True Anon Truth Feed - Episode 119: To Live and Die in Davos Pt. 2 Aired: 2020-11-22 Duration: 01:00:32 === Why Shareholder Capitalism Scares Me (14:49) === [00:00:00] You ever eat a pangolin? [00:00:02] No, what is that? [00:00:04] Oh, baby. [00:00:05] Wait, I eat. [00:00:06] I never eat a pangolin. [00:00:07] Yeah. [00:00:07] Okay, you don't eat those. [00:00:11] Really? [00:00:12] Wait, is that where bat flu came from? [00:00:14] Well, bat flu came from bats, but yeah, yeah, it's like a pang flu. [00:00:19] Pepping flu sound right. [00:00:20] Yeah, I don't like it. [00:00:21] No, bat flu, I feel like bats really got thrown to the wayside there. [00:00:25] Like, nobody calls it bat flu anymore. [00:00:28] Yeah, bat lobby did a good job getting that out real quick. [00:00:31] Oh, big bat, absolutely. [00:00:32] Here's the thing. [00:00:33] I'd eat a bat. [00:00:36] You would? [00:00:37] Yeah, absolutely. [00:00:38] I don't think so. [00:00:40] The bats, I think, are unique. [00:00:41] It looks like a bat. [00:00:42] Oh, that's the whole thing. [00:00:42] It's like a soup. [00:00:43] It's a soup. [00:00:44] Yeah. [00:00:44] Well, I will say, in the pictures I've seen of people eating bat soup, it appears they do just stick like a desiccated whole bat in like a milky broth. [00:00:54] Why would you think to do that? [00:00:57] Well, I mean, I guess they should just call it bat broth. [00:01:00] And then people in LA will like it. [00:01:02] Absolutely. [00:01:03] Yeah. [00:01:04] Like, it's, I mean, I feel like people eat all kinds of shit. [00:01:07] You know what I mean? [00:01:07] Like a corn dog. [00:01:08] What's a corn dog? [00:01:10] Well, that's a hot dog with like a corn thing around it. [00:01:13] Exactly. [00:01:13] That's a weird thing. [00:01:14] You know, if you were to describe that to the person. [00:01:15] No one at Disneyland is very good. [00:01:17] I'm a big fan of corn dogs over here. [00:01:19] I like the, whatever the corn parts, mate, I guess corn. [00:01:25] I like that a lot. [00:01:26] I used to eat a lot of corn. [00:01:27] There are hush puppies. [00:01:29] Oh, yeah. [00:01:29] That's big corn, thanks to big corn. [00:01:32] I will say, people complain so much about big agribusiness. [00:01:36] Everybody loves corn. [00:01:38] I don't think everybody loves corn. [00:01:39] What do you want to be eating? [00:01:40] That's really bad for you. [00:01:42] A bat. [00:01:42] Who cares? [00:01:43] That stuff's all fake. [00:01:45] I've been watching a lot of really long YouTube ads at the beginning of videos with a guy talking about his diet. [00:01:51] And let me tell you, these guys have foods you never even would believe. [00:01:54] You know, I was YouTubing the other day. [00:01:57] It's like the Wild West out there, man. [00:02:00] What were you? [00:02:00] What does Liz watch on YouTube? [00:02:03] That's none of your business. [00:02:04] No, I think I would like to know. [00:02:05] You can put it in the little chat thing here. [00:02:08] I don't need to tell the listeners, but I would like to. [00:02:10] Oh, Jake Paul. [00:02:13] Wait, who's that? [00:02:14] which one's uh i got i let me wait is that the is that the arian swedish one No. [00:02:20] Well, no, no. [00:02:22] Oh, no. [00:02:22] That's PewDiePie. [00:02:27] It sounds like he's like a cartoon character with a coin purse. [00:02:30] Could you imagine trying to get a girl and be PewDiePie? [00:02:35] I mean, I think he probably has no problem. [00:02:37] like you go out and you're like she's like what do you do you're like oh I make uh my name's PewDiePie And I make videos for children. [00:02:45] Do you think when people who YouTube, when they introduce themselves, do they say like, I'm a YouTuber? [00:02:51] I mean, I don't, I, when I, I mean, I've said this on the show before, but like, when I've introduced myself to people and they ask me what I do, I'm like, I host a radio show. [00:03:02] Like, I don't want to say I work in media or anything. [00:03:04] I just like, yeah, I do like a radio. [00:03:06] Cause I try to bring to mind like an image. [00:03:08] Is that what we do? [00:03:08] Do we work in media? [00:03:10] No, no, we're like, if you think about this, we're actually like co-workers of Howard Stern. [00:03:16] Baba Bowie. [00:03:17] That's how I think of it. [00:03:18] Like, if, if, like, if there was like a company party, I mean company in the big sense, it would be like us and the girls from Call Her Daddy and Howard Stern. [00:03:28] Yeah, that's a horrifying party. [00:03:30] I would love that part. [00:03:31] One of the most depressing videos I've ever seen in my life was Howard Stern did a micro penis contest. [00:03:38] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:03:40] Yeah, you've seen that. [00:03:41] No, I've never seen it, but people talk about it all the time. [00:03:43] It's an incredible video because it's like, not only like, okay, you got to be good with just being naked in Howard Stern's like recording studio, but the prize is like, what happens is you just, it's like a fucking, it's like a line and you stand in line and you get to the front of the line. [00:04:00] Howard Stern's like, yeah, you got a really small penis. [00:04:03] And then maybe they give you like $100. [00:04:05] Well, you get like an award? [00:04:06] Yeah. [00:04:07] Well, I don't know if they give you like a plaque or anything, but they give you some money. [00:04:10] But not a lot of money. [00:04:12] Or like, you know, they give you a really tiny ribbon. [00:04:15] Yes. [00:04:16] It's just, it's so, I mean, I've told you my whole thing about, I don't need to go into my micropeniseries, but like, it's, it was just, when I watched it, it was a spark. [00:04:26] It's a big book deal. [00:04:28] I can't know if I said this on the show. [00:04:29] I guarantee that I have because I feel like I've repeat myself constantly. [00:04:32] But if that happened to me, I would just pretend I lost it in the war, like in the sun also rises. [00:04:37] Oh, yeah, because these guys, it's like, I don't, I just, I can't, I mean, I guess I humiliate myself daily, just every time I open my eyes, but I just can't imagine like debasing yourself that much. [00:04:51] But that's the power of Stern. [00:04:53] People love Howard. [00:04:54] Yeah, he's got it. [00:04:56] He's got it. [00:04:57] No one would kill for Joe Rogan, but people would absolutely kill for Howard Stern. [00:05:02] I believe that in my heart. [00:05:03] I would gladly and and immediately kill for the call her daddy girls. [00:05:34] Welcome to our special episode. [00:05:36] You know who we need to get on this show? [00:05:38] Who? [00:05:39] Nassim Taleb. [00:05:41] I don't think he'd do it. [00:05:43] No, he wouldn't. [00:05:44] I feel like he just, he would think of me like a clown. [00:05:49] He would think you were a clown. [00:05:50] There's no way Nassim would respect me. [00:05:53] He would probably refer to you as the clown. [00:05:56] I am the black swan, though. [00:05:59] No, you're not. [00:06:00] No, it got me in a lot of trouble when pictures came out of me at that college party. [00:06:04] Oh, my God. [00:06:06] Yeah, Nassim's a big get. [00:06:08] I think we could get. [00:06:09] Has he ever been on Rogan? [00:06:11] Oh, that's. [00:06:13] You know what I need? [00:06:14] I need him on Rogan with Rachel Dullazole. [00:06:18] Yeah, that'd be fantastic. [00:06:19] Oh, my God. [00:06:20] Talk about a trifecta. [00:06:22] We can probably get Lindy Man, but I know. [00:06:26] It's like the Sun's Prize, you know? [00:06:31] Anyways, welcome, welcome, welcome. [00:06:34] This is Radio Talk from Shorty. [00:06:36] You hear that? [00:06:36] That's us rapping about the industry right there. [00:06:39] Yeah, that's the little window into our pre-recording meetings that we always have regularly. [00:06:48] My name is The Vampire. [00:06:52] What? [00:06:53] It's kind of going for like a dark Brace thing, but I'm Brace. [00:06:58] Well, I'm Liz. [00:06:59] Hello. [00:07:00] Welcome. [00:07:00] This is Tronan. [00:07:02] Of course, we are joined by hunky producer Nassim