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I've been in London this week talking to America watchers about the current situation in the United States. First up is Edmund Fawcett, the longtime Economist correspondent in DC and historian of both liberalism and conservatism. Fawcett argues that Trump's MAGA movement represents a kind of third way between liberalism and conservatism - a version of American populism resurrected for our anti-globalist early 21st century. He talks about how economic inequality fuels Trumpism, with middle-class income shares dropping while the wealthy prosper. He critiques both what he calls right-wing intellectual "kitsch" and the left's lack of strategic vision beyond its dogma of identity politics. Lacking an effective counter-narrative to combat Trumpism, Fawcett argues, liberals require not only sharper messaging but also a reinvention of what it means to be modern in our globalized age of resurrected nationalism. 5 Key Takeaways* European reactions to Trump mix shock with recognition that his politics have deep American roots.* Economic inequality (declining middle-class wealth) provides the foundation for Trump's political appeal.* The American left lacks an effective counter-narrative and strategic vision to combat Trumpism.* Both right-wing intellectualism and left-wing identity politics suffer from forms of "kitsch" and American neurosis.* The perception of America losing its position as the embodiment of modernity creates underlying anxiety. Full TranscriptAndrew Keen: Hello everybody, we are in London this week, looking westward, looking at the United States, spending some time with some distinguished Englishmen, or half-Englishmen, who have spent a lot of their lives in the United States, and Edmund Fawcett, former Economist correspondent in America, the author of a number of important books, particularly, Histories of Liberalism and Conservatism, is remembering America, Edmund. What's your first memory of America?Edmund Fawcett: My first memory of America is a traffic accident on Park Avenue, looking down as a four-year-old from our apartment. I was there from the age of two to four, then again as a school child in Washington for a few years when my father was working. He was an international lawyer. But then, after that, back in San Francisco, where I was a... I kind of hacked as an editor for Straight Arrow Press, which was the publishing arm of Rolling Stone. This was in the early 70s. These were the, it was the end of the glory days of Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, the anti-war movement in Vietnam. It was exciting. A lot was going on, a lot was changing. And then not long after that, I came back to the U.S. for The Economist as their correspondent in Washington. That was in 1976, and I stayed there until 1983. We've always visited. Our son and grandson are American. My wife is or was American. She gave up her citizenship last year, chiefly for practical reasons. She said I would always feel American. But our regular visits have ended, of course. Being with my background, my mother was American, my grandfather was American. It is deeply part of my outlook, it's part of my world and so I am always very interested. I read quite a bit of the American press, not just the elite liberal press, every day. I keep an eye on through Real Clear Politics, which has got a very good sort of gazetteer. It's part of my weather.Andrew Keen: Edmund, I know you can't speak on behalf of Europe, but I'm going to ask a dumb question. Maybe you'll give me a smarter answer than the question. What's the European, the British take on what's happening in America? What's happened in this first quarter of 2025?Edmund Fawcett: I think a large degree of shock and horror, that's just the first reaction. If you'll allow me a little space, I think then there's a second reaction. The first reaction is shock and terror, with good reason, and nobody likes being talked to in the way that Vance talked to them, ignorantly and provocatively about free speech, which he feels he hasn't really thought hard enough about, and besides, it was I mean... Purely commercial, in largely commercial interest. The Europeans are shocked by the American slide from five, six, seven decades of internationalism. Okay, American-led, but still internationalist, cooperative, they're deeply shocked by that. And anybody who cares, as many Europeans do, about the texture, the caliber of American democracy and liberalism, are truly shocked by Trump's attacks on the courts, his attacks on the universities, his attack on the press.Andrew Keen: You remember, of course, Edmund, that famous moment in Casablanca where the policeman said he was shocked, truly shocked when of course he wasn't. Is your shock for real? Your... A good enough scholar of the United States to understand that a lot of the stuff that Trump is bringing to the table isn't new. We've had an ongoing debate in the show about how authentically American Trump is, whether he is the F word fascist or whether he represents some other indigenous strain in US political culture. What's your take?Edmund Fawcett: No, and that's the response to the shock. It's when you look back and see this Trump is actually deeply American. There's very little new here. There's one thing that is new, which I'll come to in a moment, and that returns the shock, but the shock is, is to some extent absorbed when Europeans who know about this do reflect that Trump is deeply American. I mean, there is a, he likes to cite McKinley, good, okay, the Republicans were the tariff party. He likes to say a lot of stuff that, for example, the populist Tom Watson from the South, deeply racist, but very much speaking for the working man, so long as he was a white working man. Trump goes back to that as well. He goes back in the presidential roster. Look at Robert Taft, competitor for the presidency against Eisenhower. He lost, but he was a very big voice in the Republican Party in the 1940s and 50s. Robert Taft, Jr. didn't want to join NATO. He pushed through over Truman's veto, the Taft-Hartley bill that as good as locked the unions out, the trade unions out of much of the part of America that became the burgeoning economic America, the South and the West. Trump is, sorry, forgive me, Taft, was in many ways as a hard-right Republican. Nixon told Kissinger, professors are the enemy. Reagan gave the what was it called? I forget the name of the speech that he gave in endorsing Barry Goldwater at the 1964 Republican Convention. This in a way launched the new Republican assault on liberal republicanism. Rockefeller was the loser. Reagan, as it were, handed the palm to Rocket Goldwater. He lost to Johnson, but the sermon they were using, the anti-liberal went into vernacular and Trump is merely in a way echoing that. If you were to do a movie called Trump, he would star, of course, but somebody who was Nixon and Reagan's scriptwright, forgive me, somebody who is Nixon and Reagan's Pressman, Pat Buchanan, he would write the script of the Trump movie. Go back and read, look at some of Pat Buchanan's books, some of his articles. He was... He said virtually everything that Trump says. America used to be great, it is no longer great. America has enemies outside that don't like it, that we have nothing to do with, we don't need allies, what we want is friends, and we have very few friends in the world. We're largely on our, by our own. We're basically a huge success, but we're being betrayed. We're being ignored by our allies, we're being betrayed by friends inside, and they are the liberal elite. It's all there in Pat Buchanan. So Trump in that way is indeed very American. He's very part of the history. Now, two things. One is... That Trump, like many people on the hard right in Europe, is to some extent, a neurotic response to very real complaints. If you would offer a one chart explanation of Trumpism, I don't know whether I can hold it up for the camera. It's here. It is actually two charts, but it is the one at the top where you see two lines cross over. You see at the bottom a more or less straight line. What this does is compare the share of income in 1970 with the share of the income more or less now. And what has happened, as we are not at all surprised to learn, is that the poor, who are not quite a majority but close to the actual people in the United States, things haven't changed for them much at all. Their life is static. However, what has changed is the life for what, at least in British terms, is called the middle classes, the middle group. Their share of income and wealth has dropped hugely, whereas the share of the income and wealth of the top has hugely risen. And in economic terms, that is what Trumpism is feeding off. He's feeding off a bewildered sense of rage, disappointment, possibly envy of people who looked forward, whose parents looked forward to a great better life, who they themselves got a better life. They were looking forward to one for their children and grandchildren. And now they're very worried that they're not those children and grandchildren aren't going to get it. So socially speaking, there is genuine concern, indeed anger that Trump is speaking to. Alas, Trump's answers are, I would say, and I think many Europeans would agree, fantasies.Andrew Keen: Your background is also on the left, your first job was at the New Left Reviews, you're all too familiar with Marxist language, Marxist literature, ways of thinking about what we used to call late-stage capitalism, maybe we should rename it post-late-stage-capitalism. Is it any surprise, given your presentation of the current situation in America, which is essentially class envy or class warfare, but the right. The Bannonites and many of the others on the right fringes of the MAGA movement have picked up on Lenin and Gramsci and the old icons of class warfare.Edmund Fawcett: No, I don't think it is. I think that they are these are I mean, we live in a world in which the people in politics and in the press in business, they've been to universities, they've read an awful lot of books, they spend an awful lot of time studying dusty old books like the ones you mentioned, Gramsci and so. So they're, to some extent, forgive me, they are, they're intellectuals or at least they become, they be intellectualized. Lenin called one of his books, What is to be Done. Patrick Deneen, a Catholic right-wing Catholic philosopher. He's one of the leading right-wing Catholic intellectuals of the day, hard right. He named it What is To Be Done. But this is almost kitsch, as it were, for a conservative Catholic intellectual to name a book after Vladimir Lenin, the first Bolshevik leader of the Russian Revolution. Forgive me, I lost the turn.Andrew Keen: You talk about kitsch, Edmund, is this kitsch leftism or is it real leftism? I mean if Trump was Bernie Sanders and a lot of what Trump says is not that different from Sanders with the intellectuals or the few intellectuals left in. New York and San Francisco and Los Angeles, would they be embracing what's happening? Thanks, I've got the third again.Edmund Fawcett: No, you said Kitsch. The publicists and intellectuals who support Trump, there is a Kitsch element to it. They use a lot of long words, they appeal to a lot of authorities. Augustine of Hippo comes into it. This is really kind of intellectual grandstanding. No, what matters? And this comes to the second thing about shock at Trump. The second thing is that there is real social and economic dysfunction here that the United States isn't really coping with. I don't think the Trumpites, I don't think the rather kitschy intellectuals who are his mature leaders. I don't think they so much matter. What I think matters here is, put it this way, is the silence of the left. And this is one of the deep problems. I mean, always with my friends, progressive friends, liberal friends, it's terribly easy to throw rocks at Trump and scorn his cheerleaders but we always have to ask ourselves why are they there and we're here and the left at the moment doesn't really have an answer to that. The Democrats in the United States they're strangely silent. And it's not just, as many people say, because they haven't dared to speak up. It's not that, it's a question of courage. It's an intellectual question of lacking some strategic sense of where the country is and what kinds of policy would help get it to a better place. This is very bleak, and that's part of, underlies the sense of shock, which we come back to with Trump after we tell ourselves, oh, well, it isn't new, and so on. The sense of shock is, well what is the practical available alternative for the moment? Electorally, Trump is quite weak, he wasn't a landslide, he got fewer percentage than Jimmy Carter did. The balance in the in the congress is quite is quite slight but again you could take false comfort there. The problem with liberals and progressives is they don't really have a counter narrative and one of the reasons they don't have a counter-narrative is I don't sense they have any longer a kind of vision of their own. This is a very bleak state of affairs.Andrew Keen: It's a bleak state of affairs in a very kind of surreal way. They're lacking the language. They don't have the words. Do they need to reread the old New Left classics?Edmund Fawcett: I think you've said a good thing. I mean, words matter tremendously. And this is one of Trump's gifts, is that he's able to spin old tropes of the right, the old theme music of the hard right that goes back to late 19th century America, late 19th century Europe. He's brilliant at it. It's often garbled. It's also incoherent. But the intellectuals, particularly liberals and progressives can mishear this. They can miss the point. They say, ah, it doesn't, it's not grammatical. It's incoherent. It is word salad. That's not the point. A paragraph of Trump doesn't make sense. If you were an editor, you'd want to rewrite it, but editors aren't listening. It's people in the crowd who get his main point, and his main point is always expressed verbally. It's very clever. It's hard to reproduce because he's actually a very good actor. However, the left at the moment has nothing. It has neither a vocabulary nor a set of speech makers. And the reason it doesn't have that, it doesn't have the vocabularies, because it doesn't have the strategic vision.Andrew Keen: Yeah, and coming back to the K-word you brought up, kitsch. If anything, the kitsch is on the left with Kamala Harris and her presentation of herself in this kitschification of American immigration. So the left in America, if that's the right word to describe them, are as vulnerable to kitsch as the right.Edmund Fawcett: Yes, and whether it's kitsch or not, I think this is very difficult to talk to on the progressive left. Identity politics does have a lot to answer for. Okay, I'll go for it. I mean, it's an old saying in politics that things begin as a movement, become a campaign, become a lobby, and then end up as a racket. That's putting it much too strongly, but there is an element in identity politics of which that is true. And I think identity politics is a deep problem for liberals, it's a deep problem for progressives because in the end, what identity politics offers is a fragmentation, which is indeed happened on the left, which then the right can just pick off as it chooses. This is, I think, to get back some kind of strategic vision, the left needs to come out of identity politics, it needs to go back to the vision of commonality, the vision of non-discrimination, the mission of true civic equality, which underlay civil rights, great movement, and try to avoid. The way that identity politics is encouraged, a kind of segmentation. There's an interesting parallel between identity politics and Trumpism. I'm thinking of the national element in Trumpism, Make America Great Again. It's rather a shock to see the Secretary of State sitting beside Trump in the room in the White House with a make America it's not a make America great cap but it says Gulf of America this kind of This nationalism is itself neurotic in a way that identity politics has become neurotic.Andrew Keen: Yeah, it's a Linguistic.Edmund Fawcett: Neurosis. Both are neurotic responses to genuine problems.Andrew Keen: Edmund, long-time viewers and listeners to the show know that I often quote you in your wonderful two histories of conservatism and liberalism when you, I'm not sure which of the books, I think it may have been in conservatism. I can't remember myself. You noted that this struggle between the left and the right, between liberalism and conservatives have always be smarter they've always made the first move and it's always been up to the liberals and of course liberalism and the left aren't always the same thing but the left or progressives have always been catching up with conservatives so just to ask this question in terms of this metaphorical chess match has anything changed. It's always been the right that makes the first move, that sets the game up. It has recently.Edmund Fawcett: Let's not fuss too much with the metaphor. I think it was, as it were, the Liberals made the first move for decades, and then, more or less in our lifetimes, it has been the right that has made the weather, and the left has been catching up. Let's look at what happened in the 1970s. In effect. 30-40 years of welfare capitalism in which the state played ever more of a role in providing safety nets for people who were cut short by a capitalistic economy. Politics turned its didn't entirely reject that far from it but it is it was said enough already we've reached an end point we're now going to turn away from that and try to limit the welfare state and that has been happening since the 1970s and the left has never really come up with an alternative if you look at Mitterrand in France you look at Tony Blair new Labor in you look at Clinton in the United States, all of them in effect found an acceptably liberal progressive way of repackaging. What the right was doing and the left has got as yet no alternative. They can throw rocks at Trump, they can resist the hard right in Germany, they can go into coalition with the Christian Democrats in order to resist the hard right much as in France but they don't really have a governing strategy of their own. And until they do, it seems to me, and this is the bleak vision, the hard right will make the running. Either they will be in government as they are in the United States, or they'll be kept just out of government by unstable coalitions of liberal conservatives and the liberal left.Andrew Keen: So to quote Patrick Deneen, what is to be done is the alternative, a technocracy, the best-selling book now on the New York Times bestseller list is Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson's Abundance, which is a progressive. Technocratic manifesto for changing America. It's not very ideological. Is that really the only alternative for the left unless it falls into a Bernie Sanders-style anti-capitalism which often is rather vague and problematic?Edmund Fawcett: Well, technocracy is great, but technocrats never really get to do what they say ought to be done, particularly not in large, messy democracies like Europe and the United States. Look, it's a big question. If I had a Leninist answer to Patrick Deneen's question, what is to be done, I'd be very happy to give it. I feel as somebody on the liberal left that the first thing the liberal left needs to do is to is two things. One is to focus in exposing the intellectual kitschiness, the intellectual incoherence on the one hand of the hard right, and two, hitting back in a popular way, in a vulgar way, if you will, at the lies, misrepresentations, and false appeals that the hard-right coasts on. So that's really a kind of public relations. It's not deep strategy or technocracy. It is not a policy list. It's sharpening up the game. Of basically of democratic politics and they need to liberals on the left need to be much tougher much sharper much more vulgar much more ready to use the kinds of weapons the kinds of mockery and imaginative invention that the Trumpites use that's the first thing the second thing is to take a breath and go back and look at the great achievements of democratic liberalism of the 1950s, 60s, 70s if you will. I mean these were these produced in Europe and the United States societies that by any historical standard are not bad. They have terrible problems, terrible inequities, but by any historical standard and indeed by any comparative standard, they're not bad if you ask yourself why immigration has become such a problem in Western Europe and the United States, it's because these are hugely desirable places to live in, not just because they're rich and make a comfortable living, which is the sort of the rights attitude, because basically they're fairly safe places to live. They're fairly good places for your kids to grow up in. All of these are huge achievements, and it seems to me that the progressives, the liberals, should look back and see how much work was needed to create... The kinds of politics that underpinned that society, and see what was good, boast of what was and focus on how much work was needed.Andrew Keen: Maybe rather than talking about making America great again, it should be making America not bad. I think that's too English for the United States. I don't think that should be for a winner outside Massachusetts and Maine. That's back to front hypocritical Englishism. Let's end where we began on a personal note. Do you think one of the reasons why Trump makes so much news, there's so much bemusement about him around the world, is because most people associate America with modernity, they just take it for granted that America is the most advanced, the most modern, is the quintessential modern project. So when you have a character like Trump, who's anti-modernist, who is a reactionary, It's bewildering.Edmund Fawcett: I think it is bewildering, and I think there's a kind of bewilderment underneath, which we haven't really spoken to as it is an entirely other subject, but is lurking there. Yes, you put your absolutely right, you put your finger on it, a lot of us look to America as modernity, maybe not the society of the future, but certainly the the culture of the future, the innovations of the future. And I think one of the worrying things, which maybe feeds the neurosis of Make America Great Again, feeds the neurosis, of current American unilateralism, is a fear But modernity, talk like Hegel, has now shifted and is now to be seen in China, India and other countries of the world. And I think underlying everything, even below the stuff that we showed in the chart about changing shares of wealth. I think under that... That is much more worrisome in the United States than almost anything else. It's the sense that the United States isn't any longer the great modern world historical country. It's very troubling, but let's face it, you get have to get used to it.Andrew Keen: The other thing that's bewildering and chilling is this seeming coexistence of technological innovation, the Mark Andreessen's, the the Musk's, Elon Musk's of the world, the AI revolution, Silicon Valley, who seem mostly in alliance with Trump and Musk of course are headed out. The Doge campaign to destroy government or undermine government. Is it conceivable that modernity is by definition, you mentioned Hegel and of course lots of people imagine that history had ended in 1989 but the reverse was true. Is it possible that modernity is by-definition reactionary politically?Edmund Fawcett: A tough one. I mean on the technocracy, the technocrats of Silicon Valley, I think one of their problems is that they're brilliant, quite brilliant at making machines. I'm the machinery we're using right here. They're fantastic. They're not terribly good at. Messy human beings and messy politics. So I'm not terribly troubled by that, nor your other question about it is whether looming challenges of technology. I mean, maybe I could just end with the violinist, Fritz Kreisler, who said, I was against the telegraph, I was against the telephone, I was against television. I'm a progressive when it comes to technology. I'm always against the latest thing. I mean, I don't, there've always been new machines. I'm not terribly troubled by that. It seems to me, you know, I want you to worry about more immediate problems. If indeed AI is going to take over the world, my sense is, tell us when we get there.Andrew Keen: And finally, you were half-born in the United States or certainly from an American and British parent. You spent a lot of your life there and you still go, you follow it carefully. Is it like losing a lover or a loved one? Is it a kind of divorce in your mind with what's happening in America in terms of your own relations with America? You noted that your wife gave up her citizenship this year.Edmund Fawcett: Well, it is. And if I could talk about Natalia, my wife, she was much more American than me. Her mother was American from Philadelphia. She lived and worked in America more than I did. She did give up her American citizenship last year, partly for a feeling of, we use a long word, alienation, partly for practical reasons, not because we're anything like rich enough to pay American tax, but simply the business of keeping up with the changing tax code is very wary and troublesome. But she said, as she did it, she will always feel deeply American, and I think it's possible to say that. I mean, it's part of both of us, and I don't think...Andrew Keen: It's loseable. Well, I have to ask this question finally, finally. Maybe I always use that word and it's never final. What does it mean to feel American?Edmund Fawcett: Well, everybody's gonna have their own answer to that. I was just... What does it mean for you? I'm just reading. What it is to feel American. Can I dodge the question by saying, what is it to feel Californian? Or even what is to be Los Angelino? Where my sister-in-law and brother-in-law live. A great friend said, what it is feel Los Angeles you go over those mountains and you put down your rucksack. And I think what that means is for Europeans, America has always meant leaving the past behind.Edmund Fawcett was the Economist‘s Washington, Paris and Berlin correspondent and is a regular reviewer. His Liberalism: The Life of an Idea was published by Princeton in 2014. The second in his planned political trilogy – Conservatism: The Fight for a Tradition – was published in 2020, also by Princeton University Press. The Economist called it ‘an epic history of conservatism and the Financial Times praised Fawcett for creating a ‘rich and wide-ranging account' that demonstrates how conservatism has repeated managed to renew itself.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

