1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:23,780 The next 40 minutes of this episode, actually, they're not for you. I want to be clear about that up front. They are a tool. You're being handed something to use. Here's why I decided to make this. The word socialism has been defined for most of this country by people who have a direct financial interest in it being incorrectly defined. 2 00:00:23,780 --> 00:00:50,740 And that definition has been repeated so many times and in so many places that it's now just about like the weather. You can't argue with the weather. It just is. And if you're on the right side of politics, there is essentially zero chance you will ever look this up on your own. I get it. Like, I understand why. This topic has been made stupid. And you don't want to spend your evening reading about stupid things. 3 00:00:50,740 --> 00:01:06,580 So the second half of this episode is just the definition, plain and simple with the receipts attached. Now, I want to tell you about a decision I made while writing this script and publishing this episode, because I think it kind of matters. 4 00:01:06,700 --> 00:01:26,640 See, in the first version of this episode, it was not me. Like, it was physically me. It was technically me. But I was playing a character. A guy in his late 50s, 26 years as a millwright, ran his own electrical business, voted Reagan two times, somebody your uncle would actually listen to. 5 00:01:26,640 --> 00:01:48,300 And on paper, I think it was it was it was it was it was a bold choice. Then I actually like recorded it with an accent and vocal grit. And I played it back and saw what I'd actually done. I had invented a lifelong Republican with a working class job. So a conservative audience would trust him. 6 00:01:48,640 --> 00:02:07,400 I had embodied the definition of cringe. Here's the thing. I already have a lifelong Republican with a working class job for a conservative audience. It's me. The truth is, and I've talked about this on the podcast before, I was a Republican for 30 years. 7 00:02:07,640 --> 00:02:33,600 I mean, that is, if you don't count the non-voting years, it looks like more like, I don't know, 14 to make you feel better if you're if you're really worried about that. But I walked door to door for George W. Bush. I know. Soak it in. It's not great. I'm not proud of it. It's not a point of pride. But I left the Republican Party officially in 2016. I had been waffling for about five years before that. 8 00:02:33,820 --> 00:02:53,220 And I just, I realized I didn't need to fabricate this person with my own biography. And the fact that my first instinct was to create one out of thin air is just kind of, I don't know. It's just telling the truth about what goes on behind the scenes of this show. 9 00:02:53,760 --> 00:03:23,040 Because here's the thing. The entire argument of this episode is that somebody handed you a definition from a TV screen, from a Facebook post, something like that. And they did not mention they had a stake in it. If I invent a working class guy to carry that argument, I've basically done the exact same thing. And I would have done it badly. I mean, I listened to it. And it takes about nine seconds to search for a name and not find anything about this person. 10 00:03:23,040 --> 00:03:35,140 And the moment anybody caught it, I would just have this, I don't know, astroturfing lost the plot kind of scenario on my hands that it wouldn't have gone over well. 11 00:03:35,700 --> 00:03:52,520 I basically would have just handed them proof that people like me lie about who we are. And I have confirmed the thing they already suspect about us. So it's just me saying true things, including about myself. That's the trade. 12 00:03:52,760 --> 00:04:09,080 I give up the messenger who would have been easier to hear in exchange for every single thing in this episode being actually true. So here is what that does change. There are no like in jokes in the second half of this episode. There's no like dunking. 13 00:04:09,080 --> 00:04:32,060 I don't call anybody stupid or brainwashed or a rube. Not one time. I promise. And that's that's deliberate, right? Contempt has a conversion rate of zero. Everyone listening already knows that from their own family group chat or whatever over the last 10 years, the moment somebody feels mocked by the person handing them the information, the information stops landing. 14 00:04:32,060 --> 00:04:48,800 It doesn't matter how right you are or if the person listening is decided they're looked down on. But that's not a flaw in their reasoning. That's that's just how people work. I mean, that's psychology. And it's it's much harder to strip contempt out of an argument than to put it in. 15 00:04:49,340 --> 00:05:14,780 Because contempt, it feels good. It really does. It feels better to be angry at stupidity than than patience with misunderstanding or ignorance, the true word, not the not the dunk word. But if if the goal is actually reaching anybody, any person instead of performing for an audience that that already agrees with me, then you have to do the harder thing. 16 00:05:15,720 --> 00:05:45,700 So here is the actual instructions for this episode. Listen to the next part all the way through if you want to. But before you send it to anybody, you need to to cut it off right before the break. I'll actually release two versions of this episode. One that cuts the entire intro that I'm giving you right now and explaining the backstory and one that just starts at the second half. But yeah, I want you to send this to your weird uncle or the person who's going to be a weird uncle. 17 00:05:45,700 --> 00:06:09,340 who is arguing in good faith about democratic socialism or socialism in general. But but really, you could they're just so uninformed or or informed by a source that has a profit motive that I want them to hear this from just a normal person, what these things actually are and with real numbers with real receipts to back it up. 18 00:06:10,560 --> 00:06:36,920 So that's, I guess, I guess, I guess the whole thing. Everything before it is kind of their machinery. So if I send you the whole thing, the first 90 seconds tells them that the target of a campaign, and we've really lost them before the argument starts. So cut the episode here before you send it, don't send the the intro, send only what comes after the break or look for the version that was released on the same day. This is going to be released about about an hour. 19 00:06:37,560 --> 00:07:07,540 after the shorter version, the one that you should send is going to be released about an hour after this official version. So when you do send it to that person, maybe two, maybe three people, whatever, the one who argues in good faith and just has bad info, not the one who enjoys a fight, right, or the one who who debates for sport. And look, I'm guilty of that. But send it send it with no commentary. Don't caption it. No. See, I told you. So just let let the episode be the whole. 