Taleb and his assistant, Young Chomsky. [00:07:11] And we are back talking about the Great Reset. [00:07:15] So one thing I want to say before we start, it is so funny because Bryce and I have been talking for a couple weeks now. [00:07:24] You know, we've been trying to figure out when to do the Great Reset episodes because we knew we had to kind of, we wanted to talk about this stuff. [00:07:29] And it's, you know, it's been all out there and everything. [00:07:34] But like the day we recorded, apparently like Ducker Carlson did an episode about it. [00:07:40] So that's the Zeitgeist baby. [00:07:43] Yeah. [00:07:43] Oh, Laura Ingraham did too. [00:07:45] Hers sucked. [00:07:46] I didn't watch the Tucker Carlson. [00:07:47] I didn't watch either of them. [00:07:48] Laura's was so fun to do. [00:07:50] Yeah, I don't have time for that shit. [00:07:52] It's, you know, but I also, I did listen to a variety. [00:07:55] Since we did ours, I listened to like, there's a bunch of Corbett report ones on it. [00:08:01] And I'll tell you what, I found some good. [00:08:05] If you just add the word bio to something, it makes it way scarier. [00:08:09] Biosecurity scares the shit out of me as opposed to just radio security. [00:08:14] So I'm going to be using the word biosecurity a lot this episode. [00:08:18] I also, I will say, we got some feedback. [00:08:20] And I'll tell you, I ignore feedback religiously, but we did get some feedback that our first episode was depressing. [00:08:26] And don't worry, this second episode, we go into the lighter side of the Great Reset. [00:08:31] White slavery. [00:08:35] You know, I think it was depressing. [00:08:38] Well, what? [00:08:38] I mean, I'll be honest with you. [00:08:40] What am I supposed to do, man? [00:08:41] We had the Grover thing in there. [00:08:44] What do you want to do? [00:08:44] I think that really fucked people up. [00:08:46] The Grover. [00:08:47] Or is that might have been Elmo? [00:08:48] I can't remember. [00:08:49] Elmo? [00:08:49] A Muppet's a Muppet to me, man. [00:08:51] I don't see it. [00:08:51] Oh my God. [00:08:52] Are you kidding? [00:08:54] What did you say? [00:08:55] A Muppet is a Muppet? [00:08:56] No. [00:08:57] Yes. [00:08:57] No, these are all very distinct, different creatures. [00:09:01] You can't tell me the difference between Grover and Elmo. [00:09:04] You can't tell. [00:09:04] They're just blue and red. [00:09:06] That's not true. [00:09:06] They're very. [00:09:07] What's another difference? [00:09:08] No, this is what's another difference. [00:09:10] You can't do it. [00:09:11] No one can. [00:09:12] You're not letting me talk. [00:09:14] I'm buying you time. [00:09:16] Oh, my God. [00:09:18] Grover's way more mischievous. [00:09:20] Yeah. [00:09:21] Yeah. [00:09:21] He's a little troublemaker. [00:09:22] He's got his schemes. [00:09:24] You're kind of a Grover. [00:09:26] I've always been told I'm more like, I can't remember any of their other names. [00:09:31] The Count. [00:09:32] I am the Count. [00:09:33] They call me the Count because I love to count things. [00:09:37] You're a little count. [00:09:38] When I was a kid, I loved the Count. [00:09:40] I hated the Count. [00:09:41] Not a numbers guy. [00:09:44] One betty, Betty, Betty. [00:09:46] Two Betty. [00:09:47] He should have, we should have got him for COVID. [00:09:49] He could have done a great PSA. [00:09:51] Oh, my God. [00:09:52] Oh, my God. [00:09:54] He would have been fantastic. [00:09:56] Well, it's cannibalism for him. [00:09:57] So it's like, you know, it's a human rights issue or vampire. [00:09:59] Oh, my God. [00:10:00] Anyway, hello. [00:10:01] Sorry. [00:10:02] Welcome, welcome, welcome. [00:10:03] We already did that. [00:10:04] Oh, shit. [00:10:05] Well, I was going to say the name of the episode, which I can't remember. [00:10:08] I think it's Down and Dirty in Davos or To Live and Die in Davos part two. [00:10:12] Oh, my God. [00:10:15] What are we popping up? [00:10:16] No, we were just saying that people said it was depressing. [00:10:18] Oh, yeah. [00:10:19] Oh, yeah. [00:10:19] This one's not. [00:10:20] I swear to God. [00:10:20] No, this one's not. [00:10:21] No, but I just want to say that, like, sorry about that. [00:10:26] I feel like that's not usually our beat or that it didn't used to be our beat. [00:10:29] And we got to like prick up a little bit. [00:10:31] Yeah. [00:10:32] Maybe I'm talking mostly about myself. [00:10:34] I'll be honest with you. [00:10:35] Everything we're going to talk about today is something that I not only approve of, but I've heavily invested in. [00:10:42] So I'm telling you, when we get to digital currency, I'm telling you, buy digital currency. [00:10:47] When we get to bug food, buy the bug food. [00:10:50] When we get to the impossible whopper, I'll tell you, my closet right now, full of thousands of impossible whoppers that I hand out to 12-year-olds. [00:10:57] Oh, my God. [00:10:58] Well, I wouldn't say that. [00:10:59] Did you see McPlant? [00:11:00] Did we talk about this? [00:11:02] McPlant? [00:11:03] No. [00:11:04] No, I missed that. [00:11:05] It's like the rapper burger I missed, too. [00:11:07] Yeah, no, McDonald's launched their Veggie Burger, which is like a partnership with Beyond Burger, and they named it McPlant. [00:11:14] Awful name. [00:11:14] Awful name. [00:11:15] Or maybe it's not a partnership with Beyond Burger. [00:11:17] Beyond Burger stock tanked right after the announcement of McPlant. [00:11:21] Oof. [00:11:22] Yeah. [00:11:22] They need to. [00:11:23] You know, it's too bad my people are forbidden by law from working in fast food anymore. [00:11:28] I think McPlant is a psyop by the meat and meat. [00:11:32] Is it interesting big beef? [00:11:33] Yeah, you call it something so stupid and dorky, so people don't buy it. [00:11:37] I would never order a McPlant. [00:11:39] That's the fucking big brains of Big Beef. [00:11:40] You know what I'm saying? [00:11:42] Mm-hmm. [00:11:43] Well, we are talking about a big piece of shit to start off with today. [00:11:49] Klaus. [00:11:50] Yeah, listen, I'm not going to talk about the German stuff. [00:11:52] Apparently, Germans don't like that. [00:11:54] And you know what? [00:11:55] That's fine with me. [00:11:56] I'm very. [00:11:56] Did you hear from some Germans? [00:11:58] Yeah, yeah. [00:11:59] They left me a bunch of voicemails that went, Bach Schnell, Bach Schnell, and I was like, whoa, baby, okay, you know? [00:12:10] No, no, no. [00:12:10] But, you know, I feel guilty every time I, you know, my ethnic anger comes up. [00:12:15] But it's, it's, so Klaus Schwab, I tell you, I gave you the run through. [00:12:21] He's from Germany, but I really want to sort of pinpoint this guy as sort of the Kautsky of capitalism. [00:12:26] And now this is a Patreon episode, so I don't have to worry about any normal people hearing that. [00:12:32] In that he like, he is a shareholder capitalism. [00:12:37] Yeah, shareholder. [00:12:38] Well, yeah, shareholder capitalism. [00:12:39] But like what he is, is he's sort of like a guy who, you know, is sort of appalled at the excesses of what's called stakeholder capitalism. [00:12:49] And he wants to, well, he says he made up something called shareholder capitalism. [00:12:53] He did not, but I really respect anybody who just pretends to have made something up that already existed. [00:12:59] And so he's written several books to that effect. [00:13:02] And it's sort of been like his mantra since the 70s, in fact. [00:13:07] And I think like shareholder capitalism, I don't know about you, but whenever I hear like any of this shit coming out of Davos, when they start talking about any social responsibility stuff, I kind of tune it out, right? [00:13:20] Like, because I feel like my whole life, we've always heard about like, you know, the social responsibility coming from companies and, you know, blah, And like, you know, what does that end up with? [00:13:29] Maybe they start, you know, a Ronald McDonald house or like, you know, they stop, you know, doing death squads for a couple of months a year or whatever. [00:13:39] But