, on what's taking place right now. And I did come across a statement, a moment during one of these hearings featuring Representative Peter Welch. And he's got a lot of strong statements here. So let's hear what he has to say. And then I'll tell you what happened afterwards. There is a very clear strategy on the part of the pharmaceutical industry to boost its prices in the place

where it can, and that's the United States of America. Ours is literally the only country where the government won't protect its citizens from price gouging. Now, the profits, nothing wrong with profits.

But price gouging profits, yes, in tactics used that are tried and true by the pharmaceutical industry to extend the life of that monopoly that they get, granted by this Congress, by making an ever so slight change in the medication itself in claiming that that entitles them to extend that patent, where you have companies that are charging like $70,000 for a drug. It helps, but who can pay that?

Not a lot of people, Congressman Welch, not a lot of people. He knows that, apparently. But what did he do about it afterwards? What did our democratic lawmakers do about it afterwards? They claim to be so different from the Republican Party. They claim to want to represent the little guy. They claim to be disgusted with the greed of Wall Street and these pharmaceutical companies. Until they get legalized bribes from these corporations and these pharmaceutical companies and the private health industry and all of that. As soon as they get that money, as soon as that check clears, all of a sudden, wow, they forget.

they forget. All of a sudden, the price gouging doesn't matter. All of a sudden, the pain and suffering of Americans is not that important. I'm sick of your damn hearings. Do something. Do something. But they won't. They won't. And to be quite honest with you, they don't really feel the need to do a damn thing. They'll pay lip service to these issues. They'll talk about these issues and they're campaigning because, hey, you know, they really do want to just try to make themselves stand out from the Republican Party. But when push comes to shove, they don't do a damn thing. And then they use all sorts of excuses.

What could we do? We only had a simple majority in the Senate. What could we do? They know they could do something. They don't fight for it because they don't want it. Now let's get back to Joe Manchin. Because Joe Manchin's own family has profited handsomely off of drug company monopolies. So let's get back to his daughter, who should be investigated by the Biden administration,

if Biden genuinely cared about pushing for his own agenda. But of course, he won't do that. Senator Joe Manchin's daughter worked with Pfizer Inc. in 2016 to monopolize and raise the price of the EpiPen while the company gave generous campaign donations to Joe Manchin. And by the way, before it became Viartis, Milan Pharmaceuticals, was the largest campaign contributor to Mansions campaign in five election cycles. Oh, he just loves, he loves that campaign money, man. He loves it. And we know his daughter loves to price gouge herself because that made her tremendously wealthy. In 2010, the company's PAC and its employees were the largest donors to Mansion's first Senate run. And Viartis is the number one career donor to Mansion, including past donations from Milan.

In Mansion's second Senate election in 2016, Milan was the second highest contributor to the West Virginia senator. So I never want to hear about, well, what could Mansion do? What could Mansion do? I mean, he's got these ideological differences from mainstream Democrats. What could Mansion do? He's from West Virginia, where, you know, mainstream media will have you believe consists of constituents who love to be price gouged on pharmaceutical drugs. What could Mansion do? It's the freaking corruption. That's it. It's the corruption. We live under corporate rule. Congress doesn't represent us. They don't. They don't feel the need to. Our voice is nothing compared to the legalized bribes they receive. The only time we've seen anything, any, any effort to actually represent the American people is when we had organized outside pressure. Organized outside pressure that led to the New Deal, for instance, as flawed as it might have been, okay? It wasn't perfect.

But you think that, you know, the Roosevelt, you think that FDR, his administration and Congress at that time would have done a damn thing if there weren't worker strikes, if there were. wasn't organized pressure, they wouldn't have done a damn thing. I don't know, I mean, I'm obviously speculating. But organized labor played a huge role in getting things done. And if you think that all we need to do is cast our ballot for more Democrats and then just sit back and hope that they're going to represent us, I promise you you'll be disappointed over and over and over again. Because we're competing with corporate interests, and they've got a lot of money.

Unless we apply pressure, we're going to keep running into the same problem over again. And our family members will die because they can't afford the drugs that they're being price gouged on. What a great country. Got to take a break. We'll be right back. Welcome back to TYT, Anna Casparian with you. Hit that join button if you'd like to be a member of TYT. Members help to keep us sustainable. And they also get all sorts of exclusive members only programming, including our bonus

episodes, which we do Monday through Thursday, really looking forward to the bonus episode today where Waz and I will talk about some fun stories, including what do you do with Christmas cards after Christmas is over. All right, but for now, we've got some more serious news to get to, including an update on federal student loans. Following pressure from progressives and likely a reflection of his terrible approval ratings, President Joe Biden decided to extend the payments for federal student loans. They were supposed to go into effect on February 1st, but there was a lot of backlash as a result of that because we're still experiencing a global pandemic.