20 00:07:07,540 --> 00:07:37,520 message and then just go do something else. Right. So that's it. A couple of things before I do get started on that, though. I have to take care of the end of the episode right now because you guys are the ones who are actually supporting me and the ones who are listening to this episode. So I want to say a handful of things. We have grown as a podcast by almost 300% year over year this year. And that's been a super cool thing. It's been really neat to see that this podcast is reaching more people. 21 00:07:37,520 --> 00:07:56,880 And that is all incredibly wonderful things. And I'm so happy that you're here. But we survive and we keep getting spread and keep growing based upon your ability to share this with people that you think it's interesting or share this with people that you want to dunk on, because that's what most of our episodes actually are. 22 00:07:56,880 --> 00:08:24,240 Right. They're they're dunk episodes that show the inner workings of the machinery that is oppressing us all the the child crushing machine or the orphan orphan crushing machine. So thank you so much for sharing. If you already have, please do share if you have not ones that you think are interesting. Make sure you rate us on Apple podcasts and Spotify podcasts. We're not doing well on Spotify. I assume it has something to do with their algorithm. 23 00:08:25,120 --> 00:08:53,780 Most of our listeners actually listen to us through Apple podcasts or get our podcast directly from our website, like with podcast addict or some app on their phone. So send it to them and whatever means something to them. We have actually all of the ways to get in touch with us. If you just go to the website, fof.foundation, no.com, no anything. Just type in fof.foundation. That's friends of the future.foundation. And click on the link that supports your your podcasting app. 24 00:08:53,780 --> 00:09:18,260 It'll be on the right hand side, just below our name. But anyway, also want to mention Will is not again in this episode. I, you know, I don't I don't want to give away his business or anything like that. But but he's he's OK. I chat with him on a regular basis. So we miss him. But he is out there doing his thing. And we love that him for that. I assume he will be back sometime. All right, here we go. 25 00:09:18,260 --> 00:09:39,400 Let me read you a paycheck. 26 00:09:40,260 --> 00:10:09,640 Amazon warehouse job, Illinois, 40 hours a week at twenty two dollars an hour. Seems like an amazing job. And it seems like the one that you might want for your kids or for your nephew who is complaining about the economy, complaining about the person who's currently in the office of the president. But that's the real wage right now. Twenty two dollars an hour. That is a job that you could actually get in Illinois. 27 00:10:09,640 --> 00:10:39,360 I checked the job listings 40 hours. So that's eight hundred and eighty dollars before any money comes out of your paycheck in a week. So eight hundred and eighty bucks for a week. Sounds pretty decent. Those numbers are built from the actual wage and the actual insurance costs that employers report. So you can you can check them. I'm not making them up. I'm not like averaging across 10 years of old information. This is what the number is right now. 28 00:10:39,360 --> 00:11:05,780 Let me break down the deductions because this is the whole conversation right here. Social security taxes comes out of that. Fifty four dollars and eighty cents. That's six point two percent of the gross. Medicare comes out. That's twelve dollars and seventy six cents. That's one point four or five percent. Federal income tax withholding, depending on their filing status and whether they have dependents, is roughly a hundred dollars per week. 29 00:11:06,360 --> 00:11:14,140 That is already one hundred and sixty seven dollars and fifty six cents gone before they have health insurance before they have anything else. 30 00:11:14,500 --> 00:11:35,700 Then the health insurance. The company typically contributes part of it and the company calculates as part of your total compensation. But the employee share still comes from the paycheck for basic coverage. Not not great coverage. Just basic coverage. The American average of one thousand eight hundred and eighty six dollars as a deductible. 31 00:11:35,740 --> 00:11:59,840 Not including the twenty percent coinsurance on anything that you need medical help with. That's about sixty dollars per week out of the employee's take home. So out of eight hundred and eighty dollars gross, we've taken out two hundred and twenty seven dollars in taxes and health insurance. That leaves about six hundred and fifty two dollars and forty four cents per week. 32 00:12:00,600 --> 00:12:17,060 That's a person working forty hours per week taking home six hundred and fifty two dollars. We're going to cut off the forty four cents because let's be honest, we all learned the old way of doing math and it's a lot easier to put numbers together when you cut out everything behind the decimal. And what can forty four cents buy you anyway? 33 00:12:17,060 --> 00:12:27,140 So that's two thousand six hundred and fifty six hundred and fifty six hundred and sixty three dollars per month before rent before food before a car payment before anything. 34 00:12:27,540 --> 00:12:38,000 The national average rent for a one bedroom, one bedroom, one bathroom apartment in August twenty twenty six is about one thousand six hundred and sixty three dollars per month. 35 00:12:38,000 --> 00:12:43,660 Sixteen sixty three. Now, if you remove the ten largest U.S. 36 00:12:43,660 --> 00:12:51,220 Cities, which is what we've done, where rents are for similar units, one bedroom, one bath or often exceeding thirty five hundred dollars. 37 00:12:51,340 --> 00:13:03,140 They're what the cities that you'd think of there. There are actually four of them in Texas, New York City, Chicago, Phoenix, Arizona, San Diego, San Francisco, the big top ten most expensive cities in the entire country. 38 00:13:03,140 --> 00:13:10,740 I remove that from the entire list. The average rent for a one bedroom, one bath apartment is one thousand six hundred and sixty three. 39 00:13:10,840 --> 00:13:21,580 So that typically brings the average down once you remove it to fourteen or fifteen hundred dollars, depending on whether a median or mean average is used. 40 00:13:21,580 --> 00:13:28,600 So let's say they find an apartment for sixteen hundred bucks. That's that's the number I have in my mind. 41 00:13:28,680 --> 00:13:32,620 Certainly when I was in college and when I was a younger person with a one bedroom, one bathroom apartment. 