I think it is really worth paying attention to Schwab's stakeholder capitalism sort of scheme, I want to call it, because that's all it really is. [00:13:49] The whole thing's a fucking scheme. [00:13:51] Yeah. [00:13:53] Were you, did you know about stakeholder capitalism totally? [00:13:56] I did not. [00:13:56] I don't pay any attention. [00:13:57] I mean, I had heard it thrown around a lot. [00:14:00] And I had assumed, I didn't know that it was, that it, that it kind of like stood in opposition to what is known as shareholder capitalism, which was pioneered by Milton Friedman kind of in the 70s. [00:14:13] It's like kind of redirecting businesses toward single, like profits on behalf of their shareholders. [00:14:20] Right. [00:14:20] And so it was like giving businesses a very like kind of singular purpose. [00:14:27] This is all man. [00:14:28] I mean, this is all like business management shit as opposed to kind of like economic theory. [00:14:33] I kind of want to make that distinction. [00:14:35] Like this, it's not like, this isn't something where, you know, it'd be like, if you want to know the brains of your enemy, read Klaus Schwab's books. [00:14:44] It's like, no, do not. [00:14:46] There's this like a fucking reason for you to do that. [00:14:48] I've read two of them. === Redefining Corporate Stakeholders (08:52) === [00:14:50] They're awful. [00:14:50] It's stupid. [00:14:51] This is the kind of shit that they throw at like management grads in business school. [00:14:56] And it's the same thing with like shareholder capitalism. [00:14:59] It's all just like management strategies. [00:15:01] So it's like internal to business kind of culture. [00:15:04] But I don't think that's exactly what Klaus is doing or Davos is attempting to do with this iteration. [00:15:12] No. [00:15:13] So I actually, yeah, I had no idea what share what what shareholder capitalism was either. [00:15:18] I guess they also sometimes call it MSV, maximize shareholder value, which I kind of like. [00:15:24] I like anything that could be cut down into three letters. [00:15:29] So as a long time listeners of the show will know, I'm not the economy guy. [00:15:36] You know, it's a lot of this stuff I kind of just like try not to get into the details of because I know it's all pretty bad. [00:15:43] And to be frank, when I read it, I don't understand it. [00:15:46] But I do understand what maximize shareholder value means. [00:15:49] It means is make as much fucking money as possible for your shareholders. [00:15:54] But that like, okay, you might say, all right, stakeholder capitalism is sort of against that or not against that, but like stakes itself out in opposition to that. [00:16:03] Not so entirely sure of that. [00:16:05] It stems from this book called The Modern Corporation and Private Property by these guys. [00:16:10] And check out these fucking names. [00:16:12] Adolph Burl. [00:16:13] You can tell it's written in the 30s or early 30s. [00:16:16] And this is my most like 1930s American ass name that there is. [00:16:21] Gardener means. [00:16:22] I feel like every, this guy wasn't in the State Department. [00:16:24] But whenever I feel like I read, like you read The Devil's Chessboard and anything like that, you read about guys in the State Department from like the early or the mid to early 20th century. [00:16:31] They're all named shit like Gardener, you know, like Mr. Hose or whatever. [00:16:37] It's like, they just, these names totally, I mean, Adolph obviously went out of favor for a variety of reasons. [00:16:43] Thanks again to our German listeners. [00:16:45] But name Gardner, I feel like I don't even, you know, it's I didn't even know that was a first name. [00:16:52] I mean, they should bring that back in like the whole Brooklyn theme name. [00:16:56] Yeah, they can add like an extra IE Y T H to it somehow. [00:17:03] And then and then maybe some Americans will start. [00:17:06] Or just Gardener. [00:17:08] Garden Eath. [00:17:09] Means is such a funny last name for like a business guy. [00:17:12] Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:17:13] It's kind of cute. [00:17:16] So it's, I'm just like, what country is that from? [00:17:19] But anyways, it's essentially that book is like a call to arms for shareholders to actually exercise control over the companies into which they're invested. [00:17:27] And of course, at this time, you know, there's a lot of, I mean, still is, a lot of small shareholders in these companies. [00:17:32] But what they're basically saying is people centralize their wealth by means of investments in these large companies. [00:17:38] But the wealth isn't actually under their control. [00:17:40] It's under the control of the people who actually, you know, have the controlling shares in these companies and the people who run those companies themselves. [00:17:47] They claim that companies, and this is the central, as far as I can tell, thesis of the book is that companies are no longer private, but they're social institutions. [00:17:56] And that theme echoes in a lot of Schwab's fucking work. [00:18:00] So in 2020, Davos released a manifesto. [00:18:03] And I'll tell you what, there have been a lot of manifestos released in the 20th and 21st century, in fact, the 19th century as well. [00:18:11] Some good. [00:18:12] Some bad. [00:18:13] Yes. [00:18:14] You know, who can say manifestos are themselves neutral, but there can be, you know, positive and negative manifestos. [00:18:21] I would say this is a negative manifesto. [00:18:25] Liz, do you want to read the point A of this manifesto? [00:18:28] I feel like you have the more sonorous voice for these lyrical words. [00:18:33] The purpose of a company is to engage all its stakeholders in shared and sustained value creation. [00:18:41] In creating such value, a company serves not only its shareholders, but all its stakeholders, employees, customers, suppliers, local communities, and society at large. [00:18:54] The best way to understand and harmonize the divergent interests of all stakeholders is through a shared commitment to policies and decisions that strengthen the long-term prosperity of a company. [00:19:08] So what are we seeing here? [00:19:10] Because so I guess we got to make the distinction between shareholders, as in people who are actually invested in making money in a real way from this company, and stakeholders, which are the wage cucks, and also, I guess, people who live near them. [00:19:23] Okay. [00:19:23] So, yeah. [00:19:24] So, shareholders would be literally anyone who owns a share in a company, right? [00:19:30] Quite literally. [00:19:32] So that would be, yeah, that's very different from what they're kind of trying to define as stakeholders, which they're basically trying to, it's sort of like they're doing both at once. [00:19:45] They're redefining the company as they're redefining stakeholders in that company. [00:19:51] Do you see what I mean? [00:19:53] So they're saying that stakeholders of the company are not just shareholders or management or employees or workers or CEOs, but also like greater society at large, whether that's in kind of institutions that we'll get into, like in what you would traditionally call like civil society or, you know, public institutions, [00:20:19] kind of like civic bodies, the demos, what we think of as the people. [00:20:25] So it's like basically, as it's saying that those are people that are the company is responsible to, it's redefining what the company, what a corporation is, right? [00:20:39] Because that's not necessarily who you would think a business has any responsibility to, right? [00:20:46] It's a business. [00:20:47] Yeah. [00:20:47] What's good for General Motors is good for the country. [00:20:50] So, yeah. [00:20:51] So it's kind of like doing both at once. [00:20:53] And I mean, I want to make that clear because it's really expanding its own, I would say it's expanding its own reach as it's kind of redefining these principles. [00:21:05] Yeah, that's kind of what like the term social institution. [00:21:09] You know, I'm not a big theorist