And of course, there's a new variant that is rapidly spreading across the country. So President Joe Biden has reversed course and he has announced that he is extending this freeze on federal student loan payments. He writes on Twitter, today, my administration is extending the pause on federal student loan payments. loan repayments for an additional 90 days through May 1st of 2022 as we manage the ongoing pandemic and further strengthen our economic recovery. And he also explained more about his reasoning in a video he released. So let's take a quick look at that. Folks, our economic recovery is the strongest in the world.

But I know that because of the pandemic, many borrowers need more time to resolve. payments. For that reason, my administration is extending the pause on student loans repayments for 90 more days through May 1, 2022. In the meantime, folks should take advantage of the Department of Education's options to make payments easier, like income-based repayments or public service student loan forgiveness program. Look at them both. Now, there are some who are giving Joe Biden a little bit of credit for being willing to extend this freeze on federal student loan repayments. But I don't know, maybe I'm being unfair. Maybe my standards are too high. Because as I look at this story, I don't really feel like applauding Joe Biden for what he's doing. In fact, I don't

think that he deserves any praise at all. He doesn't deserve any cookies. No cookies for you, Joe Biden. No cookies for you, I'm sorry. Cancel student loan debt. Just cancel it. He can unilaterally cancel student loan debt. Kicking the can down the road for another 90 days does not solve a problem. It kicks the can down a road. And every time you hear the Biden administration argue that, oh, well, we don't, we don't know, we don't know if we can do that unilaterally. We don't know if we can do that through executive action. We need to do this through congressional legislation. No, he, there are lying to you. In fact, the Biden administration has canceled some that federal student loan debt.

They have the ability to do it. The problem is they're not willing to do it in a large scale. They're not willing to do it in a way that actually has a significant impact on this economy and also more importantly on people's lives. We're talking about federal student loans. These are student loans that were given out to students by the federal government. If Biden wanted to, if the education secretary wanted to, if they genuinely cared about improving people's lives, they would cancel student loan debt, federal student loan debt, which of course they have the jurisdiction over. But they're unwilling to do it. More than 40 million Americans have had nearly two years without required payments or interest on their collective 1.7

trillion dollars in student loans. And the education department said in a statement that the pause is expected to save 41 million borrowers about $5 billion a month. Great, that's awesome. So what happens when this freeze is lifted? What happens then? They're not saving money anymore, right? In fact, not only are they forced to repay their student loans every month, there's interest involved. And that's what I really want to get to here, because it is important to kind of understand why it is that the federal government refuses to cancel student loan debt, even when the executive branch could do it unilaterally without congressional approval. Why is it? Could it be that there's actual money coming in for the federal government?

Not in the form of millionaires and billionaires paying their fair share of taxes. I mean, we can't have that. We can't have that. Let's shelter them from having to pay their fair share. Could it be because they're bringing in quite a bit of money every year from the interest associated with those federal student loans? I don't know, maybe I'm being a little unfair. Now, remember, Biden campaigned, although it was a weak campaign promise, he campaigned on canceling some student loan debt. Biden had campaigned on forgiving up to $10,000 in debt per borrower, But he has since said any such action would have to come from Congress. And of course he would say that because he knows full well that Congress ain't going to pass a damn thing.

I mean, we saw what happened with build back better. We saw what happened with the social spending program. They're not going to pass a damn thing. He knows it, which is why it's easy to just brush it off and be like, I don't know, little Congress should do something about it. Very cute. He thinks we're all stupid. He thinks we don't know what's going on here.

But federal student loans, again, do have interest associated with them, and that interest is paid to the federal government. And so federal student loans for undergraduates currently have an interest rate of 3.73%, while graduate students have interest rates of 5.28% or 6.28% for unsubsidized loans or plus loans, respectively. So just how much money does the federal government typically bring in per year, obviously a normal year where the payments are happening, a non-COVID year. How much money are they bringing in? Well, that number is $70.3 billion.

Okay. That's how much the government collected on its loan portfolio in financial year 2019. The last full year before payments were paused due to the pandemic. It covers only payments on loans that are owned and managed by the government, which currently, which the current total is $1.4 trillion, according to the Department of Education's latest portfolio summary. So all of this nonsense about, oh, we don't, we don't know if we could actually do that. Oh, we just, no, if we want to, if we want to do something to really change education in this country, higher education in this country, if we want to make it obtainable for

people. So there are, you know, more opportunities for people. You would make public universities free like they once were. And maybe we should start from scratch. Cancel the student loan debt, right? Allow for all of these tens of millions of Americans struggling with that debt to finally be free of it, to be able to participate in our economy without that cloud hanging over them, their entire lives. And as I've said before, I mean, Biden, of all people, has a moral obligation to cancel student loan debt. Because he's the one who championed the bankruptcy bill, which made it impossible to discharge your student loans, even if you file for bankruptcy. So no matter what you do. Student loans follow you around for the rest of your lives. Okay. And a lot of people don't