42 00:13:33,060 --> 00:13:35,600 Sixteen hundred bucks was about the going rate for rent now. 43 00:13:36,020 --> 00:13:45,200 So that leaves a single person by themselves in a one bedroom, one bath apartment with one thousand ten dollars left for the entire month. 44 00:13:45,360 --> 00:13:53,820 Back in twenty twenty five, just feeding yourself costs anywhere from two hundred and forty five to five hundred dollars every month. 45 00:13:53,820 --> 00:14:00,420 And that was before the grocery index climbed another two point seven percent in twenty twenty six. 46 00:14:00,780 --> 00:14:09,060 That's the CPI. It keeps track of the most common things that we buy and gives them a general price throughout the national average. 47 00:14:09,060 --> 00:14:17,800 Again, they're using swapping between mean and median and they arrived to a two point seven percent increase on CPI. 48 00:14:18,160 --> 00:14:22,980 But those broad averages don't tell the whole story of what happens at the register. 49 00:14:23,240 --> 00:14:25,940 They hide the actual math of a shopping trip. 50 00:14:26,600 --> 00:14:31,400 In fact, if you like coffee, just a good cup of black coffee like I do. 51 00:14:32,040 --> 00:14:35,500 Coffee prices spiked by thirty three to thirty five percent. 52 00:14:36,500 --> 00:14:49,220 And if you want to have a hamburger or I don't know, a beef sausage in the morning with a little bit of oatmeal or something, ground beef went up twenty two percent year over year. 53 00:14:49,620 --> 00:14:51,340 But there is good news. 54 00:14:51,400 --> 00:14:55,060 There was one grocery staple that did drop thirty percent. 55 00:14:55,620 --> 00:14:55,920 Eggs. 56 00:14:56,480 --> 00:15:00,860 Everything else has been consistently higher month to month at the grocery store. 57 00:15:01,080 --> 00:15:02,660 That is what we're working with. 58 00:15:03,380 --> 00:15:04,120 Keep that number. 59 00:15:04,560 --> 00:15:11,140 The entire conversation is about whether that person can live on it and what makes that possible or impossible. 60 00:15:11,900 --> 00:15:15,720 Now let me tell you who's talking because you should weigh it. 61 00:15:16,280 --> 00:15:17,500 My name is Joshua. 62 00:15:18,000 --> 00:15:21,160 In most of my life, I am the computer guy. 63 00:15:21,480 --> 00:15:29,400 I'm the one you call when your email stops working or when your iPhone starts doing something it did not used to do and you can't figure out what changed. 64 00:15:29,800 --> 00:15:30,520 I come over. 65 00:15:30,760 --> 00:15:31,400 I fix it. 66 00:15:31,760 --> 00:15:33,280 I don't make you feel stupid about it. 67 00:15:33,720 --> 00:15:36,880 I mention that because this is the same job. 68 00:15:37,520 --> 00:15:40,900 Somebody hands you a machine and a story about how it works. 69 00:15:41,000 --> 00:15:47,520 And sometimes the story is wrong and somebody has to sit down and go through it with you without being a jerk about it. 70 00:15:48,120 --> 00:15:49,080 Here's the other part. 71 00:15:49,380 --> 00:15:52,340 And it's the part that matters for weighing what I'm about to say. 72 00:15:53,340 --> 00:15:55,500 I was a Republican for thirty years. 73 00:15:55,900 --> 00:15:56,580 Not casually. 74 00:15:57,260 --> 00:16:00,500 I walked door to door for George W. Bush two times. 75 00:16:01,020 --> 00:16:08,380 Once, before I was old enough to vote, I knocked on strangers' doors in the heat living in Louisiana and made the case. 76 00:16:08,840 --> 00:16:09,660 I believed it. 77 00:16:10,140 --> 00:16:16,080 If you and I had talked politics in 2004, I would have argued with you from the other direction. 78 00:16:16,840 --> 00:16:18,120 And I would have been good at it. 79 00:16:18,220 --> 00:16:20,680 I left the party officially in 2016. 80 00:16:21,800 --> 00:16:24,680 I'm not going to perform pride or shame about that. 81 00:16:24,680 --> 00:16:25,540 It's just what happened. 82 00:16:26,340 --> 00:16:34,620 And I ended up well to the left of where I started, which I also am not going to hide because you would find that out in about a minute anyway. 83 00:16:34,620 --> 00:16:40,560 And then nothing else I said for the rest of this episode would you actually listen to. 84 00:16:41,300 --> 00:16:52,620 I'm telling you all of this in the first minute instead of the last one because the whole point here is that you should not have to take anybody's word for anything, including mine. 85 00:16:53,380 --> 00:16:58,660 Every number I just read and every number I am about to read is public information. 86 00:16:59,320 --> 00:17:02,960 I will tell you where each one comes from and you can go and check them. 87 00:17:03,120 --> 00:17:04,920 If I have one wrong, I want to know. 88 00:17:05,260 --> 00:17:06,280 You can send me an email. 89 00:17:06,620 --> 00:17:10,840 It's the overlap at fof dot foundation. 90 00:17:10,960 --> 00:17:12,820 No dot com at the very end. 91 00:17:13,220 --> 00:17:19,340 Just the overlap at fof dot foundation. 92 00:17:20,040 --> 00:17:21,520 I'm not here to convert you. 93 00:17:21,960 --> 00:17:28,260 I spent 30 years on the other side of this and nobody ever converted me by winning an argument. 94 00:17:28,460 --> 00:17:29,540 Not one time. 95 00:17:30,020 --> 00:17:38,040 I changed my mind slowly by myself over years after the facts stopped fitting the story that I had. 96 00:17:38,480 --> 00:17:42,700 That is the only way it has ever worked for anybody. 97 00:17:43,000 --> 00:17:55,520 What I can actually do is hand you the definition of a phrase as the people who hold the position actually use it instead of the version that circulates on your favorite mainstream media channel. 98 00:17:55,800 --> 00:17:56,960 That's the whole job. 99 00:17:57,360 --> 00:17:59,240 So here is the phrase. 100 00:17:59,240 --> 00:18:11,680 Democratic socialism means the workers and the community have a say in who owns and who controls the things they depend on to live. 101 00:18:12,040 --> 00:18:13,420 A power plant. 102 00:18:13,780 --> 00:18:14,900 A water system. 103 00:18:15,280 --> 00:18:16,000 A hospital. 104 00:18:16,920 --> 00:18:17,580 A utility. 105 00:18:18,200 --> 00:18:18,840 Who owns it. 106 00:18:19,300 --> 00:18:20,000 Who runs it. 107 00:18:20,340 --> 00:18:29,220 And whether a fund in another state gets to buy the factory in your town, strip it for parts, lay off 500 people, and disappear. 108 00:18:29,220 --> 00:18:31,620 That is what the phrase means. 109 00:18:32,220 --> 00:18:34,520 Not that the government seizes things. 110 00:18:35,100 --> 00:18:37,400 Not that you own nothing. 