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@BernieSanders
「労働力が不足しているのではありません。継続的なパンデミックの最中に人を労働力として復帰させるために必要な賃金や福利厚生を、雇用者が提供していないということなのです」。- @StephanieKelton pic.twitter.com/doSPvaGiOG
2021/11/16 10:28
短縮版
B:
good evening
america and thank you so much
for joining us tonight
in a few minutes you're going to hear
from dr stephanie kelton
our stephanie is a professor of
economics and public policy
at stony brook university in new york
she is a leading expert on modern
monetary theory
a former chief economist for the u.s
senate budget committee and served as a
member of the biden sanders unity
task force so we're delighted to have
stephanie kelton with us
stephanie what's your sense
of the economy today？
K:
well you know i think it's
for me i always try to put things in the
context of where we were what we're
coming out of and where we might have
been but for many of the legislative
successes that we had over the course of
the last 18 months ago so you know
compared to where we were a year ago
today when we didn't even have emergency
use authorization for the covid vaccine
we are in really good shape on a number
of fronts back then covet cases were
surging and the recovery was starting to
slow in part because of the virus but
also because the cares act which
congress passed at the very beginning of
of the pandemic was starting to wear out
the unemployment benefits were running
out the payroll protection program that
was helped keeping helping to keep small
businesses afloat keep workers on
payroll that program was rolling off the
1200 checks that went out those had
mostly been spent out and the economy
was slowing and a year ago we had
basically one in five workers who was
either unemployed underemployed or had
suffered a pay cut since the pandemic
began we we were watching food banks
that were still overwhelmed and food
insecurity was soaring especially in
black and latino households we saw
food insecurity in families with
children 40 million americans at risk of
eviction half of all small businesses
said they didn't expect to be around a
year from now they thought they were
going under
um schools weren't reopened and hundreds
of thousands of women had dropped out of
the labor force to stay home to care for
kids parts of the country were going
back into lockdown we had wildfires
raging across california oregon colorado
and things were a mess and then we got
the delta virus and that kind of knocked
us back a little bit but at the end of
the day congress came back and you gave
us a 900 billion dollar package in
december of last year and then we got
the american rescue plan this march that
1.9 trillion dollar package that came
and gave the economy a real boost so
today where we are i think is we have
the vaccine and in spite of the delta
variant in many ways the economy has
been performing well in fact in some
ways it's been booming and the
unemployment rate is down
4.6
we're adding back a lot of jobs workers
are enjoying some bargaining power that
they haven't seen in a very long time
we're seeing wage increases especially
at the bottom of the income distribution
and you know families that are in good
financial shape are buying a lot of
goods and this gets to what bob just
talked about you're seeing the effects
of all of that spending in you know
backlogs and supply chain uh problems
getting goods to the marketplace and so
forth but all things considered as you
said at the beginning you know we have a
lot of serious problems in our economy
um but we are doing so much better today
than we were a year ago
i i would like um
stephanie with erica
to
talk a little bit
about
what goes on in other countries
in terms of providing
uh for the basic needs of working
families stephanie
if i'm a
uh a mom in in scandinavia norway
denmark
uh and i have a baby uh
what happens
well you're gonna have to go to work go
ahead
you're gonna have a lot of time off
senator
uh you're gonna have more than 24 weeks
of paid leave if you're a new mom and in
countries around the world
fathers get paid leave too there are
only 83 countries in the world.
19:00
and we're
of course one of them who doesn't offer
paid leave to new fathers when it comes
to new mothers the us is one of just
seven countries around the world that
doesn't
offer as a right paid maternity leave i
mean some of these countries that that
are like us are so tiny they're little
island nations you can barely find them
on the map in other words virtually the
entire world has found a way to do this
and we are the outlier here at a
whopping zero weeks of paid leave for
new mothers it's a national
embarrassment.
and
stephanie thoughts on that？
yeah i think
that's exactly right i think it's it in
many cases.
23:00(5:10)
i think we would all probably
agree that it's not a labor shortage
it's that employers are not offering the
wages and benefits that are would
require uh be required to bring a person
back into the labor force in the middle
of still an ongoing pandemic.
and we've
all seen the images on tv who wants to
you know wait tables or work in a hotel
when you see in some cases people being
very abusive to wait staff you've got
anti-massacres out there you see people
getting spit on and punched in the face
we're asking a lot of these people to
take many of these jobs where they have
to deal with a population many of whom
just frankly behave very badly it's
scary you're in a pandemic you got to
deal with hostile people sometimes.
and
you do it for really
crappy wages.
B:
now in the middle of a fierce underlying
word fierce debate
over a reconciliation package called
build back better
why should we pass that legislation what
should it have
in it stephanie？
K:
well it at a minimum it should have had
what you envisioned when the agreement
was 3.5 trillion dollars which
i i mean i was with you all the way
senator i that to me that was a
compromise number i thought 6 trillion
was a much better number and to be
honest i did a piece for the new york
times in which i thought 10 trillion was
an even better number so what should be
in it a lot more climate to start with
but uh look there were some very good
things and that three and a half
trillion dollar proposal and again i
think it's important remind people that
this is over 10 years so it is frankly a
modest proposal 350 billion dollars is
not a lot of money in an economy that is
going to generate some 300 trillion
dollars over the next decade this is
modest okay so but but in spite of the
fact that it's modest there were some
really good things that you wanted to do
including paid family and medical leave
at 12 weeks which would bring us much
closer to what the uh international
community already does um you know much
more on the climate side that was
important on healthcare you wanted
dental hearing and vision and expansion
of medicare this should be a no-brainer
the negotiation of prescription drug
prices something virtually the entire
population understands and supports and
the list goes on so there there were so
many things i think the investments in
climate for me personally come very
close to the top and the expansion of
the child tax credit that has to be
given priority in this legislation you
did it once you lifted almost half of
the kids in this country out of poverty
why on earth would you let them slip
back in
you know you teach young people every
day what's your sense of where they're
coming from there i think that we're all
feeling the same way in the classroom
interacting with our students that young
people are the source of hope they are
still optimistic i i think matthew you
know you you could maybe take comfort in
knowing that many people who are in your
age category
um are prepared to step up and say this
is not the world that we're going to
allow you to leave to us we have to grow
up in this space and we intend to make
the changes that are going to make this
a livable planet an economy that works
for all of us and they're prepared to
stand up i think they're prepared to
stand up and fight i think they're
prepared to turn out and vote and what i
hear from young people more and more is
that they're not going to sit back and
sit this one out that they understand
especially where climate is concerned
that their futures really are on the
line
the other the the things that bob is
talking about are obviously important
these are
loopholes like the carried interest
loophole things like step up of basis
which bob was just describing but
there's also in addition to their legal
ways in which they avoid paying taxes
you know we don't know because we don't
audit them in the numbers that we ought
to be auditing and so even enforcing the
tax laws that are already on the books
we don't do a good enough job and so
many of them get away with paying less
because frankly they don't think they're
going to get caught if they don't
disclose all of the income so one of the
things that you know you senator and and
others have been talking about is giving
the irs more resources to work with so
they can go after tax cheats and that
would cut down on on at least some of
this as well
and there are estimates that we could
raise many many hundreds of billions of
dollars every single year
by getting the irs the irs commissioner
testified that the tax gap the
difference between what people pay and
what they should be paying he put the
estimate at a trillion dollars a year i
know cbo and others suggest that you'll
capture less than that but there is a
huge amount of money there very low
hanging fruit just in terms of enforcing
tax laws that we already have on the
books stephanie
i think even frankly the billionaires
know this it wasn't that long ago that
people like ray dalio the billionaire
hedge fund manager was saying the
pitchforks are coming he looked around
and he said this is too much inequality
this is intolerable people won't stand
for it and he actually came out and he
said we have to have more progressive
taxes at the top we have to have more
spending on programs to lift those at
the bottom we've got to narrow the gap
or the pitchforks are coming so they
recognize this is you know
they recognize that inequality has grown
so extreme both in terms of income and
wealth and that it puts the entire
system at risk
okay
let me ask a more mundane
question but one i know that is on the
minds of people all across this country
and i don't know
the question is it's from uh
i don't have a name attached to it but
what drives rising gas prices
uh does the president influence that at
all in other words people are going into
a gas station they're seeing gas
just a few weeks ago
uh makes people nervous rural states
people drive a lot
uh to get to work to come home
uh why are gas prices rising what can we
do about that
well i'll tell you my my assessment of
why gas prices are rising and it's got
at least three drivers
one is the global economy recovered a
lot faster than anyone expected and so
demand picks up and supply is attempting
to catch up in terms of production
one answer is geopolitical and it has to
do with the fact that countries like
saudi arabia are using this as an
opportunity to raise oil prices
and the third reason is that energy is a
commodity with a financial ecosystem aka
wall street
and speculation and things like oil
futures have been driving oil prices and
energy costs significantly higher so all
of these things together
are driving energy prices
and that then feeds into a whole host of
you know transportation costs and drives
other uh goods prices higher as well
food prices and other things
but keeping the economy strong is a
pretty important thing that you can do
and passing this reconciliation package
that keeps support going for families
with kids allows parents to go to the
gas station put gas in the car have a
little bit of extra money made available
through things like the child tax credit
that does help take the pinch out and
bringing down other costs for them so if
they're paying a bit more to fill the
tank every week or every couple of weeks
but they're paying a bit less for things
like child care and other expenses
college education and so forth then
that's something you can do to help take
the sting out of the budget for families
until oil prices come down i suspect
they're going to come down
in the very near term.