On today's Labor Heritage Power Hour; Bev Grant and Tabitha Arnold Today's labor history: Ike uses Taft-Hartley to break steel strike Today's labor quote: Bev Grant @wpfwdc @AFLCIO #1u #UnionStrong #LaborRadioPod Proud founding member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network

On today's Labor Heritage Power Hour; Bev Grant and Tabitha Arnold Today's labor history: Ike uses Taft-Hartley to break steel strike Today's labor quote: Bev Grant @wpfwdc @AFLCIO #1u #UnionStrong #LaborRadioPod Proud founding member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network

Last time Cora Opsahl was on the show, Michelle Bernabe, RN, KAT, wrote a comment on LinkedIn I thought encapsulated the gist of it all so well. She wrote, “[Cora] first became a mentor/ally through Relentless Health Value episode 372. … It opened a doorway to a whole group of very relentless people.” For a full transcript of this episode, click here. If you enjoy this podcast, be sure to subscribe to the free weekly newsletter to be a member of the Relentless Tribe. I want to start there because it's a nice comment, but it's also a call to action. Think about this and think about it not in the context of being a “stakeholder” and not in the context of being an organization but in the context of humans who work at these various organizations who, combined, comprise the bucket of companies that we lumped together using the old stakeholder word. All of these individuals are making choices every day, and all of these choices, they could be made with integrity and with the patient or member in mind … or not. In real life, right now, the overwhelming majority of members/patients in this country get their clinical care and the pleasure of paying for that care or drugs within the current ecosystem we have here in the USA. For any of us, or all of us who work within that traditional ecosystem, it is up to us to choose our own legacy here. It's probably why you listen to this show in the first place, actually. There are so many RHV (Relentless Health Value) listeners who are pushing for patients against the riptide that is the profit motives of the organization that they work for. It's hard. But yeah, it's all about finding our people and supporting each other. Okay, so let's get to the “between a rock and a hard place” portion of this discussion. Hospitals and ASOs (administrative services organizations)/carriers/TPAs (third-party administrators) often enter into or sometimes enter into what amounts to anticompetitive contracts with each other. Listen to episode 395 with Brennan Bilberry for the rundown on that one. But meanwhile, the CAA, the Consolidated Appropriations Act from 2021, holds employer plan sponsors accountable and responsible to ensure that plan assets are spent prudently, that costs paid are reasonable, and that there's no conflict of interest (COI). This is the definition of what a fiduciary is supposed to do, by the way—prudent, reasonable, and no COI. Anticompetitive contracts between a carrier and a hospital are the very definition of COI. And when that COI results in higher, maybe unreasonable, prices and non-prudent spend, well, plan sponsors are put between a rock and a hard place if they stick with their existing vendors. Rosa Novo from Miami-Dade County Public Schools put this really succinctly on a panel at a 32BJ event recently. She said what amounts to, I have no choice but to actually do the right thing here, for many reasons, but one of them is I do not look good in orange. She said, my personal butt is on the line here. And furthermore, who do class action lawsuits make look bad when their company or CEO or CFO are personally sued over conflicted benefits? See the Wells Fargo lawsuit, J&J lawsuit, etc. It sucks that employers or plan sponsors get put into this pickle by their own vendors. And that's what we're talking about today. This is a conversation that starts out talking about rates (ie, prices), edges into rights (ie, plan sponsor rights), and ends up all about power. And by the way, if you're a plan sponsor, especially in New York City, maybe doing the right thing here means hatching a plan to steer and tier in your benefit design, figuring out how to, for reals, help support the efforts of 32BJ to advantage pretty much every patient near and far. The pushback I often hear to doing something like this often involves the perception that plan members are too rich to care about reasonable prices, prudent plan spending, and COI. And yeah, to state the obvious, these same people are also sophisticated enough to smell a fine opportunity for a class action lawsuit; and also, they probably do care, as more and more studies suggest. Sorry if I just stumbled onto a sacred cow. Cora Opsahl, my guest today, is the director of the 32BJ Health Fund, serving over 200,000 folks. Their ability to kick NewYork-Presbyterian, a big, consolidated, very expensive hospital, out of their network in 2018 enabled them to offer maternity benefits for $40 in total out-of-pocket for members. And also, employees got their biggest raise ever; employers got a premium holiday and a 3% rate increase for a bunch of years after that; and yeah … this is where we start the conversation today. And yeah, it's a freakin' tangled web we weave; and this tale is a perfect case study of it. It makes me even more invested in remembering my own manifesto (that was episode 400) to ensure that I can feel good about what I personally have accomplished and what I have been a part of and the net impact of my own personal actions, since I, too, very often work in the belly of the beast. Furthermore, you will find links to a template health savings calculator for plan sponsors and also a template contract (again for plan sponsors) that 32BJ has made available. More on that in the show that follows. Also mentioned in this episode are 32BJ Benefit Funds; Michelle Bernabe, RN, KAT; Brennan Bilberry; Rosa Novo; Marilyn Bartlett; Cynthia Fisher; Zack Cooper, PhD; Claire Brockbank; Andreas Mang; Chris Deacon; Elizabeth Mitchell; and Purchaser Business Group on Health.   You can learn more at health.32bjfunds.org and by following Cora on LinkedIn.   Cora Opsahl is the director of the 32BJ Health Fund, a self-insured Taft-Hartley benefit fund that sets comprehensive design parameters to ensure the 200,000 members and families of Service Employees International Union 32BJ have easy and sustained access to affordable, high-quality healthcare. Since becoming director of the Health Fund in 2021, Cora has prioritized a data-driven approach to healthcare, focusing on reducing trend; solving the affordability challenge on behalf of union members; and most important, keeping members at the center of every decision. Under her leadership, the 32BJ Health Fund has saved more than $35 million annually—which it has reinvested in new and better benefits, including the first fertility benefit for members—by removing NewYork-Presbyterian hospitals and physicians from its network, transitioning to a new pharmacy vendor and pharmacy group purchasing coalition, and establishing an expanded Centers of Excellence program. Most recently, Cora conducted an innovative medical request for proposal (RFP), stipulating that all finalists must have a signature-ready contract drafted by the Health Fund prior to award. By including the Health Fund–drafted contract in the RFP process, the Fund was able to negotiate an agreement that brought unprecedented visibility and increased accountability to the 32BJ Health Fund benefit. Cora is regarded as an expert in pharmacy benefit management and previously worked at Express Scripts, where she held a variety of roles, ranging from Medicare Part D to operations to strategy and acquisitions. She earned an MBA from Saint Louis University.   06:16 Why is it imperative for employers to do something differently when it comes to being plan sponsors? 09:22 How analyzing claims data allowed 32BJ Health Fund to reshape their benefit design. 12:09 What anticompetitive rights did 32BJ run into that limited 32BJ Health Fund from managing their benefit design? 14:12 How do these anticompetitive rights have quality implications as well as cost implications? 18:43 How did 32BJ Health Fund remove NewYork-Presbyterian from their network, and how much did it save 32BJ Health Fund per year? 19:46 What did the healthcare savings allow the unions and employers to do? 20:46 Study by Zack Cooper, PhD. 21:26 Why rising healthcare costs has pushed 32BJ Health Fund to move beyond benefit design to manage healthcare spend. 24:15 Why 32BJ Health Fund wants to control the contracting process. 26:00 EP419 with Andreas Mang. 27:18 What are 32BJ Health Fund's four non-negotiables? 33:17 Wall Street Journal article on health insurance contract. 35:30 Upcoming episode with Claire Brockbank. 36:14 What is the challenge that exists in our current healthcare environment? 37:43 Cora's advice on how to get high-quality healthcare at an affordable price.   You can learn more at health.32bjfunds.org and by following Cora on LinkedIn.   @CoraOpsahl discusses #fiduciaryresponsibility in #healthcare on our #healthcarepodcast. #podcast #financialhealth #primarycare #patientoutcomes #healthcareinnovation   Recent past interviews: Click a guest's name for their latest RHV episode! Dan Nardi, Dr Spencer Dorn (EP451), Marilyn Bartlett, Dr Marty Makary, Shawn Gremminger (Part 2), Shawn Gremminger (Part 1), Elizabeth Mitchell (Summer Shorts 9), Dr Will Shrank (Encore! EP413), Dr Amy Scanlan (Encore! EP402), Ashleigh Gunter, Dr Spencer Dorn (EP446)  