111 00:18:38,140 --> 00:18:38,660 A say. 112 00:18:39,180 --> 00:18:40,020 A vote. 113 00:18:40,860 --> 00:18:45,340 A seat at the table when decisions that determine your life get made. 114 00:18:45,900 --> 00:18:48,800 Let me be also very clear about what it does not mean. 115 00:18:49,340 --> 00:18:52,300 Because this is where the conversation got hijacked. 116 00:18:52,700 --> 00:18:54,280 It does not mean communism. 117 00:18:55,480 --> 00:18:58,260 Communism says the state owns everything. 118 00:18:58,700 --> 00:19:00,980 And you cannot vote that out. 119 00:19:01,500 --> 00:19:01,720 Ever. 120 00:19:02,460 --> 00:19:04,560 Democratic socialism says you vote. 121 00:19:05,140 --> 00:19:07,720 And if you do not like it, you vote it out. 122 00:19:08,180 --> 00:19:10,100 That is the entire difference. 123 00:19:11,100 --> 00:19:11,620 Elections. 124 00:19:11,920 --> 00:19:13,620 That phrase is load-bearing. 125 00:19:14,180 --> 00:19:17,940 And it's the one that never survives the trip to television. 126 00:19:18,680 --> 00:19:21,300 It does not mean the government takes your house. 127 00:19:21,560 --> 00:19:22,500 Or your truck. 128 00:19:22,900 --> 00:19:23,680 Or your gun. 129 00:19:24,320 --> 00:19:28,240 It means the community decides who owns the water system. 130 00:19:28,640 --> 00:19:29,980 And the power lines. 131 00:19:30,680 --> 00:19:31,880 Shared infrastructure. 132 00:19:31,880 --> 00:19:33,120 Not personal property. 133 00:19:33,400 --> 00:19:34,960 Those are different categories. 134 00:19:35,460 --> 00:19:37,580 And they get deliberately blurred. 135 00:19:38,360 --> 00:19:40,360 It does not mean that nobody works. 136 00:19:41,240 --> 00:19:42,880 The one I want to spend a minute on. 137 00:19:42,980 --> 00:19:45,340 Because it's exactly backwards from the history. 138 00:19:46,020 --> 00:19:48,440 Eugene Debs was a railroad man. 139 00:19:49,380 --> 00:19:51,420 Fireman on a locomotive at 19. 140 00:19:51,680 --> 00:19:54,700 He helped build the American Railway Union. 141 00:19:55,320 --> 00:20:00,800 In 1918, he gave a speech in Canton, Ohio, against the draft. 142 00:20:01,260 --> 00:20:07,800 And the federal government convicted him under the Espionage Act and sent him to the Atlanta Penitentiary. 143 00:20:08,220 --> 00:20:10,640 He was inmate number 2253. 144 00:20:11,700 --> 00:20:21,560 And in 1920, from inside that cell, he ran for president of the United States of America and got 914,000 votes. 145 00:20:22,040 --> 00:20:23,320 Think about what that number means. 146 00:20:23,960 --> 00:20:32,600 Almost 1 million Americans, most of whom would never have called themselves radicals, voted for a man in federal prison. 147 00:20:33,240 --> 00:20:35,200 Not because they had read theory. 148 00:20:35,580 --> 00:20:37,860 Because they remembered the coal mines. 149 00:20:38,200 --> 00:20:42,800 They remembered 12-hour shifts in the mills seven days a week. 150 00:20:42,940 --> 00:20:48,020 They remembered men worked until they died and then replaced on Monday. 151 00:20:48,340 --> 00:20:53,040 The demand those people were making was not that nobody should work. 152 00:20:53,540 --> 00:20:59,280 The slogan was eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what we will. 153 00:20:59,980 --> 00:21:03,080 They wanted a life on the other side of the shift. 154 00:21:03,720 --> 00:21:07,000 And they won it in pieces over 40 years. 155 00:21:07,500 --> 00:21:14,160 The Adamson Act in 1916 gave railroad workers the first federally mandated eight-hour day. 156 00:21:14,620 --> 00:21:22,360 The Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938 established the 40-hour work week and the minimum wage. 157 00:21:23,200 --> 00:21:25,400 Your weekend came from that fight. 158 00:21:26,340 --> 00:21:28,900 Overtime pay came from that fight. 159 00:21:29,340 --> 00:21:37,020 If you have ever gotten time and a half, you have collected on a debt that those people paid, sometimes with their lives. 160 00:21:37,280 --> 00:21:39,240 That is not nobody working. 161 00:21:39,460 --> 00:21:40,860 That is everybody working. 162 00:21:41,260 --> 00:21:44,180 And not having your entire life be your job. 163 00:21:44,600 --> 00:21:48,100 And here's the part I want you to sit with because it's the one that got me. 164 00:21:48,740 --> 00:21:53,820 There is a decade a lot of people on the right point back to as when this country worked. 165 00:21:53,980 --> 00:21:56,520 One income could carry a house and a family. 166 00:21:57,160 --> 00:22:01,100 A man could get hired at a plant at 20 and retire from it. 167 00:22:01,600 --> 00:22:04,060 You could buy a home on a factory wage. 168 00:22:04,620 --> 00:22:06,880 That was the middle of the 1950s. 169 00:22:06,940 --> 00:22:17,600 And in 1954, union membership in the American workforce hit its all-time peak, right around a third of every worker in the United States. 170 00:22:18,180 --> 00:22:21,160 Those two facts are the same fact. 171 00:22:21,460 --> 00:22:34,840 The era people are nostalgic for is the era with the highest union density in American history, the strongest labor law, and the top tax rates of this century. 172 00:22:35,280 --> 00:22:36,860 That is not a coincidence. 173 00:22:37,360 --> 00:22:40,880 And it is not a coincidence anybody wants to explain to you. 174 00:22:40,960 --> 00:22:47,300 Because the moment that you notice it, a lot of what is on television stops making sense. 175 00:22:47,740 --> 00:22:52,120 It does not mean that Venezuela or Cuba or the Soviet Union. 176 00:22:52,740 --> 00:22:58,840 Those were disasters, dictatorships, no real elections, and millions dead. 177 00:22:59,280 --> 00:23:07,320 I am not going to soften that or walk around it, and I understand completely why those are the places that come to mind when you hear the phrase. 178 00:23:07,880 --> 00:23:13,620 Those governments used the word and betrayed it by making sure no one could vote them out. 179 00:23:14,240 --> 00:23:15,760 That is not democratic. 180 00:23:16,380 --> 00:23:18,380 And that is not democratic socialism. 181 00:23:18,640 --> 00:23:19,840 That is the opposite of it. 182 00:23:20,420 --> 00:23:23,580 And the thing that makes it the opposite is the elections. 183 00:23:24,380 --> 00:23:28,920 I will say this very plainly because it cuts both directions. 184 00:23:29,640 --> 00:23:35,020 Plenty of people who use the word socialism in this country are insufferable. 185 00:23:35,720 --> 00:23:46,460 You know the type, university types, campus types who have never had a job, who use the word as a costume, and could not tell you what a shop steward does. 186 00:23:47,020 --> 00:23:47,880 They exist. 187 00:23:48,360 --> 00:23:49,160 They are annoying. 188 00:23:49,820 --> 00:23:52,540 They are also not who I am describing. 