More Class Consciousness Palaver
Either this guy gets it or I don’t get it
Every now and again you run into a speaker/writer/thinker who turns your own cacophonous brain yolk into a firm, beautiful quiche (preferably with asparagus and bacon). I experienced that the other day while listening to Trevor Noah’s What Now podcast with guest Scott Galloway. To be clear, I’ve never listened to Trevor Noah’s podcast. It simply popped up in my feed as a recommendation and I gave it a whirl. I’ll say Noah and his co-host Christiana Mbakwe Medina are both smart, agile communicators who engage their guest without overwhelming the mic. I think. I’ve only listened to half of one episode so I know not of what I speak. First impression.
But that’s not the point. The point is that Galloway made a number of wildly insightful and articulate points that I think are worth sharing here. Because I agree with him. Or he agrees with me. Which is to say he and I are right and everyone needs to get in line!
I didn’t know who Scott Galloway was before the podcast. I’ve since looked him up and discovered that he’s a bit of an odd, but successful duck. He started his career as a fixed income analyst for Morgan Stanley in the late 80s. In the early 90s, he launched a brand and marketing consultancy. Then, he became a tech bro, launching the digital intelligence company L2 Inc which, 20 years later, sold for $155M. Today, he’s apparently a college professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business.
All to say, he’s a smart dude with some on-the-ground experience in a few of the more robust spaces of the last 30 years (finance, tech, marketing). I’m sure there’s far more to know about him than that, but that’s enough context for the moment.
Let’s get to the smoke:
[Note: Mild edits have been made to the following quotes primarily for readability. Even the most eloquent of us talk like babbling baboons.]
Point #1: Supporting Ukraine has been a huge success
Galloway: “I would argue that the decision to allocate $60 billion a year to Ukraine is one of the best investments that has ever been made in the modern world in exchange for that $60 billion. We've kind of defanged the reputation of this supposedly ferocious army of Russia. We've taken out a third of their kinetic power, a third of their tanks and much of their navy has been taken out. Also, Russia's not a good actor towards us. Their intervention or introduction to our economy is to steal our IP and attack us from a cybersecurity.
“And [we’ve also sent] a signal to the world that when the west binds together, we are a formidable fighting force. And all of this was without a single boot on the ground from America. In addition, that $60 billion a year, somewhere between 70% and 90% of it has come back to the US to manufacture weapons mostly in red states. So for about 8% of our military budget, we are keeping a bad actor occupied, reducing their military kinetic power and sending a message to the world that the west is a formidable backer of even a small motivated army. I think this is the best money we have spent in a long time.”
Point #2: We can afford global aid more than we can afford tax cuts.
Noah asked Galloway about people being upset we were funding Ukraine when there was so much struggle at home with inflation and the housing crisis.
Galloway: “It's all a misdirect..from the irresponsible spending that we're about to incur. And that is, you are about to incur a future $800 billion tax every year so that I can [keep] more money. That, essentially, is what America has become about. Our fiscal policies have become the following: Give me your credit card so [the rich] can be in the club doing rails and champagne and all you get to do is pay for it in the form of deficit. $60 billion is a decent amount of money, but it's nothing like the $800 billion a year we're gonna lose in deficit spending. I think USAID is an amazing investment for people around the world to feel good about America. I think pushing back on Russia for $60 billion a year and setting a signal that we are willing to sacrifice for democracies and and repel murderous autocrats, I think that's an outstanding investment. $800 billion a year to give me a tax cut is a bad idea. And all this other shit is just a misdirect to get you to look away from what’s about to happen and that is the biggest tax increase in history on you and your children.”
Point #3: Wealth, taxation and human rights
Galloway: “[We] hear Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren rail about billionaires, [saying] we need a progressive tax structure, which I think is accurate. There's some nuance there [though]. I'll take you as an example, Trevor. I imagine you make an extraordinary living, but it's current income. Meaning you're probably paying a 50% or 52% tax rate. The majority of your income is current income and you make enough money to be in the highest tax bracket. Now [I used to make] my living starting and selling businesses and now I make my living, buying and selling stock. My tax rate—I'm a Florida resident—has been 17% for the last 10 years.
The people that get screwed are the super earners and then your tax rate plummets when you become a super owner. So when I was in my thirties and forties, making an extraordinary living as a consultant or as a writer, I was paying 30%, 35%, 45%. Once I became a super owner, my tax rate plummeted. And this has been a conspiracy that both the Democrats and the Republicans have fomented and where they come together.
Democracy over the last 30 or 40 years in terms of rights, has become solely a function of how rich you are. [For instance] any woman in my life will have access to [an abortion]. I could be in the deepest, reddest part of America and if someone I know has an unwanted pregnancy, we're gonna have no problem if they start rounding up people.