B:
bob just said it all
uh let me thank stephanie and derek and
bob
for
uh not only for being with us tonight
but for the great work that they do
every day
and let me thank all of you uh who have
uh watched the program let's stand up
let's fight back let's ki let's
create the kind of nation and world
that we know we deserve
and that we can become so thank you all
very much see you soon take care.
00:04
america and thank you so much
00:09
in a few minutes you're going to hear
00:13
our stephanie is a professor of
00:14
economics and public policy
00:16
at stony brook university in new york
00:19
she is a leading expert on modern
00:23
a former chief economist for the u.s
00:25
senate budget committee and served as a
00:28
member of the biden sanders unity
00:30
task force so we're delighted to have
00:35
stephanie what's your sense
00:39
well you know i think it's
00:42
for me i always try to put things in the
00:44
context of where we were what we're
00:46
coming out of and where we might have
00:48
been but for many of the legislative
00:52
successes that we had over the course of
00:55
the last 18 months ago so you know
00:57
compared to where we were a year ago
00:59
today when we didn't even have emergency
01:02
use authorization for the covid vaccine
01:05
we are in really good shape on a number
01:09
of fronts back then covet cases were
01:11
surging and the recovery was starting to
01:14
slow in part because of the virus but
01:17
also because the cares act which
01:19
congress passed at the very beginning of
01:22
of the pandemic was starting to wear out
01:24
the unemployment benefits were running
01:26
out the payroll protection program that
01:28
was helped keeping helping to keep small
01:30
businesses afloat keep workers on
01:32
payroll that program was rolling off the
01:36
1200 checks that went out those had
01:38
mostly been spent out and the economy
01:40
was slowing and a year ago we had
01:42
basically one in five workers who was
01:45
either unemployed underemployed or had
01:47
suffered a pay cut since the pandemic
01:50
began we we were watching food banks
01:52
that were still overwhelmed and food
01:54
insecurity was soaring especially in
01:56
black and latino households we saw
02:00
food insecurity in families with
02:02
children 40 million americans at risk of
02:05
eviction half of all small businesses
02:08
said they didn't expect to be around a
02:10
year from now they thought they were
02:12
um schools weren't reopened and hundreds
02:15
of thousands of women had dropped out of
02:17
the labor force to stay home to care for
02:19
kids parts of the country were going
02:21
back into lockdown we had wildfires
02:24
raging across california oregon colorado
02:27
and things were a mess and then we got
02:30
the delta virus and that kind of knocked
02:32
us back a little bit but at the end of
02:34
the day congress came back and you gave
02:37
us a 900 billion dollar package in
02:39
december of last year and then we got
02:41
the american rescue plan this march that
02:44
1.9 trillion dollar package that came
02:47
and gave the economy a real boost so
02:50
today where we are i think is we have
02:52
the vaccine and in spite of the delta
02:55
variant in many ways the economy has
02:58
been performing well in fact in some
03:01
ways it's been booming and the
03:02
unemployment rate is down
03:06
we're adding back a lot of jobs workers
03:08
are enjoying some bargaining power that
03:10
they haven't seen in a very long time
03:12
we're seeing wage increases especially
03:14
at the bottom of the income distribution
03:17
and you know families that are in good
03:19
financial shape are buying a lot of
03:20
goods and this gets to what bob just
03:22
talked about you're seeing the effects
03:24
of all of that spending in you know
03:27
backlogs and supply chain uh problems
03:30
getting goods to the marketplace and so
03:32
forth but all things considered as you
03:35
said at the beginning you know we have a
03:37
lot of serious problems in our economy
03:40
um but we are doing so much better today
03:52
what goes on in other countries
03:58
uh for the basic needs of working
04:04
uh a mom in in scandinavia norway
04:12
well you're gonna have to go to work go
04:15
you're gonna have a lot of time off
04:18
uh you're gonna have more than 24 weeks
04:20
of paid leave if you're a new mom and in
04:23
countries around the world
04:25
fathers get paid leave too there are
04:27
only 83 countries in the world and we're
04:30
of course one of them who doesn't offer
04:32
paid leave to new fathers when it comes
04:34
to new mothers the us is one of just
04:37
seven countries around the world that
04:41
offer as a right paid maternity leave i
04:44
mean some of these countries that that
04:46
are like us are so tiny they're little
04:48
island nations you can barely find them
04:50
on the map in other words virtually the
04:52
entire world has found a way to do this
04:54
and we are the outlier here at a
04:57
whopping zero weeks of paid leave for
05:00
new mothers it's a national
05:04
stephanie thoughts on that yeah i think
05:06
that's exactly right i think it's it in
05:08
many cases i think we would all probably
05:10
agree that it's not a labor shortage
05:13
it's that employers are not offering the
05:15
wages and benefits that are would
05:17
require uh be required to bring a person
05:20
back into the labor force in the middle
05:22
of still an ongoing pandemic and we've
05:24
all seen the images on tv who wants to
05:27
you know wait tables or work in a hotel
05:30
when you see in some cases people being
05:33
very abusive to wait staff you've got
05:35
anti-massacres out there you see people
05:37
getting spit on and punched in the face
05:39
we're asking a lot of these people to
05:41
take many of these jobs where they have
05:43
to deal with a population many of whom
05:46
just frankly behave very badly it's
05:48
scary you're in a pandemic you got to
05:51
deal with hostile people sometimes and
05:57
now in the middle of a fierce underlying
06:03
over a reconciliation package called
06:09
why should we pass that legislation what
06:14
well it at a minimum it should have had
06:17
what you envisioned when the agreement
06:19
was 3.5 trillion dollars which
06:22
i i mean i was with you all the way
06:24
senator i that to me that was a
06:26
compromise number i thought 6 trillion
06:29
was a much better number and to be
06:31
honest i did a piece for the new york
06:32
times in which i thought 10 trillion was
06:35
an even better number so what should be
06:38
in it a lot more climate to start with
06:40
but uh look there were some very good
06:43
things and that three and a half
06:45
trillion dollar proposal and again i
06:47
think it's important remind people that
06:49
this is over 10 years so it is frankly a
06:52
modest proposal 350 billion dollars is
06:56
not a lot of money in an economy that is
06:59
going to generate some 300 trillion
07:01
dollars over the next decade this is
07:04
modest okay so but but in spite of the
07:08
fact that it's modest there were some
07:10
really good things that you wanted to do
07:12
including paid family and medical leave
07:14
at 12 weeks which would bring us much
07:17
closer to what the uh international
07:20
community already does um you know much
07:23
more on the climate side that was
07:25
important on healthcare you wanted
07:27
dental hearing and vision and expansion
07:30
of medicare this should be a no-brainer
07:32
the negotiation of prescription drug
07:34
prices something virtually the entire
07:36
population understands and supports and
07:39
the list goes on so there there were so
07:42
many things i think the investments in
07:43
climate for me personally come very
07:46
close to the top and the expansion of
07:47
the child tax credit that has to be
07:49
given priority in this legislation you
07:52
did it once you lifted almost half of
07:54
the kids in this country out of poverty
07:56
why on earth would you let them slip
08:00
you know you teach young people every
08:01
day what's your sense of where they're
08:03
coming from there i think that we're all
08:05
feeling the same way in the classroom
08:07
interacting with our students that young
08:09
people are the source of hope they are
08:12
still optimistic i i think matthew you
08:15
know you you could maybe take comfort in
08:17
knowing that many people who are in your
08:22
um are prepared to step up and say this
08:25
is not the world that we're going to
08:27
allow you to leave to us we have to grow
08:29
up in this space and we intend to make
08:33
the changes that are going to make this
08:34
a livable planet an economy that works
08:37
for all of us and they're prepared to
08:39
stand up i think they're prepared to
08:41
stand up and fight i think they're
08:42
prepared to turn out and vote and what i
08:45
hear from young people more and more is
08:48
that they're not going to sit back and
08:50
sit this one out that they understand
08:51
especially where climate is concerned
08:54
that their futures really are on the
08:57
the other the the things that bob is
08:59
talking about are obviously important
09:02
loopholes like the carried interest
09:04
loophole things like step up of basis
09:06
which bob was just describing but
09:08
there's also in addition to their legal
09:11
ways in which they avoid paying taxes
09:13
you know we don't know because we don't
09:15
audit them in the numbers that we ought
09:17
to be auditing and so even enforcing the
09:20
tax laws that are already on the books
09:21
we don't do a good enough job and so
09:24
many of them get away with paying less
09:25
because frankly they don't think they're
09:27
going to get caught if they don't
09:28
disclose all of the income so one of the
09:30
things that you know you senator and and
09:33
others have been talking about is giving
09:35
the irs more resources to work with so
09:38
they can go after tax cheats and that
09:40
would cut down on on at least some of
09:43
and there are estimates that we could
09:45
raise many many hundreds of billions of
09:48
dollars every single year
09:50
by getting the irs the irs commissioner
09:53
testified that the tax gap the
09:56
difference between what people pay and
09:58
what they should be paying he put the
10:00
estimate at a trillion dollars a year i
10:03
know cbo and others suggest that you'll
10:06
capture less than that but there is a
10:08
huge amount of money there very low
10:11
hanging fruit just in terms of enforcing
10:13
tax laws that we already have on the
10:17
i think even frankly the billionaires
10:21
know this it wasn't that long ago that
10:23
people like ray dalio the billionaire
10:25
hedge fund manager was saying the
10:27
pitchforks are coming he looked around