guy. [00:21:11] Maybe this word is thrown around all the time. [00:21:13] But like that's what this really brings to mind for me is that from from the book I mentioned before, social institutions, because that's sort of what it seeks to redefine a company as because as far as I can remember, a company's purpose is to make money for the people invested in that company. [00:21:30] And this seems like the company's purpose is to not only do that, but to also be a social good. [00:21:35] Well, yeah. [00:21:36] I mean, a firm's purpose is to seek profit. [00:21:38] Yes. [00:21:39] Yeah. [00:21:39] At bottom. [00:21:40] So we got point B too, which I think actually elaborates the point a little more too, or elaborates the topic. [00:21:46] Let me use my like management school voice, computer management school voice. [00:21:54] A company is more than an economic unit generating wealth. [00:21:58] It fulfills human and societal aspirations as part of the broader social system. [00:22:04] Performance must be measured not only on the return to shareholders, but also on how it achieves its environmental, social, and good governance objectives. [00:22:15] Executive remuneration should reflect stakeholder responsibility. [00:22:21] Okay, so we're seeing here basically underlying what we were saying before. [00:22:26] It's that the company, the measurement of success is not whether it just makes money for the people who are invested in it, but whether it provides a social good and whether, you know, it's environmental policies, it's social policies, and it's good governance objectives, which don't get me fucking started on that. [00:22:42] But it's this really, I think, was driven home by the Greta, what they call the Greta effect. [00:22:49] Yes. [00:22:50] Actually, and there is like a part C that I want to read here because this gets even, this is even more directly related to the Greta effect, which by the way, when we say Greta effect, that's Klaus's words. [00:23:01] But I agree with him that there is a thing called Greta Effect. [00:23:05] Absolutely, yeah. [00:23:06] So let me read part C. [00:23:09] A company that has a multinational scope of activities not only serves all the stakeholders who are directly engaged, but acts itself as a stakeholder, together with governments and civil society of our global future. [00:23:25] Corporate global citizenship requires a company to harness its core competencies, its entrepreneurship, skills, and relevant resources in collaborative efforts with other companies and stakeholders to improve the state of the world. === Companies Responding To Social Responsibility Push (04:07) === [00:23:42] So he's basically describing a new world order, but like with, I guess, Twitter or something. [00:23:48] I don't know what these companies are. [00:23:49] So, I mean, you know, to be honest, like, I think this is all, I mean, I keep saying management speak because I do think so much of this is the kind of bullshit that you would read in like management schools, right? [00:24:02] Well, Schwab's whole thing, though, was like he originally started the Davos or WEF to bring American management practices over to Europe. [00:24:09] So I mean, that's not surprising. [00:24:12] So, I mean, this is all, yeah, it's almost, it's a gloss on like things that have already been happening, right? [00:24:19] And like when we, I think in the last episode, you know, we were kind of trying, I mean, I know we were kind of all over the place, but we were trying to get at the fact that like I think that the right really, again, we, I didn't watch Carlson's thing, but like, you know, I think the right really portrays this as like, you know, there's this, uh, you know, tiny group of conspiracy. [00:24:39] They're going to flip a switch and the whole world is going to change. [00:24:42] You're going to be, you know, bug mulch, which that might happen. [00:24:46] We'll get into that. [00:24:47] But, you know, this is really just kind of a new branding and a new gloss on like neoliberal capital practices that, you know, we've been welcoming and have been growing for, you know, the past couple of decades. [00:25:06] You know, I mean, I think that people, whether they know it or not, have been demanding companies have more social responsibility. [00:25:16] And like, so companies are responding in kind. [00:25:18] Like there's a push-pull here that I wish, I mean, I kind of wrote about this in that like baffler piece I wrote a long time ago that like when people lose like when the state has failed people so completely, they turn to these institutions that are rising, which are fucking Amazon and Google and Facebook. [00:25:37] And look at what all these things they're providing. [00:25:39] And people suddenly, it's like, you know, their brains have been not reprogrammed, but because that sounds like, you know, but it is kind of a reprogramming where it makes sense to demand like social good and social change and social services from companies. [00:25:58] And so this is just them responding in kind, right? [00:26:02] Yeah, absolutely. [00:26:04] I mean, it's, I think a lot of this push towards stakeholder capitalism, I mean, Schwab has been, you know, flogging this sort of idea for quite a while. [00:26:12] But I think like the actual turn from companies, I mean, we'll get to the business roundtable thing in a second, but like from companies to turn to this sort of, I don't know what you would call it, idea, really stems from a lot of the same milieu that like a lot of the left-wing stuff you see stem from. [00:26:30] I mean, the whole Occupy movement and like, you know, everything prior and post that, I think kind of really dovetails with this in like a very synergistic to use corporate speak way in that like companies, you know, and you'll see this in all articles about stakeholder capitalism is that they acknowledge that companies, you know, may have gotten a little too big for their britches. [00:26:54] They may have, you know, CEO pay might be a little bit too high. [00:26:58] And like, you know, maybe the social good that they've been doing, maybe they've been lax on that front. [00:27:04] I mean, you know, you really see this with this just outpouring of political and semi-political, it's all political, you know, ideation coming from companies in this past, not only this year, I think it's been really, you know, glaring this year, especially with a lot of BLM stuff. [00:27:20] But like, you know, in the past decade, essentially, you've seen these companies get more overtly politicized. [00:27:26] I mean, of course, you know, do not get me wrong, at all points in the history of business, business has been political. [00:27:33] But in this sense, like taking these sort of like socially responsible and progressive, or sometimes on the flip of that, but really engaging the same idea, you know, maybe you have the Chick-fil-A type companies and the Mai Pelo type companies, although those are much, you know, rarer, I guess. === Greta's Impact on Davos (03:09) === [00:27:49] Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:27:51] But like, you know, you see like the, you know, you know, Black Lives Matter, McDonald's stuff, and you're like, oh, well, this is pretty weird. [00:27:59] But like, it's all kind of part of this same thrust, right? [00:28:05] And I think like, you know, to return to the Greta effect thing real quick, you know, Greta was brought to the World Economic Forum by WEF members. [00:28:16] Like, I think it's presented as if Greta was sort of like smuggled in by some, you know, radical environmentalist and jumped on a stage and grabbed the mic, Kanye West style. [00:28:27] At Davos, can you imagine? [00:28:29] Yeah. [00:28:29] The most secure location with the richest fucking people and some like fucking like, I don't know, like PETA supporter gets in there to throw blood on. [00:28:39] It's like, that's not going to happen. [00:28:41] I mean, Liz, I don't know. [00:28:42] I don't know if you've ever played any online video games, but in first-person shooter games, if you stray outside of the area of battle, oftentimes