TrueLife - We Know the Price of Everything & the Value of Nothing: Culture, Greed & the Death of Meaning

Episode Date: November 2, 2020

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Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scar's my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark. fumbling, furious through ruins maze,

lights my war cry, born from the blaze. The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Kodak Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Well, hello, my friends, I hope you're having a great morning, afternoon, or evening. I hope it's great.

Whatever time it is, wherever you're at, I hope you're enjoying it. I am coming at you one day before the end of the American election cycle. Woo-hoo! Thank goodness, right? What a conundrum. What a conundrum. It's always an interesting time. It got me thinking, and I'm sure most of you have been thinking about ways

we can make things better. I'm willing to bet if you're listening to this, you're the type of person who enjoys thinking about solutions instead of thinking about problems. However, sometimes it's imperative to think about the problem before you can get to the solution. I was going over my library today,

and I saw a book that I really enjoyed. And I think it's really relevant today. It's a book by Raj Patel. He's the author of Stuffed and Starved. You may have heard it before. And this book is called The Value of Nothing. And it just reignited some ideas that I had had in the past

around 2008 during that crisis. And it reignited some ideas that I had about why things are the way they are. So I wanted to get into that today a little bit. What I think is going on today is an extension of things that have just been going on since probably the beginning of time. However, it's really about a muck. So let me just jump right in here with both feet. There's a great quote by, I think it was Oscar Wilde.

And let me just, I'd like to start off the beginning of my thought process with this quote. Nowadays, people know the price of everything and the value of nothing. I'm going to say it again, just because I think it's so poetic. Nowadays, people know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Think about that for a minute. Just take a moment to kind of mow that over in your brain for a minute here. I think you could say, I know I'm going to say, that if war is God's way of teaching Americans geography,

recession is his way of teaching everyone a little economics. We have given over our lives to an economic model. We have given over our values, our lives, our well-being. Everything we do is no longer based on value, but on prices. Remember when you were little, or at least when I was little, I would watch a show called The Price is Right. And that show was not necessarily what the right price on a product should be. that show was a show about how much people are willing to pay for a product. There's a difference there.

I had often wondered, what do you think is the relationship between large corporations and the price is right? Don't you think that maybe that's a way of kind of gently nudging consumers to pay just a little bit more for some plastic bags? or just a little bit more for a vacation. You know, if they can just kind of put that in your head for the showcase showdown, this jet ski is worth $12,000, or that this particular box of cereal is $5.29. You know, it's just this gentle product placement,

this gentle prodding of the American psyche to pay a little bit more for some premiums, me in packaging. Steve Jobs once said that there's an interview of him that goes around, and if you look hard enough, it may be even in his biography, but I think it was more specifically in an interview, where he was asked about the life cycle of a company, and what is it about the majority of companies that makes him fail as they get older? And his answer was that the life cycle of a company comes from the inspiration of the initial engineer or the initial idea. In his case, it would be him and Steve Wozniak that came up with this Apple computer and they had this vision.

And the company was built around a vision and a visionary. And as long as you have either one of those, as long as you have the visionary still there, the guy that wants to create this idea in his head that's trying to translate vision into reality. and as being successful at it, you're going to see the company do well. As long, even if that visionary is gone, if the company can continue to embrace the vision, the company will do well.

However, what ultimately happens, according to Steve Jobs, is that once the visionary dies, once the vision is abandoned, what happens is, ultimately the company is given over to the sales team. It's given over to the people generating the most revenue, and the majority of times, that is, in fact, the marketing department. And once that happens, the company's finished.

A good example of this is not only Apple, you might be thinking yourself, well, I don't know, George, Apple's still pretty good. However, if you go back in their history, you can see there was a time when they got rid of Steve Jobs and the company just tanked. Another good example is, for someone in my generation, I'm 45. I know a lot of guys my age will understand this one. Remember that company, Airwalk? I lived in Southern California, and Airwalk made the coolest skateboarding shoes ever.

And they had an interesting business model. They had their top-of-the-line shoes that were kind of exclusive in that you could only buy them at smaller surf shops or smaller skate shops. and for quite some time the big department stores were like hey white come on give us these shoes you can make so much money you know we just want to we want to throw them out there so everybody can buy them however they resisted that urge for a long time until you know they i think they were successful for maybe five

about five or six years before the offer came in that pushed them over the edge like listen you're going to make this much money. You know, the marketing team comes in and they're meeting with the big brand name stores, and they finally decide to coax the owner and the other team members into saying, okay, let's just sell this top-of-the-line shoe that's our number one seller that is the flagship of our company to the big brand name stores. And they do it. And for a while, it goes gangbusters, and then they die.

They don't die in that they don't ever sell shoes again. However, they've lost that vision. It's no longer an exclusive shoe for exclusive skateboarders for exclusive surfers. It's just this pro-wing. You know what I mean? Like I said, now it might as well be a pay less shoe. They have taken out all the soul out of the shoe because it's been mass produced. They've taken away all the value.

out of the shoe and instead given it a price. And I think that is exactly where we're at today. We've been there for a long time, I think, since 2008, probably before then. The people who have been running the economic program, the central bankers, our banks, the Federal Reserve, these are people who have this idea of what, money is. These are people who have an idea of what they think the economy is, but they may as well just be people with bones in their nose throwing chicken bones on the ground. Like, they have no idea. In fact, let me ask you this question. Do you listening to this? Do you think that your local bank provides you any value?

What value do our money institutions provide us right now? I can't really think of any. Is it convenience? Is it convenient for me to go down to an ATM and have to get out money? Is it convenient for me to have to go to the bank? Let's say I want to take out six grand and I'm buying a used car. I have to call my bank and tell them I'm coming down there because I want to get my money out. And sometimes I've gone to the bank before.

and pulled out five grand. And they gave me such a difficult time. They're like, listen, you can't pull out this kind of money. You know, what do you need it for? Think about that when you're the very institution where you keep your money is now telling you that you can't do this. That's the opposite of value.

In fact, the person putting money in the bank creates value for the bank. The bank does nothing. They hold your money? It's an antiquated idea, and I think you could take it further. I think that government provides value as far as having the rule of law somewhat, education, roads. There is value in government, although I believe that, too, is rapidly deteriorating. But I want to kind of stay with this right now.

the what does our financial institution provide for us? Can you guys think of anything? Does it really provide us any value at all? Maybe if you're a pension, maybe if you are receiving a pension, maybe if you're receiving social security, maybe if you're a trader on the floor and you are able to benefit from the derivative scheme. maybe if you're part of a hedge fund you see but these don't provide a whole lot of value for the everyday average working person the monetary system provides value for a smaller and smaller number of people every year the privatization of profits and the socialization of losses subsidies are another way

that the financial institutions provide value for a small subset of Americans the reason I bring all this up the reason I bring to your attention the price that we know the price of everything and the value of nothing is I think we are in a situation now where we're seeing

the financial collapse of not only our country but the world if you pay attention to other parts of the world and you try and read some headlines or some papers from around the world, you can see that there's a really big push right now for a new Brenton Woods system.

And for those of us that may not know what that is, that was a system in which the world decided to utilize the dollar as the World Reserve currency in lieu of having the United States protect the ceiling throughout the world. It's interesting to see the most, I would say it's interesting to see the congruence between the states hit hardest by COVID and the states hit hardest by debt. If you were to place a map over the world and color in the places hit hardest by COVID,

and then place another map over that and the states that are in the most debt I think that they would line up about 90%. So what does that mean? Is that just a coincidence? Is that just something that happens to be? Is it, are these states in debt because of COVID? Well, I think that's inaccurate due to the fact that these states were in debt before COVID. My main point here is that we are in a paradigm.

shift. We are in a transition unlike many of us have ever seen in our lifetime. And I believe it has to do with the monetary system. I believe you're going to see the monetary system fail. I've never been in a country where the monetary system failed. I have read quite a bit about some. And one that comes to mind is Germany in the 30s. In fact, I think,

think there's a lot of parallels between Germany and the 30s and the United States today. Has anyone paying attention to some of the Orthodox Jewish community in New York and how they're rioting right now? How they're being treated? Is anyone paying attention to the extreme lockdowns in both California and New York? Is anyone paying attention to this, this sort of travel passports? Sounds a lot like, show me your papers. It's interesting times for sure. It's interesting times.

And I don't think there's going to be too much difference regardless of who gets elected. What is Emperor Zee? say black cat white cat they both catch mice i think things are going to get rough i think that we're in for a rocky transition and it's it's something i just want to kind of get out there before the election happens and before families start making big decisions that are going to change them forever also it's important to note that your family is your family And while it may be difficult to talk to one another, if indeed you find yourself on a different side than someone in your family. You know, that's a lot like brother versus brother.

And that's something that should be avoided at all times. The real threat is if we were to see someone step foot on our shores. That's when Americans would have to bond together. And hopefully, it's like a family fight, right? you ever seen that two brothers fighting and then someone tries to step in and the brothers beat the heck out of that person that tries to step in in that's what i think would happen if there were to be some foreign soldiers that stepped foot on our shores i think that they would find themselves pummeled into a pink pile of paste so that's what i got for the before the election show but i just want you guys to focus on the difference between price and

value. Price and value. Is what you're paying for something worth it? Is the price of this hold its value? You know, we at this crossroads, I think that we have an opportunity to reevaluate what is valuable in our lives. What's valuable in your life? What's the most valuable thing you have? Your time, your family, what is it that you would rather be doing right now? If you could be doing anything, what would you rather be doing? I think now is the time to begin thinking about that. I think now is the time for you to be trying your best to reinvent yourself. I think now is the time to reinvent your value system.

That way, regardless of what happens in the field. future, you'll be better set up. It kind of reminds me of, did you, I'm sure some of you have read it. Have any of you read Franz Kafka's metamorphosis? Remember that? Where, I forgot the guy's name, like, was it Gregor or something? He wakes up and he's like this giant cockroach. Right.

And what he does, his actions, tell us. a lot about what we are as people, a lot of us, what we think. So just to give you an incredibly simplistic idea of what happens, it's... So, like in the first sentence, he wakes up after a night of bad dreams to find that he has been turned into an enormous bug. And his response is incredibly revealing. And it, like I said, it tells us. more about ourselves and like we probably want to know.

For what he does when he discovers he's a bug is he doesn't like scuttle from his room screaming or he doesn't sit back and ponder about what happened or how this happened or what he might turn into next. His response is literally like, poor me, how am I going to keep my job? Like think about that. Does your job matter, you're not your job. You're not what you do, especially when what you do is a cog and a wheel that does not provide value for the community. Too many good people base their self-worth and their self-value on what they do. And when you do that, when you tie your value, when you tie your value, when you tie your idea of who you are to a wagon that doesn't care about you, or a machine

that hollows out the resources of your community, then part of your soul dies. You may not see it in yourself when you look in the mirror, but I guarantee you your kids see it when they look at your face. I guarantee that your neighbors see it when they look at you and go, oh, gosh, look at this person. Look what they do. I think we all need to take a good, hard look at what we're doing with our lives. Because we can provide better value for ourselves, for our family, and for our community. And again, I think that that's part of what's going on right now in our world,

is that people are beginning to see that we're getting a raw deal. We're not getting any value for the work we're putting in. In fact, any value that we create is just being squeezed and pushed to the very top. And when the people begin to fight back and say, hey, we want to claw back some of this value for our lives. That means the people at the top are going to have less. And that's a slippery slope, too. Where do you fit in? You may think that, well, George, I don't really fit in at the top.

I'm down here in the middle. I'm down here at the bottom. But are you? if you were to look at yourself on a world map, and if you're making 30 grand a year, that may not be much in California or New York, but that's a whole heck of a lot of money if you live in sub-Saharan Africa.

So on a grand scale, if you're making 30 grand, you are the 1%. And we're all in this together. And what I think is, going to be interesting is, or at least this is what I struggle with. Like I, I see these multi-billionaires, and I see these people with so much refusing to give up anything. And then I think to myself, is that how the rest of the world sees me? Now, granted, I'm neither a millionaire nor a billionaire. However, it's easy to put yourself in a position.

Well, maybe it's not easy. However, I think it's something that needs to be done. There's a lot of people that could look at me and be like, look at this guy. He has so much more than me. So while you're not actually a billionaire or a millionaire, there are people that probably look to you like you have so much. And that begs the question, what are you willing to give up? up in order to help those people that think you have too much.

And that's a difficult question. What are you willing to give up? When I think about that, I immediately think, well, the billionaires ain't given anything up. Why would I give anything up? And that's probably the same thing the billionaires think. They're probably like, well, I'm not giving up anything. I worked harder than everybody. It's easy to think that, but it's probably not true.

It's also interesting to think about Like when I I like to listen to some different podcasts From around the world And one of them is this think tank called like the Chatham House or whatever And it's like this Amalgamation of

Professors from Harvard And doctors and scientists And I was watching this one yesterday I'll put a link in the show notes So you guys can check it out It was a group of Seven

would appear to be seven different white people. There may have been some Jewish people in there, but they were all white-skinned. And for this particular conversation is the part that kind of hit me. And they were interviewing this Harvard professor. Now mind you, he's a white guy. He's a Harvard professor.

You could argue Harvard is one of the most prestigious schools on the planet. And being a white guy, he has more privileged than everybody, right, by his own definition. This particular panel went on to talk about the election, and they were talking about how the world needs to change. And this white Harvard professor began saying that the problem in America is white nationalism. White people are the problem.

And how they have all this, this racist. animosity and they have all this privilege. And this is a white guy that teaches at Harvard. Like, think about that dichotomy. Here's a guy talking about how white privileged people are the problem. However, you don't see that guy giving up his job, right? Hey, man, you're a white guy that works at a prestigious institution and makes more money than 99% percent.

of the planet, why you quit your job? Why wouldn't you do that? But to stand up there and say that this particular set of people are the problem, and he's explaining himself, like, if that guy could just look in a mirror and be like, look, there he is. And it was, in a way, it was funny because the whole panel was like, yeah, I think you're right. And the whole panel was a bunch of white people.

like how do you like how does that if that's true then then leave if you people think that if that whole panel thinks that at the chat of them else why don't they just all quit you see but the here's the kicker it wasn't exactly them it was people that weren't it was white people that weren't as educated as them he managed to slip in this the problem is the uneducated white people you see he was able to very just with one word, he was able to retain his job, his salary, his prestige, his circle of friends, and all his luxuries, just by putting in one word, this ambiguous word of education. And what was this guy educated in?

I don't know. He wasn't educated in building things. He wasn't educated in working with his hands. he wasn't educated in government he wasn't educated in anything except run in his mouth it seemed to me that he was educated in the ability to not see himself as the problem and that is where i find the value the value at looking at yourself and saying listen What can I do better for me? What can I do better for my family?

What can I do better for my community? I think it was JFK that said, ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. And I think that's a good spot to leave it for today. I love you guys. I hope you have a great day. Let's get this nonsense over tomorrow.

I love you. Thank you for tuning into the podcast. And if you could please continue to leave your comments on whatever. host or platform you listen to it. I love you guys. Aloha.