189 00:23:52,880 --> 00:23:57,780 They are not who wrote any of the history that I just gave you. 190 00:23:58,540 --> 00:24:08,560 But anybody who argues against socialism, using only Venezuela, without ever mentioning Denmark or Norway, is picking examples that serve them. 191 00:24:09,360 --> 00:24:13,320 If the claim is that it does not work, then explain Denmark. 192 00:24:13,940 --> 00:24:15,580 Then explain Norway. 193 00:24:16,500 --> 00:24:18,920 Explain why those countries have higher wages. 194 00:24:19,220 --> 00:24:20,180 Shorter work weeks. 195 00:24:20,180 --> 00:24:20,720 Shorter work weeks. 196 00:24:21,280 --> 00:24:22,620 Better health outcomes. 197 00:24:23,100 --> 00:24:24,140 Longer lives. 198 00:24:24,780 --> 00:24:29,660 And functioning economies with shining examples of capitalism working within their system. 199 00:24:30,180 --> 00:24:34,260 GLP-1s, semaglutide, terzepatide, are a perfect example of that. 200 00:24:34,900 --> 00:24:37,500 An honest argument points at all of them. 201 00:24:38,160 --> 00:24:42,200 Now here is the part that I think actually matters, and this is not theoretical. 202 00:24:42,740 --> 00:24:44,140 It already exists here. 203 00:24:44,500 --> 00:24:45,600 You already use it. 204 00:24:45,940 --> 00:24:47,180 You already like it. 205 00:24:48,140 --> 00:24:48,620 Medicare. 206 00:24:48,620 --> 00:24:48,760 Medicare. 207 00:24:49,520 --> 00:24:50,900 That's not capitalism. 208 00:24:51,420 --> 00:24:54,080 You do not buy Medicare on an open market. 209 00:24:54,580 --> 00:24:55,960 There is no Medicare store. 210 00:24:56,400 --> 00:24:59,020 No company competes to sell it to you. 211 00:24:59,100 --> 00:25:02,440 You pay over your working life. 212 00:25:02,580 --> 00:25:05,100 And then when you turn 65, it's there. 213 00:25:05,480 --> 00:25:09,100 You do not have to hope your employer still offers coverage. 214 00:25:09,360 --> 00:25:11,480 You do not have to fear losing it. 215 00:25:11,700 --> 00:25:13,020 Who pays for it? 216 00:25:13,020 --> 00:25:14,880 Workers through taxes. 217 00:25:15,080 --> 00:25:16,020 Who owns it? 218 00:25:16,180 --> 00:25:17,160 All of us. 219 00:25:17,720 --> 00:25:18,480 Who does it serve? 220 00:25:18,840 --> 00:25:20,180 Everyone over 65. 221 00:25:20,680 --> 00:25:24,640 That is public ownership and democratic control. 222 00:25:25,080 --> 00:25:25,900 The VA. 223 00:25:25,900 --> 00:25:27,160 Veterans Affairs. 224 00:25:27,160 --> 00:25:27,180 Veterans Affairs. 225 00:25:27,360 --> 00:25:28,400 Funded by taxes. 226 00:25:29,080 --> 00:25:30,160 Run by the government. 227 00:25:30,860 --> 00:25:32,560 Serving people who served. 228 00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:36,400 It has real problems and gets overstretched. 229 00:25:36,900 --> 00:25:43,480 And in a number of measurable areas, it still posts better patient outcomes than private hospitals. 230 00:25:44,380 --> 00:25:45,000 Who pays? 231 00:25:45,760 --> 00:25:46,440 Taxpayers. 232 00:25:47,100 --> 00:25:47,780 Who owns it? 233 00:25:48,260 --> 00:25:49,040 The public. 234 00:25:49,580 --> 00:25:51,420 The interstate highway system. 235 00:25:52,360 --> 00:25:54,580 Eisenhower, a Republican general, built it. 236 00:25:55,560 --> 00:25:57,380 Paid for it with gas taxes. 237 00:25:57,780 --> 00:25:59,160 Built by public works. 238 00:25:59,560 --> 00:26:01,380 Maintained by public agencies. 239 00:26:02,060 --> 00:26:05,600 Every truck carrying goods across the country runs on it. 240 00:26:06,160 --> 00:26:12,780 If a company owned the highways and charged by the mile, commerce would be slower and more expensive. 241 00:26:13,460 --> 00:26:14,140 Who owns it? 242 00:26:14,560 --> 00:26:15,140 The public. 243 00:26:15,140 --> 00:26:16,580 Who does it serve? 244 00:26:17,100 --> 00:26:17,540 Everyone. 245 00:26:18,340 --> 00:26:19,260 The fire department. 246 00:26:19,880 --> 00:26:21,320 Funded by property taxes. 247 00:26:21,680 --> 00:26:23,440 Staffed by public employees. 248 00:26:24,140 --> 00:26:26,600 It shows up whether you can afford it or not. 249 00:26:27,180 --> 00:26:28,560 Your house is on fire. 250 00:26:28,900 --> 00:26:29,400 They come. 251 00:26:30,120 --> 00:26:31,880 Nobody asks about your insurance. 252 00:26:32,680 --> 00:26:34,320 Nobody bills you for the water. 253 00:26:35,060 --> 00:26:37,040 That is what a public service is. 254 00:26:37,500 --> 00:26:41,100 A county road crew that salts the roads when there's ice or snow. 255 00:26:41,940 --> 00:26:43,020 Crop insurance. 256 00:26:43,260 --> 00:26:45,340 That carries farmers through a bad year. 257 00:26:46,020 --> 00:26:47,680 Rural electric co-ops. 258 00:26:47,680 --> 00:26:49,700 Which are owned by the members who use them. 259 00:26:49,700 --> 00:26:54,440 And when they run a surplus, it goes back to members as lower rates. 260 00:26:54,660 --> 00:26:58,540 Instead of out to a shareholder who has never been to the county. 261 00:26:58,540 --> 00:27:04,460 The Tennessee Valley Authority brought power to seven states in the 1930s. 262 00:27:04,960 --> 00:27:05,400 Tennessee. 263 00:27:05,400 --> 00:27:05,560 Alabama. 264 00:27:05,560 --> 00:27:06,280 Alabama. 265 00:27:06,280 --> 00:27:06,460 Kentucky. 266 00:27:06,460 --> 00:27:07,360 Kentucky. 267 00:27:07,360 --> 00:27:08,380 Mississippi. 268 00:27:08,380 --> 00:27:09,660 North Carolina. 269 00:27:10,140 --> 00:27:10,500 Georgia. 270 00:27:10,500 --> 00:27:11,520 And Virginia. 271 00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:17,060 Before that, fewer than one in ten rural homes had electricity. 272 00:27:18,260 --> 00:27:20,260 People were living like it was 1880. 273 00:27:20,700 --> 00:27:21,300 No power. 274 00:27:21,720 --> 00:27:22,620 No refrigeration. 275 00:27:22,900 --> 00:27:23,960 No modern tools. 276 00:27:24,360 --> 00:27:25,620 Your CPAP didn't work. 277 00:27:26,380 --> 00:27:30,120 And your diabetes medication could not be refrigerated. 278 00:27:30,240 --> 00:27:35,840 Private companies had already looked at it and said, no, it's not profitable. 279 00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:41,380 That was communities deciding some things are too important to leave to profit. 280 00:27:41,960 --> 00:27:47,920 So we will own it, we will run it, and we will decide together what happens to it. 281 00:27:48,360 --> 00:27:50,720 Every one of those falls into the same category. 282 00:27:51,520 --> 00:27:53,560 Public or community ownership. 283 00:27:54,260 --> 00:27:55,480 Democratic control. 284 00:27:56,300 --> 00:27:58,580 No outside fund extracting value. 285 00:27:58,840 --> 00:28:03,000 They have been working for 50, 70, 90 years. 286 00:28:03,500 --> 00:28:07,160 Your family depends on several of them right now. 287 00:28:07,860 --> 00:28:09,680 And nobody calls them socialism. 288 00:28:10,320 --> 00:28:17,340 Because nobody ever had an interest in making you afraid of the word when it's attached to something you like. 289 00:28:17,880 --> 00:28:24,540 So what democratic socialism asks for is not something different from Medicare or the fire department. 290 00:28:24,980 --> 00:28:25,940 It's the same thing. 291 00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:28,000 It's just applied more broadly. 292 00:28:28,640 --> 00:28:31,100 It asks, who owns the hospital? 293 00:28:31,400 --> 00:28:34,540 Right now, a lot of them are owned by private equity. 294 00:28:34,940 --> 00:28:37,800 And they're buying more every single month. 295 00:28:38,220 --> 00:28:42,640 Let's give a specific example because this is real and recent. 296 00:28:43,100 --> 00:28:46,100 And I want you to look up every single part of it. 297 00:28:46,700 --> 00:28:47,460 Anchor Hawking. 298 00:28:47,900 --> 00:28:48,440 Glass. 299 00:28:49,140 --> 00:28:51,560 Charleroy, Pennsylvania in Washington County. 300 00:28:52,060 --> 00:28:56,700 That plant had been running in that town for 132 years. 301 00:28:57,400 --> 00:29:00,100 Multiple generations of the same families worked there. 302 00:29:00,520 --> 00:29:02,000 Learned the trade from their fathers. 303 00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:03,340 Passed it to their kids. 304 00:29:04,020 --> 00:29:07,860 Around 300 people had employed jobs there. 305 00:29:08,400 --> 00:29:10,120 Decent wages for the area, too. 306 00:29:10,340 --> 00:29:11,180 Plenty of benefits. 307 00:29:11,580 --> 00:29:12,520 An employee union. 308 00:29:12,960 --> 00:29:16,020 Stability in a town that does not have a lot of stability. 309 00:29:16,760 --> 00:29:23,340 In February of 2024, Center Lane Partners, a private equity firm, acquired that business. 310 00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:27,880 By the end of 2024, the Charleroy plant was closing. 311 00:29:28,200 --> 00:29:29,120 300 jobs. 312 00:29:29,660 --> 00:29:33,220 The firm that bought it was not in the business of making glass. 313 00:29:33,800 --> 00:29:42,640 They looked at the assets and the property and the inventory and came to the conclusion that it was worth more shut down and moved than running. 314 00:29:42,640 --> 00:29:48,440 The Pennsylvania Attorney General filed an antitrust complaint that October to stop it. 315 00:29:49,020 --> 00:29:51,800 And a federal judge ruled the closure could proceed. 316 00:29:52,380 --> 00:29:56,520 The people in Charleroy did not get to vote in any of that. 317 00:29:57,200 --> 00:29:59,080 The workers had no seat at the table. 318 00:29:59,680 --> 00:30:01,000 They didn't ask the community. 319 00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:10,460 132 years ended because a hedge fund in another state decided that was the best use of the asset. 320 00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:14,040 It's happening now all across the country with data centers. 321 00:30:14,780 --> 00:30:21,360 And if that feels like something new, like some modern private equity invention, it is not. 322 00:30:21,600 --> 00:30:23,300 It happened on that same river. 323 00:30:23,700 --> 00:30:28,620 And it's worth knowing how because it explains why nobody wanted a seat at that table in the first place. 324 00:30:29,560 --> 00:30:30,660 Homestead, Pennsylvania. 325 00:30:31,420 --> 00:30:33,920 20-some miles up the... 326 00:30:33,920 --> 00:30:36,280 I'm going to mispronounce this, but... 327 00:30:36,280 --> 00:30:39,080 Monangahela from Charleroy. 328 00:30:39,540 --> 00:30:41,220 July of 1892. 329 00:30:42,340 --> 00:30:43,260 Carnegie Steel. 330 00:30:43,660 --> 00:30:46,280 The most productive steelworks in the country. 331 00:30:46,740 --> 00:30:52,840 And the men in it belonged to the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steelworkers. 332 00:30:53,340 --> 00:30:56,300 Which was then the strongest union in America. 333 00:30:56,480 --> 00:30:58,560 Andrew Carnegie wanted the union out. 334 00:30:59,280 --> 00:31:02,500 He also wanted to be in Scotland while it happened. 335 00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:06,300 So he left it to his chairman, Henry Clay Frick. 336 00:31:06,620 --> 00:31:08,340 And Frick did it thoroughly. 337 00:31:08,780 --> 00:31:13,640 He built a fence around the plant three miles long with barbed wire on top. 338 00:31:14,280 --> 00:31:17,120 And holes cut in it at rifle height. 339 00:31:17,880 --> 00:31:19,440 The men called it Fort Frick. 340 00:31:20,100 --> 00:31:21,120 He locked them out. 341 00:31:21,700 --> 00:31:22,440 Cut the wage. 342 00:31:23,040 --> 00:31:25,660 And hired 300 Pinkerton agents. 343 00:31:26,280 --> 00:31:30,940 On July 6th, he floated those Pinkertons up the river on barges in the dark. 344 00:31:31,420 --> 00:31:31,800 Armed. 345 00:31:32,340 --> 00:31:33,360 To take the plant. 346 00:31:33,920 --> 00:31:34,700 The town was waiting. 347 00:31:35,640 --> 00:31:37,660 What happened next was not a labor dispute. 348 00:31:38,120 --> 00:31:43,960 It was a gunfight on a riverbank that went most of the day and left men dead on both sides. 349 00:31:44,860 --> 00:31:45,860 The Pinkertons surrendered. 350 00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:47,260 And the workers won. 351 00:31:48,080 --> 00:31:49,620 They won for six days. 352 00:31:50,260 --> 00:31:53,400 Then the governor sent 8,000 state militia. 353 00:31:54,060 --> 00:31:55,000 And that was the end of it. 354 00:31:55,320 --> 00:31:57,240 The plant reopened without the union. 355 00:31:57,680 --> 00:32:00,860 And union steel in that valley did not come back for 40 years. 356 00:32:01,420 --> 00:32:05,120 Now hold these two things next to each other. 357 00:32:05,700 --> 00:32:07,500 Homestead in 1892. 358 00:32:08,180 --> 00:32:10,060 And Charleroi in 2024. 359 00:32:10,740 --> 00:32:11,420 Same river. 360 00:32:12,100 --> 00:32:12,940 Same question. 361 00:32:13,580 --> 00:32:17,740 Who decides what happens to the place where 300 people work? 362 00:32:18,340 --> 00:32:20,900 And do the 300 people get a say in it? 363 00:32:21,420 --> 00:32:25,100 In 1892, the answer arrived on a barge with rifles. 364 00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:28,560 In 2024, it arrived as a filing. 365 00:32:29,380 --> 00:32:31,320 Nobody had to fire a shot in Charleroi. 366 00:32:31,740 --> 00:32:34,860 Because nobody there had any mechanism to say no. 367 00:32:35,420 --> 00:32:36,680 That is the whole difference. 368 00:32:37,520 --> 00:32:40,860 It's not the kind of progress it sounds like. 369 00:32:41,480 --> 00:32:43,180 Democratic socialism says no. 370 00:32:43,200 --> 00:32:52,740 It says when you own a plant in our town and employ our people, the workers and the community get a voice in what happens to it. 371 00:32:52,880 --> 00:32:55,280 Now, not necessarily a veto. 372 00:32:55,280 --> 00:32:56,520 A voice. 