[The erosion of rights is] not a threat to me. I'm rich.
[America’s] rich are protected by the law, but they're not bound by it. And the poor in this country are bound by the law, but not protected by it. Your rights and your democracy have never been better if you're in the 1%. But the whole point of American constitutionality and democracy is that it's meant to protect the bottom 50%. Rich people don't need democracy. They don't need rights 'cause they have money. I have more rights than any individual in history because I'm rich.
And that's what America has become. It's become an operating system for transferring rights and money and democracy to the 1% at the cost of the bottom 99%. It’s total bullshit. It’s un-American. And the reason why so many rich people are being quiet [about Trump] is because they're like me. I'm gonna save $930 grand this year if the Trump tax cuts go through. [sarcasm] So stop, stop. It hurts so good.”
Point #4: Wealth Worship
Galloway: “I feel like America—and I'm an atheist, so I'm not suggesting that church is the answer—but as our nation became wealthier, its reliance on a super being and church attendance went down, but [it left a] void; we still need answers. So we try and find idols and the new Jesus Christ of our economy are technology innovators, tech billionaires. Because this shit feels like magic. And these people create trillions in wealth. So we're fascinated by them. And I think where we came off the tracks is this idolatry of money.
When I was a kid, my dad's boss had a slightly bigger house, but we all went to the same country club. We all went to the same school. Money buys you everything [now] from better healthcare to better schools, to a much broader selection set of mates. So we have become, understandably, obsessed with money, the idolatry of the dollar. And these tech innovators have gone berserk. And so the pursuit of the dollar, in my opinion, has crowded out almost all traditional character.
When the wealthiest man in the world, and probably the most admired man in the world is making Nazi salutes, we normalize that shit. Why? Because he's really fucking rich. Look what money has done to us. Look what it's done. If you had a friend who was making Nazi salutes at a parent/teacher conference and was being sued by two women for sole custody of their kids, and you had heard from credible sources that they were addicted to ketamine, wouldn't you move in and say, ‘Hey boss, something's wrong here.’
But not if you're rich. Not If you can put a rocket into space or make a shit ton of money with EVs. Money has perverted us. It has crowded out all sense of character, of decency, of what it means to be a real man. We have decided that you can get away with anything as long as you're rich. It's been a total…moral failing. We used to admire cops. We used to admire people who had fidelity to their religion. We used to admire people who defended our country. We used to admire the sexiest man. I remember thinking that I looked up to was my principal. He drove a 240Z. He smelled like aqua velva. He wore cool coats with an elbow patch. He couldn’t get laid now. Do you think a vice principal has any game in any city?”
Coda
So yeah. This dude gets it. I believe the wealthy have always been above the law. But back in the day the wealthy were a tiny class of landed gentry. 20th century capitalism enabled a lot more people to become wealthy which is a good thing…to a point. The problem is that there’s no ceiling on it and the level of wealth is beyond comprehension.
I listen to a number of NBA podcasts because the players have quite a bit of power and that makes the league interesting. The superstars are making $50 million a year. The average player is $11M and the minimum is $1.1M a year. For perspective, the median LIFETIME income of an American is $1.7M. So the guy who lands a single NBA contract for one season is earning more than half of what the rest of expect to earn in a lifetime.
Meanwhile, the average value of an NBA is $4.6 billion. That means to have a controlling stake (approx. 15%) you need to have at least $500M in cash to buy in. That ownership class is on a whole other level wealth than the players and even the lowest paid players are on a whole other level wealth than you—even if you’re crushing it which, if you’re reading this, you likely aren’t. I mean you’re doing great, all of you, but most of us are scrabbling to one degree or another.
And finally, to Galloway’s point, the players, because they’re salaried, are being taxed at a far higher rate than the owners. And that’s wild. Just wild. Our system lets you basically graduate out of the high tax class because you’ve made enough money to do so.
Also, I think Galloway’s perspective on ROI for our foreign aid is really smart here. Somehow our collective beliefs have become the opposite of what’s true. We want lower taxes because we believe that all the money is going to people who don’t deserve it - be it war torn people or poor people over seas or our own poor people who apparently live in luxury on welfare. Meanwhile, our tax policy routinely benefits the wealthy so they can amass wealth beyond our wildest dreams and funnel a smidgeon of that wealth into the political system to ensure all elected politicians continue the ruse. It’s insane. We are insane. We are so wealthy and so poor at the same time. And we call it The American Way. Gah!
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
The Good:
– CPAP: Is it dumb to admit to a medical conditions online? You bet your ass it is. Am I going to do it anyway? You betcha. So after months and months of kafkaesque meandering from one medical bureacrat to the next (dropping dollars all along the way), my sleep study diagnosis of “mild positional sleep apnea” concluded in the arrival of a CPAP machine which I’ve now been wearing for a week. A few thoughts:
1. It’s not as loud or annoying as I’d been led to believe it would be. It’s not as uncomfortable as I expected, though I would not describe it as comfortable. Awkwardly effective would be my review.