10:29
and he said this is too much inequality
10:32
this is intolerable people won't stand
10:35
for it and he actually came out and he
10:36
said we have to have more progressive
10:39
taxes at the top we have to have more
10:41
spending on programs to lift those at
10:43
the bottom we've got to narrow the gap
10:45
or the pitchforks are coming so they
10:48
recognize this is you know
10:51
they recognize that inequality has grown
10:53
so extreme both in terms of income and
10:56
wealth and that it puts the entire
11:01
let me ask a more mundane
11:04
question but one i know that is on the
11:06
minds of people all across this country
11:11
the question is it's from uh
11:14
i don't have a name attached to it but
11:15
what drives rising gas prices
11:19
uh does the president influence that at
11:21
all in other words people are going into
11:23
a gas station they're seeing gas
11:29
uh makes people nervous rural states
11:34
uh to get to work to come home
11:36
uh why are gas prices rising what can we
11:42
well i'll tell you my my assessment of
11:45
why gas prices are rising and it's got
11:50
one is the global economy recovered a
11:53
lot faster than anyone expected and so
11:55
demand picks up and supply is attempting
11:58
to catch up in terms of production
12:00
one answer is geopolitical and it has to
12:04
do with the fact that countries like
12:05
saudi arabia are using this as an
12:08
opportunity to raise oil prices
12:10
and the third reason is that energy is a
12:13
commodity with a financial ecosystem aka
12:18
and speculation and things like oil
12:20
futures have been driving oil prices and
12:24
energy costs significantly higher so all
12:28
are driving energy prices
12:30
and that then feeds into a whole host of
12:33
you know transportation costs and drives
12:35
other uh goods prices higher as well
12:37
food prices and other things
12:40
but keeping the economy strong is a
12:43
pretty important thing that you can do
12:44
and passing this reconciliation package
12:47
that keeps support going for families
12:49
with kids allows parents to go to the
12:52
gas station put gas in the car have a
12:55
little bit of extra money made available
12:57
through things like the child tax credit
12:59
that does help take the pinch out and
13:02
bringing down other costs for them so if
13:04
they're paying a bit more to fill the
13:06
tank every week or every couple of weeks
13:08
but they're paying a bit less for things
13:09
like child care and other expenses
13:11
college education and so forth then
13:14
that's something you can do to help take
13:17
the sting out of the budget for families
13:20
until oil prices come down i suspect
13:21
they're going to come down
13:28
uh let me thank stephanie and derek and
13:34
uh not only for being with us tonight
13:36
but for the great work that they do
13:39
and let me thank all of you uh who have
13:42
uh watched the program let's stand up
13:44
let's fight back let's ki let's
13:47
create the kind of nation and world
13:52
and that we can become so thank you all
13:54
very much see you soon take care
23:04
https://twitter.com/berniesanders/status/1460419393100333067?s=21
01:07
good evening
01:08
america and thank you so much for
01:11
joining us tonight
01:13
and i know that some of you struggled
01:16
with economics
01:17
in high school and college and i did too
01:20
uh but tonight i think we're going to
01:21
have an interesting
01:23
show
01:24
with economists who speak to the needs
01:27
of ordinary people and have wonderful
01:29
careers in fighting for
01:32
justice
01:33
uh and for creating a nation and a
01:36
government which works for all
01:38
and not just the few so
01:40
in a few minutes you're going to hear
01:42
from dr stephanie kelton
01:44
uh stephanie is a professor of economics
01:46
and public policy
01:48
at stony brook university in new york
01:50
she is a leading expert on modern
01:53
monetary theory
01:55
a former chief economist for the u.s
01:56
senate budget committee and served as a
01:59
member of the biden sanders unity
02:02
task force so we're delighted to have
02:04
stephanie kelton with us
02:06
we're also going to have
02:08
professor robert reich
02:10
who is a professor of public policy
02:14
at the university of california berkeley
02:17
and bob served as secretary of labor
02:20
united states
02:21
secretary of labor from 1993 to 1997.
02:27
bob is co-founder of inequality media
02:30
which educates the public about
02:32
inequality
02:33
and the
02:34
imbalance of power in the united states
02:37
and we're also delighted to have an old
02:39
friend dr derek hamilton
02:42
who was a professor of economics and
02:44
urban policy at the new school in new
02:46
york city derek was an advisor for our
02:49
presidential campaign and
02:51
thank you very much for that and he
02:53
served as a member of the biden sanders
02:55
unity task force
02:56
and has helped create important economic
02:58
proposals
03:00
uh including the federal jobs guarantee
03:03
before i introduce our guest let me
03:07
just say a few words
03:09
about where we are in my view
03:11
economically
03:13
we live in the wealthiest country
03:17
in the history of the world
03:19
extraordinary wealth but unfortunately
03:21
we also have more
03:23
income and wealth inequality today than
03:26
we've had
03:27
in 100 years
03:29
and that means that the people on top
03:31
are doing phenomenally phenomenally well
03:36
while the working class of this country
03:39
continues to struggle despite huge
03:42
increases in recent years
03:45
in worker productivity
03:47
so what you have in america today
03:49
is two people
03:52
who own more wealth than the bottom
03:53
forty percent you got the top one
03:55
percent owning more wealth
03:57
than the bottom
03:58
90
04:00
you have that wealth converted into
04:02
political power
04:04
because billionaires and large
04:06
corporations
04:07
hire
04:08
literally thousands of lobbyists
04:11
here in the nation's capital and all
04:13
over this country to make sure that the
04:15
rich continue to get richer
04:18
but meanwhile out in the hinterlands
04:22
we are actually seeing in many parts of
04:24
this country above and beyond the cobit
04:26
pandemic a decline in life expectancy
04:31
and what some of the scientists tell us
04:33
tells us
04:34
tell us is that that has to do with what
04:36
we call diseases of despair
04:39
people are giving up they're going
04:40
nowhere in their lives their kids are
04:42
going nowhere they have jobs to pay
04:45
starvation wages
04:48
uh and they're turning to drugs
04:50
they're turning to alcohol and sometimes
04:53
even unbelievably returning to suicide
04:56
and that's
04:57
that's the extreme but in addition to
04:59
that you've got a half a million
05:00
americans in this wealthy country who
05:03
are homeless
05:05
we have families all over this country
05:06
we're paying 15 or 20 percent of their
05:09
incomes
05:10
for child care think about that you know
05:13
you want to go to work depending 15 20
05:15
of your income for child care
05:17
we are old people throughout this
05:19
country you can't afford the
05:21
prescription drugs that they need
05:23
some of them don't have any teeth in
05:24
their mouth they can't afford hearing
05:26
aids they can't afford
05:27
eyeglasses you got kids
05:30
who are struggling to afford to get a
05:32
higher education everyone says get a
05:33
higher education get a higher education
05:36
and yet they lose school fifty hundred
05:38
thousand dollars in debt you wanna go to
05:40
graduate school it could be a couple of
05:42
hundred thousand dollars
05:43
in debt
05:45
and on top of all of that you know all
05:48
of that despair and anger and
05:49
frustration
05:51
now you've got problems like climate
05:52
change
05:53
uh and racism and sexism and homophobia
05:57
and so forth and so on
05:58
so what tonight is about
06:01
is to take a hard look at where the
06:03
economy is today what's working what's
06:05
not working
06:07
maybe talk a little bit about
06:09
how our economy and what we focus on
06:12
what our priorities are compared to
06:14
other countries around the world and i
06:16
think as many of you know we are the
06:18
remain the only nation on earth major
06:21
nation on earth not to guarantee health
06:23
care to all people is the human right
06:26
we are the only country virtually the
06:28
only country in the world without paid
06:30
family and medical leave etc etc
06:32
um so
06:34
at the end of the day what we want to
06:35
talk about is is get an understanding of
06:38
why we are
06:39
where we where we are
06:41
the role that greed
06:44
plays in our economy and most
06:46
importantly where do we go
06:49
from here
06:50
so i'm just so proud and happy that we
06:52
have
06:53
three great economists
06:55
uh with us uh tonight
06:57
uh to discuss uh these issues
07:01
uh and let me begin
07:03
uh by starting off
07:05
uh
07:06
with um
07:08
with all three of them to comment on
07:10
the state of the economy today we're
07:12
hearing a lot about inflation wage
07:13
increases what's going on in the economy
07:16
today who wants to uh jump into that
07:19
discussion
07:23
all right bob i see you
07:25
ready to get going
07:28
i will jump in i will jump in in terms
07:30
of inflation
07:32
uh there are three things going on uh
07:34
and let's be clear about it
07:36
number one you got a lot of demand from
07:38
this pandemic people did not buy uh they
07:42
couldn't uh they were scared
07:44
to go into malls and as the pandemic
07:47
starts receding there's a huge
07:50
wave of demand that's number one number
07:52
two you've got supply bottlenecks not
07:55
just in the united states but all over
07:56
the world and we know that we see that
07:59
at ports we see it in terms of
08:01
what opec is doing we see it in terms of
08:04
uh really
08:06
bottlenecks that are obvious because you
08:09
just can't get enough computer chips for
08:11
the cars and those bottlenecks are
08:13
driving up prices as well but there's a
08:15
third factor that is not being paid
08:18
nearly enough attention to bernie and
08:20
that is something that we've talked
08:22
about before and stephanie and derek
08:25
have talked about and written about and
08:27
that has to do with economic
08:29
concentration in big corporations
08:31
because you've got right now record
08:34
levels of corporate
08:36
profits record profits now if they were
08:39
competitive if they were really in a
08:41
competitive market they would not simply
08:43
be raising their prices
08:45
they would be doing everything they
08:46
could to reduce or keep their prices so
08:49
they didn't lose consumers but the fact
08:51
of the matter is they can raise their
08:53
prices because they have market power
08:56
because they are monopolists or they are
08:57
oligopolis they are not really competing
09:01
and that is something that nobody is
09:04
talking to my way of thinking nobody's
09:06
talking about enough
09:07
this is a big structural problem right
09:09
at the center of the american economy
09:12
concentration of ownership
09:14
concentration of market power
09:16
and that market power means
09:18
monopolization the food prices are going
09:21
up why are they going up between because
09:23
there's a handful of food processors
09:26
processors a handful of of of food you
09:29
know seed and fertilizer companies they
09:32
are not competitive they can just pass
09:34
on all of their cost increases and still
09:37
make record profits that's what's going
09:40
on
09:41
stephanie what's your sense
09:43
of the economy today
09:45
well you know i think it's
09:47
for me i always try to put things in the
09:49
context of where we were what we're
09:52
coming out of and where we might have
09:54
been but for many of the legislative
09:57
successes that we had over the course of
10:00
the last 18 months ago so you know
10:03
compared to where we were a year ago
10:05
today when we didn't even have emergency
10:08
use authorization for the covid vaccine
10:11
we are in really good shape on a number
10:14
of fronts back then covet cases were
10:17
surging and the recovery was starting to
10:19
slow in part because of the virus but
10:22
also because the cares act which
10:25
congress passed at the very beginning of
10:27
of the pandemic was starting to wear out
10:29
the unemployment benefits were running
10:32
out the payroll protection program that
10:34
was helped keeping uh helping to keep
10:36
small businesses afloat keep workers on
10:38
payroll that program was rolling off the
10:41
1200 checks that went out those had
10:43
mostly been spent out and the economy
10:46
was slowing and a year ago we had
10:48
basically one in five workers who was
10:50
either unemployed underemployed or had
10:53
suffered a pay cut since the pandemic
10:55
began we we were watching food banks
10:57
that were still overwhelmed and food
11:00
insecurity was soaring especially in
11:02
black and latino households we saw
11:05
food insecurity in families with
11:08
children 40 million americans at risk of
11:10
eviction
11:11
half of all small businesses said they
11:14
didn't expect to be around a year from
11:16
now they thought they were going under
11:18
um schools weren't reopened and hundreds
11:20
of thousands of women had dropped out of
11:22
the labor force to stay home to care for
11:25
kids parts of the country were going
11:27
back into lockdown we had wildfires
11:29
raging across california oregon colorado
11:32
and things were a mess and then we got
11:35
the delta virus and that kind of knocked
11:38
us back a little bit but at the end of
11:40
the day congress came back and you gave
11:42
us a 900 billion dollar package in
11:45
december of last year and then we got
11:47
the american rescue plan this march that
11:50
1.9 trillion dollar package that came
11:53
and gave the economy a real boost so
11:56
today where we are i think is we have
11:58
the vaccine and in spite of the delta
12:00
variant in many ways the economy has
12:04
been performing well in fact in some
12:07
ways it's been booming and the
12:08
unemployment rate is down 4.6
12:11
we're adding back a lot of jobs workers
12:14
are enjoying some bargaining power that
12:16
they haven't seen in a very long time
12:18
we're seeing wage increases especially
12:20
at the bottom of the income distribution
12:22
and you know families that are in good
12:24
financial shape are buying a lot of
12:26
goods and this gets to what bob just
12:28
talked about you're seeing the effects
12:30
of all of that spending in you know
12:33
backlogs and supply chain uh problems
12:36
getting goods to the marketplace and so
12:38
forth but all things considered as you
12:40
said at the beginning you know we have a
12:42
lot of serious problems in our economy
12:45
but we are doing so much better today
12:48
than we were a year ago
12:50
derek what's your sense of the state of
12:52
the economy
12:53
yeah i mean relative to a year ago
12:55
there's no question we're doing much
12:57
better but we still have a long way to
12:59
go
13:00
but we still need to expand our social
13:03
safety net to make us more resilient to
13:05
the next time we have an economic crisis
13:08
um but one of the reasons we're doing
13:09
much better and that we had a pretty
13:11
short recession in a historical sense
13:14
was the manner just like stephanie
13:16
pointed out in which government
13:17
intervened we intervened this time where
13:20
we
13:21
directly
13:23
uh put stimulus into our most treasured
13:25
resource which is our people we didn't
13:27
have that firm centric approach that we
13:29
had in years past but rather we met
13:32
people where they were we ensured
13:34
economic security we ensured their
13:36
health and safety and not only did that
13:39
uh allow people to thrive and not suffer
13:43
immensely
13:44
it stimulated our economy in a way that
13:46
that's leading to this boom that when
13:48
you empower people when you offer them
13:50
resources they can not only utilize
13:53
their ingenuity in a growth manner but
13:56
they also do it in a way that is more
13:58
fair more just um and then let me say
14:01
one other thing senator that you kind of
14:03
brought up earlier um when talking about
14:05
the right to health care
14:07
the right side of the political aisle
14:09
likes to emphasize individual rights
14:12
property rights
14:14
um now they don't fulfill it civil
14:16
rights and political rights but but we
14:18
talk a lot about individual rights when
14:20
talking about human rights it is
14:22
disingenuous if you talk about human
14:25
rights without economic rights if you
14:27
engage in any transaction with no
14:30
resources you were at the whim of
14:32
exploitation or the whim of charity so
14:35
what i like about the ways in which our
14:37
government began to reverse history from
14:41
the ways in which we've been intervening
14:42
for the past 50 years is that we focused
14:45
on people we focused on providing
14:47
resources so that people can thrive and
14:50
our economy can boom in a more
14:52
prosperous shared way
14:55
all right derek ray's um an issue dear
14:58
to my own heart and bob maybe i'll throw
15:00
it to you
15:02
as well when he talks about economic
15:04
rights as human rights
15:06
you know in our country we say well you
15:09
know we have freedom you can vote
15:11
your freedom of religion
15:13
you have you know you walk on a picket
15:15
line you can dissent and all of that but
15:17
economic rights is something a little
15:19
bit different
15:21
in your
15:22
judgment
15:23
our economic rights human rights uh yes
15:26
and you can't separate the two i mean in
15:28
other words if you have somebody who
15:29
doesn't have access to health care
15:32
access to education access to what
15:34
people need in order to succeed
15:38
then they don't have any economic rights
15:40
and they don't have any human rights i i
15:42
why
15:43
create this false distinction between
15:45
the two
15:46
i want to just uh bernie if i can agree
15:49
wholeheartedly with what stephanie and
15:51
derek have said about this economy today
15:54
being far better than it was a year ago
15:56
but i want to distinguish between the
15:58
business cycle that is things going up
16:00
and down we are much better off than we
16:02
were
16:03
in the recession we are much better off
16:05
because the pandemic hopefully is mostly
16:08
behind us
16:09
but there is also a deep structural
16:12
problem in the economy that we have not
16:14
yet tackled and i'm going to embarrass
16:17
you bernie sanders for a minute because
16:19
you have been in the lead on
16:22
voicing and moving on this structural
16:25
problem and the structural problem is
16:27
widening inequality now you mentioned at
16:29
the start that we are we the problem is
16:32
a vicious cycle in which as wealth and
16:35
income
16:36
concentrate at the top
16:38
more and more political power
16:40
also concentrates at the top
16:43
which means that the people who have the
16:46
wealth and the corporations that also
16:48
have the wealth that power to change the
16:52
market change the system to give them
16:54
even more wealth and make it harder for
16:57
everybody else to get any kind of human
17:00
rights or economic rights and and the
17:02
reason i want to bring this up bernie is
17:04
you are right now in the middle of this
17:06
we are we have this fierce fight the
17:08
republicans
17:09
you know they they are in the pockets of
17:12
big business and the wealthy uh and we
17:14
have some democrats that may be in their
17:17
pockets as well
17:18
the test is going to come very soon
17:21
but we as a nation are doing
17:24
very little for our people compared to
17:27
what other rich nations are doing
17:30
we are the richest nation in the history
17:32
of the world and yet half of our people
17:35
have not had a raise i just
17:38
in terms of wages in 40 years have
17:40
adjusted for inflation
17:42
most of the gains of the economy have
17:44
gone to the top
17:45
and what we have to do and what we need
17:48
to do is give them
17:50
the wherewithal i mean in terms of child
17:52
care and health care and and paid family
17:55
leave and
17:57
you know affordable pharmaceuticals and
17:59
all of the things that make it possible
18:01
for them as individuals to live a decent
18:04
life
18:06
and this is this this this is
18:08
this should be beyond any debate i mean
18:11
the fact that we're debating this is is
18:13
quite absurd quite frankly um let me
18:16
jump in i i i would like um
18:19
stephanie or derek or
18:21
to
18:22
talk a little bit
18:23
about
18:25
what goes on in other countries in terms
18:28
of providing
18:30
uh for the basic needs of working
18:33
families stephanie
18:35
if i'm a
18:36
uh a mom in in scandinavia norway
18:39
denmark
18:40
uh and i have a baby uh
18:43
what happens
18:44
well you're gonna have to go to work go
18:46
ahead
18:47
you're gonna have a lot of time off
18:49
senator uh you're gonna have more than
18:51
24 weeks of paid leave if you're a new
18:54
mom and in countries around the world
18:57
fathers get paid leave too there are
18:59
only 83 countries in the world and we're
19:02
of course one of them who doesn't offer
19:04
paid leave to new fathers when it comes
19:06
to new mothers the us is one of just
19:09
seven countries around the world that
19:12
doesn't uh
19:13
offer as a right paid maternity leave i
19:16
mean some of these countries that that