you will die within three seconds. [00:28:52] And I think that there's a sort of a reverse effect on that in Davos, where if you're a normal person, you go to Davos, your body just breaks down and disappears within three seconds. [00:29:01] It's actually, I think it was like the eighth circle in Dante's was Davos. [00:29:08] Yeah, also a great online shooting video game. [00:29:10] Yeah. [00:29:11] No, so there's a, you can even see this in the switch from, you know, I'm sure some of our listeners have heard of Davos Man. [00:29:19] And Davos Man is basically exactly what you'd expect, you know, a jet-setting, you know, business type. [00:29:25] But Davos itself has tried to rebrand as like a Davos for the people kind of thing. [00:29:30] And has brought a sort of particular brand of populism, you know, grown from Davos to the world in this sort of like new, you know, populist image that they're trying to create. [00:29:42] Of course, I don't think people really catch on or care or, you know, if you don't read about this stuff, which, you know, you are making the right decision, you wouldn't have noticed. [00:29:51] But like, you know, now they're going to do like Davos, not just in Davos, but all over the world. [00:29:57] They're going to have their Davos influencers in all these different cities set up like sort of like TEDx style things. [00:30:02] In fact, I'm sure with many of the same people. [00:30:05] A little side note on that. [00:30:06] I found out that a listener sent in a list of Davos fellows, essentially, and like their global leadership. [00:30:14] And it was great because it was like David Ross Child, Tulsi Gabbard, Mark Zuckerberg, like Pete Budigej, Rogues Gallery. [00:30:25] But the Greta thing, I think, is really important because Greta wasn't brought to Davos to attack Davos. [00:30:30] Greta was brought to Davos to be absorbed, or not even absorbed, to erupt out of Davos. [00:30:36] So like in the way I think of it, and this is a child. [00:30:40] I'm not talking about, I'm sure she's a very fine kid or whatever. [00:30:43] I don't know. [00:30:44] I don't know her. [00:30:45] But like the sort of Greta effect is what I'm talking about here was on purpose. [00:30:50] And it really, it really, you know, I hate to use this word twice, but it's very synergistic with this whole stakeholder capitalism problem. [00:30:58] Yeah. === Demands for Synergistic Capitalism (15:12) === [00:30:59] I think too, like, I mean, people may have even heard that term from Elizabeth Warren because she's definitely, I mean, I think one of her plans, and everyone knows how we feel about her on the podcast, you know, whatever. [00:31:12] But like one of her plans was like getting, you know, corporate governance and, you know, stakeholder. [00:31:18] I think she even said stakeholder capitalism. [00:31:20] Like we're going to get, you know, these people to pay their share and do their part and all this shit. [00:31:26] And it's because, you know, I don't think that it's a coincidence that a lot of kind of progressive liberals really responded to that. [00:31:35] Right. [00:31:35] And I think that's kind of what we're getting at is that like the calls are coming from inside the house, if you know what I'm saying. [00:31:42] Absolutely. [00:31:42] Like you have this, you know, this supposed iconoclast Elizabeth Warren, or at least like anti-big business warrior Elizabeth Warren, agreeing with the business roundtable, which is the world's, I think, largest CEO group and like one of our most influential business lobbies. [00:31:59] They embrace the exact same thing as Elizabeth Warren, which is stakeholder capitalism. [00:32:04] And Liz, I know, you know, you've been doing your Jamie Dimon impression at various stand-up nights around the country for years now, but we're going to have to bust out of retirement and get you to read this quote from one of possibly, hopefully a future cabinet member of Joe Biden. [00:32:20] Oh, my God. [00:32:20] I don't think there's any way that he will be in the cabinet. [00:32:23] Yeah, I think so either. [00:32:24] The American dream is alive, but fraying. [00:32:28] Sam, he sounds like the watchman. [00:32:31] Major employers are investing in their workers and communities because they know it is the only way to be successful over the long term. [00:32:38] These modernized principles reflect the business community's unwavering commitment to continue to push for an economy that serves all Americans. [00:32:45] So that's actually really interesting because major employers are investing in their workers and communities. [00:32:53] So, you know, it's like a truism that with there's kind of an oxymoron with organized labor pressure on capital, right? [00:33:03] Where that capital kind of then, you know, labor gets, you know, increased benefits or like they can get an increased share over what you would kind of, you know, vaguely call the means of production. [00:33:17] They get an increased share over their labor time, et cetera. [00:33:21] But capital kind of reorganizes and then is able to kind of exploit them in different ways and grow in different ways, right? [00:33:29] Yeah. [00:33:30] And investment actually ends up kind of, so it's this kind of, you know, dialectic relationship, right? [00:33:35] So for Diamond to say that employers are investing in their workers and communities because they know it's the only way to be successful over the long term, like what I'm saying is that like traditionally capital does those things for labor because they know it's the only way for it to continue with its boot semi-on the neck of labor by giving these concessions, right? [00:33:56] There is no organized labor movement pushing capital right now, right? [00:34:02] Well, I mean, that's kind of our whole point is that there's no opposition to basically any of this stuff in any organized way. [00:34:07] No, but my point is like, so if capital is making these changes to kind of like retain legitimacy amongst like people and like kind of retain, you know, what they have to kind of secure their success over the long term, if we're to take him at his word, which by the way, okay, whatever. [00:34:27] I mean, look, I'm just, you know, this is a for instance. [00:34:29] We're just talking. [00:34:30] We're rapping. [00:34:32] Then it's a real question of then why is capital so shaky and why is it on such like, you know, shaky grounds if it isn't actually being pushed by labor, if it isn't actually being pushed by concessions? [00:34:45] Like where is it kind of finding itself weak where it does need to kind of offer up whatever these concessions are in order to kind of legitimate itself and secure its, you know, long-term profit goals. [00:34:58] Anyway, that's just like a little thought I had. [00:35:01] Well, yeah, I mean, it's it's astounding how like, you know, this is like, you know, business roundtable, I'm sure some of you have heard of, but it's a pretty big group. [00:35:10] And all but 12 of the CEOs that are members of it signed on to this letter wholeheartedly endorsing stakeholder capitalism. [00:35:17] Last, I think this is in 2019. [00:35:20] And it caused somewhat of a like a hubbub in the business press. [00:35:23] A lot of it was skeptical. [00:35:26] A lot of it not so skeptical in the case of like the Washington Post, for example. [00:35:31] And I do think though, like, you know, everything they're doing makes perfect sense. [00:35:36] I mean, it has been astounding to sort of like, like Liz was saying earlier, watch people turn to these corporations where government has basically abandoned them. [00:35:45] And I mean, I know not only us, but every podcaster on earth has quoted this survey a bunch. [00:35:51] But, you know, the company or excuse me, the institution with the highest trust level in it by Democrats is Amazon. [00:36:01] Right. [00:36:02] And so like, it's, it's, I mean, this, this stuff is, is only going to kind of get more prime piggies. [00:36:08] I mean, I think, you know, I was in Los Angeles not too long ago. [00:36:12] I was walking down the street and I saw this fucking