have choices. I mean, the way that it's being reported about, talked about on cable news, for instance, makes it seem like, ah, you know, all these, all these American, all these irresponsible Americans, they wanted to get an education. And so they took out loans to be able to do that. Because, you know, wages haven't kept up with inflation since the 1970s. Nearly half of Americans can't afford a $400 emergency, but they're irresponsible and they had the audacity to want an education, which of course is associated with astronomical prices. You can't get a free college education in this country. And so the students are the bad guys. The people who wanted a better life for themselves and their families, they're the bad guys. The people who were told

their entire lives and you got work hard, get an education, they're the bad guys. They're the irresponsible ones, or could it be a system that allows for the worst speculators who make the worst investment decisions to easily discharge their loans or their debt in bankruptcy, while also turn it around and telling American students, oh, you're struggling with crippling student loan debt. Here's the middle finger. Go F off. That's what our government tells us. That's what the bankruptcy bill did. Biden is so incredibly pathetic. I'm just keeping it real.

And to add to the pathetic nature of the Biden administration, here's Kamala Harris giving a wishy-washy answer on student loans during a recent interview. What I believe we must do is continue to be vigilant and fighting for folks who have a right to be seen and their circumstances to be heard and understood because we have the ability to actually alleviate the burdens that. people are caring that make it difficult for them to get through the day or the month. But do you think you need to deliver on that promise before 2022? Which promise? On debt

forgiveness for student loans? Well, I think that we have to continue to do what we're doing to figure out how we can creatively relieve the pressure that students are feeling because of their student loan debt. Yes. Yeah, you don't need to get too creative. It's actually very simple. Cancel federal student loan debt. Don't get creative. Why? Another Weak answer, vague answer, really. Yeah, yeah, we take it very seriously. We got to get creative and figure out what we're going to do about, you know, the federal student loan debt that the Biden administration can unilaterally cancel.

Sick of the lies. I'm sick of the weakness. And more importantly, I'm sick of all the pathetic people on Twitter. All of the apologists for the Democratic Party crying and whining about my segments regarding how weak Democratic leadership is. Stop providing cover for losers. Grow up. They're big boys and girls and they're screwing you.

Wake up and realize it. All right. There is a little bit of good news today. So I wanted to talk about a development regarding COVID and a soon to be available treatment for COVID. We'll see if this has any impact on maybe preventing hospitals from getting overwhelmed. The Food and Drug Administration has just approved or authorized, I should say, a anti-COVID medication. So this is not a vaccine. It is Pfizer's antiviral pill. And apparently it is now the only pill that will be available on the market to treat coronavirus. It is, again, the first antiviral COVID-19 pill. And it's authorized for ill people to take at home before they get sick enough to be.

be hospitalized. So from what we're hearing, and this is a developing story, this just happened, is that an individual would have to test positive for COVID, which is why it's so important for testing to be easily available for people. And once they are positive for COVID, once they show symptoms, they would get a prescription for this antiviral drug, and it could help prevent the hospitalization if they end up getting incredibly sick. And of course, this is something that would, I think, mostly benefit people who have refused to get vaccinated. More importantly, I think it would benefit the overall general population because as this new variant spreads across the country, we're seeing hospitalizations rise, particularly among those who are not

vaccinated yet. And that prevents the availability of hospital beds for people who are suffering from other medical conditions. That is really the big issue here, right? We do not, have a health care system, we do not have hospitals with the capacity necessary to take in patients who have all sorts of medical issues in addition to the surge of COVID patients who are infected with new variants. And so this could be a game changer. It seems like this is great news. As CNN reports, high risk individuals ages 12 and older who weigh at least 88 pounds and have this positive COVID test will be eligible for the treatment and it will need to be prescribed by a doctor. The pill should be initiated as soon as possible after the diagnosis

of COVID-19 and within five days of symptom onset, according to the FDA's statement on this. So again, it's a little bit of good news. I was actually concerned that the, you know, pharmaceutical companies had kind of given up on an antiviral drug to treat COVID. There were some reports recently indicating that the research on it was shaky, but then today all of a sudden we hear about the FDA authorizing this particular pill. And so I hope it saves lives, not just the lives of those who get infected with coronavirus, but also the lives of those who have been turned away from hospitals, overwhelmed hospitals, you know, did not have room for new patients as a result of a surge in COVID patients.

This could be a game changer. It is a little bit of good news. But I can't stress enough. Please get vaccinated. Please, please, please do it. It'll keep you safe. Don't just rely on a pill to treat you. It's way better to just get the vaccine and prevent for, prevent yourself from getting incredibly sick or hospitalized in the first place. All right, that does it for the first hour. we're going to take a quick break when I come back we do have some positive news an update on the Kellogg strike Wosney Laumbrae will be joining me to talk

about that story and more stick around thanks for listening to the full episode of the young Turks support our work listen ad free access members only bonus content and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t yt I'm your host jank huger and I'll see you soon