19:18
are like us are so tiny they're little
19:20
island nations you can barely find them
19:22
on the map in other words virtually the
19:24
entire world has found a way to do this
19:26
and we are the outlier here at a
19:29
whopping zero weeks of paid leave for
19:32
new mothers it's a national
19:33
embarrassment
19:35
and in terms of healthcare care there
19:37
how many major countries on earth do not
19:40
guarantee health care to all people is
19:42
right
19:43
well of the
19:44
leading economies in terms of income i
19:46
know of only one that would be us uh
19:49
which is sad um
19:51
but uh you know
19:53
in terms of some optimism
19:55
social movements are pushing us
19:59
i'm optimistic we can get there so you
20:01
know this there is some silver lining in
20:03
this pandemic in that we showed what
20:06
government can do and then you know the
20:08
other big point is that this didn't just
20:10
happen there were social movements that
20:12
have been building so all this stuff is
20:15
going on in other countries this
20:17
inequality uh and despair it's not
20:20
natural it's not inevitable they're
20:22
actually things we can do and i'm glad
20:24
you're pointing to international context
20:27
as examples and we can even look
20:29
historically in our own country as at
20:31
least some inklings of examples that we
20:33
can actually do this and stimulate the
20:35
economy at the same time
20:38
okay let me jump to one of the issues
20:41
which
20:42
many parts of the country are wrestling
20:44
with
20:45
right now and that's labor shortage
20:48
okay
20:49
go to my state of vermont or the city i
20:51
live in
20:52
shop after shop workers wanted uh you
20:55
know
20:56
uh bonuses etc etc why do we have
21:00
uh a labor shortage today
21:06
you know let's even add a little context
21:08
you you can have a scenario of no jobs
21:11
you can have a scenario of good jobs and
21:14
a scenario of bad jobs
21:16
so the fact that we see some workers
21:18
willing to negotiate for better terms
21:21
and not willing to put up with with
21:23
anything that an employer offers them
21:25
that's not a bad thing that's a good
21:26
thing and and i'm grateful for an
21:29
expansive social safety net like during
21:31
the pandemic offering extended
21:33
unemployment benefits so people don't
21:35
just have to take anything i think the
21:37
key phrase is we want good jobs we want
21:40
jobs with dignities we want job with
21:43
living wages we want safe jobs if
21:46
otherwise a bad job might be worse than
21:48
no job
21:50
stephanie thoughts on that yeah i think
21:52
that's exactly right i think it's
21:55
in many cases i think we would all
21:57
probably agree that it's not a labor
21:59
shortage it's that employers are not
22:01
offering the wages and benefits that it
22:04
would require uh be required to bring a
22:06
person back into the labor force in the
22:08
middle of still an ongoing pandemic and
22:10
we've all seen the images on tv who
22:13
wants to you know wait tables or work in
22:16
a hotel when you see in some cases
22:19
people being very abusive to wait staff
22:21
you've got anti-massacres out there you
22:23
see people getting spit on and punched
22:25
in the face we're asking a lot of these
22:27
people to take many of these jobs where
22:30
they have to deal with a population many
22:32
of whom just frankly behave very badly
22:35
it's scary you're in a pandemic you got
22:37
to deal with hostile people sometimes
22:39
and you do it for really uh crappy wages
22:43
not to mention the danger of getting
22:45
covered being exposed to government
22:49
yeah i i think that the
22:51
the expression labor shortage i want to
22:53
be retired
22:54
i i think it's it's an expression that
22:56
is put out by the us chamber of commerce
22:59
and other groups that want to deflect
23:02
attention from what's really going on
23:04
it's not a labor shortage it's a
23:05
shortage of of decently paid job livable
23:08
wages it's a shortage of of jobs that
23:10
have benefits attached to them it's a
23:12
it's a shortage of uh of people who who
23:15
have uh the kind of child care they need
23:18
in order to get the jobs it's a it's a
23:20
shortage of safety and safe jobs i mean
23:23
a lot of american workers right now are
23:25
waking up to the fact that they live in
23:27
a system that has the cruelest form of
23:29
capitalism in the world and treat
23:31
average workers the worst of workers
23:34
that are in any other advanced country
23:36
and they're saying to themselves look
23:38
we're not going to take it anymore you
23:39
know like in that old film i'm not going
23:41
to take it anymore people are saying i'm
23:43
either going to go on strike
23:45
or i'm going to look for a better job
23:47
or i'm going to quit i'm just i don't
23:49
have to do this i don't work uh you know
23:52
i i don't live to work i work to to live
23:56
uh and a lot of people are reconsidering
23:58
particularly after this horrific
24:00
pandemic a lot of people are just simply
24:02
reconsidering their lives
24:04
i mean if i could jump in real quick
24:07
we'd be remiss to not point out
24:10
race and gender when we think about
24:12
unemployment numbers the black
24:14
unemployment number is still 7.9
24:18
so
24:18
that would hardly classify as
24:21
a low unemployment and then we'd also be
24:24
remiss to not point out that
24:26
the
24:27
employment the population rate is still
24:29
below 60
24:31
so there's still 40 percent of people
24:33
that are out of the labor force
24:34
altogether for example uh so the the
24:37
numbers themselves obviously everybody
24:40
agrees that the the criteria isn't just
24:42
any job it's a good job but even if we
24:45
use the criteria of no job is you know
24:47
these numbers need to be put in context
24:50
and and one more thing senator i think
24:52
we need to do away with the term natural
24:54
rate of unemployment altogether what
24:56
does that mean it's a moving target
24:58
that's almost a political jargon that is
25:02
put forth of course we could talk about
25:03
econ 101 what what natural rate of
25:06
unemployment means but at the end of the
25:08
day the natural rate of unemployment is
25:10
anybody who desires a job has a job
25:15
all right as all of you have mentioned
25:17
congress president
25:21
now in the middle of a fierce underlying
25:23
word fierce debate
25:26
over a reconciliation package called
25:28
build back
25:30
beta
25:31
uh why should we pass that legislation
25:34
what should it have
25:35
in it stephanie
25:37
well it at a minimum it should have had
25:40
what you envisioned when the agreement
25:42
was 3.5 trillion dollars which
25:45
i i mean i was with you all the way
25:47
senator i that to me that was a
25:49
compromise number i thought 6 trillion
25:52
was a much better number and to be
25:54
honest i did a piece for the new york
25:55
times in which i thought 10 trillion was
25:58
an even better number so
26:00
what should be in it a lot more climate
26:02
to start with but uh look there were
26:05
some very good things and that three and
26:07
a half trillion dollar proposal and
26:09
again i think it's important to remind
26:11
people that this is over 10 years so it
26:14
is frankly a modest proposal 350 billion
26:18
dollars is not a lot of money in an
26:21
economy that is going to generate some
26:23
300
26:24
trillion dollars over the next decade
26:27
this is modest okay
26:29
so but but in spite of the fact that
26:32
it's modest there were some really good
26:33
things that you wanted to do including
26:35
paid family and medical leave at 12
26:38
weeks which would bring us much closer
26:41
to what the
26:42
international community already does um
26:45
you know much more on the climate side
26:48
that was important on health care you
26:50
wanted dental hearing and vision and
26:52
expansion of medicare this should be a
26:54
no-brainer the negotiation of
26:56
prescription drug prices something
26:58
virtually the entire population
27:00
understands and supports and the list
27:03
goes on so there there were so many
27:05
things i think the investments in
27:06
climate for me personally come very
27:09
close to the top and the expansion of
27:10
the child tax credit that has to be
27:13
given priority in this legislation you
27:15
did it once you lifted almost half of
27:17
the kids in this country out of poverty
27:19
why on earth would you let them slip
27:21
back in
27:23
well i just want to reiterate what
27:25
stephanie just said
27:26
and i think it doesn't get a lot of
27:28
attention and people may not appreciate
27:32
what we accomplished but this is what
27:34
good public policy can do for years all
27:37
of us bob you and i and
27:40
derek and stephanie have been talking
27:42
about the outrageously high level of
27:44
childhood poverty in america correct
27:46
richest country on earth
27:48
we have the highest rate of childhood
27:50
poverty of almost any major country on
27:52
earth and you know what we did with that
27:54
one bill
27:55
we cut childhood poverty in almost half
27:59
and in minority communities probably
28:01
more than half that's pretty good
28:04
that's pretty good
28:05
and that just gives you an indication
28:08
of what good public policy can do
28:12
um
28:14
uh
28:15
bob uh derek want to jump in on
28:17
buildback better
28:18
thoughts what do we do derek
28:21
yeah i mean
28:23
we said it already inclusive economic
28:25
rights that's the framework we need
28:27
tuition-free public colleges and
28:29
universities we need to cancel student
28:32
debt i mean when we tell people to
28:34
better themselves by going to college we
28:37
shouldn't saddle them with the albatross
28:39
of debt that's immoral it's immoral um
28:42
we we obviously need to build up our
28:44
public infrastructure both physical and
28:47
human infrastructure we need to as
28:49
stephanie pointed out make ourselves
28:51
more resilient to the climate change
28:54
which is certainly going to have
28:56
ramifications in terms of of of
28:58
inequality those marginalized
29:00
populations that that are ill-equipped
29:02
to deal with the fluctuations in climate
29:05
are going to feel it worse no fault to
29:07
their own and then we also need to build
29:09
up our human infrastructure so we need
29:11
care work we need to have things like
29:13
paid family leave and then you know i'm
29:15
going to end by saying that
29:18
there's good news i'm going to say that
29:20
the work that you've been doing senator
29:22
that this stuff the fact that we're
29:24
considering changing our tax code to
29:27
directly offer people refundable tax
29:30
credits in the form of a child tax
29:32
credit you know this is the 20th
29:34
anniversary year welfare reform this is
29:36
a marketed change from when we tried to
29:40
make poor people jump through all these
29:42
unnecessary hoops by discipline them
29:45
providing all all sorts of punitive
29:47
disciplining approaches to to just uh
29:50
live with dignity we're now in a
29:52
framework where we're using our biggest
29:54
fiscal tool which is our tax code we're
29:57
rethinking it we're recognizing that it
29:58
goes well beyond revenue collection that
30:01
through that tax code we can literally
30:03
eliminate poverty we can literally
30:05
eliminate poverty for children hell we
30:07
can eliminate poverty for everyone we
30:09
have the capacity to do so
30:12
bob correct me if i'm wrong you're at
30:14
the university of california berkeley
30:16
50 years ago
30:18
you see
30:19
university of california was virtually
30:21
tuition free wasn't it
30:24
it was and i was there 50 years ago
30:28
it was tuition free but look you know a
30:30
lot of people ask all the time i hear
30:33
well can we afford it as a nation can we
30:35
afford buildback better can we afford
30:37
you know 2 trillion or 3 trillion or
30:40
1.75 trillion dollars whatever the final
30:42
tab is how can we afford it but you know
30:45
these numbers mean nothing out of
30:46
context
30:48
you know over the next 10 years the
30:50
military bill is eight trillion dollars
30:53
eight trillion does anybody say can we
30:55
afford eight trillion dollars does
30:57
anybody say we oh look at the uh look at
30:59
the possible inflationary impact of
31:02
eight trillion nobody nobody says that
31:05
well
31:05
funny you mentioned that bob i can
31:08
interrupt you this week
31:09
wednesday i believe there's going to be
31:11
a vote
31:12
on the defense budget
31:15
and uh it's going to be
31:18
25 billion
31:20
more
31:21
than what biden originally asked for
31:24
okay
31:25
and i think we're going to throw in
31:26
another 52 billion
31:29
with no strings
31:30
attached for the micro
31:32
uh chip
31:33
in industry and you know it's going to
31:35
be paid for
31:37
i guess it'll just be added to the
31:39
deficit but uh that's the way life goes
31:42
it'll be a bipartisan bill but you know
31:44
just in terms of in terms of our
31:46
priorities
31:47
uh you know it's one thing to say
31:49
military is more important than child
31:51
care and child poverty and k-12 and and
31:55
affordable education and affordable
31:57
health care you know you can have a big
31:58
debate about that but but when you
32:01
consider that
32:02
starting with a pandemic you know in
32:05
march of 2020
32:07
extending through now
32:09
the 750
32:11
billionaires in america increased their
32:14
wealth
32:15
by 2.1 trillion dollars that would be
32:18
enough just there they they could pay
32:21
for the entire build back america build
32:24
back better program they could pay for
32:26
that and still be as rich as they were
32:28
at the start of the pandemic i mean this
32:30
is this is ludicrous that we're having a
32:32
debate about this you know i mean elon
32:35
musk
32:37
i don't i i
32:38
asked myself not to bring him up
32:40
tonight he bubbled up elon musk alone
32:44
the richest man in the world i mean he
32:46
could he could easily easily afford uh
32:49
you know
32:50
everybody universal child care universal
32:52
health care
32:54
things are so out of whack senator uh in
32:57
terms of our priorities and our funding
33:00
right now that it's hard to know even
33:02
where to begin
33:05
well what i can tell you is that many of
33:08
my colleagues
33:09
live in a very deep deep bubble
33:13
very separated from the realities of the
33:15
world
33:16
and the people they come in contact with
33:18
have a very very different outlook
33:21
than what you have described bobbin what
33:23
we all
33:24
uh share can i ask you
33:27
if i can i just want to tell you a story
33:28
as a as a practicing politician
33:31
you know i go around the state of
33:33
vermont a lot and you often talk to
33:35
people veterans older people and i said
33:38
you know you know we have veterans
33:39
programs you're entitled to this you're
33:41
entitled and you know what people say to
33:43
me you know what people say to me
33:45
they say well yeah i know i'm entitled
33:47
but i kind of think there are other
33:49
people who need it more than i do i
33:50
don't need it that badly yeah i'm
33:52
entitled to it you come here on capitol
33:54
hill and you got these billionaires who
33:57
in some years don't pay a nickel in
33:59
federal taxes corporations that enjoy
34:01
all kinds of loopholes and you know what
34:04
they want more and more and you cannot
34:08
satisfy them and they buy politicians
34:10
and they buy institutions it's really
34:12
quite a remarkable
34:14
thing to see greed
34:16
in action when you see ordinary people
34:18
saying well you know other people maybe
34:20
need it more than i do i'll tell you
34:22
what's the choice when i was labor
34:24
secretary i used to go around the
34:26
country uh to
34:28
working class places i was i spent a lot
34:30
of time in west virginia for example i
34:32
spent a lot of time in in arizona and
34:34
ohio and i'd have these meetings with
34:36
with working people and i'd say what do
34:38
you need what do you care concerned
34:39
about they talk about their wages they
34:41
talk about child care they talk about
34:43
the cost of education they talk about
34:45
all these things and i see
34:47
now i don't understand it senators from
34:50
these places
34:51
some of them even democratic centers
34:53
from places like shall we say west
34:55
virginia where the people i know are
34:58
desperate they need a lot of assistance
35:02
and yet you have
35:04
people representing them in in
35:06
washington who don't
35:08
get it who who either don't get it or
35:10
what are they responding to what are
35:12
they responding to
35:15
well
35:16
i know what they're responding to
35:18
but we won't i think i know what they're
35:20
responding to
35:22
all right um we got a bunch of questions
35:24
that have come in
35:27
um
35:28
danielle asks will the child tax credit
35:32
be extended beyond december
35:34
it has been a huge help
35:36
uh danielle that has everything to do
35:38
whether the reconciliation buildback
35:40
better
35:41
bill is passed some of us wanted to make
35:45
that uh child tax credit permanent
35:49
uh that is that 300 a month per child
35:52
which has gone so far in helping to
35:54
reduce childhood poverty we'd like to
35:56
make it permanent we wanted to make it
35:58
10 years we wanted to make it five years
36:00
i think we're down to extending it right
36:02
now for one year pretty pathetic but
36:05
better uh than nothing
36:07
um
36:10
here's a good question from rachel
36:13
uh and we touched a little bit about it
36:15
but it's it's huge
36:16
how does climate change impact the
36:18
economy
36:21
who wants to jump in on that one
36:24
well let me just say
36:26
and this is part of a much larger answer
36:28
but
36:30
when the congressional budget office
36:32
measures the costs
36:34
of a policy proposal as it's doing now
36:37
with buildback better
36:39
it does not measure the cost of doing
36:41
nothing
36:43
climate change is a typical example uh
36:46
yeah there is going to be some cost
36:47
associated with a variety of measures
36:50
to try to control and contain climate
36:53
change but if we don't do anything
36:56
the cost of flooding
36:58
the cost of hurricanes
37:00
sea that increase in the sea levels
37:03
wildfires
37:05
the cost of of of the destruction of of
37:08
our
37:09
physical capacity in this country and
37:12
the planet as a whole is incalculable
37:17
i mean not to mention drought and crop
37:20
production etc uh anyone else want to
37:23
jump in derek i mean certainly
37:24
volatility is bad for the economy
37:26
uncertainty but but you know we're
37:29
losing the north star if we don't have a
37:31
planet we don't have an economy health
37:34
is inseparable from our economic
37:36
well-being so to me you me it is
37:38
somewhat obvious i mean in terms of
37:40
inequality we know those that are most
37:42
vulnerable will suffer the most we it
37:44
always happens i mean we can we can see
37:47
climate gentrification happening right
37:49
now we can look at places in florida
37:51
where central areas now are housing
37:55
prices are skyrocketing so uh black
37:58
populations that might have been located
37:59
in certain areas now facing sky
38:02
rocketing prices because the coastal
38:05
areas are more vulnerable so
38:07
you know the simple answer is first and
38:09
foremost our well-being needs to be
38:12
taken care of if we're going to talk
38:13
about any type of economy
38:17
okay
38:18
um
38:23
here's a question
38:25
um
38:27
it's from uh matthew
38:29
uh do you have any words of
38:31
encouragement in regards to the economy
38:33
and younger
38:34
generations
38:36
i am 18 and already feel so let down
38:41
i mean here again this is where optimism
38:43
comes in it is our economy so young
38:46
people have capacity to change things
38:48
young people through their political
38:50
organization can agitate and and lead to
38:53
change so you know i kind of push that
38:55
question back on matthew and say seize
38:58
your economy politicians work for you
39:01
so seize it own it and then reimagine
39:04
the society that you want the despair
39:07
that we currently have is not inevitable
39:09
we really can have change
39:12
all right bob and stephanie i couldn't
39:14
care
39:16
yeah i couldn't agree more i think one
39:18
of the one of the hidden weapons
39:21
that the radical right and corporate
39:24
america is using
39:26
is to
39:27
make people fatalistic
39:30
and resigned
39:32
and
39:33
just overall cynical about the
39:35
possibilities for positive social change
39:38
young people what i love about teaching
39:40
young people and stephanie and derek i'm
39:42
sure you have had exactly the same
39:43
experience is that there is not the same
39:46
degree of cynicism and fatalism and and
39:49
and kind of resignation that you get in
39:51
the rest of the country right now you
39:53
have young people who say essentially
39:55
i'm going to change everything i i think
39:58
i do have the power we have the power my
40:00
generation has to live with some of
40:02
these problems for the next 60 70 80
40:05
years and we're not going to allow it to
40:07
happen and derek you're exactly right
40:09
this economy belongs to people we don't
40:12
work for the economy the economy should
40:13
be working for us and the same with
40:15
politics
40:16
stephanie you were you know you teach
40:18
young people every day what's your sense
40:20
of where they're coming from there i
40:22
think that we're all feeling the same
40:24
way in the classroom interacting with
40:25
our students that young people are the
40:28
source of hope they are still optimistic
40:31
i i think matthew you know you you could
40:34
maybe take comfort in knowing that many
40:36
people who are in your age category um
40:40
are prepared to step up and say this is
40:43
not the world that we're going to allow
40:45
you to leave to us we have to grow up in
40:48
this space and we intend to make the
40:51
changes that are going to make this a
40:52
livable planet an economy that works for
40:55
all of us and they're prepared to stand
40:57
up i think they're prepared to stand up
40:59
and fight i think they're prepared to
41:01
turn out and vote and what i hear from
41:03
young people more and more is that
41:06
they're not going to sit back and sit
41:08
this one out that they understand
41:09
especially where climate is concerned
41:12
that their futures really are on the
41:13
line
41:15
me commit to justice simply because it's
41:17
the right thing to do and through
41:19
collective efficacy young people really
41:21
can make change
41:23
okay we have a question from alex
41:26
and he asks
41:28
how are billionaires able to continue to
41:31
avoid paying taxes
41:34
well i'll try i'll try that one first uh
41:37
one of the techniques i mean there are
41:39
many techniques one technique is
41:40
political that is they we've been
41:42
talking about it uh their platoons of
41:44
lawyers and lobbyists go to washington
41:47
and they basically get loopholes and
41:49
then they jump through the loopholes and
41:50
so they don't have to pay taxes what
41:52
they're also doing is borrowing against
41:55
their fortunes
41:57
using their money their huge amount of
41:59
money as what's called collateral
42:02
to the purpose of borrowing from banks
42:04
their their living expenses and no
42:06
matter how lavish their living expenses
42:08
are that does not count as income i mean
42:11
you know last year for example jeff
42:13
bezos had a quote unquote income of 81
42:17
000
42:19
now that's 81 000 that's that's what he
42:22
took
42:23
from his company but actually he lives
42:26
on stocks and stock auctions the same
42:29
thing is true of elon musk elon musk
42:32
recently said he thought it was very
42:33
unfair a billionaire's tax or a tax on
42:36
on very very wealthy people would be
42:38
very unfair because he actually doesn't
42:41
get an income uh he doesn't get an
42:43
income he said so it'd be unfair uh he
42:45
would have to take money out of his out
42:47
of his stock portfolio poor fellow
42:50
you see this is what they do
42:52
they get around the income taxes by
42:55
borrowing against their fortunes and
42:58
that's why a wealth tax is critically
43:01
important
43:03
the things that bob is talking about are
43:05
obviously important these are
43:07
loopholes like the carried interest
43:09
loophole things like step up of basis
43:11
which bob was just describing but
43:13
there's also in addition to their legal
43:16
ways in which they avoid paying taxes
43:18
you know we don't know because we don't
43:20
audit them in the numbers that we ought
43:22
to be auditing and so even enforcing the
43:25
tax laws that are already on the books
43:26
we don't do a good enough job and so
43:29
many of them get away with paying less
43:30
because frankly they don't think they're
43:32
going to get caught if they don't
43:34
disclose all of the income so one of the
43:36
things that you know you senator and and
43:38
others have been talking about is giving
43:40
the irs more resources to work with so
43:43
they can go after tax cheats and that
43:45
would cut down on on at least some of
43:47
this as well
43:48
and there are estimates that we could
43:50
raise many many hundreds of billions of
43:53
dollars every single year
43:55
by getting the irs the irs commissioner
43:58
testified that the tax gap the
44:01
difference between what people pay and
44:03
what they should be paying he put the
44:05
estimate at a trillion dollars a year
44:08
i know cbo and others suggest that
44:10
you'll capture less than that but there
44:12
is a huge amount of money there very low
44:16
hanging fruit just in terms of enforcing
44:18
tax laws that we already have on the
44:20
books and this is not the the important
44:22
thing is it's it if you if you actually
44:25
give the irs what they need to enforce
44:28
the tax laws it's not that they're going
44:30
to go after the average person or the
44:32
working poor or the or working class
44:35
they right now
44:36
they don't have the resources to audit
44:39
the very rich because the very rich have
44:41
teams of accountants and lawyers that
44:43
are well paid that actually are
44:47
there only to avoid the possibility that
44:50
the irs even gets a foot in the in the
44:52
door
44:53
and that's why they don't want the irs
44:55
to have any more money that's why
44:57
they're voting against giving the irs
44:59
more resources because they don't want
45:01
to be audited you know how many years
45:03
has donald trump told us he was audited
45:05
i think it was what
45:07
what six years
45:08
he said oh no no you can't see my tax
45:10
returns because i'm being audited well
45:12
in point of fact you know all as far as
45:15
we know he was never audited and he has
45:17
again a phallics a huge platoons of
45:20
lawyers and accountants that protect him
45:23
well he ought to be audited
45:26
senator i am so happy that you're to
45:28
cheer the budget committee because
45:30
progressives don't look to treasury
45:32
enough we focus on labor health and
45:34
human services which is important but
45:36
treasury is critical and vital if we
45:39
want to have a progressive agenda so tax
45:41
reform has to be part of our agenda and
45:44
you know our good friend uh stephanie
45:47
who's right here i'm talking about her
45:48
in the third person wrote a whole book
45:50
on the capacity of government to pay for
45:52
things that our monetary system
45:55
investing in our treasured assets like
45:57
its people is something that we can
46:00
actually do and uh you know it's not
46:02
quite a deficit that it's actually an
46:04
investment so she could say a lot more
46:06
about that and then finally i guess i
46:08
don't begrudge and i don't think any of
46:10
us nest will maybe but begrudge wealthy
46:13
people because they're wealthy with what
46:15
the problem is is their capacity to
46:17
intervene in our political process in an
46:20
immoral way that it's naive to not
46:23
recognize that economic power can
46:25
translate into political power and we
46:27
have classes of people with way too much
46:29
economic power that have been able to
46:31
hijack our political system in a way
46:34
that does not allow us to thrive and
46:37
humans to flourish
46:39
you know a hundred years ago justice
46:41
lewis brandeis the great justice lewis
46:44
brandeis uh facing the exact or very
46:47
similar situation we have now the first
46:49
gilded age
46:50
what did he say he said america faces a
46:53
choice
46:54
we can have great wealth in the hands of
46:55
a few
46:57
or we can have a democracy
46:59
but we can't have both
47:01
well his words are equally applicable to
47:03
the second gilded age we are now living
47:05
in
47:07
stephanie
47:09
i think even frankly the billionaires
47:13
know this it wasn't that long ago that
47:15
people like ray dalio the billionaire
47:17
hedge fund manager was saying the
47:19
pitchforks are coming he looked around
47:21
and he said this is too much inequality
47:24
this is intolerable people won't stand
47:27
for it and he actually came out and he
47:28
said we have to have more progressive
47:31
taxes at the top we have to have more
47:33
spending on programs to lift those at
47:35
the bottom we've got to narrow the gap
47:37
or the pitchforks are coming so they
47:40
recognize this is you know
47:43
they recognize that inequality has grown
47:45
so extreme both in terms of income and
47:48
wealth and that it puts the entire
47:49
system at risk
47:52
okay
47:53
let me ask a more mundane
47:56
question but one i know that is on the
47:58
minds of people all across this country
48:01
and i don't know uh
48:03
the question is it's from uh
48:06
i don't have a name attached to it but
48:07
what drives rising gas prices
48:11
uh does the president influence that at
48:13
all in other words people are going into
48:15
a gas station they're seeing gas
48:20
just a few weeks ago
48:21
uh makes people nervous rural states
48:24
people drive a lot
48:26
uh to get to work to come home
48:28
uh why are gas prices rising what can we
48:31
do about that
48:34
well i'll tell you
48:35
my my assessment of why gas prices are
48:38
rising and it's got at least three
48:40
drivers
48:42
one is the global economy recovered a
48:45
lot faster than anyone expected and so
48:47
demand picks up and supply is attempting
48:50
to catch up in terms of production
48:52
one answer is geopolitical and it has to
48:56
do with the fact that countries like
48:57
saudi arabia are using this as an
49:00
opportunity to raise oil prices
49:02
and the third reason is that energy is a
49:05
commodity with a financial ecosystem aka
49:09
wall street
49:10
and speculation and things like oil
49:12
futures have been driving oil prices and
49:16
energy costs significantly higher so all
49:18
of these things together
49:20
are driving energy prices and that then
49:23
feeds into a whole host of you know
49:25
transportation costs and drives other
49:28
goods prices higher as well food prices
49:30
and other things what's happening
49:32
there's also there is also quite a lot
49:34
of evidence
49:35
that oil and gas
49:37
producers in the united states
49:40
face with a choice between raising their
49:43
productivity and their supply
49:45
or letting prices go up for a while and
49:48
actually getting a big fat profit off
49:50
those price increases have chosen the
49:53
latter
49:54
because there's just more too much
49:56
concentration of power in those oil and
49:59
gas producers
50:02
what can the president alright derek do
50:04
you want to remember
50:05
both of those answers spot on the only
50:07
thing i'll add is if we weigh ourselves
50:10
off of fossil fuels if we invest in
50:13
renewable clean energy then we'd be less
50:15
vulnerable to those spikes in energy
50:17
prices
50:18
correct
50:19
uh what can the president do what can
50:22
congress do
50:23
right now
50:25
while we move to transform our energy
50:28
system away from fossil fuel because
50:30
that's not going to happen tomorrow
50:32
somebody's driving 100 miles a day
50:34
they're paying a lot more for gas what
50:36
can we do to help that person
50:39
uh we could tap into the strategic
50:40