373 00:32:56,520 --> 00:32:59,140 A union contract with real teeth. 374 00:32:59,140 --> 00:33:05,740 A mechanism where the people who eat the consequences have input into the decision. 375 00:33:05,740 --> 00:33:11,360 It says the water system cannot be a cash extraction machine. 376 00:33:11,360 --> 00:33:11,900 For a hedge fund. 377 00:33:11,900 --> 00:33:12,740 For a hedge fund. 378 00:33:12,740 --> 00:33:19,700 It says a hospital cannot be a thing you buy, squeeze for five years and flip. 379 00:33:19,900 --> 00:33:20,560 It says the power grid. 380 00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:25,540 It says the power grid is a utility that has to work, not a stock to trade. 381 00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:32,160 And it says a working person who works 40 hours a week should be able to live. 382 00:33:32,700 --> 00:33:37,720 The warehouse worker we started with at $2,610 a month. 383 00:33:37,960 --> 00:33:38,900 Not survive. 384 00:33:39,760 --> 00:33:40,240 Live. 385 00:33:40,680 --> 00:33:41,300 Make rent. 386 00:33:41,800 --> 00:33:42,540 Have food. 387 00:33:42,940 --> 00:33:45,500 A vehicle that gets them to and from their job. 388 00:33:46,180 --> 00:33:50,020 Take a kid to the doctor without it being a financial event. 389 00:33:50,440 --> 00:33:53,140 That is what the argument is actually about. 390 00:33:53,780 --> 00:33:58,120 Now, the honest part, and I'm going to be straight with you rather than sell you something. 391 00:33:58,660 --> 00:33:59,800 It costs money. 392 00:34:00,640 --> 00:34:02,300 Somebody has to pay for it. 393 00:34:02,860 --> 00:34:08,400 I'm not going to pretend public systems are free or that they don't require taxes because they do. 394 00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:10,000 That is real. 395 00:34:10,400 --> 00:34:13,200 And anybody who tells you different is selling you something. 396 00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:17,660 And government does run things badly sometimes. 397 00:34:18,440 --> 00:34:20,520 I have sat at the DMV like everyone else. 398 00:34:21,360 --> 00:34:23,240 Public programs have waste in them. 399 00:34:23,900 --> 00:34:27,740 They have people being paid to move paper instead of solving the problem. 400 00:34:28,240 --> 00:34:32,900 I understand exactly why that makes you nervous because it makes me nervous too. 401 00:34:33,420 --> 00:34:37,240 And I'm not going to insult you by pretending that the concern is irrational. 402 00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:38,280 It is not. 403 00:34:38,880 --> 00:34:40,960 But here's my actual answer to it. 404 00:34:41,480 --> 00:34:51,740 The comparison being offered to you is the worst of government against a gleaming vision of private business that exists in theory. 405 00:34:52,080 --> 00:34:55,980 In practice, private systems have enormous waste too. 406 00:34:56,420 --> 00:34:59,540 They also have people moving paper instead of solving problems. 407 00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:01,680 The difference is you do not see it. 408 00:35:02,120 --> 00:35:11,340 Because it's buried in premiums and executive compensation and marketing budgets, it comes out before the bill ever reaches you. 409 00:35:11,880 --> 00:35:13,280 But that is still your money. 410 00:35:13,820 --> 00:35:16,700 The question is not whether or not there will be waste. 411 00:35:16,900 --> 00:35:17,600 There will be. 412 00:35:18,340 --> 00:35:23,880 The question is whether the waste is serving you or extracting from you. 413 00:35:24,560 --> 00:35:26,360 So let me put real numbers on it. 414 00:35:26,960 --> 00:35:28,840 An ambulance ride in this country. 415 00:35:29,420 --> 00:35:30,080 Ten minutes. 416 00:35:30,720 --> 00:35:31,820 Local transport. 417 00:35:32,660 --> 00:35:36,300 That runs you roughly $1,000 out of pocket. 418 00:35:36,920 --> 00:35:42,060 $1,000 for ten minutes in a vehicle with lights on the roof. 419 00:35:42,540 --> 00:35:43,300 Air transport. 420 00:35:44,140 --> 00:35:46,400 A medical emergency needing a helicopter. 421 00:35:47,160 --> 00:35:49,720 The government accountability office looked at this. 422 00:35:50,640 --> 00:35:57,840 You are talking tens of thousands of dollars and a large share of those flights are out of network, which means your insurance covers part. 423 00:35:58,380 --> 00:36:00,080 And you get billed for the rest. 424 00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:09,640 People have gotten bills over $20,000 for a helicopter ride when they were unconscious and did not choose it. 425 00:36:10,240 --> 00:36:13,560 In Norway, that ride does not generate a bill. 426 00:36:14,240 --> 00:36:15,240 Neither does the ambulance. 427 00:36:15,680 --> 00:36:17,080 They pay for it in taxes. 428 00:36:17,220 --> 00:36:19,740 And yes, their taxes are higher. 429 00:36:20,260 --> 00:36:21,960 I'm not going to pretend that they're not. 430 00:36:21,960 --> 00:36:30,560 But nobody in Norway gets a $20,000 bill for a helicopter because that is not how they decided to build it. 431 00:36:31,080 --> 00:36:33,560 And they decided it democratically. 432 00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:35,300 Here is the big number. 433 00:36:36,020 --> 00:36:43,920 The United States spends $14,781 per person per year on healthcare. 434 00:36:44,240 --> 00:36:45,400 That is everything. 435 00:36:46,480 --> 00:36:47,120 Your share. 436 00:36:47,860 --> 00:36:48,860 Your employer's share. 437 00:36:49,500 --> 00:36:50,500 The government's share. 438 00:36:51,020 --> 00:36:54,600 Every year, whether you go to a doctor or not. 439 00:36:55,160 --> 00:36:59,780 Denmark spends $7,071 per person. 440 00:37:00,480 --> 00:37:02,120 That is roughly half. 441 00:37:02,480 --> 00:37:03,840 Not somewhat less. 442 00:37:04,540 --> 00:37:04,840 Half. 443 00:37:05,260 --> 00:37:12,860 And the Danes work fewer hours, take more vacation, live longer, and have lower infant mortality. 444 00:37:13,780 --> 00:37:16,440 Half the money, better outcomes. 445 00:37:16,940 --> 00:37:18,320 That is not an opinion. 446 00:37:18,920 --> 00:37:22,680 That is spending data from countries doing it right now. 447 00:37:23,320 --> 00:37:24,840 So the question is this. 448 00:37:24,980 --> 00:37:35,180 Do you want the water system owned by a fund looking to maximize extraction over five years before selling it to another hedge fund? 449 00:37:35,560 --> 00:37:40,000 Or owned by a fund looking to maximize the money? 