billboard that it was like, if you're racist, don't take Uber. [00:36:17] And like, you know, to me, that's just such an astounding. [00:36:20] Yeah, if you're, if you're racist, like delete Uber. [00:36:22] It's something like that. [00:36:24] And of course, like, to me, you know, just a, you know, average schmuck on the street, I think this is fucking crazy, right? [00:36:30] Like, I'm looking at this. [00:36:31] I mean, you know, this is at the same time this company is about to pass basically a slave labor law in California, Prop 22. [00:36:38] And, and, you know, it's, but, but, but, but this all makes a perfect sense within its own logic, right? [00:36:44] And, like, it, it, it really is, you know, it's a way, it's, and I, you know, I said this before in the episode, but like, it really goes along perfectly with sort of this like semi almost only semi-politicized, like populist movement against big business that we saw like kind of come out with with um, with Occupy, and because what it really is is like this this, like left or whatever you want to call it movement, but without actual like labor involvement. [00:37:13] Right, you know right, labor's got. [00:37:15] Believe me, I mean, organized labor in America is a fucking nightmare. [00:37:21] You know, like it's I don't even get me started. [00:37:23] For the most part it is. [00:37:24] It is essentially like a lot of these unions are basically government institutions. [00:37:28] I mean in the case of the CIA literally government institutions sometimes but it is like AFL CIO. [00:37:36] Exactly. [00:37:36] Yes. [00:37:37] Yeah. [00:37:37] Yeah. [00:37:38] I mean it's it's I mean boy, you know, you think I'm kidding, but really look into what they were doing in the 70s and 80s. [00:37:44] Look at Lovestone. [00:37:45] I mean, you know, it's like this shit, you know, it was out of control. [00:37:48] But like it's it makes perfect sense because there isn't actually any real opposition to any of this stuff. [00:37:57] There's only demands that people can make and then the corporations actually can fulfill these demands by doing stuff like this by saying if you're racist delete Uber that actually is fulfilling a demand whether they know it or not by a lot of this like this sort of like nascent movement or not even nascent anymore. [00:38:14] Oh yeah, because I mean I think what that what's being unsaid here and what needs to be answered is that because who is making the demands? [00:38:21] Exactly. [00:38:23] And you know, I think that conversation makes a lot of people uncomfortable. [00:38:27] Well, it's demands for social responsibility. [00:38:31] In the final analysis, in a lot of cases, it's demands for social responsibility. [00:38:35] Guess what? [00:38:36] These companies can answer those demands. [00:38:38] There are certain demands that they cannot answer, but these ones they absolutely can. [00:38:45] Anyways, yeah, that's just, you know, I've just been, I've been, I've been thinking about this stuff a lot. [00:38:51] So I also want to, [00:39:18] you know, when we were reading through the stakeholder capitalism shtick that he was going off of, I was like reading one of the Davos papers. [00:39:27] They have so many fucking papers, too many papers. [00:39:30] And they linked to like one of their like anniversary, like it was like their anniversary in 2010, I think, or 2012. [00:39:39] I can't remember when. [00:39:41] And so they like built, you know, like wrote this huge document of like all their meeting notes from all the years or whatever. [00:39:48] I didn't read that. [00:39:49] But I read the manifesto that they wrote, which was like their like looking toward, you know, the next 20 years, I think, or something. [00:39:59] And there's just a couple things I want to read here because I think that they can help us get to kind of like the kernels underneath. [00:40:10] No, say crux. [00:40:11] The crux. [00:40:12] Yes. [00:40:13] The crux. [00:40:15] The crux. [00:40:16] Oh, that got a little like ASMR. [00:40:17] Sergei. [00:40:20] Okay. [00:40:21] This thing is long, so I'm not going to read like all of it, but just a couple paragraphs. [00:40:25] No, that's okay. [00:40:26] I'll look at my phone. [00:40:29] Decades of economic development, integration of product and service markets, cross-border travel, and new technologies enabling virtual interaction have created a world that is much more complex and bottom-up than top-down. [00:40:42] Okay. [00:40:43] The world has become not only more economically and environmentally interdependent, but also more interwoven in a socio-political sense. [00:40:52] People around the globe increasingly perceive their interdependence and seek ways to express it outside of formal national political structures. [00:41:01] They have become more aware that global problems require global trusteeship and that efforts to solve problems slowly through traditional negotiating processes, characterized by the defense of national interests, are inadequate in the face of critical global challenges. [00:41:20] So basically, just to pause here, what Davos, I'm just going to say Davos. [00:41:25] Yeah, Davos man. [00:41:26] Which way, Davos man? [00:41:29] What Davos is saying here is that the kind of multilateral internationalist, and I don't mean that in the socialist way, but like internationalist vision for global like relations and negotiations between nations is like no longer viable because of how interconnected the world is. [00:41:57] So like the kind of like the UN model, if even is like no longer like we've moved past this. [00:42:06] And so what they're proposing is actually a new kind of model that I think, I mean, or it's if you kind of read between the lines, what they're saying is that we're outgrowing the need for the nation state in negotiating popular national interests against other popular national interests. [00:42:26] And that what kind of the because we are all so interconnected and because my actions influence your, like end up, you know, impacting your actions and someone else, you know, butterfly effects everywhere, right? [00:42:42] That what is required is, you know, he uses the word trusteeship, but like basically, you know, a trustee group, a board of supervisors, the, you know, enlightened elders, similar to kind of the structure that you would see, I think, with the Eurozone, right? [00:43:05] Yeah. [00:43:06] And the Council, European Council, which is, you know, famously one of the most transparent organizations. [00:43:13] Oh, absolutely. [00:43:14] You know, I have a better idea. [00:43:16] Imagine if we sort of solved global conflicts like this. [00:43:21] Say I am in Riyadh, right? [00:43:24] I'm a Saudi businessman. [00:43:26] Maybe I'm not married. [00:43:27] Maybe I am. [00:43:29] And I find a woman on the internet, on Instagram, and I message her and I say, come to Riyadh, sweetie. [00:43:39] And she was like, well, actually, my town has no highway because the government let it collapse because Trump just made up the infrastructure, but he never actually did it. [00:43:50] And I was like, sweetheart, do not worry. [00:43:53] I own literally 100,000 slaves. [00:43:57] I will send them right down there to southern New Jersey and they will build you a highway. [00:44:02] And all you have to do is have sex with me. [00:44:04] And she says, yes. [00:44:05] And bam, there we go. [00:44:06] It's like we get government out of the, all the red tape's gone. [00:44:09] You know, it's like just people to people right there. [00:44:12] Well, if people listen to our Koch brothers episode, part two, we talked about that, that that's, this is all the same dream, right? [00:44:19] This is the, the complete abolition, we'll say, of the nation state and of the government and just having insurance bodies mediate conflict between individuals, right? [00:44:31] Well, that's the thing that drives me so fucking crazy, baby, is because the only real defense against this that it seems like that exists right now that isn't just something I want to happen is the nation state. [00:44:44] And that is like, that's a