University of Chicago Law School Robert Newman Reid Professor of Law Alison LaCroix joins Rich and Tina to provide a preview of SCOTUS cases for this new term. Rutgers-New Brunswick School of Management and Labor Relations Assistant Teaching Professor William Brucher discusses the latest dockworkers strike and the Taft-Hartley Act. Emmy and DuPont Award winning […]

Whenever there's a big strike in the news, someone inevitably invokes the phrase "Taft-Hartely Act" when talking about whether or not the president should intervene. But what is Taft-Hartley? How did it come about? And what can it actually do?Nick chats with Erik Loomis, a professor at the University of Rhode Island and expert on all things labor-related.  CLICK HERE: Visit our website to donate to the podcast, sign up for our newsletter, get free educational materials, and more!

Why did ILA union leaders suspend their strike after just 3 days? Some reasons you won't read in the mainstream media. The Union was in a very strong position to gain its demands, the most important being wage catch up and Artificial Intelligence threat to automate away jobs. After just 3 days the shippers also agreed to union's demand for 62% wage hike (over 6 yrs.). Why so quickly as well? My Answer: Biden administration behind the scenes warned the ILA it would implement the Taft-Hartley law to force workers back for another 80 days if the union did not go back to work.  This was the Biden ‘carrot' to the ‘stick' threat of Taft Hartlely. Shippers could easily afford the wage increase but want AI-automation more for long run profits. Now ILA union will resume negotiations in January 15 on the job security AI-automation issue, but without its current bargaining leverage of pre-election and holiday season strike. Second half of show addresses the Sept. jobs numbers explaining why 254k Sept new jobs vs. August's 128k. Media confused as to the change. Listen to my simple explanation for the Aug v. Sept difference

The U.S. economy is breathing a little easier after the International Longshoremen's Association reached a tentative agreement last week with the United States Maritime Alliance. The short-lived dockworkers strike reignited a debate over whether the president ought to intervene, invoking an old law on the books called the Taft-Hartley Act. On today's show, we explain what the Taft-Hartley Act is, why it was created and why it's still scorned by unions. Related episodes:What the data reveal about labor strikes (Apple / Spotify) Why residuals are taking center stage in actors' strike (Apple / Spotify) The never-ending strike (Apple / Spotify) The strike that changed U.S. labor For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

What is the Taft-Hartley Act, and what does it have to do with the longshoreman strike? Find out this week on Business Law 101!   Thanks for joining me for this episode! I'm a Houston- based attorney, run an HR Consulting company called Claremont Management Group, and am a tenured professor at the University of St. Thomas. I've also written several non-fiction political commentary books: Bad Deal for America (2022) explores the Vegas-style corruption running rampant in Washington DC, while The Decline of America: 100 Years of Leadership Failures (2018) analyzes – and grades – the leadership qualities of the past 100 years of U.S. presidents. You can find my books on Amazon, and me on social media (Twitter @DSchein1, LinkedIn @DavidSchein, and Facebook, Instagram, & YouTube @AuthorDavidSchein). I'd love to hear from you!   As always, the opinions expressed in this podcast are mine and my guests' and not the opinions of my university, my company, or the businesses with which I am connected.

