The Times Are/Not A'changin' - 2

Grifter by Jim Lee

I listened to an interesting interview by Nicole Wallace on MSNBC recently who was interviewing Professor Scott Galloway.

Here is a transcript of the first video clip (Part One):

(">>" means a change in speaker) Nicole: "Thank you so much for being here" ... >> I'm really enjoying the show so far Nicole. >> What do you make of this moment that we're in where we come on the air? We've been covering the economy. Not necessarily because I know a ton about it, but I know that as a political issue, there was nothing more salient. and Donald Trump, for all the promises to break to the whole country, but especially his voters, to break his promises around the economy, feels pretty seismic, not just politically, but in terms of something that affects just about everybody. What are your thoughts about where we find ourselves? >> I think we ... have become a kleptocracy that would make Putin blush. I mean, keep in mind, in the three months since the inauguration, the Trump family has become $3 billion wealthier. So that's $1 billion a month and to be fair, it's been a slow creep of corruption. There's been special interest groups. And since Citizens United they've just gone crazy. You have American citizens paying eight times the price for humira and Ozempic that other countries pay, even though many of these drugs we've invented here ... there's been a weaponization of government for a while, and there are even many congress people, including speaker Pelosi, who have engaged in insider trading. But this is on a whole new scale. The democrats and other republicans have been engaging in corruption for tens or hundreds of thousands. This is now corruption for billions. And while you could argue that American business has been for sale, if you will, or America has been for sale, now the whole world's for sale. I think the Trump coin represents a new level of grift, the likes of which we haven't seen. Essentially, the president is open to Swiss banking account that anybody can put money into, communicate why they are putting money into it to the president, and then the president can take actions and we don't know whatever happened. and I believe it's probably already happened. and the question I would put forward is, if you're Vladimir Putin and you're losing, you're spending a half $1 billion a day on a failed war in Ukraine? Wouldn't you be stupid not to somehow communicate to the president that you're willing to make him the wealthiest man in the world in exchange for maybe stopping arms shipments or intelligence to Ukraine? I think, you know, people say, well, that's a conspiracy theory. I would argue that's just basic logic. I think Putin would be stupid not to do that right now. And I think potentially that or smaller instances of that are happening all over the world right now. And the problem is we don't even know about it. I think this level of corruption is like an iceberg. I think the majority of us, majority of it is taking place below the surface. so we're in a kleptocracy at this moment. >> How did we get here? >>I think well, okay. so if you go back, I think it's important to ask, how did an insurrectionist get elected? And this election Nicole was supposed to be a referendum on women's rights. And if you look at the polling data, women's rights did not show up. What showed up was something that at least the democratic party had totally ignored. And that is the plight of young men. And I realize I sound like a broken record here, but i have some data. If you look at the three groups that pivoted hardest from from blue to red, from 2020 to 2024, it was Latinos who don't want to be identified as a group. Two, it was people under the age of 40 who, for the first time in our nation's history, aren't doing as well as their parents were at 40, specifically young men who feel as if I wouldn't say I'm moving to the republican party, but feel like the democratic party has moved away from them. And then women ages 45 to 64. And my thesis is that they are mothers. Because when your son is in the basement vaping and playing video games, you really don't care about territorial sovereignty in Ukraine or transgender rights. You just know your son is doing isn't doing well. and there's still a lot of women in America that will vote based on what they think is best for their sons and their husbands. And I believe you were at the democratic national convention. I was, and what I saw was a parade of special interest groups that mentioned all the very real struggles different special interest groups still face in America. But there wasn't one mention of the special interest group that has fallen furthest, fastest in the last 30 years. And that's young men in America who I believe are paying the price for the unfair advantage that men of my generation received ... four times more likely to kill themselves, three times more likely to be addicted, 12 times as likely to be incarcerated. If you go to the DNC website, it explicitly says who we serve, and it lists 16 demographic groups, ranging from Asian pacific islanders to black Americans to the disabled to Veterans. I added it up. it's 74% of the population. but when the democratic party explicitly says it's advantaging 74% of the population, it's not advantaging them. It's disadvantaging the other 26%. And Trump, to his credit and his campaign's credit, flew right into the "manosphere".  Joe Rogan podcast, crypto, rockets. and he overwhelmingly won a group of voters who typically had either been split or went more towards democrats. So, in sum, I think this is America. And to a certain extent, the west gagging on a notion that young men are doing really poorly and that they just want chaos. If your son isn't doing well, all you want is a change candidate, and the vice president did not represent change. I actually think struggling young men and a lack of empathy for them is the reason that we were willing to elect an insurrectionist.  >> An insurrectionist who just did more to emasculate men than anyone in history. They will now have less buying power. They will now have a harder time picking up the tab, or doing any of the things that traditionally other, you know, either as a provider. And I know you're right and talk a lot about that. Being a provider and a protector is often associated with being able to pay for things. I mean, Donald Trump just made everything that we buy more expensive. And being a small business owner more out of reach and more difficult by by making it harder to bring things in. How do you communicate the reality? I mean, and I agree with you. I mean, we threw in with a with a felon because things were too expensive and now everything's about to get even more expensive. How do you solve for that? >> It's a great question. I want to agree. I think the republican party has probably been the best marketers in the world. It's not easy for a party that largely represents the interests of the top 1% to convince the bottom 99 that they represent their interests. And if you look at the cuts being made to the government, they disproportionately affect red states. So the ability to be elected by a populace who will disproportionately register the downside of these policies is an incredible marketing trick. And you're absolutely right, everything is about to get probably more expensive for everyday consumers. A tariff increases the price of goods coming in. 88% of toys come from China. If it's 145% tariff, 90% of households are budget constrained. That means literally a third or half as many toys under the Christmas tree. And then the market for our products overseas declines because there will be reciprocal tariffs. These companies countries aren't every country that's been been levied with a tariff has responded with reciprocal tariffs. So our market for our products goes down. so what do you have. you have an economy that shrinks. In addition what's even probably more damaging is that the American economy and stock market trades at a P E multiple of 26, meaning for every dollar of profits our amazing companies produce, we get $26 in wealth coming into the shareholders of those American companies. And the reason for that is a variety of things, ranging from the fact that America's more risk aggressive, we have more risk capital, we have great universities, we have incredible technology, but also we have consistency, and we have rule of law. And those two things in just 100 days have been thrown out the window. And as a result, you're seeing a virtually the flows of capital, both human and financial, into the US that have benefited us tremendously in terms of low interest rates and again, greater reward for that same profit, that same dollar of earnings. Those rivers have reversed flows. And for the first time in 30 years, we have the greatest inflow of capital into European index funds and interest in investing in America from institutional investors is at a 40 year low, meaning the cost of our debt, or to borrow money abroad, and the value in the wealth created by our companies will decline. So not only are things going to get more expensive, but our wealth is decreasing at a pretty decent clip. We get $26 of wealth for every dollar in earnings. Japan gets 18, Germany 22, China 14. I think you're about to see those things reverse. What does that mean? If your company is doing really well, it could double its earnings in the next 4 or 5 years, but if we experience that type of multiple contraction, the stock price in the long term wealth of a lot of consumers and households that are directly or indirectly dependent upon the stock market, we'll see their wealth be stagnant or go down. This is kind of the worst of all worlds.

Second transcript of second video clip  (Part Two):

Nicole: "We're back with Scott Galloway". Scott, you said so many interesting and provocative things. I don't have time to dive into all of them. so you're going to have to promise to come back. but I do want to read this. this is something you said about wealth in America.  >> The bottom line is rights and democracy have become purely a function of how wealthy you are. In America, the wealthiest 1% are protected by the law but not bound by it, and the bottom 99% are bound by the law but not protected by it. >> Explain that. >> I would argue, Nicole, that we could live in deepest, reddest Mississippi, and if someone in our life became pregnant, we could handle it. If somebody gets angry at me for free speech or saying negative things, I can lawyer up. If things get really bad and they start rounding up Jews, as they did in the in the 30s. And by the way, I don't think there's that much difference between us and Germany in the 20s and 30s. If you really look at what's going on here. I have the money to peace out to Milan or Dubai. There is an emerging transnational oligarchy where you essentially have your own schools, you have your own defense, you have your own health care, you have your own laws. And the shameful or the disappointing thing about that is that it reduces the vested interest and the success and the protection of what is America amongst the most powerful. The reality is your rights are entirely correlated now to your wealth. And there's a bit of a silent conspiracy between the very wealthy and the Trump administration, who clutch their pearls at how terrible what is going on is, but at the same time upload their taxes to ChatGPT. As I have done and found out, they're about to become much wealthier with the Trump tax cuts. You know, the biggest shame about all of this, or one of the biggest shames about all of this, is that if the Trump administration brought the same competence and elegance to governing as they bought, as they bring to grifting, we'd be in a much better place. We now have a mob family running the United States. But that's bad. But what's worse is Michael Corleone is running the grift and Fredo is running the government. This is a toxic combination of outstanding grift with incompetent governance.

The previous post in this series is here.

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(Part One)

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(Part Two)

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