hard thing to fucking grapple with, right? [00:44:47] You know, it's like, it's, it's the, like, the only thing that can sort of like fight against, and, you know, believe me, I know how this sounds, these international interests is national interests. [00:44:58] And like, you know, obviously, I don't think such a thing like that is possible in America, for instance, because I think America is basically the center of a lot of this stuff. [00:45:07] But like, you know, certainly in smaller nations, like, you know, it's, it's, it's really wild because that actually like, that's essentially like a war between two things that have no, nothing really to do on the immediate level with workers. [00:45:20] Although I will be honest with you, the national, I guess, interest probably is better at protecting the workers than this is. [00:45:28] But like, at the end of the day, it's, it's, it's, it's just a really depressing fucking binary there. [00:45:33] Yeah. [00:45:34] He continues, I mean, I really want to get, I mean, I really want to hammer this home, so I'm just going to read a little bit more if you don't mind. [00:45:41] Nation states and intergovernmental structures will continue to play a central role in global decision making. [00:45:46] However, it's a big however, those institutions must be adapted to today's needs and conditions if they want to preserve their use and indeed their legitimacy. [00:45:58] Sounds like a little bit of a threat. [00:46:01] They must begin by more clearly conceiving of themselves as just a part of the wider global cooperation system that the world needs. === Global Technocrat Threat (07:31) === [00:46:12] In fact, they should work explicitly to cultivate such a system by anchoring the preparation and implementation of their decisions more deeply in the processes of interaction with interdisciplinary and multi-stakeholder networks of relevant experts and actors. [00:46:27] This will help them transcend the silo and reactive thinking that are an acknowledged weakness of the formal multilateral system. [00:46:37] It will also help improve the information upon which decisions are based. [00:46:41] Okay, so let's break that down. [00:46:45] Let's break it down, baby. [00:46:47] So what Davos is saying here is that if the, and it does sound like a threat, I'm not going to lie, even though as far as I know, they don't have an army, is that if the nation state wants to remain a viable structure, [00:47:04] a legitimate structure, nation states are going to have to also basically, you know, not just, you know, cede a lot of their kind of formal structure to this kind of internationalist like council of, you know, global technocrats or whatever this is that they're kind of envisioning. [00:47:26] You know, what it will be will be like a bunch of Jamie Diamonds and capital managers, right? [00:47:33] But also basically hand over what's left of the popular institutions to what they call relevant experts and actors as interdisciplinary and multi-stakeholder networks. [00:47:46] So like when I, when I read this, by the way, it's like, this is straight out of like McKinsey management stuff. [00:47:55] Like this is saying like, okay, well, these portions of the state actually will be more efficient and better managed if they're handed over to these kind of private expert technicians. [00:48:09] I was about to say, yeah, technicians is exactly the word there. [00:48:13] And I don't think, I mean, again, I, you know, just to like hark back to the Koch brothers episode, like, and what you were just saying about the nation state being like maybe the last possible and maybe the only possible. [00:48:26] I mean, it is the only successful one in history, right? [00:48:31] Vehicle for, you know, not just like social democracy, but beyond that that we've kind of come across, right? [00:48:41] But that like, you know, the nation state is a hindrance to what these people want to accomplish. [00:48:50] Yeah. [00:48:51] And so it needs to be abolished. [00:48:54] That's what they want to do, right? [00:48:56] I mean, it's, or it rather, it seems like it needs to be just shunted aside, right? [00:49:01] Like, because I don't think that they have yet an alternative political system for domestic affairs in any of these places, but certainly for international relations and really for the global governance structure. [00:49:13] I mean, absolutely, that's what they're saying right here. [00:49:16] And increasingly, I think for domestic political and social, I guess, needs to be met, it would also be from these companies and from these institutions that they create. [00:49:27] I mean, I don't think this is, again, like an overnight thing. [00:49:30] I don't think that, you know, men in Davo, Davos men in, you know, black ski masks with MP5s are going to go to your local TV station and take it over and declare that the Davos regime is in charge. [00:49:44] But like, you know, this is, I mean, this is an astute sort of prediction of where things are going by the people who are not just making predictions, but by the people who are making those predictions come true in the first place. [00:49:56] Yeah. [00:49:56] Yeah. [00:49:57] I mean, to me, this just sounds like a world EU. [00:50:01] I mean, because you can look at, I mean, I guess what I say when I say like they want to abolish the nation state is like, look at what the EU has done, which is that like popular sovereignty, popular national sovereignty is gone, not just through the shared currency, which, you know, is one thing, but also like, I mean, the states are now kind of, they've become shells of offering whatever, you know, they had post-war, you know, post-war. [00:50:29] Yeah. [00:50:29] And it, you know, like, for example, like we were talking about France the other, when we were just talking with Robbie and Abby Martin, like France is a complete, is like a police state now. [00:50:40] Yeah. [00:50:41] Yeah. [00:50:41] And all capital flows are really just managed through, you know, these EU trade deals, these, you know, these trade deals and that there's no national interest in any of them. [00:50:53] You know what I mean? [00:50:54] It's also. [00:50:55] I can't remember if it was Italy or Greece, but one of those two beautiful countries. [00:50:59] I'm sure I've never been in Italy, but it looks beautiful. [00:51:04] Like they can't even, you know, they may even make their olive oil from their own olives. [00:51:09] It's actually olives like imported from the other one. [00:51:12] I can't remember which. [00:51:14] It's just like that all over. [00:51:16] It's like, you know, it's just sort of astounding to see how all this is being managed now. [00:51:20] And, you know, my whole thing is like, you know, I think the economy is fake. [00:51:24] Like, I don't think it's, it's like a, it's all this financial stuff. [00:51:26] It's just like, it's just made up to me. [00:51:29] But like, it's really astounding. [00:51:31] Like, just like, I don't know, it, like, this new structure that they're talking about is coming into place. [00:51:36] And I think a lot of people are almost not going to miss it maybe, but it's not going to come. [00:51:40] Like, I want to stress that. [00:51:41] It's not going to come in like an intergovernmental body called the World Economic Forum that has like machine guns at the borders or anything like that. [00:51:50] It's going to come just because that's the way that these companies and that's the way that these institutions are pushing history. [00:51:56] And it's not going to be overnight, but it's going to come or it might come. [00:52:25] I want to just end this real quick with one last one, which really made me laugh. [00:52:29] This is going to end it on a good note. [00:52:31] I read this and I was like, I'm sorry, what? [00:52:35] The World Economic Forum can make a unique contribution to society at this crucial time. [00:52:40] Under the patronage of the governments of Qatar, Singapore, and Switzerland. [00:52:45] There we go. [00:52:46] The Forum has been leading an unprecedented global multi-stakeholder and multimedia dialogue