Welcome to a podcast where we peel back the layers of deception to reveal the truths lurking beneath the surface. Join host Austin Adams as he delves into the most controversial and pressing issues of our time, challenging the mainstream narrative and sparking thought-provoking discussions. From Engineered Disasters to Global Conflict In this gripping episode, we explore the dark theory behind hurricane Helene being a directed hurricane to target lithium-rich regions. Is there a hidden agenda to manipulate natural disasters for corporate gain? We investigate the evidence and discuss the implications of such practices on vulnerable communities. War on the Horizon As tensions escalate globally, we dissect the recent attack on Israel by Iran, examining its origins and potential consequences. How might these conflicts draw the United States into another protracted war? We analyze the geopolitical landscape and what it means for international relations and security. A Strike That Could Cripple America Turning our attention homeward, we delve into the longshoremen's strike that threatens to shut down America's ports. We discuss how this could cripple the U.S. economy, leading to shortages, price hikes, and widespread disruption. What are the demands, and is there a resolution in sight? Join the Conversation Don't miss out on these critical discussions that mainstream media won't cover. Subscribe now to stay informed and empowered. Follow us on YouTube, Substack, and social media for exclusive content, updates, and more. Thank You for Your Support We appreciate your commitment to seeking the truth and supporting independent journalism. Your engagement makes all the difference. All the Links For easy access to all our content and platforms, visit: https://linktr.ee/theaustinjadams     ----more---- Full Transcription        Hello, you beautiful people and welcome to the Adams archive. My name is Austin Adams and thank you so much for listening today. On today's episode, we are going to be diving deep into some really serious catastrophic situations that have occurred over the past couple of weeks here. The first one being the terrible and horrific Hurricane Helene that has hit several states and just decimated, absolutely decimated the communities there. It's horrible. It's terrible to see. There's All of these videos of people that are stranded on top of buildings. There's firefighters telling people not to go rescue them because it's too dangerous. It is horrible.  On top of that, there's also some speculation and skepticism  similar to what there was in Lahaina  where people don't believe that this hurricane Was as natural as it appeared not the production of it But the path of it and you might be thinking well, that's crazy We can't move hurricanes and what I would say to that is listen to the full episode because maybe you'll change your mind  The second thing that we're going to discuss is going to be will briefly touch on the vice presidential debate. That was just a  Eight hours ago now. We will talk about that, some of the key moments. We won't take too much time on that, but I did wanna just highlight a couple things. And that will be at the end actually, I believe so. Other than that, we will also talk about the seaport strike that is going on,  which could heavily affect  the United States production and ability to provide food.  to provide gas to provide everything and anything that you purchase comes through one of these seaports. Now, these workers are on strike for several reasons, mostly contract negotiations, but also they are hesitant or frustrated that the opportunity of the organization that they're working for utilizing automation.  I have my own opinions about it. I do see their point, but we'll talk about it.  And we'll also talk about what this could possibly do to you and your family and maybe what you can do to get prepared.  Then we will talk about Iran striking Israel  in a  act of what could turn into a very high escalating, , tensions between several countries, including the United States, potentially getting involved as we have had several officials say that we will.  Retaliate on their behalf, which is terrifying.  Alright, all of that and more, but first, go ahead and hit the subscribe button. Leave a five star review.  And if you'd like, go ahead and check out my company, Ronin Basics. Ronin Basics is a Faraday goods company, and we provide several different products that protect you from the modern threats out there in society today. Everything from EMFs, which Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has talked about at length  more recently,  to the Privacy intrusions that are going on between your cell phone, your laptop, every device in your house that has a microphone, tracking GPS, all of those things. So with the EMF side of things, we have EMF blocking Faraday hats. We have beanies and we have phone sleeves that will be in, in just a couple of days. They look just like this. You. Put your phone inside of this beautiful magnetic area here. Slide your phone inside of there. It will eliminate all inbound and outbound signals from your cell phone. All right, now go check out the website. I just did a ton of work getting it updated. I'm very happy with it. So if you've seen it before, go see it again, cause it's way better.  , so go check it out. Appreciate you. Love you. Without further ado, let's jump  into it.   All right. So the very first thing that we're going to talk about today is going to be the horrific hurricane that happened in North Carolina, Tennessee. It is spread across several states, which seems a little unnatural to me. I don't know when the last time there was a hurricane in Tennessee.  Can you remember that? I don't know. Maybe we should ask chat GPT, our  knowledge overlord, what's going on there. So we'll go ahead and take a look at this. There's a tweet that I think really captured all of the damage. So if you're watching here on YouTube, you can actually take a look with me. And if you're not, I will talk you through it. So there is some horrific situations going on and this captures. It in detail. It's just a minute long. So if you're listening  stay with me here, but obviously what this says, I don't know why that's obvious if you're not looking at it The hurricane helene death toll has risen to over a hundred and thirty survivors  Has the death toll has risen to over 130 as survivors. That makes more sense in Western North Carolina. Describe seeing bodies stuck in trees.  Locals are describing the pop apocalyptic scenes on the ground. As the official death toll continues to climb, there were bodies in the trees. They are finding bodies under the rubble. Said local woman, Alyssa Hudson, according to the New York post. Hudson explained how she made it out of her house before it collapsed. Her friends in downtown Black Mountain describe seeing bodies floating in ditches and residents fighting against the rising tide. We were a mountain town, but now we look like a farm town. It's all destroyed. A lot of people won't be back. The total damage from Hurricane Helene is currently projected to be about $34 billion according to Fox.  The following footage was shared by Severe Forecast at Biltmore Village not far from Black Mountain. And here is that video.  Make sure I don't blast you with hurricane sounds.  So there's cars just stuck up in trees.  Restaurants decimated.  One thing that I had seen when I was watching some of these horrible videos was that there was towns that were almost completely under rubble. Almost completely under these landslides that just went above the highest building. And where there used to be a town, there's literally nothing. Nothing. Now could you imagine if this is your city? If your family member is there?  How terrifying. And they're, and they don't have cell phone service. You can't reach them.  You can't know that they're okay.  Now, this isn't the worst of it. I've seen some re some terrible videos.  And guess what? In these videos, there's nobody from the government scene. Nobody, not a single person.  The national guard. Isn't there helping people?  Guess where they are? They're like overseas right now. The National Guard, the same people that are supposed to be here helping our citizens are not here. They're in other places across the world helping other people.  Now speaking of that, one thing that's been frustrating, and I'm sure you can dive into the damage of this Hurricane Helene, and my heart goes out to all of these families. I can't imagine. Even just losing your town, your house, your history of your family,  let alone the amount of people that we're going to find out that are dead as a result of this. It's terrible.  Now there's a few  political plays going on here, which again, is disgusting shouldn't be about that. It should be about helping these citizens.  And one thing that happened was that Kamala Harris was as she's always been. Kamala Harris was dead silent about the hurricane, dead silent about the families that were stranded on top of these buildings, dead silent about the damage that occurred.  Then,  they had the nerve, yesterday,  to come onto the TV, during an interview, at the White House,  and tell the citizens  that they were going, they're going to give the citizens that 1. 3 million dollars, total, combined. For Now, one of the journalists in the audience goes, Billion or million?  And he says, no, no million. 1. 7.  I think it even might be 1. 3. 1.  7 million dollars. Let's be generous here. And just say that it's 1. 7.  That's two houses that got taken out.  They're claiming they're going to use this for 750 dollars to the citizens that are affected. How far does 750 dollars get you in Kamala's mind?  economy.  How far?  Maybe a tank of gas  and a week's worth of food.  Now, one thing they don't seem to consider because they're saying that it's going to be a direct deposit is that the people that are highly affected by this don't even have access to their bank,  don't have access to a grocery store around them,  don't have access to even get gas. There's reports that came in that there was a gas station, one gas station that was in this mountain town where everybody was trying to get out of. And it was empty within hours of people showing up there  and now everybody else is stranded.  I cannot believe the response to this 1. 7 million,  750. If you got affected by this in the same week that we gave Ukraine 8 billion, Kamala  and Joe Biden have now said, they're going to give the citizens of Ukraine. That are affected by the hurricane 1. 7 million 1. 7 million how disgusting of a response. Don't even say that don't even mention the 1. 7 million dollars.  It's a slap in the face to everybody that has been affected by this atrocity. And then speaking about that Kamala three to four days after  three to four days after the hurricane  posted a photo about a briefing about Hurricane Helene.  And one thing that was noticed about this photo.  Is that she's claiming that she's on her airplane. I was just briefed at FEMA by FEMA, Deanne Criswell on the latest developments about the ongoing impacts of hurricane Helene.  We all discussed our administration's continued actions to support emergency response and recovery. I also spoke With North Carolina Governor Cooper about the ongoing rescue and recovery efforts in North Carolina, our administration will continue to stay in constant contact with state and local officials  to ensure communities have the support and resources they need.  Doug and my thoughts are with all those who lost loved ones and those whose homes, businesses, and communities were damaged or destroyed during this disaster.  Now, one thing that you'll notice about this photo, there's a few things going on here. One, she's writing on a piece of paper, a piece of paper that appears to be empty,  appears to be an empty piece of paper.  Yeah, looks pretty empty to me. Number two,  she's wearing headphones.  She's wearing headphones that are not plugged in.  Now, Donald Trump  loved pointing this out,  where he said,  Another fake and staged photo from someone who has no clue what she is doing. You have to plug the cord into the phone for it to work.  Biden and Harris abandoned Americans in Afghanistan. They sacrificed Americans to an open border, and now they have left Americans to drown in North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and elsewhere in the South.  Under this administration, Americans always come last because we have leaders who have no idea how to lead.  Now, when you went and saw the news articles about this,  they were criticizing Trump  for making this accusation. Not criticizing Kamala for faking her image,  for faking caring about these families,  but they're criticizing Trump, of course, for even having the audacity to accuse her of this.  Let's see if I can find that video  of the white house saying they're going to give 1. 3 million.  Let's see if I'm right on 7,  because I'm interested  to families affected.  This was like late yesterday,  the 1st of October.  Let's see.  Statement from Harris  news briefing as Biden responds. Let's  see.  All right. And here it is. Let me go ahead and pull this up for you.  Took a second to find that. Right here is the White House briefing.  And the reporter asks this question here.  And this is where the 1. 7 million comes from.  Hopefully you anticipate getting to some of those areas that have been cut off. Oh, not  to that.  Here we go. Not just by land, but by air as well. And how quickly do you anticipate getting to some of those areas that have been cut off because of the roads being cut off? As quickly as we can.  No answer. Go ahead, Jeff. Thank you, Karine. Mr. Secretary, do you have a sense of how much money it's going to cost, A, to do this relief effort And B, to do the rebuild effort once we get there and how much of that will be covered by insurance companies and how much will be covered by the government. So this is a multi billion dollar undertaking. In terms of the search and rescue and the response, I should note that we already Approximately 1. 7 million in individual assistance that individuals million that individuals will be able to access. I believe it'll be as early as tomorrow. It is a direct deposit into their accounts, but the rebuilding Did you catch that 1. 7 million to these people and they've the journalists. These paid journalists who are shills for the government thought that was so ridiculous, they didn't even register it. And one person goes billion, right? Billion? You're giving 1. 7 billion to those affected by Helene. And he goes no.  Million.  What the fuck are they gonna do with $1.7 million? Let's say there's a hundred thousand families that are affected, and that's very low. There's so many people that are affected by this. Let's probably a million, right? You're gonna give 'em $1.30, $1.70 a dollar in 7 cents, 70 cents,  $1.7 million to those affected, and they'll have it in their accounts deposited as soon as possible. As soon as possibly tomorrow they'll get a $2. What is a million dollars going to do for all of these people affected? And again, the same week that we gave Ukraine 8 billion, the same week, 7 billion to Israel, the same exact week, this man walks up onto that stage and says, don't worry, guys, we're giving our citizens 1. 3 million.  That's going to get, what is everybody going to do? They're going to go to the corner store, walk up to the corner store and get themselves a Gatorade. Hey guys, a refreshment on us. Thanks.  What a slap in the face. Just don't even mention that. Don't mention that figure. 1. 7 million  to hundreds of thousands, millions of citizens that have been, had their families decimated. They've lost all of their livestock. Their family members have been killed.  And you're going to give them 1. 7 million collectively to help out.  Do you want to know who's given more money to this? Their own citizens of the United States. There is a GoFundMe  that was started. And I just let's watch this one more time. So you can hear just how ridiculous this is. And I want to see what the response is of the journalists. Cause they should probably call him out on that, right? You would assume. Note that we already have approved approximately 1. 7 million dollars in individual assistance that individuals million that individuals will be able to access. I believe it'll be as early as tomorrow. It is a direct deposit into their accounts. But the Rebuilding is something that is not for today, but that is going to be extraordinarily costly and it's going to be a multi year enterprise. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Secretary. Two questions. First, about the President's decision to go to Raleigh. Can you give us a little bit of a breakdown as to why he's going to that location, and what he will see, and whether or not he'll be able to see any of the Alright, so literally no response by these propagandists in the audience.  Not even Peter Doocy said something about this. Maybe he was the one that said billion.  Crazy, literally makes no sense.  So 1. 7 million from our own government to these affected citizens from Hurricane Helene. Donald Trump posted this GoFundMe, and there's 3. 7  million, more than doubling the amount that the government's giving out.  3. 7 million by the citizens of the United States that are giving their own money.  And people here,  like Stephen Wyckoff, I believe he's a former senator. I  saw that one, one former senator had Donated about five hundred thousand dollars. So that may be who that was. Let's  okay. So Senator Kelly Lafleur, not sure who this Stephen Wittkoff is, but that's very nice Dana White has given a hundred thousand dollars William Ackman a hundred thousand dollars Bass Pro Shops a hundred thousand dollars Dan Newlin a hundred thousand dollars Christopher Drummond You 25, 000. Kid Rock, 25, 000. That is amazing.  And here our government is sending billions to Ukraine and wants to send 1. 7 million. I cannot stress how frustrating that is enough.  1. 7 million to those affected, those decimated, those family members that were killed. Kamala's on a frickin airplane with airpods that aren't plugged in taking a propaganda photo to send it out.  Donald Trump posted a GoFundMe and gets more than double what the entire government is collectively giving those citizens. . 1.7 million dollars. That's how much they care about you.  I wonder why they're giving 8 billion the same week that they're giving American citizens 1. 7 million. I wonder why. Maybe it's because the citizens that they're going to give that money to aren't going to funnel it back to them. Aren't funding their campaigns. They don't care about the voters.  They do not care about the voters. They do not care about the American public. They care about being elected and more power,  which is why they'll send 8 billion to Ukraine the same week that they spend 1. 7 million to our citizens that were obliterated in a hurricane. But thank God, there's people out there donating to this. So I highly recommend it. It is GoFundMe. com slash support dash hurricane dash Helene dash victims slash GoFundMe. Dash with dash president dash 3.  7 million.  Incredible. Now there's some speculation here,  some speculation around the idea that maybe, just maybe this hurricane wasn't as  natural as it seemed,  as it appeared.  There's some speculation that maybe, just maybe, just like there was in Lahaina, there's some questions around why.  Why this targeted this specific area the way that it did  let's say targeted let's use that word loosely in terms of a natural disaster But if this is true targeted is the right word  the idea  Comes from the fact that some of the towns that were the most decimated in these cities that were affected by this hurricane are also under contract with Blackrock and Vanguard  For lithium mining, liquid gold, the thing that is the next great endeavor for our  humanity,  the most valuable substance today, when it comes to things like electric vehicles, when it comes to things like AI,  these small towns were fighting back against this contract proposed to sell their land for lithium, right? Go back to Lahaina, right? Go back to Lahaina.  He had all these front beachfront properties.  That we're trying to get pushed out by big money from black rock, big money from Vanguard. And they didn't want to sell. That was their property. That was their family's property. That's where their grandparents lived. They're not moving  right. Cue the Wolf of wall street. I ain't leaving. Then  it just so happens within the year before they're supposed to start this lithium mining while also the citizens aren't selling their property.  The entire town gets  obliterated by Hurricane Helene.  You might say, that's a coincidence, Austin. Stop looking for strings where there are none. Tying these two things together. And I would say, I believe you. I agree with you. Until I saw some of these videos and some of the evidence surrounding how they have, since 1947, we have been able to steer hurricanes.  This is a technology that has existed for almost a hundred years.  We're going to watch a video that explains all of that.  But I would just say to you, how many things have we been right about? How many things? Now, it doesn't mean we're going to be right about everything. And it doesn't mean that we shouldn't have skepticism around all of these claims.  But when there's evidence, very specific evidence, just like they tried to gaslight you and tell you that the the  weapons that they used those laser based weapons,  right? The direct energy weapons aren't real. And then I sat here in front of you and showed you video after video of Lockheed Martin and Raytheon boasting about this technology.  Then I show you video after video about how they can start fires with that technology, videos after videos  of all they need to do is put a really high altitude airplane over top of this location and boom, billions of dollars.  How much is a life worth to these companies?  How much is a life worth?  How much, how far would they be willing to go? What's the price tag per head that they're willing to kill  or have die in a natural disaster so that they can make their profits? What's the price tag? Do you think it's 20 grand? Probably not a 10 grand,  five grand.  There's gotta be a calculation just like there is in the auto industry, right? If the amount of fatalities. And the cost for the litigation does not exceed a certain amount per car. They don't update the vehicles. They don't do a recall.  If they calculate go back and watch fight club. It's a great scene about this.  If they calculate  that the amount of litigation that's going to come as the result of not recalling it exceeds the cost. of doing the recall itself, then they will recall it.  Now reverse that. If the amount of damage, the amount of costs, that's going to be the result of a natural disaster like this,  If the amount of profit exceeds what the cost would be  in terms of loss of public trust, in terms of how much they have to pay for Facebook and Instagram and YouTube to censor these topics, like they did with direct energy weapons.  If the amount of that does not, the cost does not exceed the profit. They will move forward. They do not care. It isn't a LLC. It is an entity. It is a corporation, which does not have a moral compass. The only compass it has is how do we continue to have growth year after year regardless of how much  Destruction we leave in our wake. They do not care They want to sit in their high towers the top of the castle  while the peasants are at the bottom drowning in the water that they brought there  So let's watch this video and see if with you think  or at least have any idea The  eyebrow raises that I do. This comes from Greg Reese.  We have had the technology to create control and steer hurricanes for decades.  Project Cirrus is the first official attempt to modify a hurricane. It was run by General Electric with the support of the U S military. The official theory.  Project Syrus, C Y R U S, 1947,  was the first time that there was a concerted effort  to steer a hurricane.  Now it says,  President Lyndon B. Johnson, Southwest Texas State University, 1962 said, let's see if we can get the full quote here, I'm not sure if it gives it all to us and ultimately to control the weather and he who controls the weather will control the world.  He who controls the weather controls the world. Lyndon B. Johnson, 1962 at the Southwest Texas State University.  Okay,  let's move on. Project Cirrus. Project Cirrus is the fir Now, there's a news article that is the Daily News. It says, Destroying a Hurricane. This is from 1947,  September 17th.  This is from the Daily News, the 17th year, Charlotte, O'Malley, Virgin Islands. The destroying a hurricane, the energy expended by a tropical hurricane is enough to drive all the machinery in the world for three or four years. Yet the army, the Navy, and the general electric company are collaborating in a daring meteorological  experiment, which is to determine whether or not the colossal.  that we call a hurricane can be broken by making it precipitate the thousands of  cuts off. I assumed water, right? If the older attempts at rainmaking came to nothing, it is because it is not known how the raindrops are created. Some years ago, it was discovered that unless there is a nucleus, something around which, A moisture can wrap itself. There is can be neither snowflakes nor droplets. The rest now seems simple. Little seeds of carbon dioxide, snow scattered from a plane, serve as much. Nuclei.  Okay. 1947. There's your article. First official attempt to modify a hurricane. It was run by General Electric with the support of the US military 1947. The official theory was that by changing the temperature. Outside the eyewall of a hurricane, which they did by seeding the clouds with various compounds such as silver iodide, a decrease in strong winds will result on October 13th, 1947 Project Cirrus targeted a hurricane heading out to sea.  This says Project Cirrus, first hurricane cloud seeding experiment. The cyclone was historically significant in that it was the first tropical cyclone to be modified as part of a multi year operation called Project Cirrus. In 1946, General Electric scientists concluded that experimentation that dry ice seeding could induce heavy rainfall and thus ultimately weaken storms by cooling temperatures in the eye. To undertake Project Cirrus, General Electric, the United States Army, the Office of Naval Research, and the U. S. Weather Bureau functioned jointly on research and planning. Early on October 13th, 1947, 200 pounds of dry ice were dropped through the storm, then located about 350 miles east of Jacksonville, Florida. While the appearance of the clouds changed, the initial results of the seeding were inconclusive.  Shortly after the seeding took place, the hurricane turned sharply towards the southeastern United States. While the move the leading General Electric scientists later blamed upon the seeding, subsequent examination of the environment surrounding the storm determined that a large upper level ridge was in fact responsible for the abrupt turn.  Of course it was, because then hundreds and people died as a result of your experiment. You're not gonna admit that. Are you? Especially if you're the government.  Now you have to ask yourself, is this the government doing this? Is the government going in there and manipulating these hurricanes to move this closer to this area where they want  the people that funded them to go in and be able to take this lithium? I don't think that's the case, right? This is all speculation, by the way.  Maybe I'm making stuff up here.  Go do the research yourself. But what I would say is it doesn't have to be that it doesn't have to be this big governmental experiment. It doesn't have to be that it has to be four or five executives paying a small team of pilots that, that all go from Blackrock in their private jets  and just so happened to fly directly through a hurricane, by the way, just remembering  There was a pilot that drove  directly through the hurricane. Directly through. I'll see if I can find that for you.  Give me one second.  Alright.  Here is the plane  that flew directly through the hurricane. November 610 Foxtrot Papa.  Now, you can go do research on what that is. Some people are saying that it's an aerial photography company.  Who cares? It's an airplane flying directly through a hurricane. Who does that? Why would you do that?  Maybe they don't even have people doing this. Maybe it's a drone.  They don't need people with stories to tell, and jobs to lose, and indictments to be had to be doing this. They need five to seven executives and two people to pay somebody to fly a drone through this and drop that dry ice or whatever it is that they're doing now 85 years later.  It doesn't have to be this big government conspiracy. It could be five executives wanting to get their fucking lithium out of that city.  And so they pay somebody to fly through it. They pay them to drop this cloud seeding. And then all of the sudden, it decimates Tennessee?  Tennessee? When was the last time a hurricane hit Tennessee?  And then again, radio silence for days by the news. Why is the news not talking about this with the severity of it? Remember New Orleans? Remember Hurricane Katrina?  Everything shut down. They were raising, we were donating in high school, middle school, elementary school.  All over the country was united. And now with this, radio silence. For days. The only reason any of us knew about this. For three days. Was because of social media.  Don't be suspicious. Don't be suspicious. Okay, so there's your airplane, November 610, Foxtrot Papa. Go do some research on it. I don't have the time today to do it. But go check it out for yourself. Maybe I'm wrong.  They definitely flew through this hurricane.  I wonder why.  So all they have to do is fly one airplane through this hurricane, drop this cloud seating, and then all of the sudden,  all of the sudden,  you have a hurricane taking a sharp left turn when it wouldn't have otherwise. Here you go.  Approximately 180 pounds of dry ice was dropped into the clouds. The crew then reported a pronounced modification of the cloud deck, and the hurricane abruptly changed direction and made landfall.  Alright, I just wanted to read this for you because this is the actual facts, he's giving a narrative around it, which is great, but this is the article. October 13th, 1947, a disaster with Project Cirrus. What happened next was the worst case scenario. Instead of dissipating, the storm furiously swung nearly 130 degrees to the west. Very similar as it did with Helene. And smash in the Georgia where it caused $2 million worth of damage. Threats of lawsuits soon followed with Georgia residents Blaming the government in 1947 for the hurricane devastation Project Serious was all but shut down before it truly began, and any research into weather manipulation was re Reddit. Re  reputated Repe Repudiated  . R-E-P-U-D-I-T-E-D. Repu, repudiated, it's a weird word for decades.  All near Savannah, Georgia,  the public blamed the government  Irving Langmuir who pioneered General Electric's atmospheric research department and admitted that the project was about learning how to weaponize the weather. Also claimed the reversal of the hurricane had been caused by Project Cirrus, but the government denied it for 12 years. After a short delay, the project.  Okay, again. Let's go back, he's telling the narrative, but there's facts up on the screen for you. And what this said,  if we can go back, let's see here.  And I do want to tell you the source here, this is Gregory's he's a InfoWars submission guy, like he does a lot of their great videos.  Listen to the narrative, don't listen to the narrative, look up these newspapers. Don't take my word for it.  Don't take his word for it. Go find these newspapers. The Lincoln Journal Star, Sunday, May 1st, 1955. Hurricane seeding. Langmuir and cloud seeding during Project Cirrus in the New Mexico Desert was conducted at regular weekly intervals and Midwest rain begins to fall weekly too. The scientist described another test in October of 1947 where It's he said a hurricane was seeded. It changed course, hitting the city of Savannah, Georgia, doing heavy damage. So that was him admitting that was a cause of that hurricane.  Let's move on. This is the story 12 years after a short delay, the project officially continued and in 1965 Project Storm Fury had targeted Hurricane Betsy for seeding on that day. The storm immediately changed direction and made landfall in southern Florida.  This comes from the Liberty Beacon says yes, the government has experimented with controlling hurricanes. Hurricane Betsy was building strength. It looked like it was aiming for South Carolina, posing no threat to South Florida. But on Saturday, September 4th, the storm whirled to a stop  about 350 miles east of Jackson when Betsy started moving again on Sunday. She had changed directions. The storm plowed through the Bahamas Monday night, then mauled Florida. Or South Florida. A day later, Florida Congress blamed it on Project Storm Fury, but the government claimed that the hurricane shifted before they ever had a chance to seed it. And after two months of congressional hearings, the project was allowed to continue.  In 1997, US Defense Secretary William Cohen, admitted we have the technology to control the weather.  Okay, this comes from DODs News, defense Briefing United States. Department of Defense website January 15th, 2006. It's an article from 2000 or 1997  and it says Cohen's keynote address to the Congress on terror or conference on terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and us strategy at the Georgia center. Mahler auditorium, university of Georgia, Athens, Georgia. The event is a part of the Sam Nunn policy forum being hosted by the university of Georgia. Senator Nunn. Thank you very much. As Senator Nunn has. And indicated he and I have worked for many years along the Senator Lugar. The two of these gentlemen, I feel perhaps the most courageous and visionary have served in the Senate. Let's see if it actually goes into Including earthquakes and volcanoes.  Says Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen. Monday, April 28th, 8 45 a. m. It says Tuffler has written about these, this in terms of some scientists in their laboratories,  Different things. Trying to devise certain types of pathogens that would be ethnic specific. Ooh, imagine that. So they could just eliminate certain ethnic groups and races, and others are designing some sort of engineering, some sort of insects that can destroy specific crops. Others are engaging even in an eco type of terrorism, where they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes  remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves. The U. S. government has placed gag orders on employees of the National Weather Service. In October of 2012, after Hurricane Sandy weakened to a tropical storm, microwave imagery shows a thick red beam.  Now this says that you can the website for this is morphedintegratedmicrowaveimagery.  com C-I-M-S-S version one. The hurricane in the time of this type of energy was 2012 October 27th.  And you can go look for that yourself, but there is this red wave that goes directly at the hurricane  that is going away is dissipating. Then all of a sudden, immediately followed by Sandy growing into a category one hurricane and taking an unexplained left turn into New Jersey.  The push towards alternative energy demands more lithium and according to the US Geological Survey. The United States has over six million tons of identified lithium resources. The majority of this lithium has been identified in Kings Mountain, North Carolina. Kings Mountain is believed to have one of the largest resources in the world, but the biggest problem is that people live there and they don't want their quiet towns turned into lithium mines. People in Cherryville have been pushing against a proposed lithium mine for the last several years, but everyone we spoke with here said it's too divisive of an issue to share their opinion on camera.  Cherryville is a small, quiet town. I think that's good that we keep it small. so quiet. Many don't feel comfortable speaking out against Piedmont Lithium's proposed mining operation nearby. I think we're a silent majority.  I think a lot of people are afraid to say anything about it because they are bringing a lot to the town as far as money. Last year, the Department of Defense entered a 90 million agreement. Okay, DOD enters agreement to expand domestic lithium mining for U. S. battery supply chains. The 90 million agreement entered into the Defense Production Act, Title III authorities, and utilizing funds appropriately by the Inflation Reduction Act will help support Abler Marley's planned reopening of the Kings Mountain, North Carolina, lithium mine to increase domestic production of lithium for the nation's battery supply chain.  Estimates that Kings Mountain will be operational between 2025 and 2030. With Alba Marley Corporation to increase domestic production of lithium for the nation's battery supply chain,  specifically from Kings Mountain, North Carolina, starting by 2025.  This is the same area experiencing what is being described as biblical floods.  While the federal government spends billions on foreign wars and illegal immigrants, they simply cannot be bothered with the health and well being of the American people, especially those living on coveted mineral rich land.  Reporting for InfoWars, this is Greg Reese.  The family's devastation there.  So I think You have three questions to ask yourself about this hurricane and this conspiracy.  Can they do it?  Can they do it? Now we know the answer is yes.  Would they do it? If there's enough money involved, we know absolutely they would do it. Check. Did they do it?  That's the question that needs to be answered, but the first two are answered 100%. Can they do it? Yes. They can manipulate the weather and specifically hurricanes to make this type of movement inward towards shore. They can manipulate it to go where they want it to go, at least in some sense, right? The accuracy of that moving, but it obliterated almost, a fifth of the country towards that lower area.  So can they do it? Yes. Yes.  Would they do it if the price tag is high enough? Yes, absolutely. We know that Blackrock and Vanguard will go to any lengths to make profits.  Did they do it?  I'll leave that one to you. And maybe we'll see some type of evidence that comes out more here in the near future.  So  let's see if there's anything else on that. And then we will move on to the next topic. All right. So there's several people talking about this. There's several clips that have gone. Quote unquote viral about this. And here are some of  those. Let's see if we can  pull it up here.  All right.  This is the one that I probably found to be the best. I'll tell you what I find suspicious as shit, that one of the areas affected by hurricane Helene is the world's largest lithium deposit. And the DOD just entered into an agreement with this company right here to mine lithium for electric cars. Starting in 2025. Now that area is completely devastated. This is a 90 million agreement between the D. O. D. And this company right here to get Kings Mountain North Carolina lithium mine up and running by 2030. If that area has been inundated, it's in a disaster zone. then the government can come in and do eminent domain and they can pay you what it was worth five years ago rather than what it's worth right now. Imagine that your home has turned into a watery lot and the government comes to you and says, Hey, I'll pay you what you paid for it. You're going to take it and you're going to go, right? What do you think is going to happen right here now that they want this lithium mine up and running by 2025 2030 at the latest? Back in 1947 we had the Florida Georgia hurricane or hurricane nine and it was the first hurricane to be targeted for weather modification. What happened was General Electric said, The U. S. Navy, the Army, the Air Force, they poured dry ice into this hurricane using airplanes to see what would happen. Would they slow it down? What happened was it slowed down a little bit, but it turned west really sharp. Let me show you. This is the path that the hurricane took in 1947. Does it look similar to you? Probably not. It's a coincidence, right? Moving on. I'm sure this is just another coincidence, but do you know who owns the most shares in that lithium mine? BlackRock and Vanguard.  Yep, so everything I just told you just from her voice.  Now, the one thing that's interesting about that is the imminent domain conversation, which is the fact that was brought up when it came to Lahaina too. If this is a devastated land, the government can basically take control of that land, claim an imminent domain, pay out those people for that, not based on what is the mineral rich underneath that, the amount of materials that they can siphon from it, which would be the fair market value. But,  what they paid for it five years ago, before this contract was even entered, and before they even knew that there was lithium there.  Sounds like a good reason, and motivating enough for them. To me. Okay.  Let's move on here. But let's touch on this first. Remember that one time where Kamala said that disaster relief should be based on equity?  Also an interesting thing to note. Yeah, remember we talked about that before. I forget the, which hurricane was that. That was for Hurricane Ian. She said that, and here it is.  Oh, shit.  Let's see if we can get it to play from right here. Here we go. It is our lowest income communities and our communities of color that are most impacted and most impacted.  By these extreme conditions and impacted by issues that are not of their own making. And so when  Absolutely. And women. Yeah. And so we have to address this in a way that is about giving resources based on equity, understanding that we fight for equality, but we also need to fight for equity, understanding not everyone starts out at the same place. Yeah. Marxism. And if we want people to drown based on their income. Sometimes we have to take into account those disparities. And do that work. Yeah. Yeah.  That could be your next president, folks.  Alright, now that leads us to our next discussion.  which is about the longshoremen.  I think it was called the portshoremen. Not terribly inaccurate, but also not true. The longshoremen, international longshoremen's association. All right. This guy  is the one kind of leading  the discussion. I  believe he might be like the president of the union or something like that. I'm sure we'll find out in just a moment, but Very chilling words. And if you're an American citizen, this should frustrate the hell out of you, right? All of these unions, these strikes, these, all of this, look, I get it. You have to negotiate for fair wages and there's a certain way to go about that. And having a union is. If you're somebody who works in this type of job, and you also want to decimate the economy for a 50 percent raise on your 150, 000 salary. Now, I'm not saying these guys don't deserve that type of money. I'm not saying that they're in the complete wrong here in terms of making the strike, but understanding what could be the potential outcome for this as a result.  It's pretty terrifying too. Now, maybe you'd put that back onto the longshoremen the organizations that they work for and say, Hey, maybe you should pay them more. Maybe you should stop the automation. We'll talk about all of that, which is the reasons why they actually are going on this type of strike.  Let's go ahead and watch.  But  today's world, it's changing into the future. They're not making millions no more. They're making billions and they're spending it fast as they make it. I want a piece of that for my men because when they made their most money was during COVID. When my men had to go through Go to work on those peers every single day when everybody stayed home and went to work, not my men,  they died out there with the virus. We all got sick with the virus. We kept them going  from Canada, the main of Texas, Great Lakes, Puerto Rico. Now the Bahamas, everybody went to work during COVID. Nobody stayed home.  I want to be compensated for that.  I'm not asking for the world. They know what I want.  They know what they want. And if they don't then I have to go into the street and we have to fight for what we rightfully deserve. These people today don't know what a strike is. When my men hit the  from Maine to Texas. Every single port, a lockdown,  what's going to happen. I'll tell you. First week  be all over the news every night. Boom, boom. Second week  guys who sell cars can't sell cars because the cars ain't coming in off the ships.  They get laid off. Third week  mall starts. closing down. They can't get the goods from China. They can't sell clothes. They can't do this. Everything in the United States comes on a ship. They go out of business. Construction workers get laid off because the materials aren't coming in. The steel is not coming in. The lumber is not coming in.  They lose their job. Everybody's hating the longshoremen now because now they realize how important Our jobs are. Now I have the president screaming at me. I'm putting a Taft Hartley on you. Go ahead.  Taft Hartley means I have to go back to work for 90 days. That's a cooling off period.  Do you think when I go back for 90 days, those men are going to go to work on that pier? It's going to cost the money, the company's money, to pay their salaries it went from 30 moves an hour, maybe to eight.  They're going to be like this.  Who's going to win here in the long run? You're better off sitting down, and let's get a contract, and let's move on with this world. And in today's world, I'll cripple you.  I will cripple you, and you will have no idea what that means. Nobody does.  I love the nice music at the end there. I will cripple you, not I will cripple you, the longshoreman's associate or the organizations that they work for. No, I will cripple the men and women. He even said it in there. I will cripple the car salesman. I will cripple the small business owners. I will cripple the American family trying to get food to their table.  Right now you want to talk about what they're trying to negotiate here, what they want out of this strike.  They want a five year. A five year 50 percent raise. They currently make about 150, 000. They want a five year 50 percent raise 10 percent every year for the next five years.  The other part of this was about automation.  They want to have the companies that they work for stop using automation. Apparently on the previous contract that they utilized, and this comes from a video I watched, I haven't validated the contracts, but allegedly  they want it. The organizations that they work for to promise. They won't use AI promise. They won't use automation promise that they won't take their jobs eventually over time. Like every other industry is dealing with the same thing that we have saw with the writer's strike,  right? How long did it take for them to come to an agreement? Almost a year. It was like eight months, maybe even longer, right?  That's why all the movies sucked for all of last year. So  the question is what's going to come from this, right? And what is the expectation here? Yeah. If you don't move with the times, you're going to expect them to just never use automation, never use AI. And if they do, you're all going to quit.  Doesn't that just  Speed up the use of automation.  China's already doing this. China is already all of their longshoremen, all of their seaports that are taking in all of their goods or shipping it more than likely, if you're in China, all of those are already automated. There's videos out there that you can watch right now. These guys that sit behind the computer and they're working nine to 10 screens, all telling these vehicles where to go and what to pick up and how to move it and all this stuff. So they're hyper efficient compared to what we're doing. How do you expect it to not move that direction? And you're just going to sit on your butt and go, okay,  don't do it. Or I'm going to, I'm not going to work. What is the expectation here? And how is that a solution to the problem? Why not develop a strategic agreement or Alliance or profit sharing agreement that if there is automation, that there is a longstanding percentage of that automation profitability that goes towards retirement funds,  there's one solution. Why not?  Go build out the automation themselves. Why not start a company that then has the ability to, or it has the foresight to  service the vehicles, right? If you have a contract on any of these automations that are then in the future, the first right to contract for the, that money. goes to any previous longshoreman, right? So any of the automation that is being built, any of the maintenance that is being done, any of the assistance that needs to happen on the ports, all of that business immediately goes to the people who were previously hired as longshoremen. Maybe that's their agreement, but the idea that there's just never going to utilize automation and you're just going to outlast technology is just silly. So come to a better agreement,  figure it out in a way that's actually useful because this is not.  These guys are going to cripple the American economy. So let's get some context here. This article comes from ConstructionDive. com, and it says, work stoppages across east and west east and Gulf Coast ports may cause product shortages, price hikes, and delivery issues, construction experts say.  This was published yesterday, October 1st, 2024. It says, as the International Longshoremen's Association went on strike this morning over a new master contract, construction pros across the country are waiting to see how the walkout. which affects ports from Texas to Maine will impact their businesses. The ILA's talks with the United States Maritime Alliance broke down over wages and a total ban on the automation of machinery important to dock work, including cranes, gates, and container moving trucks. According to the Associated Press,  the strike is the first by the union since 1977.  The impacted reports are some of the main points of entry for construction materials, heavy machinery, food, vehicles, chemicals, according to the Wall Street Journal. Material delivery delays could also incur in other regions of the country, according to Manufacturing Dive. Exports of oil, liquefied natural gas at Gulf Coast ports will likely be unaffected due to the ILA has little or no involvement in those operations.  Bill Fleming, Senior Vice President at the New York based consulting firm, Cumming Group, weird name said that impacts of the strike should be felt immediately in the construction industry. Okay, so this is very specific to construction. Combine that with hurricane induced shortages, it starts to bring up. This could be catastrophic. For the U S infrastructure. So  there's a little bit more context. I'd like maybe a little bit more but I think you get the idea. It's all about AI. It's all about automation. It's about eliminating some of their jobs and them wanting higher pay. So not only do you want us to not use AI to lower our overhead costs.  You also want us to pay you more, which is only again, going to speed along the automation track. Automation is not going away.  What is going to go away is the people who don't jump on board with helping to build that future,  right? If you were somebody who is I don't know, what's a good example of an old job that is lost. If you were a  factory worker in building Model Ts  by hand. You probably weren't going to  decide not to work anymore once they decided to bring in some machines, right? If you were a horse and buggy taxi driver, you're not gonna decide not to drive a car, right? There's a new way to do what you do and to help push along the production line.  You just have to figure out what that part is. And see it soon enough to play a part, right? Don't fight against this. It's going to, it's going to happen. There's going to be automation, right? Maybe you get your raise because you add more skills around automation. Not just eliminate it, the use all together, right? Seems silly to me and the fact that they're going to shut down our country over some Ridiculous claim that there's going to not be any automation or AI integrated into this type of industry is ridiculous It's never gonna happen There's always going to be the next best thing and movement in industry and for them to say we're going to Cripple small business owners. We're going to cripple small businesses Young families, we're going to cripple the entire us economy until we get our way. We get a 50 percent rate, a 50 percent salary increase off of our 150, 000 a year salary. I'm not saying they don't deserve that. They deserve that. And they probably deserve more. It's a freaking hard job. It's a crazy difficult job. I'm not discounting that. But what I am saying is that you can't fight back against automation.  It's going to happen.  And if you don't do it, your company is going to go under. Because another company is going to come in and do it at a lower cost. Or they're going to outsource that work to other people and you're just going to lose your job altogether.  So that's where we're at with that. Now there's people sounding the alarm. There was lines outside the door at Costco yesterday, people bulk purchasing toilet paper and dry goods so that if, and when the supply chain fails over the next couple of weeks that they have what they need. Now, I'm not saying you need to go do that. I'm not saying not to do it, probably a good idea, always to have reserves of food,  reserves of water, reserves of gas, I'm not sure if there's a way to really do that, but if there was, you should probably do that generators, all of that stuff, guys just, if we've learned anything over the last four to five years, there is going to be some sort of catastrophic event that cuts us off from the grid, there's going to be supply chain shortages, COVID was just  a glimpse into that.  Maybe start to do something about that. Not specifically because of this, but just because you should, right? Because if it's not, this is going to be something else  be prepared.  All right, now moving on,  let's go ahead and pull  the next article up.  There is escalating tensions. Oh, we got one more thing here. One more thing. Let's see. Let's see this one more article and then we'll move on. Cause I think we got it. This is a big deal, guys. Let's watch this one.  Same guy.  Knocking down doors. She's trying to stop this. She's trying to get us to a media where we can have a fair negotiations. It's the companies that don't want to. They don't want to sit here and be fair. So that's why we're out here fighting for our livelihood. What more from the automation do you want? What more protections could there be? What more? Yeah, they have language in there now. Not strong enough. Because what happens is they come in with new technology. We just caught them in Mobile, Alabama called Autogate. And that means the trucks are coming in and they're already checked in somewhere else and not using the checkers in the I. L. A. Circa vetting the contract. They don't care. They don't care.  It's not fair, and if we don't put our foot down now, they would like to run over us, and we're not going to allow that. You are going to grind the economy to a halt here on the East Coast and the Gulf Coast. No, not us. They are. Don't spin it now, because you're Fox News. They're going to drive it. But are you worried? Are you  worried that this drive They have the capital. to settle this thing. Are you worried that this strike is going to hurt the everyday American, the farmers that need to reach the export market? They're telling me that they're going to hurt. You start to realize who the longshoremen are, right?  People never gave a about us until now, when they finally realized that The chain is being broke now. Cars won't come in.  Food won't come in. Clothing won't come in. You know how many people depend on our jobs? Half the world! And it's time for them, and time for Washington, to put so much pressure on them, to take care of us because we took care of them and we're here 135 years and brought them where they are today and they don't want to share.  Fox Business Lydia Hu joins us now from the port of Newark in New Jersey and I've been following you. We have been as you've done this story for us and now the rubber has met the road and he feels like he's dug in and feels like he's in a strong position. Is he in as strong a position as he thinks or appears to seem to be? He certainly feels like he's in a strong position, and he's probably looking around at other unions and the wage gains and the record contracts that they have notched in recent years. Just last year, the West Coast port workers got a new contract with a 32 percent wage hike. Over four years. So now Mr Daggett, the president is looking at that and saying we want that and better just yesterday, Dana, Mr Daggett rejected port management's offer of a 50 percent wage hike over eight years. Just to give you an idea of where they stand right now. It does seem like the two sides are still far apart, but he does at least see  Wow, so you see this guy is on a power hungry streak, right? Again, they have a fair contract 80 or 50 percent increase over eight years  Seems pretty fair to me the idea that there's already language in the contracts that say that they can't use automation Seems pretty fair to me bring up the litigation against the company, right? Go to the court with them Don't cripple the entire country all of the small business owners  Families trying to feed their children. Because you want to be selfish And again,  You're just going to get replaced. This is so stupid. What are you doing?  Ridiculous.  These unions are a problem, dude. These are, these unions are they,  The union, that guy is an absolute idiot. He's sitting there, riling up his team, Getting their, these, So let's move on to something just, if not more pressing, which is  the next stages leading up to potentially world war three, as we've seen, go back and search my podcast and look for world war three, we've seen the Russia, Ukraine, we've seen that I ran, or we've seen Israel and Hamas, we've seen Iran now, and Israel,  Iran has openly attacked Israel. is now attacking back. In light of that,  there is Russia escalating tensions. There was a fighter jet yesterday, a Russian SU 35 pilot  going right by an F 16 near Alaska in our own airspace. This is how they're treating us. This  fighter jet flies within two feet of our F 16, two feet, and then takes off.  Pretty sweet. The  pilot goes, holy fuck. Yeah, holy fuck.  But, that just shows you, they're willing to go to these lengths. And when you look at the BRIC you look at that alliance, you look at the downfall that's happening with the U. S. dollar. You look at the conversations that are being had between Russia and China, India, right?  We're, this is not a, this is not a winning battle for us.  We should not be in these wars. We should not be the proxy funding capital of the world.  Let Israel fight it out. We have nothing to do with this. Now,  the U. S. has sent another aid package to Israel.  And Biden has directed the U. S. military to shoot down Iranian missiles targeting Israel. It says U S president Joe Biden. This comes from business standard and vice president Kamal Harris are monitoring an Iranian attack against Israel from the white house state situation room and receiving regular updates from their national security team. According to the white house situation room update, president Biden directed the U S military aid to aid Israel's defense against Iranian attacks and shoot down missiles that are targeting Israel  on Tuesday in a major escalation in the raging conflict in the middle East. Iran launched a missile attack on Israel on Tuesday. To start a sentence with on Tuesday and end it with on Tuesday is crazy. In a statement, the IDF said all Israeli citizens are in bomb shelters as rockets from Iran are fired at Israel.  Hezbollah is upset that the IDF exposed their plans to massacre Israelis, this says, so they decided to target innocent civilians by firing a barrage of rockets, the IDF further said.  102 missiles have been launched towards Israel. According to the Jerusalem Post, sirens continue to sound across Israel amid the attack. The Times of Israel reported, according to the IDF, around 10 million civilians are the targets of Iranian projectiles. Okay, I'm not sure I'm taking the IDF's opinion on really anything at this point. Maybe there's a better quote or  source that we can utilize because we know it's all propaganda on both sides, all the way across. There was also a terrorist attack yesterday that killed, I think, eight civilians in Israel. Two men with guns that opened fire just before. Terrible. Horrible.  No good. Very bad day.  This is ridiculous. We shouldn't be involving ourselves. We all know that the United States is going to put its nose where it doesn't belong.  We all know that we are the ones that are fighting Iran. We are the ones that are fighting Russia. We are the ones aiding the both of these countries would have absolutely no chance if it wasn't for our money and they wouldn't even be in the wars to begin with.  But they're going to send your sons and daughters to die  so that Israel  has a chance in this war and so that  Ukraine can continue giving 10 percent to the big guy.  Here's a video again coming from Alex Jones. I think the more and more we get into this crazy scenario or this crazy simulation, the more we find Alex Jones stuff out, you bull. Now again, it's Alex Jones. Take it with a grain of salt. He's been right about a ton of stuff. He's been wrong about a few things, just like all of us. But here is his video that I thought was decently well done.  And it's only going to get worse until people wake up and you will wake up one way or another.  You may wake up when the drones are flying down the street and the big trash trucks, robot driven, are pulling up and getting the dead bodies and your wife and kids are dead. And for some reason you're immune to the new virus and you're sitting there with the electricity off and no food and half the city's dead.  And just know that often luxurious places that people like Zuckerberg will be in their bunkers while we're all dying.  Our people are everywhere  and they're watching the enemy. And when we all jump on their private jets this week, next month, a year from now, whatever it is,  and the private airports are full, all the establishment and their minions loaded up with all their crap flying off to their armored fortresses, that's another key to know when they're about to pull the trigger on a new bio weapon.  Or a nuclear war.  But after the dust settles, we know where to get the medicine and food we need as survivors, don't we? And that's what matters at the end.  Is we will get these people.  I may not be around for it, and a lot of you won't be around for it. But don't get on the bus when they tell you they're relocating you for your safety when all the food and energy's off.  Because you go to that forced labor camp, you ain't ever coming back.  This is how it works in history.  Happens all the time.  People forget freedom. They don't stand up for themselves and the tyrants take over.  And they don't just not care about you. They hate you. They want to hurt you. I always hear, Oh, the new order doesn't care about the people. Oh, the Democrats don't care. Oh, they do care. They love partying and taking drugs and getting their hair done and flying around on private jets while your kids are all locked up at the house with you and you're going bankrupt. They enjoy hurting you. It makes them enjoy their lives so much more.  And hey, only people you got to blame is yourself, right? I'm not saying you're to blame. They obviously are the really bad people. But, hey, I get it. A lot of fun stuff. A lot of movies to see. A lot of concerts. Let somebody else handle that. The new order is gonna handle you.  They're making their move.  You're like they'll never get away with that. This is America. Have you looked around, boys and girls, at where we are?  And how fast thin

Watch The X22 Report On Video No videos found Click On Picture To See Larger PictureDuring the debate JD Vance mentioned how the illegals were going to make rent and mortgages go up, he was right the Fed mentions this. The port strike is one of the events that will give the Fed cover. If it ends early they will still blame it leading up to the cyber attack on the financial system. The [DS] is in trouble, the debate did not go as planned. The [DS] poll number are dropping and their cheating system will not work the way it worked during the 2020 election. The [DS] is now projecting that the election will be delayed. Many states are allowed to accept votes after the deadline. They will see that they don't have the ability to create the ballots they need so they will say the elections were manipulated. DHS has projected that the US might be cyber attacked and attacked during the elections.   (function(w,d,s,i){w.ldAdInit=w.ldAdInit||[];w.ldAdInit.push({slot:13499335648425062,size:[0, 0],id:"ld-7164-1323"});if(!d.getElementById(i)){var j=d.createElement(s),p=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];j.async=true;j.src="//cdn2.customads.co/_js/ajs.js";j.id=i;p.parentNode.insertBefore(j,p);}})(window,document,"script","ld-ajs"); Economy https://twitter.com/JDVance/status/1841338114897293712 https://twitter.com/annvandersteel/status/1841426960309768593  With the federal Taft-Hartley Act, presidents can take executive action in labor issues that threaten U.S. national security by imposing an 80-day period that would have workers show up and perform their jobs. But Biden has said that he will not intervene, telling reporters on Sunday that “it's collective bargaining” and that he does not “believe in Taft-Hartley. Dragon Riding – Dockworker Strike Underway as Alinsky Methods Deployed Against Labor Union Head, Harold Daggett For their new contract, ILA wants USMX to increase wages by 77 percent over six years and bar any automation, which they believe threatens workers' jobs. While USMX offered to raise wages by 50 percent and keep current automation checks in place, ILA said that was not enough, especially in light of the industry's massive profits during the COVID-19 pandemic, and inflation that has affected how far their previous paychecks went.   Notice how the media always present the verbiage of the dockworker's employers as “employers' group USMX,” without actually noting the employers' group are the port owners, multinational shipping conglomerates and as a consequence, foreign countries. In material fact, most critical ports in the USA are owned by foreign entities.  As a result, the ILA are striking against the ideological, political and financial interests of mostly foreign entities (USMX). Also, the ILA wage increase demand is spread over six years and vehemently opposed by the same people who tell me I just need to accept the 70% price increase in food, insurance, housing and general stuff I use all the time. I digress.   The ILA president is reported to earn $900,000 per year in salary, drive a Bentley and even own an expensive 76-foot yacht.  There is also a better than average likelihood he may be familiar with violence.  , when you combine artificial intelligence, automation, robotics and remote access capabilities, it is clearly predictable that a time will come when 80% of the ILA jobs can be replaced by remote controlled operational systems. In China, many industrial ports are already fully automated and operated remotely by people using what look like gaming consols, robotics and computer screens. Source: theconservativetreehouse.com October Surprise! Kamala Harris Embraces Striking Port Workers, Owns Any Resulting Economic Damage The United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) and the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) have gone on strike, shutting down the United States Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico ports,

On Episode 763 of WHAT THE TRUCK?!?, Dooner is talking to Operation Airdrop's Ryan Spellman about how they're flying in aid to those impacted by Hurricane Helene. Operation Airdrop uses volunteer pilots to deliver critical supplies. With I-40 and parts of I-26 shut down, their work is more crucial than ever. With just hours to go before ports from Maine to Texas go on strike, we'll take a look at how shippers and logistics firms are bracing themselves for impact. On Sunday, President Joe Biden reiterated that he would not invoke Taft-Hartley while the International Longshoremen's Association has voted to strike. How long will it last and how will supply chains get hit? We'll find out from OEC Group's Joseph Firrincieli. J. J. Keller's John Lovan clears up misconceptions around drug and alcohol testing regulations. Multi Service Fuel Card's Jessica Dotson talks about the fight against fuel fraud. Plus, serial tire slasher strikes relief trucks; all modes of delivery used for hurricane relief; and more. Catch new shows live at noon EDT Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays on FreightWaves LinkedIn, Facebook, X or YouTube, or on demand by looking up WHAT THE TRUCK?!? on your favorite podcast player and at 5 p.m. Eastern on SiriusXM's Road Dog Trucking Channel 146. Watch on YouTube Check out the WTT merch store Visit our sponsor Subscribe to the WTT newsletter Apple Podcasts Spotify More FreightWaves Podcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Episode 763 of WHAT THE TRUCK?!?, Dooner is talking to Operation Airdrop's Ryan Spellman about how they're flying in aid to those impacted by Hurricane Helene. Operation Airdrop uses volunteer pilots to deliver critical supplies. With I-40 and parts of I-26 shut down, their work is more crucial than ever. With just hours to go before ports from Maine to Texas go on strike, we'll take a look at how shippers and logistics firms are bracing themselves for impact. On Sunday, President Joe Biden reiterated that he would not invoke Taft-Hartley while the International Longshoremen's Association has voted to strike. How long will it last and how will supply chains get hit? We'll find out from OEC Group's Joseph Firrincieli. J. J. Keller's John Lovan clears up misconceptions around drug and alcohol testing regulations. Multi Service Fuel Card's Jessica Dotson talks about the fight against fuel fraud. Plus, serial tire slasher strikes relief trucks; all modes of delivery used for hurricane relief; and more. Catch new shows live at noon EDT Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays on FreightWaves LinkedIn, Facebook, X or YouTube, or on demand by looking up WHAT THE TRUCK?!? on your favorite podcast player and at 5 p.m. Eastern on SiriusXM's Road Dog Trucking Channel 146. Watch on YouTube Check out the WTT merch store Visit our sponsor Subscribe to the WTT newsletter Apple Podcasts Spotify More FreightWaves Podcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maybe you've already caught Part 1 of my conversation with Shawn Gremminger, and if so, you're ahead of the game. But if not, no worries—here's the deal: I decided to split this deep dive into the 340B program with Shawn into two parts. So, feel free to jump into one or both—it's totally up to you. To Read The Full Article Including Links Mentioned, click here. If you enjoy this podcast, be sure to subscribe to the free weekly newsletter to be a member of the Relentless Tribe. These episodes don't have to be listened to in order, so you're good to start here with Part 2. Let's get into it!" Right now, we are going to talk about how 340B impacts employers and commercial plans and other plan sponsors. So, if all you want to hear about is the why—as in, Why do employers care about what amounts to a program that is or was supposed to be for low-income Americans and Medicaid?—you are in the right place. As just one example of the why should employers care if you are teetering on the edge of proceeding, did you know that if an employee or a member of a commercial plan gets a drug at a contract pharmacy participating in 340B, the employer does not get the rebate? The employer is gonna pay the list price for that med. Wait, what? Yeah, details follow because Shawn Gremminger is gonna get into this and many other reasons why employers or anyone in the commercial market (or taxpayers, really) should care about this, as some may call it, Medicaid program. The fact is, 340B is currently so gargantuan that it creates market distortions that bleed into the prices and possibly the quality of healthcare for everybody, all Americans. And that could really matter to employer or Taft-Hartley plan sponsors. After you listen to this show, if you want to drill in a little deeper on the “what the what” and the history of 340B, head back and take in Part 1 of this episode 448. Shawn Gremminger gives the skinny on how the program morphed over the years into a $53 billion juggernaut and is credited (or blamed) for all kinds of healthcare market consolidation and many other weird and unusual consequences that make me admire some of the folks who are truly gold medal winners in the sport of financial engineering. If you want a summary of the points Shawn makes for why employers should care, it is your lucky day, because here you go. Here's the four distortions in the market that Shawn talks about which impact employers: To continue reading, please view our show notes/full article. 09:11 Why do employers care about 340B, which is a Medicaid program? 11:30 Why do I care as an employer, even if I'm not Pharma? 12:44 Why is 340B causing employers to pay significantly more for healthcare? 14:36 Study by Zack Cooper, PhD. 15:06 Why are there distorted pricing models at 340B hospitals? 21:22 Why do employers need to stop playing the blame game?

Check out a teaser from this week's bonus episode over on our Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/pickmeupimscared

The 1947 Taft-Hartley amendments to the National Labor Relations Act, doggedly opposed by organized labor, included compliance with practicable portions of the federal rules of evidence and civil procedure, barring the Board from treating supervisors and independent contractors as protected employees, expressly incorporating employer free-speech rights, and more. Where are the Taft-Hartley amendments today and […]

The 1947 Taft-Hartley amendments to the National Labor Relations Act, doggedly opposed by organized labor, included compliance with practicable portions of the federal rules of evidence and civil procedure, barring the Board from treating supervisors and independent contractors as protected employees, expressly incorporating employer free-speech rights, and more. Where are the Taft-Hartley amendments today and why?Featuring:Fred B. Jacob, Solicitor, National Labor Relations Board Hon. John F. Ring, Partner, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, former Chairman of the National Labor Relations Board

Today is an encore because I am going on vacation next week. It always feels a little bit like a time warp because by the time this show will air, I will be back from vacation. This show with Paul Holmes was one of the most popular episodes of 2023 and definitely is just as relevant now. A lot of the things that Paul talks about are worth repeating or listening to again. For a full transcript of this episode, click here. Before we kick in, though, I'm gonna repeat something that Ge Bai, PhD, CPA, says a lot: There's no angels and there's no devils in the healthcare industry. But we are talking about for-profit entities. And if there's one thing that's generally true about a for-profit entity, especially one that is publicly traded, it's gonna do whatever it can get away with. It becomes up to the customer to set expectations and using the purchasing discipline that they probably use everywhere else in the business because it basically is good business to have purchasing discipline. Before we kick into the episode, just a couple of things. Thing one, if you haven't, do subscribe to the weekly email that goes out describing the show. Here's just one reason to do so. It's really efficient because what is transcribed in that email is the whole beginning half (usually) of the introduction. So, if later on you are trying to remember which episode you heard something in, you can just search your email and find the show. How you subscribe is go to relentlesshealthvalue.com, hang out for probably 15 seconds, and there will be a pop-up. And while you're on the Web site, here's something else you could do. Go to the lower right-hand corner of the Web site. You will notice a little button. It's an orange button. There's a microphone. Click on that; say something like your name, your company name, maybe a word or two about Relentless Health Value; and then encourage others to subscribe to the weekly email that goes out, similarly to what I just did. Then what our team will do is take that recording and potentially use it at the end of some of the shows so we can hear somebody else talk besides myself. So, please do go over to the Web site, click on that little microphone, and record something that you might want to share with the other members of the Relentless Tribe. And with that, here's your encore. If this were a video show, I would stare into the camera with steely eyeballs right now and say that I have a special message for employer CFOs. If you aren't a CFO, pretend that you are so that you get the full effect here. So, now that we're all CFOs, let's pull up the company P&L (Profit and Loss) statement. This is what keeps us all up at night, right? Making sure that the net profit line at the bottom looks good. We could decide to lay off a few people. Reorg something or other. Beat up a vendor. We also could go over and have a strident conversation with sales leadership about what they can do to jack up their sales revenue. Top line begets bottom line and all that. Or, here's another idea: In this healthcare podcast, I am speaking with Paul Holmes, who is an ERISA (Employee Retirement Income Security Act) attorney with a specialty in PBM (pharmacy benefit manager) contracts, especially the PBM contracts from the big PBMs that get jammed in employer plan sponsor faces by whomever and which they are told look fine and that the employer plan sponsor should just go ahead and sign. Now, if we, meaning all of us CFOs, sign that paper, or someone on our benefits team signs the paper … fun fact, our company just spent 30% to 40% over market for our pharmacy benefits. That contract we just signed contains all kinds of expensive little buried treasures—treasures accruing to the PBM and other parties, to be clear, and coming at our expense. There's 17-ish very common treasures in your typical PBM contract, and none of us will ever spot them unless we know what we are looking for. But let's dig into this for a sec, especially for all of us newly minted CFOs because the real ones already did this math. Say our company spends whatever—we're a bigger company, and we spend $100 million a year on our drugs. That's a minimum of $30 million that we got taken for … $30 million a year. Because of the huge dollars at stake (30% to 40% of drug spend), it's certainly the advice of almost anybody that you talk to who's an expert in PBM contracts to have a third party—not your EBC (employee benefit consultant), which we'll get into in a sec, but somebody else (a third party)—review every PBM contract. I mean, what's the worst that can happen for anybody considering having an independent third party review their PBM contract? It costs a couple grand in lawyer fees, and they give it a stamp of approval. Knowledge is power, and now we know. But let's just say this third-party review doesn't happen. We all go with a “devil may care” about this whole PBM overcharging us by 30% to 40% possibility. And let's say the PBM contract is, in fact, a ride on the Hot Mess Express but we don't know it. Here's two pretty bad downsides, especially now, this year, since the passage of the CAA (the Consolidated Appropriations Act). Number one bad thing: Plan sponsors may get sued as per the CAA for ERISA violations. It's not just the company paying that extra $30 million, or 30% to 40%, right? It's also employees. This is risk exposure, bigly. Just like it was on the 401(k) side of the house, which Paul Holmes, my guest today, mentions later on in the interview. He talks about just how much those lawsuits cost and, yeah, exposure. As I mentioned three times already, today I am speaking with Paul Holmes about PBM contracts in all their stealthy glory. The one thing I came to appreciate is that these things are works of art … if you're into those paintings of pretty flowers where, if you look hard enough, you spot a skull tucked in the greenery (memento mori). Paul is a longtime ERISA attorney. He has dedicated his career to helping plan sponsors in their negotiations with PBMs and trying to help them reduce drug spend, especially drug spend that isn't actually paying for drugs. Here's a link to an article we discuss about how a school district in Florida is suing their longtime EBC for taking $2 million a year in alleged secret payments. We also mention an episode with AJ Loiacono (EP379). And along similar lines, Jeff Hogan mentioned on LinkedIn the other day, “It's pretty amazing that just in the course of the [past few] weeks, I'm reading, seeing, and hearing about big new CAA breach of fiduciary duty cases.” So, Paul Holmes says this more eloquently, but if you're a plan sponsor, definitely get your PBM contract reviewed and maybe consider working with an EBC who's happy to sign the disclosure statement that your lawyer has provided without disclaimers. Also mentioned in this episode are Ge Bai, PhD, CPA; AJ Loiacono; and Jeffrey Hogan.   You can learn more by emailing Paul at pbh@williamsbarbermorel.com.   Paul B. Holmes, JD, is a seasoned ERISA lawyer with nearly 40 years of specialization in that field. Paul joined Williams Barber & Morel Ltd. recently, after 31 years with Nixon Peabody LLP and Ungaretti & Harris LLP. Paul is one of the few ERISA lawyers in the United States, concentrating his practice on PBM contracting and oversight. Paul represents large employers, Taft-Hartley welfare funds, and governmental units in their selection, contracting, auditing, and disputes with large pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). This work includes active oversight of the request for proposal (RFP) process for selecting a PBM, the negotiation and customization of PBM contracts, and legal audits of PBM compliance with their contracts. Paul provides insightful guidance on the prudent selection of independent pharmacy benefit consulting firms (who do not receive indirect compensation from PBMs), which independence is expressly required under Section 202 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 (CAA). Recent efforts have focused on reducing wasteful drug spend promulgated by large PBMs in dozens of categories. These include the preference of Humira® biosimilars, reducing off-label utilization of GLP-1s, reducing huge markups on certain specialty generics, and customizing PBM formularies and clinical protocols to better control spend. He was selected, through a peer-review survey, for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America® (2020 and 2021) in the field of Employee Benefits (ERISA) Law. Paul received his bachelor's degree from Bradley University and his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Illinois College of Law.   07:41 What are Paul's usual observations when a PBM contract crosses his desk? 08:34 “If you just sign … one of their model contracts …, you're probably gonna pay 30% to 40% above market on your drug spend.” 12:11 What is a PBM lawyer? And why is it important to find an ERISA PBM lawyer? 17:12 EP379 with AJ Loiacono. 17:40 Who is on the hook for the cost of the PBM contracts? 21:05 What's the problem with most ERISA lawyers today? 22:56 Lawsuit about PBM contract. 27:43 What's Paul's advice for benefits consultants? 31:40 How much might a plan sponsor be paying their consultant versus what a consultant might be making from a PBM?   You can learn more by emailing Paul at pbh@williamsbarbermorel.com.   Paul Holmes discusses #PBMContracts on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #financialhealth #primarycare #patientoutcomes #healthcareinnovation   Recent past interviews: Click a guest's name for their latest RHV episode! Ann Kempski, Marshall Allen (tribute), Andreas Mang, Abby Burns and Stacey Richter, David Muhlestein, Luke Slindee, Dr John Lee, Brian Klepper, Elizabeth Mitchell, David Scheinker (Encore! EP363)  