petroleum reserve or in fact uh even
50:44
threatening to use that could have a
50:47
positive damper influence on uh fuel
50:50
prices
50:51
but keeping the economy strong is a
50:54
pretty important thing that you can do
50:56
and passing this reconciliation package
50:59
that keeps support going for families
51:01
with kids allows parents to go to the
51:04
gas station put gas in the car have a
51:06
little bit of extra money made available
51:09
through things like the child tax credit
51:11
that does help take the pinch out and
51:13
bringing down other costs for them so if
51:16
they're paying a bit more to fill the
51:17
tank every week or every couple of weeks
51:19
but they're paying a bit less for things
51:21
like child care and other expenses
51:23
college education and so forth then
51:26
that's something you can do to help take
51:28
the sting out of the budget for families
51:31
until oil prices come down i suspect
51:33
they're going to come down
51:34
in the very near term
51:37
yeah i mean economic terms like
51:38
inflation are often used as scare
51:41
tactics and i'm not trying to diminish
51:43
some of the harms and problems
51:44
associated with inflation but at the
51:46
root of it we care about purchasing
51:49
power as stephanie is describing the
51:51
ability to have resources to purchase
51:54
vital goods and services so when
51:56
thinking about the large context what
51:58
we've had over the last 50 years is a
52:00
shift in purchasing power to a wealthy
52:03
class well real worker wages have been
52:05
flat and things like housing prices and
52:08
energy prices have crept up so we need a
52:11
new structure you know where we really
52:12
focus on the purchasing power of of uh
52:16
the working class and and various other
52:18
people not just an elite billionaire
52:20
class if you're paying less for
52:22
prescription drugs less for housing less
52:24
for child care less for education you
52:27
are doing a great deal to help families
52:30
who are struggling with higher energy
52:32
costs
52:34
how does
52:35
you know one of the issues we're dealing
52:37
with
52:38
and build back better
52:40
that all of you have talked about is the
52:41
issue of child care
52:43
so when we talk about child care it's
52:45
kind of a no-brainer that we want to
52:47
make sure that our little kids
52:48
get the best intellectual and emotional
52:51
um
52:53
treatment now treatments the wrong word
52:56
environment uh that we can we want to
52:58
pay child care workers have skilled
53:01
dedicated child care workers or earning
53:03
good wages but what is the impact but we
53:06
don't talk about a whole lot above and
53:08
beyond the needs of the children
53:10
what role does good quality child care
53:12
affordable child care pay play in the
53:15
whole economy
53:16
who wants to jump in on that one
53:18
i mean i think it's always useful to
53:20
begin with the value proposition then
53:22
talk about some of the
53:24
additional economic spillover effects so
53:26
so at the root of it every child should
53:29
be you know we all we a lot of us have
53:32
children and we we should have properly
53:34
cared for children just as a values
53:37
proposition but in addition to that um
53:40
women are often relegated to care work
53:43
so they will have gender
53:45
gender promoting uh attributes as well
53:49
and then people can make a decision
53:50
where they can actually afford to go to
53:52
work and not be faced with a decision of
53:55
well i can't go to this job because i
53:57
can't afford child care so you have
54:00
multiplying effects associated with
54:02
providing child care that can stimulate
54:05
economic activity well beyond the actual
54:08
care that's provided in the first place
54:10
i think that's right the typical family
54:12
today
54:13
with children uh young children is
54:16
spending something between 20 and 30
54:18
percent of their income on child care
54:21
now think about
54:22
cutting that expense out of the typical
54:26
family budget that gives them as
54:29
stephanie was talking about a moment ago
54:31
more discretionary income do the same
54:34
thing with prescription drugs which
54:36
whose prices are just soaring do the
54:39
same thing with all of these expenses
54:42
that people have that would be
54:44
alleviated by the buildback better
54:48
plan
54:49
you know this there is no
54:51
better
54:53
antidote to
54:55
inflation than cutting many of these
54:57
costs
55:01
all right
55:02
uh we are
55:04
uh close to running out of time anything
55:07
that we did not go over that one of you
55:09
would like to
55:10
uh add to the discussion
55:14
derek i see you smiling anything on your
55:16
mind
55:17
i mean in a lot of ways we we are
55:20
reverberating chorus you know i guess
55:22
the the thing that i would want to
55:24
emphasize is that you know we have a lot
55:26
of despair but i see a lot of optimism i
55:29
mean i think we have provided precedent
55:32
the government can actually do good i
55:34
mean the their silver lining associated
55:37
with this pandemic people got direct
55:40
checks from treasury to deal with their
55:42
uh their economic circumstance and those
55:45
checks also produce a vibrant economy so
55:49
so there's a lot of good news here too
55:51
that we can also focus on and talk about
55:54
well i also wanted to mention and again
55:57
the
55:58
we are waiting to see what happens with
56:00
buildback better in the house and then
56:02
it comes to the senate
56:04
uh but as it now stands and i say this
56:08
to the young people out there
56:10
there is a hell of a lot of money
56:12
on a program called the civilian climate
56:15
corps
56:16
and at a time when i think young people
56:19
especially
56:20
uh understand how important it is to
56:23
transform our energy system to make sure
56:25
that the planet remains habitable
56:28
for
56:29
the future generations
56:31
we have
56:32
tens of billions of dollars
56:35
focusing on
56:37
jobs
56:39
for young people plus educational
56:42
benefits
56:43
in order for this generation to roll up
56:45
its sleeves
56:46
and help us transform our energy system
56:49
so when dara talks about a sense of
56:51
optimism that is something that i think
56:54
a lot of young people will feel very
56:55
very good about
56:57
that's great if i could just add to that
57:01
you know we have these two disciplines
57:03
that are artificially separated
57:05
one is called economics
57:07
the other is called politics or
57:08
political science
57:10
they actually are the same
57:12
uh and what young people need to
57:14
understand in fact not just young people
57:16
but everybody watching and
57:18
senator
57:19
bernie sanders you have done more to
57:21
educate people in this country about the
57:23
point i'm about to make than anybody and
57:26
that is that you get an economic
57:29
system that is fair and just because you
57:33
politically organize
57:35
and mobilize and energize people to
57:38
demand that system
57:40
if you don't if you don't have that
57:42
countervailing political power the power
57:45
stays with the wealthy the big
57:47
corporations and the system gets even
57:51
less
57:52
responsive to the needs of average
57:54
people
57:55
yeah that's absolutely right
57:58
bob if i could add one more element to
58:00
that equation politics and economics are
58:03
inseparable but neither is group-based
58:05
stratification that if we want to
58:07
understand how we got to this point
58:09
today it was largely the result of
58:12
demonizing populations
58:14
we're able to be less empathetic towards
58:16
poor people when we racialize them when
58:19
we describe them as welfare queens when
58:21
we def describe them as deadbeat dads in
58:24
other words a despotic leader like
58:26
donald trump has a pathway towards
58:29
political office the more unequal we are
58:32
the more unequal we are the better able
58:35
fascist arguments can come about to say
58:37
that however bad your lot in life is at
58:40
least you're not them at least you're
58:42
not a mexican i'm gonna build a wall to
58:44
protect you so all three of those need
58:47
to be thought about in an iterative way
58:50
and we need to pursue justice first and
58:52
foremost and make sure that when we do
58:54
build back our economy we do it within
58:56
an intentional inclusive way
58:59
i think that is exactly right derek and
59:01
let me
59:02
just
59:03
say one more thing about this and that
59:06
is that if you look at what has happened
59:08
particularly over the last 25-30 years
59:10
but even going way back in history
59:13
the oligarchy that is the richest most
59:15
powerful establishment portions of
59:17
american society
59:19
have wittingly or unwittingly
59:22
played a game of divide and conquer
59:26
they don't want the working black people
59:29
and working white people and poor black
59:31
people and poor white people and
59:33
people of color generally to come
59:35
together
59:36
and look up and see where the wealth and
59:38
power have gone
59:40
they would much rather everybody
59:42
fight each other
59:44
well
59:45
a true social movement and this is what
59:47
martin luther king was striving for in
59:49
his final years as everybody knows a
59:51
true social movement puts everyone
59:54
together
59:55
to seek a better
59:58
life a better
59:59
nation better standard of living a
60:01
better planet
60:05
well you know what
60:07
on that note
60:09
bob just said it all
60:11
uh let me thank stephanie and derek and
60:14
bob
60:15
for
60:16
uh not only for being with us tonight
60:18
but for the great work that they do
60:20
every day
60:21
and let me thank all of you
60:23
who have watched the program
60:26
and the point that you heard you know
60:28
from all of our panelists
60:31
is that you can't sit back and moan and
60:34
groan you can't sit back and say it's
60:36
too bad
60:38
uh the truth of the matter is there are
60:39
a hell of a lot of
60:41
more working people than there are
60:43
billionaires and if we mobilize if we
60:46
come together if we have a vision as to
60:49
where we want this country to go a
60:51
vision which is based on justice
60:53
you know what we can win this thing we
60:55
can win
60:56
but especially in a moment when climate
60:59
change threatens the entire planet
61:02
the one response you cannot have is to
61:05
simply sit back and give up
61:08
and
61:09
allow yourself to live in despair
61:11
that just is not acceptable so let's
61:14
stand up let's fight back let's ki let's
61:18
create the kind of nation and world
61:21
that we know we deserve
61:22
and that we can become so thank you all
61:25
very much see you soon take care thank
61:28
you
61:46
you
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