since 2009 for the purpose of developing a modern vision of global cooperation. [00:52:56] Yeah, talk about Qatar, Singapore, and Switzerland. [00:53:00] I'm so fucking countries in the world. [00:53:04] Yeah, talk about, you know, stewardship. [00:53:08] Well, I think Qatar really just like sums up what stakeholder capitalism is all about. [00:53:14] You know, there are capitalists and then there are people who are forced for no money and to have their passports taken to hold stakes and pound them into the desert in order to build a football stadium where like hundreds of their coworkers will be buried underneath after being sold as slave labor to the government by their own government because they're too poor to live in the Philippines. [00:53:36] Switzerland also, it's like, I mean, talk about like a neoliberal experiment. [00:53:41] An invented peoples. === Why We Left Qatar (04:53) === [00:53:43] It is, that place is crazy. [00:53:46] You know, I read something. [00:53:47] There was like a Swiss, I think it was like Swiss health official came out and said that like people who don't believe in COVID, that what we need to do is create a registry of people who like don't wear masks. [00:54:01] They'll get tickets and they'll be put on a registry or people who don't believe in COVID. [00:54:05] And that if they get COVID, they're denied a hospital bed because there needs to be punishment for those who are anti-science. [00:54:13] That's literally what he said. [00:54:15] Switzerland is fake. [00:54:16] It should just be, I'll tell you this. [00:54:19] It's not a real country. [00:54:20] That is not. [00:54:21] It's not. [00:54:21] No, it was just for the bankers. [00:54:24] It's created for the bankers. [00:54:25] It's the, it's the bankers Israel. [00:54:28] And do not read into that. [00:54:29] I just kind of do it after it came out. [00:54:31] It didn't mean that in a weird way. [00:54:32] I just meant that it's like a fake country. [00:54:34] Oh my God. [00:54:35] I'm just kidding. [00:54:36] Well, no, I'm not, but I didn't mean it in a bad way. [00:54:39] Well, wait, I did, but not in like a fucked up way. [00:54:42] So I don't think, I mean, I hope that wasn't as depressing. [00:55:02] No, I have some pretty good news too. [00:55:05] So I actually have a credit chit for a new pod. [00:55:10] And yeah, they're upgrading the pod system here in San Francisco. [00:55:15] And I am getting an 8x12 pod, which, I don't know, I feel like that's pretty cool. [00:55:21] It has a window. [00:55:22] It's like a, well, it's like a 4K kind of window thing that shows scenes from the outside. [00:55:28] But like, I'm really excited about it. [00:55:33] My dad was the whole thing. [00:55:35] Do you know the whole thing about people calling their like COVID buddies their pod? [00:55:40] No. [00:55:40] Oh, yeah, yeah, yes, yeah, yeah. [00:55:42] This never caught on for me. [00:55:43] I never heard it until like people, I read about it on the internet. [00:55:46] No, you know what I call my COVID buddies? [00:55:48] What? [00:55:49] The human race. [00:55:50] That's right, baby. [00:55:52] I'm a super spreader. [00:55:53] You're a man of the people. [00:55:54] I'm a super spreader. [00:55:55] I got no shame in it. [00:55:57] I just had a horrible vision of like someone in one of the pods that are coming in being like Instagram and like pod in from the pod. [00:56:08] Well, they actually, San Francisco does pioneer it. [00:56:10] I mean, we do literally have pod living. [00:56:12] I know. [00:56:13] It's, yeah, that's come in everywhere. [00:56:16] I will say, though, those people are fucking suckers because they're paying like $1,500, which will get you a bedroom. [00:56:21] Like, you can find a bedroom for $1,500. [00:56:24] They're paying $1,500 to live in a bunk bed with like a TV that comes out on a swivel. [00:56:29] And for some reason, there's always people playing acoustic guitar. [00:56:33] And like, I'm sure that doesn't actually happen in real life because these people are all like 100% noise-canceling headphones on watching Emily from Paris on their fucking laptop every night. [00:56:45] Did you watch that? [00:56:47] No. [00:56:47] No, no, I haven't. [00:56:50] Why did you reference it? [00:56:52] How did you know to reference it if you haven't watched it? [00:56:54] Because I heard a lady talking about it when I was on a walk the other day. [00:56:57] I was walking behind these two women in the park, not in a weird way. [00:57:01] And they were describing excitedly the plot of Emily and Paris. [00:57:06] I know the plot. [00:57:07] What's the plot? [00:57:08] Will you tell us? [00:57:08] Okay, from my memory. [00:57:11] Some woman gets pregnant and she's only like 30 or something. [00:57:16] I don't know. [00:57:16] They kept talking about like why this. [00:57:18] Anyways, some lady gets pregnant and she can't go to Paris for work. [00:57:22] And so she gets this even younger lady to go to Paris for her. [00:57:26] And once this lady gets to Paris, she does a bunch of stuff there. [00:57:31] I think it's a fashion thing and maybe falls in love. [00:57:36] Maybe falls in love a couple of times. [00:57:38] And overall, it's the experience of Emily in Paris. [00:57:43] I think that was very good. [00:57:45] Have you seen Emily in Paris? [00:57:47] I watched like two episodes with my friend. [00:57:51] And we were aghast at how terrible it was. [00:57:54] But then we couldn't stop watching. [00:57:57] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:57:59] I think there's just like a new, it's like a new form of show that's emerged with the like, you know, they just have to like, you know, churn out so much content, whatever, where it's a show that's like, it's not even supposed to be good. [00:58:14] And it's almost good that it's, it's not good, bad, or bad. [00:58:18] It's like the hook, though. [00:58:19] But it's like, it's terrible and it's so terrible that you have to keep watching it. [00:58:25] Yeah. [00:58:26] I don't know how to describe it. [00:58:28] My dad, I talked to my dad earlier for the first time in like a month and he told me that the Hulu show with the fake me in it is out. === Hulu's Fake Me (01:55) === [00:58:36] And I guess the guy says something. [00:58:38] Yeah. [00:58:39] He's like, I watched the show that you're in. [00:58:43] I guess the guy, like, he's like the dude, like, is. [00:58:46] Oh, Papa Brace. [00:58:48] I know, but I guess the guy says, it is me. [00:58:51] Like he says, it's like some like, like moron like in glasses from America who's like. [00:58:57] You're like on some fucking casting director's mood board. [00:59:01] Like you. [00:59:03] I'll tell you what I'm going to do. [00:59:04] I'll tell you what I'm going to do, sweetheart. [00:59:06] Because the real brace. [00:59:08] The real brace ain't afraid of any Hollywood type people. [00:59:13] The real brace is going to go down there, gonna go down to North Hollywood. [00:59:16] No holy. [00:59:17] The real Brace is gonna take a Block 40 and he's gonna shove it in some fucking real CrossFit motherfucker. [00:59:25] I'm sure this guy's in great shape. [00:59:26] I'm sure he's in great shape. [00:59:28] I'm gonna take this thing and I'm gonna shove it so hard in his mouth, his front teeth are gonna break off. [00:59:33] And then I'm gonna take it. [00:59:34] I'm gonna hold it. [00:59:35] I know few listeners can't see it, but I'm gonna hold it by the bottom, by the magazine, and I'm gonna jam it like a, like those fucking bump stocks that Trump made illegal. [00:59:45] And I'm gonna jam it back and forth, jam it back and forth. [00:59:47] And I'm gonna rapid fire and just right in front of his wife again. [00:59:53] Just playing, y'all. [00:59:54] You know I'm just playing. [00:59:56] You know I love TV. [00:59:58] Hulu, baby. [01:00:01] All right. [01:00:01] Well, on that note, I'm Liz. [01:00:04] I am Harvey Weinstein. [01:00:05] We have as our producer, Young Chomsky, and this podcast is Truanon. [01:00:09] We'll see you next time. [01:00:10] Bye-bye. [01:00:28] Just Jeffrey Lexter. [01:00:30] Come out. [01:00:31] Come out.