2. I have not suddenly found myself full of a wellspring of energy and I don’t bounce out of bed in the morning like a refreshed five year old. I do think it has improved my sleep, especially when I sleep on my back which is where I like to do most of my sleeping.
3. The best part is I’m remembering my dreams again. And oddly the dreams I’m remembering (in the hazy way many of remember dreams) are far more interesting than the dreams I used to remember. So really that’s been the best part so far – interesting dreams. I’ll take it. And I’m hoping that long term, better rest will create a better quality of life. Juries out, but trends are pointing in a positive direction.
The Bad:
– Honesty Meets Sociopathy: These tech bro fuckers are finally being honest. A San Francisco start-up called Mechanize is developing AI tools with the sole intent of putting white collar workers out of work. “Our goal is to fully automate work,” founder Tamay Besiroglu told the New York Times. “We want to get to a fully automated economy, and make that happen as fast as possible.” The article goes to describe the tack the company is taking to do just that. I had to scroll down and down and down to get to this: “Mechanize has no novel policy proposals to help smooth the transition to an A.I.-driven economy, no brilliant ideas about expanding the social safety net or retraining workers for new jobs — only a goal of making the current jobs obsolete as quickly as possible.” It ends with this quote by a different founder: “If society as a whole becomes much wealthier, then I think that just outweighs the downsides of people losing their jobs.” But let’s be honest about this - will society as a whole become wealthier with AI or will the wealthy become wealthier? We know already from our history that the wealthy vote primarily to maintain their wealth. So what’s going to change in the near future that will make the wealthy want to share their wealth with the rest of us? Especially when we aren’t even providing them with labor? History tells us that when the wealthy get too selfish, overbearing, and cruel, the people rise up. Sadly, history also tells us that when the people rise up, strong men enter the power vacuum and the bloodshed mostly trickles down. Move fast and break stuff is a fun motto when you’re innovating on communication platforms or gaming apps. Move fast and break stuff is dangerous when it involves the dismantling the economic order and breaking the middle class. These snot nosed, money grubbing, amoral, puffy vest, keyboard gibbons are very likely going to be the death of us all. Selfish short-sighted dumbasses.
– Mountainhead: Speaking of selfish dumbasses, Jesse Armstrong—the creator of the TV series Succession—just put out a movie on HBOMAX called Mountainhead. The premise is four tech billionaires meet at a remote mansion for their “annual” poker weekend just after the launch of new deepfake technology on one of their Facebookesque platforms. As the world starts to come apart at the seams, we watch the hijinks of their fevered egos. It stars Steve Carell, Rami Youssef, and Jason Schwartzman. So we have a fantastic premise plus a phenomenal writer plus a great cast. What could go wrong? Well, everything actually. It’s just plain bad. Bad character building, bad pacing, bad plotting, bad acting. It’s a total shit show which is sad because everything about it said it was the movie we needed right now - like a The Big Short or a Don’t Look Up - it promised caustic truth telling. And it failed. And it’s a shame. Two thumbs and two big toes down.
The Ugly:
– LA Protests: Ink is being spilled on this subject and there are folk who know far more than I. But I will say this – the burning and destruction of vehicles (especially police cars) and the waving of foreign flags is, from a messaging perspective, a horrible look. If flags are to be waved they should be upside down US flags (which, according to the U.S. flag code—a not legally enforceable code btw—specifically says that the flag should not to be inverted “except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.”) And just as we know the mantra “if it bleeds it leads”, we should also be mindful of the notion that “if it burns, it churns.” Right wing media is basically claiming that LA is under siege by a rogue army of lawless foreign nationals. And they have the images to push that story effectively for their undiscerning, gullible, and incurious audiences. The left is not organized enough to stop these images/events from happening and I certainly don’t begrudge immigrants of any generation being proud of their nations of origin. More pointedly, as we increasingly enter an economy (or is it culture?) that has left young men behind, we can expect our modern protests to be wildly influenced by young testosterone-heads seeking a thrill or a purpose or both at once. But if you ask Johnny Midwest whether he supports Trump’s authoritarian use of our armed services and all Johnny Midwest has seen is some face masked dude swinging a Mexican flag from atop a turned over vehicle in the middle of a city street, you can bet your ass they’re gonna support government overreach. So if you or your kiddos a-go protesting, please be mindful of how it will look on the tv screens of middle america. The goal is to get them on our side or at least build some understanding. Violence will not accomplish that.
Internet of the Day:
Quote of the Week:
“How can I ask anyone to love me when all I do is beg to be left alone?"
– Fiona Apple
Finally:
