In communities across Canada, hourly Amazon employees can grow their skills and their paycheck by enrolling in free skills training programs for in-demand fields. Learn more at aboutamazon.ca. Who knows? How did you want?
No! The Devil Wears Prodigy. He's no movie event 20 years in the making. I honestly can't but the secrets anymore so I think we should just tell it.
Will you two please spit it out already? Um, uh, uh. This Friday, be the first to experience it only in theaters. In light of the recent scandal, I'm sure to restore your credibility.
Oh, because we're a team now. That's a nice story. The Devil Wears Prodigy in theaters Friday. Hi, everyone.
This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galway. How are you, Cara?
Happy Easter Passover. I did. It was lovely. I had it with my ex-wife, my son, her nephew, Amanda, the baby, and some jogs at a cat.
So yes, it was lovely. That's nice. It was very, it was very San Francisco kind of thing in D.C. Listen, I was going to talk about the Pope delivering a lovely Easter Mass alone in St.
Peter's, Basilica or Andrew, but Shelley singing from Milan, which is beautiful. Life's been around the world. But I think we'll talk about us because I think it's really us all about us. The Pope or us?
That's a tough one. Pope us. Go with us. Go with us.
So New York Media, which is part of Vox, which makes New York Magazine, which we love, is our new Crash Pad, which I think they don't understand what's happened. I've got a message for our new EIC, David Haskell, where the bossiest employees you'll ever have, but we get to hang around with Olivia Nuzzi and others there, the great writers there. And we get to talk about Andrew Cuomo's nipples now. This is so exciting.
I was not expecting that. That escalated fast. We went from New York mag to Cuomo's nipples. By the way, that guy's a dirty little dog.
Did you see Olivia's piece? You wrote a great piece this week about Trump, but she wrote about the nipple gate, so it was fascinating. So you can help me here because there was a lot of traffic back and forth about moving to New York Magazine. I didn't even know we were at Vox.
And I don't know what any of this means. Like, tell me, first off, if anyone can, I guess I never really understood what Vox is, and now it's not that important. But what does this mean for us? What does this mean for the dog in the jungle cat?
It means nothing. It means we just get to go to better parties, I guess. I don't know. I don't really know what they get parties.
It's New York Magazine. You've read New York Magazine. So we feel like we're sold here and it fits better. You know, Vox Media owns Vox.com.
It owns Recode. It owns all kinds of things. And it also owns New York Magazine. And so we are going over there.
And our stuff has been appearing there recently. And so we have such a media business sensibility wall street kind of stuff. You know, it's just media. Nobody but insiders care actually.
But we still have a lovely picture in this thing. And we love everyone at Vox. But we now love New York Media more because that's the kind of people we all. We just switch allegiances like so fast.
But I don't think it doesn't mean anything. We just continue to be who we are. I think that's really that's it. Do we have any choice?
No, we don't have any choice. As you get older, as you get older, you become more like yourself, which is neither good for either of us. That's not that's not good. I have been the same way since I've been.
Oh, here we go. Here we go. So you know what's awesome is we're talking about doing some sort of pivot slash New York magazine event like Brooklyn meets South by Southwest meets dysfunction. Yeah, everyone's gonna wear hazmat suits.
They're really beautiful. I mean, we can't do an event for a while, Scott. Let's let you need to put on your little hat. Come on.
Let's get a vouchy school, not in the Fox News school. We cannot. There will be no meetings for a while. And we but when they do, we will be back with one.
That's that's what's going to happen. And there's going to be just light touching when we do our event. A light touch. Like a loving light touch.
But that works well because I'm a gentle lover, Gary. No, no, you're not a gentle lover. I'm going to have a hazmat suit and mask. That's a good idea.
Loves for as long as. I'll tell you, the pandemic is still going on. So you think that we'll have a whole fake news thing around you. So you're getting news of Erica pull it off with Rebecca.
And you will think we're still in the pandemic. My wife hasn't yet another excuse, but there's a pandemic pandemic. Stay away from me. All right.
We're going to get to work. This is anyway, we're very excited. New York media and David Haskell is great and everybody else is here. Anyway, all right, Scott, we're going to get back to tech and business.
Because there's so much going on. There's so much going on. We've been talking about how privacy might change as the government tries to start tracking the spread of COVID-19. Now Google and Apple are teaming up to build software and smartphones that helps track the spread.
By the way, they already have software and smartphones to track you. The companies were releasing a new tool that will be built into the operating systems of billions of iPhones and androids around the world. Here's how it will all work. People would opt in to use the tracking system and voluntarily report if they become infected.
Then other phones in the vicinity will alert you if you're in close distance with someone who has been reported to having COVID-19. Once someone reports their information as a public health app, the tool will send the phones anonymous identifiers connected to device to a central computer servers. Other phones will constantly check those servers for the broadcast weekends of devices to come near in the past 14 days. If there's a match, those people will receive an alert that they likely have come and contacted.
Both Tim Cook and Apple CEO and sooner for China. Google CEO tweeted that the tool will have strong privacy protections. It's kind of just want your reaction to this. I'm very much in favor of it.
I understand there's a fear that governments use crises as an opportunity to invade people's liberties and then they never give those liberties back. Under the cloud cover of crisis or war, they violate people's personal freedoms. I think FDR or Eisenhower actually said it best. He said, I'm not going to violate people's freedoms in order to protect them when Hoover, whoever it was, wanted to start spying on everybody.
For the most part, as long as Facebook's not involved, I think that Google and Apple, Tim Cook from a brand standpoint has doubled down on privacy, you could argue that they will get better in managing people's private information, which gives them a skillset we would don't want them to have. But in general, testing and then tracing, the tracing is incredibly important. And we're supposed to be the most innovative place in the world. We have these unbelievable technologies.
Everyone carries a smartphone. We have de-pocketed, thoughtful, smart companies. My sense is that as the equivalent of the Maytag, the Maytag factory be converted to produce B24 super-line fortresses. What do you think?
Listen, interestingly, I contacted both Sundar and Tim this weekend. A lot of governments are interested. Did you tell me work for New York Magazine? No, I did not.
They don't care about it. They've been asking about the baby. But listen to me, I trust them. I actually was forwarding things from governments who were very interested in using as people I know in government.
And I just forwarded these emails to them. But one of the things, if you had the third company here was listed as Facebook, I'd say no. What if it was four of them? I just think, I think Facebook, Mark kept saying Zuckerberg and Shell kept saying, we in big tech, there's everyone else in there is Facebook.
Facebook is an incredibly corrupt organization with a sociopath and his beard running around the world doing tremendous damage. They are on the gold medal stand, a podium of a total lack of concern for the Commonwealth. Now, big tech abuses their power. They've overrun government.
Tim Cook wraps himself in a likeable Alabama football in order to continue to violate anti-monopoly laws and put Spotify not out of business. But he's abusing his power. But that's what a CEO of a capitalist company does. Google has all kinds of blood on their hands, but their leadership there, whether it's Sundar or Susan Wojcicki shows some sense of comedy of man.
They're both such powerful organizations. They have the skills, the budgets. This isn't exceptional time. So Facebook would be a totally different volume.
What if you added Amazon in there? How would you feel about that? I think Amazon is done. I would feel fine.
Look, I think Amazon, Facebook and Google, it's like a little bit of cumin, a little bit of time, some chicken, and then cyanide, are you Facebook shows up? Yeah. And it makes them meal a totally different conclusion. But if you look at Amazon, I think Amazon deserves credit.
I've been very critical of Amazon. I think that we should break their asses up after this is all over. But if you look at, I have a lot of students working at Amazon and I know personally that they're working their asses off to try and it's in their best interest, but also they do see themselves as playing a critical essential role. And the supply chain here, you want to talk about a scary situation?
What if there was a modern day Cesar Chavez who went and unionized every warehouse worker at Walmart and Amazon and said at noon tomorrow, everybody just walk out and demand that we double their wages or the food supply just shuts down? Well, that didn't happen. You want to talk about panic? Yeah, right now.
I mean, these companies are essential and they're all working very, very hard. Okay, all right, Mr. Tech. But let me just say, they do have very different ideas around privacy.
Google and Apple certainly do. Well, same more. You know this better than I do. Well, they do.
And they have a different attitude around it. And I think Google does ask for more information. They're constantly, I turn off all the Google things on maps, for example. And they're constantly asking me for one side, turn off on Apple.
They leave me alone until I come back and change things. Okay, but that's the inherent trade. I'm starting her up is that Google has said to Apple has said to rich people, the privacy is a luxury in exchange for buying a $1,500 phone and paying $99 for a power cord that costs us $1.20 to produce in Shenzhen. You get us pulling only 200 data points a day from your iPhone.
Whereas Android has said, hey, rest of the world, they can't afford the monthly household income in Turkey for a phone. We're going to give you a phone for free, but we're going to molest your privacy. And the majority of the world is cool with that. I know it has a lot of ramifications.
So there's kind of a market for both, but Apple's doubled down on privacy, which unfortunately has become a luxury item of the rich. All right, okay, all right. What do you think about government getting involved? Because I do think what you just said, people do not take back this issue.
You know what I mean? They don't take back the power once they get it, once the ability to track people. Now they've been doing it before. Let's just be clear.
This is not new. Government, whether it was through Edward Snowden, other governments have been using these cell phones for decades since they've been around trying to track people. They've been trying to get more and more access. And of course, the big fight between Apple and the government over encryption.
So it's an interesting development. Now, I have always thought that Snowden created such a disconnect between government and tech. That was a problem around Russia and everything else, the relationship. So this may restore that relationship.
I think it's just a question of who gets the more prevalence of information. And the other part is people not consenting. Now, a lot of people who are sick may not consent to be saying they're infected too. That's the other thing.
If you're worried about insurance companies or anything else, you may not want to report that you're infected. Well, that's absolutely right. And you said this. You had an insight that stuck with me.
You said this all kind of comes back to ensuring people have some baseline level of health coverage such that we don't create bad behaviors. And that's not the type of bad behavior. Someone's worried about their health insurance and not being able to get it. Maybe they're not as forthcoming as they should be.
But my thesis all along around privacy and security as you think, well, why on earth is the US government not been more proactive in pushing back on bad actors, specifically Facebook and Google? And my thesis all along has been the following. The Senate Intelligence Committee has a public hearing and they berate them. And we're really mad at you, Mark.
We're really mad at you, Sundar. And then they go into their private hearings and they say, all right, here's the 2,200 names of people who pose a security threat. You're going to give us fucking everything on these people, every movement. And then we're going to go out and we're going to publicly berate you and flag you.
But then we're not going to do shit in exchange for you buttressing our national security and covert spy actions with your incredible data sets. I think there's an implicit agreement between the government and these agencies that we will continue to give you information on the bad guys. But you are going to back the fuck off when it comes to certain DOJ and certain fines. And the thing is, I don't think the public is privy to that deal and maybe nor should we be.
But there's a lot going on here behind the scenes that we have privy to. Yes, 100%. That is absolutely true. They're constantly in talks.
And I do think it's interesting, the cheering also has to happen. People are going to give me a hard time with China and others too, because a lot of this information is our principal partner going forward. And the breakdown, the New York Times had an amazing story this week. How incompetent the White House was.
And that's why Trump had a coronary occlusion this weekend about everything. But one of the parts that I thought was most interesting was the China hawks versus the China trade people who wanted to do a trade deal. And we have to have a good relationship or some relationship with China, especially around data. And we have to, in some way, because in this case they didn't report enough, there was hostility and then there was worry about making them out.
And in terms of pandemics, there has to be cooperation with all governments around the world around this data. And I think the Chinese realize that too, the Chinese, I mean, our brands, let's be honest. The China and US brands come out of this crisis with additional core association of corrupt and incompetent. The Chinese were not forthcoming about data of actually what was going to happen, which caused a lot more death and disability than needed to happen.
Despite the fact that we had more time to prepare for it, we have more money, we spent more on healthcare, we have let more people be infected and die than any other nation, we have been totally incompetent around this. And we both nations will have to answer for that. But a pandemic doesn't really give a shit about your political party or your borders. And we have absolutely a mutual share of interest in ensuring this doesn't happen again.
If there were ever a moment to call on our superpowers of species, and that's cooperation across borders. Look, if the British, the Russians and the Americans can figure out a way to get along in the middle of the 20th century, we can figure out a way to get along with China around pandemics. It's just absolutely not a lot of people in China, so do you. They have their own national interests.
But we have this mutual share of interest. And it is both nations really love Nespresso pods. Both nations really love, you know, really love their Netflix, whatever the equivalent is over there. And the economy, I mean, think about the economic interest here, if this economy gets entirely shut down again.
So you're, I think you're absolutely right. The question is, what is the agency, what is the systems for that shared cooperation? When you have a president who is attacking what is one obvious shared system, and that's the World Health Organization. So how do we move forward?
What is the infrastructure? What is the NATO? What is the United Nations? Which a lot of people would argue has failed here.
NATO has been tremendously effective. What's the construct? Well, that movie where the media was headed towards Earth and we all cooperate. There we go.
That's the way. That's the way. But I think you're right. 100%.
I think you're right. I think the question is, if Apple and Google can collaborate, governments can collaborate. And yet at the same time, do the fighting and the collaboration. Again, you're right.
I think if we were in a relationship with Stalin, the most awful person on the planet, among the many awful people on the planet, one of the most. And it's critically important on these kind of things to have some kind of cooperation. Again, probably behind the scenes, there's more than we realize. But at the same time, the language has to go down a lot.
And then later, we can discuss what happened here. But we have to take a quick break. Come back with one big story. I mean, we have a big friend of pivot this week when we get back.
I'm a said Herndon. And this is America, actually. We're all talking to each other to see what did we do wrong? What did we not see?
I'm in Washington, DC this week to interview Ruben Geigo. He's a Democratic senator from Arizona. And he's been thinking openly about running for higher office. But he's recently run into some hot water.
Because of his connection to Congressman Eric Swallow. I have to learn from this, and I will learn from this. But for me, it's not a 20-28 question. It's about what it means to be a better first boss in my office, and also a better senator to my constituents.
This week on America, actually, we asked Geigo about predatory behavior in Washington. His plans for immigration reform? And more. This week on net worth and chill, I'm breaking down the institution everyone's talking about right now, but nobody actually understands the federal reserve.
With all the drama happening between Trump and Fed Chair Jerome Powell, you're probably seeing headlines and wondering what any of this has to do with your money. Spoiler alert, it's everything. I'll explain what the Fed actually is, why it exists, and how this one institution controls the interest rates on your mortgage, credit cards, student loans, and more. We're diving into why raising or cutting rates isn't just boring policy talk.
It's the difference between affording a house or watching crisis viral out of control. Plus, I'm breaking down the current controversy over firing Fed board members, and why both Republicans and Democrats are freaking out about it. Because this fight isn't just political theater, it could mean real chaos for your wallet. Listen, wherever you get your podcasts or watch on youtube.com slash your rich BFF.
Well, the stimulus package has made unemployment resources to some gig workers. They're unique obstacles to write your drivers that come from old state labor department guidelines upon who is eligible. So while the federal government has said that it's on its way, some states aren't quite prepared to make it happen. This has left gig workers like a huge number of write sharing drivers unable to collect their unemployment checks.
So Illinois didn't have a process. New York, the story isn't much better. Local drivers association claims that Uber hasn't been providing New York's Department of Labor with the earnings data. It needs to process unemployment insurance applications.
With delays in the states, Uber finally acknowledged an email to drivers that it would take weeks before states could start processing claims and even longer before drivers received assistance. So, you know, I've talked to some people at Uber. Things are, you know, the business is really down, down, down in the whole, essentially. But what do you think about this, this gig worker issue, in terms of paying them, and specifically about write sharing drivers?
I think Uber and Lyft are on menace to society. I think that these organizations have primarily made a small number of people exceptionally wealthy because they figured out software that has totally violated minimum wage standards and the dignity of work. We were outraged when fast food companies tried to put in place software that clocked people out when McDonald's wasn't busy. We were outraged, but basically they have institutionalized software such that you don't get paid unless they're making money.
And they've also figured out a way to call them contractors, so that they're not obligated to give them health insurance, meaning that these people are in incredibly vulnerable positions when they put themselves in a closed space, called a car with a third party that they don't know. We put them in an incredibly vulnerable position, despite the fact that first hundred employees at Uber probably made somewhere between $10 million and $1 billion each. We put them in an incredibly compromised position economically, where a large portion of them don't make minimum wage, so they feel as if they have to put themselves in harm's way. And then fucking Dara Kasushahi, the new lipstick on cancer, has to call the right letter to government urging them to bail them out without employment.
Meanwhile, Uber hasn't paid any federal income tax, because they've taken advantage of our obsession and our idolatry of innovators and run the stock up such that it's worth more than the auto industry, who is, by the way, continuing to pay their workers. By the way, pays people on average $27 an hour. By the way, gives people health insurance. So what do you really think, Scott?
Well, I mean, I can't stop you. I mean, I do think, you know, their opposition to AB5, which I've called a health care bill, really. And the way we, as such as them, it's we live off the backs of these people. It's 100%.
When you pay $4 and $5 for a long drive, it's crazy. You know you're getting a deal and you know who's not getting a deal, which is the driver in the front seat. So the question is, well, we just have to pay more for these rights. I mean, I just, I mean, if you're waiting on consumers, to calling on consumers better angels to go, well, I really shouldn't pay $9.99 for that little back dress, because I know this apply chain is unethical.
I'm going to pay $29.99, don't hold your breath. Well, we need- I don't wear a black dress, but okay. There we go. Well, we need as regulations that say, a company that's now worth more than US auto industry has to pay taxes.
A company where people have paid billions of dollars or have made billions of dollars needs to figure out a way to pay its people minimum wage and then not come crying to the government saying you need to give these people unemployment. Uber right now, here's an idea, Uber, pay your people. Here's an idea, do what the majority of companies are trying to do, and that has continued to pay people, even if they can't work. Uber is still, even after this crisis, you know, Uber, the decline, is still worth more than four General Motors, and I think Fiat Chrysler, but they, but you know, everyone's talking about, well, what do they do?
Their business is down. They do a secondary. They say we're looking after our quote unquote partners. We're going to pay these people 60, 70% of their salary.
We're going to ask, we're going to give them danger pay. We're going to say if you do this, you know, the rates go up. We're going to ask consumers to pay a lot more to pay double rates. I think most consumers would do that.
But there's been this enormous transfer, like everything, a stakeholder value from government who gets no revenues or little revenues, other than capital gains tax from the people who are exercising their options. They don't get any tax revenue or very little tax revenue. And then Uber has created this infrastructure, this army of people that need unemployment, who have no health insurance. So Uber and Lyft and our idolatry of innovators have all come together to create an absolute menace in tax on society called ride hailing.
It's a fundamentally- And really, you are seeing it in this crisis. 100%. They are, we've been saying they're unprotected. And now this is so clear how unprotected they are.
But let me just shift to another story, a big story, the privatization of delivery. You know, the US Postal Service employees do have a lot of rights. They have a lot of everything. But there's an idea, because they're now losing so much money, is it time to let FedEx and UPS take over this?
And so US Postal Service is suffering from declining demand due to coronavirus. It was already on the ropes. They informed Congress it will run out of cash in September without federal assistance, very similar to Amtrak and other things. In considering a fourth bailout package, Democrats have been amenable to the bailouts.
But Republicans want to block that. Republicans have long wanted to privatize the US Postal Service. But the Trump administration seems hostile to the idea of a postal service bailout in the past Trump is pushing them to boost revenue by raising what they charge Amazon and others. So what are your capitalists?
What do you think of privatizing them? And you know what's happened with prisons and everything else. And four people aren't able to pay what FedEx and others have cost essentially. Look, the USPS is a gift.
The USPS has decided early on that every American deserves to get their mail. And they built infrastructure, our guests that we're about to have on, has this wonderful theory that the prosperity of a nation is a function of how well we train and educate our human capital and the connective with infrastructure. And then it's less dependent upon the profitability of the companies that are domain within those borders. And I love that philosophy.
And one of the great infrastructures in the United States has been that if you decide to live in the country, we're going to decide that at a basic minimum, you need access to the grid or power or mail a response or we publicly finance certain infrastructure for you. And we also ensure that six days a week, someone shows up and gets you your mail. And I'm not sure that, sure, there are things we should talk about. The thing that is USPS on an annual level, actually, is casual or positive, where they go negative is because they are doing what Uber and Lyft aren't doing.
And that is they have sinking fun to pay for people's retirement benefits. Because we've decided, you know, what former postal workers who work 40 hours should have some dignity after they retire. And unfortunately, the private managed it well. It's very expensive.
It's a massive liability. But this is what would happen if you privatized it. You would have, for a lot of people, it would be more efficient. You would have stakeholder value lead to the USP to FedEx, UPS, Amazon, some others.
And then what a shocker. You'd have a lot of people living rural America. They would have to pay a lot more to get their electric bill in the utility bill. And then you'd have a lot of workers instead of having USPS with benefits and with retirement benefits, you would have Amazon workers that are quote unquote, their drivers, they would have the liberty of buying a Mercedes van at a reduced price, would work harder, would be more efficient, wouldn't have retirement benefits, wouldn't have health benefits.
So we're going to pay for these guys. It's just a question of where we pay for the loss of the USPS has been, similar to the armed service as a great employer or people of color. So look, does the USPS need to be run better? Does it deserve to have some private power?
But it's also been a wonderful part of our infrastructure and victory for Americans that we've said no matter who you are, no matter where you live, we're going to get you your mail six days a week. I love this socialist Scott Galloway. I really do. I like this version of Scott coming.
But listen, post offices are terrible. I think they're badly, I use post offices, maybe more than you do, I suspect. There's post offices? Yes, I use post offices.
And I use them a lot. And I have to say, compared to what you get from FedEx or UPS, I think UPS has been really good. I mean, in terms of using them up and down, depending on the store, but in general, pretty good and reliable. Postal service, not the frontline people.
People deliver mail are wonderful. Sometimes when you're in these offices or getting stuff from them, it's very hard. And I see that they're competing with others and it's really hard for them to do so. I don't quite know why it's that way.
You know, I think it's part of that. Because you can't find the workers and they make a lot of money. You can't find workers. I think there's part of that.
At the same time, you're right. People, everyone deserves to have mail delivered. Now, the issue is how much more mail are we going to have in the future, right? You do have to change with the times.
Like physical mail is really, like mine has gone down considerably so as years, but not packages. So, you know, I sometimes when Trump went off on Amazon, I was like, well, I'd love to know how much they are being charged. If they're being charged. I'd like to have an actual not Trump administration official look at this.
Like, are they charging enough? Are they doing enough? And again, maybe Bezos should get into it too. So everybody feels more competition and then the consumer benefits.
Or maybe there's a way to have a very inexpensive way to do this. I do think typically when things are privatized, it leads to abuse. Prisons are my number one example of that. But I think most things that get privatized get abused, especially among people of color, poor people, anyone who doesn't, who can't afford, you know, like you're saying the luxury of privacy or the luxury of this.
And so that would be my biggest worry that everyone does deliver to have, should have the mail delivered to them. And it's so problematic that I think probably fixing the post office is what I'd rather do. Well, there is a hybrid, right? And that is, it becomes a utility.
And that is it's a private company that can access the markets. There's some, the market pressure on costs, but there's regulators who say, okay, if you're the cable company, we're giving them an opt-in in New York, you have to provide broadband to every household. You have to, you can't, they tax it. You can't slow down speeds in areas where you're not making a lot of money.
You could be, you could turn the USPS, it's not X or Y. There is a hybrid where they turn into sort of a regulated utility. It's run, you know, Florida Power Online is run like a business, but you have to run lines and you have to provide power and you can't have power within a certain amount of notice, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So maybe there is, maybe there's a hybrid, but the USPS, I think it's a bad rap.
I think that has really hurt it is that letter, you know, to your note, to your point, that we don't open a, we don't get mail. I know this is going to sound like, you know, lead us common. I haven't opened my mail in a decade. I just don't, I just don't even know where my mail goes.
I don't, anything I get through the mail that's not a box drop on my door is either bad news or something. I don't want to read. It is unimportant. It's true.
It would dock you sign. So letters where they made all their money was people spending, you know, whatever it is, 45 cents or eight bucks on something you need to get there overnight that wait nothing. What has gone up dramatically is all the shit we're ordering, right? And boxes and while that ordering that volume has skyrocketed, it's much more expensive to handle that.
So there is importance ever. It's just the unit economics on the things that delivering have gotten, have gotten much worse. There's going to be some sort of hybrid. You didn't get, you didn't get my engraved invitation to have dinner.
I'm so sorry. You're handling love letter? My dearest Scott. Yes, that's right.
I do it in long hand with a feather. It's not so long thinking of you. Yes, so that's a long year at the front. The weather is cool.
Have you heard we're at New York magazine now? All right, listen, we got to go. Give a friend a pivot. It's important person and he only has a limit amount of time for us.
So you need to ask some questions here. This is the person you talk to. Try to act normally this time. Yeah, I'm excited about this one.
Okay, because a lot of smart opinions. I expect you to ask a lot of good questions. We're on the line with Professor Robert Reich. He is so famous as an economist, the author of a book, The System Who Rigged It and how to fix it.
And he is currently Professor at UC Berkeley. He has held positions in the administrations of Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton and was Secretary of Labor from 1993 to 1997. Welcome, Professor Reich. I'm going to let Scott start with the questions.
Professor Reich. Hello, Karen. Hello, Scott. So it really is an honor to have you.
And also, first off, Kudos to you for deciding. I'm sure you could have taught anywhere in the world. You decided to speak at the institution that will graduate. More kids from the low income households in the Ivy League combined.
That's right. That's right. UC Berkeley where the dog went. Anyways, it's fantastic to have you on the program.
Let's bust right into it the rescue slash bailouts. What did they get right? What did we get wrong? How would you change it?
Well, a lot of it is wrong right now because most of the money seems to be going to big corporations who don't need it. It really is a bailout, not unlike the bailout of the banks in 2008. And to make matters worse, much of it is not transparent. That is, it's very hard to tell exactly who is getting what and why and under what circumstances.
Meanwhile, average working people and the poor people who need it are getting $1200, a one-time payment. It's not even exactly clear how that is determined. There's a phase out starting at $75,000 up to $100,000. But it's just one time and people need much more than that.
There's a $600 a week addition to unemployment insurance. But the unemployment insurance system is overwhelmed. The entire system is crashing. In most states, people can't even get through on the telephones.
Very, very long lines, websites that are not working. So hopefully that is going to be straightened out. But overall, if you look at the big picture, you see the big powerful organizations in our society that has made corporations doing quite well. Oh, incidentally, they also managed to get exempt from the second coronavirus legislation from the requirements that they provide paid sick leave.
And that's what I'm talking about, the big corporations. And so they're using their political power as they usually use their political power. And unfortunately, as is very often the case now in America, average people, working people in the poor are getting the scraps. So talk about this idea.
Sort of this is highlighted. We were just talking about this with gig workers. There were issues with them. And this is highlighted.
There's a lot of race and class inequalities exist in the US for generations. What do you think is most at risk right now? And how do you repair what you were just talking about? Well, I think that there's a lot at risk, obviously.
You've got essential workers, so-called essential workers, who are mostly, again, low income, disproportionately poor, black, and Latino, working in hospitals, working in delivery, warehouse, they are sanitary workers. At least people are not even getting hazard pay. They're not getting protective equipment that they need. They're subjected every day to a lot of risks and a lot of dangers.
And then you've got to – and I'll say that that number is getting to close to a third of the workforce. That is, I'm just extrapolating from where we are today. About 30 percent in our workforce, that's more accurate, is deemed essential in these kinds of occupations. And then you've got another – I think we're going to be up to about 30 percent unemployment, probably by the end of – at this rate, we could easily be there by the end of May or June.
And that's just – we're talking about 47, 48 million people who do not have source of income. And then you've got the other 40 percent of the workforce are now working remote. They're managerial, professional, technical workers for the most part. They are inconvenienced.
But like you and I talking right now, we're doing okay. I mean, we'll get our paychecks. So again, the class system in America is revealed even more sharply than it was before. Is there an opportunity here thinking about this post-corona?
If you think about some of the nations in Europe – we have a lot of benchmarks or bail out some rescue packages. And it feels like you can make the argument that the ones that are working are the ones that focus on protecting people as opposed to protecting companies. Do you think we could come out of this? Do you think – where I'm headed is we – if we were to say, all right, we're going to protect people.
We're going to use this. We're going to realize essential workers are the ones that have been paid the least. We're going to raise minimum wage. We're going to ensure that people get paid 60, 70, 80 percent of their salary until this is over.
But we're going to let big corporations – or even medium-sized corporations – we're going to let them fail. Is there an opportunity here to say, all right, there's a difference between capitalism and cronyism and that we do – we need to protect people, not companies, and let some of these companies fail? Yeah, that's where I come out. They're not going to fail.
The big airlines are not going to fail. They're always renegotiating their debt with their creditors. They've been doing it for 30 years. The same with the big hotel chains and the cruise operators who don't even pay any taxes anyway.
These big big companies, they have a lot of assets, a lot of collateral. They're not going to fail. The small businesses, I think, are in real danger. And the small businesses are always in danger.
But I think the payroll protection program, if it really did work, and the small businesses kept people on their payrolls – I mean, set them home for safety, but kept them on their payrolls, that would be a good thing. But the money is being sifted. The way it was organized – you know, it's typical. It goes through the big banks, and the big banks don't want to take risks.
And even though the cost of money is zero now, the big banks are not really standing up to the plate. So that money is not getting out the way it should. I'm encouraged – there's one idea that actually Senator Hawley from Missouri and Representative Jayapal from Washington both independently came up with the idea, which is very similar to what many European countries are doing. And that is, the United States' treasury would directly support the payrolls up to, I think, that Hawley's proposal was 80% of what somebody was getting up to the median wage, and Jayapal was talking about 100% up to $100,000.
But nevertheless, the idea is very similar. The treasury makes a direct payroll contribution. It is for the payrolls. It's for nothing else.
And it is to keep these people on their payrolls, and obviously the businesses that, you know, they're biggest costs to their payrolls, and they will be required to keep people on payroll and make money. It's just a more simplified version of the payroll protection proposal. The other thing that caught my eye is that there is a movement to provide hazard pay and better protection for essential workers. And Elizabeth Warren is championing that in the Senate, and we've got a couple of members of Congress who are pushing that in the House side.
And that also needs to happen, a kind of bill of rights for essential workers. For essential workers. Now, one of the things that Scott and I talk about is that a lot of what's happening going forward is the acceleration of trends already in place. Retail was already sort of on the ropes to start with, and the trends were going towards Amazon and delivery.
A lot of companies were on the ropes in that regard, especially analog companies, restaurants and others are being pressured, because delivery and et cetera. When you come back, do you see that happening? Because one of the things is accelerating current trends that were in place, or not? Or do you feel like maybe people will take a pause and say we shouldn't?
Because a lot of people feel tech companies are going to be in a real advantage position when we get out of that. And then a couple of comments on the money they're giving away, whether you think it's happening. I'm afraid that that's the case. I mean, the five big tech companies were already in positions of extreme economic dominance.
We used to call them oligopolies. I mean, they are really exercising monopoly power even before the pandemic. And what we see is that companies like Amazon are now raking in huge amounts of money. Basically, Amazon paid almost no taxes last year.
Amazon is a huge political force as well as an economic force, and the two go together. And Amazon is going to be even stronger. It's now hiring about 120,000 additional workers. It doesn't provide them with paid sick leave unless they actually test positive.
Even then, they only get two weeks. Walmart is also raking in big amount of money. And Walmart is not treating its workers particularly well, as you know, is hiring 100,000 additional workers. But the other high tech companies are also because so much of what we now have to do is over remote lines and the internet, they are doing better than ever before.
And I think this is going to entrench their positions as well. The answer when the pandemic is over, if we have the political will, is to revisit anti-trust law. 100% If that economic was necessary. But that's not going to happen because they've been also trying to do these sort of personal things like Jack Dorsey's $1 billion contribution.
How do you look at those at the same time, or Mark Fannie Off delivering masks, or them doing things like frontline foods? And of course, as Scott says, releasing a press release every time they cough, you can't cough right now. But you know what I mean? Every time they do something, they release a press release about it.
Well, I mean, in terms of the voluntary charitable public things, it's public relations. Obviously, they're doing it. I mean, Jeff Bezos is putting in $100 million for food banks. And that's nice.
But that's about 11 hours of his income. I mean, it's ridiculously small compared to what these companies are raking in. It's the same with Jamie Diamond's JP Morgan Chase. I mean, JP Morgan Chase is doing a lot of nice little voluntary things around the country.
But it's a tiny, tiny fraction of the growing amounts of money that these banks are raking in as well. Corporate social responsibility is really public relations. It's got to be understood as nothing but public relations. It's a thinly veiled effort to distractitation from the market power and the kind of bullying that is going on in the economy by some of these big companies.
Yeah, it really is lipsticks. So I want to take a different tact here. And that is, Professor, both of you and I teach at NYU, you teach at Berkeley, these corporations, well, let me put this out there and have you respond. These corporations are doing exactly what they're supposed to do.
They're private organizations. They're for profit. We can hope that they have more regard for the commonwealth. They almost never do.
Isn't it really partially our fault as educators to not create a generation of people that make the sacrifice and vote for leaders that will think more long term, that will realize it unless we have a dignity of work, unless we have minimum wage, that's that people can afford some baseline level of housing and health care, that we're just setting ourselves up for war, famine, or revolution at some point. Having we failed as citizens and as voters and as educators to create a generation or a general complexion or get shot in our society, where we put in place the people who recognize these threats and are willing to vote for people who will think more long term. Well, that's a big question. I think the answer is no, and that's a self-serving answer to some extent, except I look at my students at UCal Berkeley and students really that I teach around the country at public institutions.
This generation is probably more committed to positive social change, social justice than any generation of students I've taught in the past 40 years. No, the problem is, I think, more complicated than that. I mean, Trump, let's look at Trump's polls right now. He's got white voters without college degrees are still 61% of them aren't in favor of Donald Trump, as opposed to 32% of them, white voters without college degrees who take an unfavorable view of Trump.
I mean, it's, you know, the Democrats, if I'm going to blame anybody, and I think the blame game is easy, but I think the Democratic Party, over the last 40 years, abandoned the white working class, abandoned the working class, not just the white working class. I mean, I saw it happen. So you've got a lot of, you know, there's really no political representation for the working class in this country. Nobody is standing up for the working class.
Nobody has been standing up for the working class. The Democrats began to focus on basically the suburban swing vote, upper middle class, and the Republicans were taken over, well, we saw quite early by the big banks and big corporations, and Donald Trump is kind of a Trojan horse for all of them. So I think the big failure is a failure of our political system to recognize that there's a lot of people who are desperately barely holding on. I mean, the pandemic, even before the pandemic, the white working class, the working class itself, white and black, let's, you know, you know, had not got a raise in 40 years and just for inflation.
I mean, that's the big problem, you know, there was, I think, So you were a vocal supporter of Bernie Sanders. What part of his ideology and platform do you hope and expect to be carried out by Joe Biden or do you not at all? Do you feel that this is going to continue? Well, I think that's a big question right now.
I mean, does Biden understand that he needs young people and progressives in order to win? I'm not sure that he does. I think basically the way he wins is peeling off some of the, you know, white women who were Trump supporters. I don't think there are enough of them.
I think that he cannot win without the white, without, I'm sorry, without the progressives and young people. And does he, he's going to understand that first. That case is going to be made to him first. I hope he understands that.
I mean, it would be the simplest thing in the world for him to say, well, I was against something like Medicare for all before the pandemic. Now I see how urgent it is that, you know, you've got so many people who've lost their employer provided health care because they've lost their jobs. I now understand that Medicare for all is critically important. He could say that now, but I, you know, the latest comment he made a couple of days ago was, well, maybe we can move Medicare eligibility down to age 60.
I'm sorry, that's not going to get your youth vote behind you. It's not going to get the progressives behind you. Yeah, I would agree. It's really strange.
I think my concern is that the vice president, whether you like what Trump is doing or not, he is giving press releases every day. He comes across as a president in a crisis. You know, I would argue he's, he's, I think a lot of people would argue that it's been an incompetent, almost negligent handling of the crisis. But then there is the vice president in his basement, waving to his kids through a glass window.
I don't think he's coming off as effective or the person to lead us right now. What do you think of the idea you've been on transition teams, you've served in cabinets? What do you think of the idea of the presumptive Democratic nominee appointing as a cabinet right now and really starting to talk openly and honestly and talk about big structural change across all of these things? It just feels like, to a certain extent, we Democrats with this upcoming election have been a little bit neutered.
I'm trying to think how we get off our heels and onto our toes here, other than just complaining about the president. Well, I think that if Biden, obviously the presumptive nominee, were to either suggest a cabinet or to put together an advisory group of citizens that are thought of by the rest of the country as people who know what they're doing, I think that would be probably a very good move. I don't like that the Tom Friedman idea of trying to put together a bipartisan cabinet because I think that American politics has been moving so far to the right. That's not going to get your white working class behind you.
The policies that would come out of a bunch of Republican cabinet members, if that were what Biden did do, is not going to be anything that's really the country needs. I mean, what you do need is to move in the direction that Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders were moving in. We're invited to decide that his vice president is going to be Elizabeth Warren. I think that would be of huge help to him and to getting young people and progressives engaged in the election.
Last question. You're absolutely right. I think you're absolutely right about that. He's taking far too long in this crisis, I think, at this point.
But when you get back to the stimulus checks that people have, what would you do for individuals you were just discussing who are going to be just fine? Which of those who have finances or salary that has not changed because of COVID-19? What should they do with their stimulus check? And then lastly, what should be the next step by Congress to fix the issues you were talking about?
Well, if you don't need your stimulus, I mean, if you're doing fine and if your income is $90, $100,000 a year and you get $1,200, I mean, turn around and give it a food back. I mean, that's sort of a no-brainer. I think that just getting back to the question of what we ought to do now and what Biden ought to do now and where Trump is right now, I think that so many people are beginning to see the pathological narcissistic, divisive Trump for what he is. If he goes through, and I think he's likely to do this, and not only fires all his IGs, but also fires Anthony Fauci and anybody who disagrees with him, I think that his favor abilities, even in the swing states, are going to be really starting to suffer.
He wants to reopen America much too soon. That could ignite even more of a surge in coronavirus deaths and cases. There's so many ways in which Trump could be and in many ways is blowing it. I think the big question really that we touched on is how do the Democrats, how does Biden really take advantage of the crisis and come forth with bold ideas and get people excited by the possibility of not only getting out of this crisis, but also moving on to America that is a much better America than we have before.
I worry about Biden's use of the phrase which he keeps using, which is getting back to normal. Normal is 40 years of stagnant wages. Normal is the Democratic Party basically turning it back on the working class. Normal is the growth of the American oligopoly and oligarchy.
We don't want normal. Normal is the problem that got us where we are today and makes it so likely that these working-class Americans are going to vote for Trump. All right. Thank you so much, Professor Reich.
We'll be looking more for a lot of things you're writing and talking about. Professor Reich's latest book is called The System Who Rigged It and How to Fix It. He's a professor at University of California at Berkeley. Thank you so much for coming on Pivot.
Well, thank you, Kara. Thank you, Scott. Thank you, Professor. Okay, Scott.
Well, he agrees with you. You are like the East and West Coast versions of each other, I think. I feel like that's kind of here. Yeah, me and Rebecca.
Yeah, minus the credibility and the stature. We're exactly the same. Any accomplishment. Yeah, no, Professor Reich.
All right. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be back for wins and fails. Some say the bubbles in an air travel piece can take 34 seconds to melt in your mouth. Sometimes the very amount you're stuck at the same red light, rich, creamy, chocolatey air travel feel the air bubbles melt.
It's mind bubbling. Amazon presents Jeff versus Taco Truck Salsa, whether it's Verde Roja or the Orange One. For Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette with a frame thrower. Luckily, Jeff stayed with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk.
Habineiro, more like Habineiro, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon. Okay, we're back, Scott wins and fails. There's so many this week.
I don't even know where to start. I think you should start. I think you should start with a win. My win is an idea from you.
I watched an Orthodox. Yeah. I thought it was wonderful, just wonderful. Yeah.
And I love the fact that it didn't seem like it wasn't these big production, hundred million dollars in episode. It was fairly simple. Just a wonderful story. I like that it's, I learned a lot about, I just had the Orthodox culture aesthetic.
I didn't, you know, I'm just, I'm kind of a non-practicing Jew, but I just found it interesting. I thought the young actress in it was outstanding. Outstanding, isn't it? That was very, very moving and wonderful.
I have another one for you. I have another one for you. I do like a TV. I do like a TV.
I do like a TV. It's called Run. I want to make this agreement with you. It's from this pair of Phoebe Wallenbridge and it's from her production studio along with a friend of hers, who's in it.
And it's about two ex lovers from college. They have a sign where they say run, they type, they text the other run, and then they go on the run. And that's what it's about changing your life, not going back to normal Scott. I'm going to do that.
I am still ready to run. Are you ready to run? I'm going to text you. It says run, and then you're going to meet me.
And Grand Central Station, I'm going to take a train to know. I am still ready to get in a car and just drive here. I know. I am.
Oh my God. I know. It's crazy. Like we all wish for more time at home, and then we're like, no, not so much.
All right. So my win. I like that. So now even though it was weird as heck, I like their effort.