450 00:37:40,000 --> 00:37:41,240 That is the actual vote. 451 00:37:41,240 --> 00:37:44,140 I want to say one more thing and I'll get out of your way. 452 00:37:45,060 --> 00:37:46,280 Some profit is fine. 453 00:37:47,240 --> 00:37:49,100 Investment requires return. 454 00:37:49,700 --> 00:37:52,620 Building something requires a reason to build it. 455 00:37:53,140 --> 00:37:54,680 I am not confused about that. 456 00:37:54,680 --> 00:37:58,860 And I'm not arguing against business existing. 457 00:37:59,520 --> 00:38:08,040 What I am arguing, again, is that what happens when profit becomes the only thing we care about. 458 00:38:08,600 --> 00:38:20,540 When a pension gets looted by a fund manager two states away who has never met a single worker and has no reason to care whether they can put food on the table at 70 years old. 459 00:38:20,540 --> 00:38:29,360 When a utility is run to pull value out now instead of maintaining the lines for the next 50 years. 460 00:38:29,900 --> 00:38:34,960 When a hospital gets treated like a playing card or a trading card. 461 00:38:35,580 --> 00:38:37,760 That's not really capitalism anymore. 462 00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:39,240 That is extraction. 463 00:38:39,820 --> 00:38:44,800 And you can tell the difference because extraction never builds anything. 464 00:38:45,400 --> 00:38:47,120 We have done it the other way before. 465 00:38:47,820 --> 00:38:48,500 In living memory. 466 00:38:48,940 --> 00:38:49,800 In this country. 467 00:38:50,140 --> 00:38:51,020 The New Deal. 468 00:38:51,240 --> 00:38:52,720 Rural electrification. 469 00:38:53,480 --> 00:38:54,800 The 40 hour work week. 470 00:38:55,320 --> 00:38:55,740 The VA. 471 00:38:56,620 --> 00:38:56,980 Medicare. 472 00:38:57,580 --> 00:38:59,120 All of those things exist. 473 00:38:59,580 --> 00:39:00,360 They are imperfect. 474 00:39:01,020 --> 00:39:01,900 But they work. 475 00:39:02,600 --> 00:39:05,420 And they work because they were built on one idea. 476 00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:10,860 Some things are too important to leave it to a profit motive. 477 00:39:11,440 --> 00:39:12,920 So we own them together. 478 00:39:13,220 --> 00:39:15,180 And we decide together. 479 00:39:15,600 --> 00:39:16,860 Now back to our person. 480 00:39:17,500 --> 00:39:18,980 The warehouse associate in Illinois. 481 00:39:19,180 --> 00:39:19,840 40 hours. 482 00:39:20,600 --> 00:39:22,740 $2,610 a month. 483 00:39:23,340 --> 00:39:24,960 Right now between premiums. 484 00:39:25,280 --> 00:39:25,800 Co-pays. 485 00:39:26,120 --> 00:39:26,680 Deductibles. 486 00:39:27,060 --> 00:39:27,700 Co-insurance. 487 00:39:27,940 --> 00:39:32,500 That household is losing several hundred dollars a month to health coverage. 488 00:39:32,780 --> 00:39:34,840 Before anyone actually gets sick. 489 00:39:35,460 --> 00:39:38,740 Under a system built the way Denmark or Norway built theirs. 490 00:39:39,280 --> 00:39:41,080 Most of that becomes tax. 491 00:39:41,580 --> 00:39:44,280 At roughly half the total per person cost. 492 00:39:44,780 --> 00:39:48,080 What is left over is not a rounding error to somebody at that income. 493 00:39:48,740 --> 00:39:49,440 It's the dentist. 494 00:39:50,320 --> 00:39:51,840 It's a car that starts. 495 00:39:52,460 --> 00:39:55,240 It's winter boots that are not held together with duct tape. 496 00:39:55,760 --> 00:39:56,840 Will it take more taxes? 497 00:39:57,080 --> 00:39:57,380 Yes. 498 00:39:57,920 --> 00:40:01,260 The question is whether you would rather pay through taxes. 499 00:40:01,640 --> 00:40:04,400 Into a system designed to serve you. 500 00:40:04,920 --> 00:40:07,540 Or through premiums and deductibles. 501 00:40:07,540 --> 00:40:10,540 And surprise bills from out of network anesthesiologists. 502 00:40:11,700 --> 00:40:15,460 Into a system designed to extract money from you. 503 00:40:15,740 --> 00:40:17,560 You're already paying for it. 504 00:40:18,200 --> 00:40:20,140 That's the part that gets left out. 505 00:40:20,540 --> 00:40:22,140 You are already paying. 506 00:40:22,480 --> 00:40:23,540 And paying more. 507 00:40:24,040 --> 00:40:24,740 For less. 508 00:40:25,120 --> 00:40:26,940 You're going to keep hearing this word. 509 00:40:27,540 --> 00:40:28,480 This phrase. 510 00:40:29,140 --> 00:40:30,260 Democratic socialism. 511 00:40:30,260 --> 00:40:32,380 And it's going to get thrown at you on television. 512 00:40:32,740 --> 00:40:33,840 And in arguments. 513 00:40:33,840 --> 00:40:35,880 And by people running for office. 514 00:40:36,520 --> 00:40:38,500 But now you know what it actually means. 515 00:40:38,580 --> 00:40:41,180 You know how it differs from communism. 516 00:40:41,580 --> 00:40:44,240 And that the difference is elections. 517 00:40:44,740 --> 00:40:48,360 You know why Venezuela is not the comparison. 518 00:40:48,360 --> 00:40:50,440 And why Denmark is. 519 00:40:50,440 --> 00:40:54,500 And you know you already use several pieces of it every week. 520 00:40:55,160 --> 00:40:57,080 So when somebody uses the word at you. 521 00:40:57,580 --> 00:41:00,600 You can tell whether they know what they're talking about. 522 00:41:00,780 --> 00:41:04,560 If they tell you it means the government seizes your house. 523 00:41:05,200 --> 00:41:06,860 They're either lying to you. 524 00:41:06,960 --> 00:41:08,720 Or they read it somewhere and never checked. 525 00:41:09,240 --> 00:41:11,620 If they tell you it means that nobody works. 526 00:41:12,340 --> 00:41:14,760 They do not know what a union is. 527 00:41:15,120 --> 00:41:17,940 Or what the labor movement actually won. 528 00:41:18,620 --> 00:41:20,280 If they bring up Venezuela. 529 00:41:20,760 --> 00:41:22,580 And never once mention Denmark. 530 00:41:23,300 --> 00:41:25,340 They're cherry picking their examples. 531 00:41:26,060 --> 00:41:27,520 That is what I wanted to hand you. 532 00:41:28,180 --> 00:41:29,000 Not a conclusion. 533 00:41:29,660 --> 00:41:32,520 Just the actual definition of democratic socialism. 534 00:41:33,160 --> 00:41:34,040 And the receipts. 535 00:41:34,420 --> 00:41:36,280 So that next time it comes up. 536 00:41:36,480 --> 00:41:38,680 You are arguing about the real thing. 537 00:41:39,120 --> 00:41:41,400 Instead of a caricature you were sold. 538 00:41:42,100 --> 00:41:43,880 You can disagree with all of it. 539 00:41:44,740 --> 00:41:45,680 Plenty of people do. 540 00:41:45,820 --> 00:41:48,440 And some of them are rather good at arguing it. 541 00:41:48,440 --> 00:41:49,620 But now. 542 00:41:50,120 --> 00:41:52,200 You can disagree with what it is. 543 00:41:52,980 --> 00:41:54,460 Not something that it's not. 544 00:41:55,080 --> 00:41:56,140 That is worth something. 545 00:41:57,100 --> 00:41:57,760 Thank you. 546 00:41:57,760 --> 00:42:27,740 Thank you. 547 00:42:27,740 --> 00:42:33,960 Thank you.