Dans l'épisode 137 du podcast « Le Trio Économique », on discute de la récente loi Anti-Scab votée à l'unanimité par le parlement canadien, mettant en avant un consensus sur la nocivité de ce type de législation. Le contenu de la loi C-58 est examiné, suivi d'une réflexion sur les dix dernières années marquées par de (mauvais) petits pas en matière de législation économique. Vincent propose alors une idée radicale, alors que Frank déplore que, bien que la science soit souvent mise en avant, l'économie ne bénéficie pas du même respect. Les animateurs se penchent ensuite sur la complexité des solutions aux problèmes économiques et évoquent les lois Taft-Hartley et Right to Work aux États-Unis, ainsi que le prix politique associé à ces législations. Une réflexion est menée sur la critique de Thomas Holmes et la question de l'œuf ou la poule. La discussion se termine sur l'importance d'adopter les stratégies de la gauche pour faire progresser nos idées. Dans la PARTIE BONUS PATREON, on discute du règne des faibles en politique, avec une critique de Legault et des vidéos fake de campagne. Ian mentionne une impressionnante croissance de 43% en un an pour Ian et Frank. Vincent accorde partiellement raison à Ian sur une question relative au Rassemblement National. Enfin, Frank souligne à quel point il est méprisant de dire aux gens pour qui voter, en lien avec les législatives français et on termine sur une discussion autour de la Casta Politica. TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro - Ian Savage ! 1:40 Loi Anti-Scab votée à l'unanimité 7:40 Consensus : ce type de loi est très nuisible 11:50 Contenu de la loi C-58 16:30 10 ans de (mauvais) petits pas 20:00 L'idée la plus radicale de Vincent… 21:23 «Nous c'est la science», sauf l'économie ! 31:10 Solution simple à problème complexe ? 33:40 Loi Taft-Hartley aux USA 36:30 Loi Right to work/Droit au travail 44:10 Le prix politique 48:05 Thomas Holmes et l'oeuf ou la poule 53:43 Un argument médiocre selon Frank 55:00 Carte de la mobilité sociale aux USA 57:30 Il faut adopter la stratégie de la gauche 1:00:42 Vers Patreon Visiter notre Patreon pour des podcasts sans publicités avec quelques extras : www.patreon.com/isenechal Notre page Facebook : ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/ISenechal⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Notre compte Twitter : ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/PiluleRouge_CA⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Notrecompte TikTok : ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@iansenechal⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Ian & Frank : ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/6FX9rKclX7qdlegxVFhO3B ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Les Affranchis : ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/61ZraWorXHQL64KriHnWPr?si=e0ca97a8510845c6⁠⁠

Kevin Leonard is Partner and Practice Group Director – Public Funds and Taft Hartley at NEPC. He has had a long career in consulting and started his career as an accountant.Kevin has had a career of over 30 years in investment consulting, and it had a somewhat “accidental” start – being driven more by location and convenience than a calling.  Things quickly shifted however, and Kevin found that working with public funds where the possibility to add value and have impact was high and the touchpoints with investment committees and Boards frequent and satisfying.We move then to discuss some of the challenges facing public funds more broadly and the mélange of policy issues, economic challenges and resource constraints that create a unique workload for the investment consultants serving this segment.  Staying with policy we discuss the relevance of ESG and D&I issues for this client segment and how investment consultants are staying ahead of the curve to ensure that this mission can be fulfilled. Series 3 of 2024 is supported by Ruffer and Nuveen. Ruffer is a London based asset manager - founded in 1994 - managing over $25 billion for institutions, pension funds, charities and individuals. They have a single investment approach that aims to deliver positive returns across the full range of market conditions.  Nuveen has provided investment excellence for 125 years. With expertise across income and alternatives, Nuveen continues to expand its capabilities while maintaining its legacy as a leading investment manager. Visit Nuveen.com to learn more. Investing involves risk; loss of principal is possible.

Historian Tim Barker and editor/organizer Ben Mabie join to discuss a thrilling episode in the history of American labor. Barker and Mabie are two co-hosts of Fragile Juggernaut, a Haymarket Originals podcast exploring the history, politics, and strategic lessons of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (or CIO). Along with  co-hosts Alex Press, Gabriel Winant, Andrew Elrod, and Emma Teitelman, they've been telling the story of organized labor in the 1930s, the radical possibilities of that decade, and the eclipsing of those possibilities in the post-war years — with the onset of the cold war, McCarthyism, and anti-union legislation like Taft-Hartley.In a sense, this episode is a pre-history of the story we tell on Know Your Enemy. If you've ever wondered, what was it that so terrified reactionary businessmen about the New Deal era? How did they come to believe that revolutionary upheaval was a real prospect in America, that Communists were everywhere, threatening the social order, and that this peril demanded the creation and funding of a new conservative movement? Well part of the answer is: the CIO. From a certain angle, the right-wing fever dream was real, at least for a time: the CIO really was filled with Communists, labor militants really did take over factories and shut down whole cities, and it really did seem possible, if only briefly, that the American working class — including immigrants from all over Europe, black workers, and women — might find solidarity on the shop floor, consolidate politically, and threaten the reign of capital. That didn't quite happen. And this episode will partially explain why. Further Reading:Andrew Elrod, "Fragile Juggernaut: What was the CIO?" n+1, Jan 24, 2024. Bruce Nelson, Workers on the Waterfront: Seamen, Longshoremen, and Unionism in the 1930s, U of Illinois Press,  1988.Robert H. Zieger, The CIO, 1935-1955, UNC Press, 1995. Landon R.Y. Storrs,  The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal Left, Princeton U Press, 2012. Eric Blanc, “Revisiting the Wagner Act & its Causes,” Labor Politics, Jul 28, 2022.  Rhonda Levine, "Class Struggle and the New Deal: Industrial Labor, Industrial Capital, and the State," U of Kansas Press, 1988.Further Listening:The podcast: "Haymarket Originals: Fragile Juggernaut," 2024  ...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy for access to all of our bonus episodes!

We are in the middle of a resurgence of organized labor in the US. From Amazon workers to auto workers and grad students to baristas at Starbucks, everyone is getting in on the action! One of the big reasons workers are so hot to get that union card is because of… you guessed it, healthcare! Today we're going to be talking union healthcare plans – how they work and how workers have managed to use collective bargaining to resist the national erosion of healthcare access. Most importantly, we're going to take a deep dive into why, even with better healthcare, unions have been leaders in the fight for Medicare for All, and how they might save the rest of us from corporate healthcare hell. Our guest Jim McGee has spent his entire career working in union health benefits, starting with the Plumbers and Pipefitters local he belonged to in Harrisburg Pennsylvania. For the past 20 years, he has been the administrator of the health benefits plan for Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689. He's on the steering committee for the labor campaign for single payer healthcare, and he's joining us today from Bethesda, MD. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNFBkHBrpUY Show Notes Jim educates us on the two types of union health plans: Unionized workers with a single employer (think nurses or teachers) earn employer-sponsored health benefits much like unorganized workplaces, but the cost and benefit sets of those plans can be negotiated if the workforce is unionized. Taft-Hartley plans are multiemployer plans that are jointly managed by multiple companies and the union within the same industry. The workers pay while they're working to have health insurance when they're not. Taft Hartleys exist in industries where there's a lot of turnover, like the building trades. A worker may have many different employers and many periods of unemployment over their careers. Typically both those options sound a lot better than what your average non-union worker is getting from their employer, though they are still subject to same rising costs and economic pressures as every other health insurance plan. Given that union members are more likely to have health coverage than non-union workers, it's interesting that unions have been at the forefront of the movement for Medicare for all. Many unions come from a rich progressive tradition that looks past the short term to the long term value of guaranteed healthcare for all workers. Jim also shares that the unions that are more exposed to competitive pressure in their environment are more likely to be supportive of Medicare for All. This is especially evident in less urban areas where locals are facing more non-union competition. Jim notes that throughout his career, healthcare has been #1 cause of strikes. Taking it off the table would not only benefit the workers, it would benefit their entire community. Small businesses and non-union employers that offer poorer or no healthcare benefits to their employees often stay afloat on the backs of the unionized employers in their community that do offer good health benefits; this is an inquitable and unsustainable system. Speaking of strikes, graduate student workers at Boston University are on strike right now over healthcare benefits among other things. Not only would Medicare for All take health insurance off the negotiating table (making more room for workers to bargain for pay, safety and other benefits), it would take away a the ability of employers to weaponize health insurance to break strikes; solidarity can crumble quickly when the employer stops paying those premiums at the first of the month. Follow and Support the Pod! Don't forget to like this episode and subscribe to The Medicare for All Podcast on  Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or your favorite podcast platform! This show is a project of the Healthcare NOW Education Fund! If you want to support our work, you can donate at our website, healthcare-now.org.

For a full transcript of this episode, click here. On the show today, I am going to use the term TPA (third-party administrator) and ASO (administrative services only) vendor kind of interchangeably here. But these are the entities that a plan sponsor—for example, a self-insured employer is a plan sponsor—but these plan sponsors will use to administer their plan. And one of the things that TPAs and ASOs administer is this so-called weekly claims wire. Every week, self-funded employers get a weekly claims run charge so they can pay expenses related to their plan in weekly increments. The claims run usually comes with a register or an invoice. This invoice might be just kind of a total (“Hey, plan. Pay this amount.”). Or there might be a breakdown like, “Here's your medical claims, and here's your pharmacy claims.” Maybe there's another level down from that of detail if the plan or their advisor is sophisticated enough and/or concerned enough about the fiduciary risk to dig in hard about what the charges are actually for. I was talking about this topic earlier with Dana Erdfarb, who happens to be executive director of HR at a large financial services organization. Dana I'm definitely gonna credit for inspiring this conversation that I'm having today with Justin Leader. Dana was the first one to really bring to my attention just the level of hidden fees that are buried (many times) in these claims wires … because when I say buried in the claims wire, I mean not charged for via an administrative invoice. These hidden fees are also not called out in the ASO finance exhibit in the contract, by the way. So, yeah … hidden. I don't know … if you have to hide your charges, in my mind that's a pretty big tell that your charges are worth hiding. Now the one thing I will point out is that just because the charges are worth hiding doesn't necessarily mean that the services those charges are for are unwarranted. Some of these services are actually pretty worthwhile to do. There's just a really big difference from a plan sponsor knowingly contracting at a known rate with a third party to do something versus paying for a service knowingly or unknowingly via fees hidden in a claims wire wherein the amount paid is not in the control of the one paying the bill. Anyway, I was talking about all of this earlier, as I mentioned, with Dana Erdfarb. That conversation was exactly the framework that I needed to snag Justin Leader, my guest today, to come on the pod and really dig into the detail level of what's going on with this claims wire. So, in this healthcare podcast, we're gonna talk about the five fees that tend to be tucked in to many claims wires. We also talk about one bonus—not sure if it's a fee—one bonus way that plan sponsors give money to vendors in ways the plan sponsor might be unaware of. Here are the five hidden fees that we talk about at length in the show today, and then I'll cover the bonus: 1. Shared Savings Fees. This is where a member of a plan goes out of network, and the TPA/ASO goes and negotiates a discount from the out-of-network provider and then shares the savings. Get it? Shared savings? This category also might include BlueCard Access fees, which we talk about in the show. But there also could be overpayment recoupment fees lumped in here. This is where the TPA messes up, overpays, and then charges the plan sponsor a percentage of the money they just got back when they corrected their own mistake. I'm just gonna pause here while everyone contemplates how we've all gone so wrong in life to not have figured out a way to charge others when we correct our own mistakes. Here's a link to a great LinkedIn post by Chris Deacon and a deep dive article on this topic. 2. Prior Auth Fees. Lots to unpack with this one, which Justin does in the pod. 3. Prepayment Integrity Fees. This is evaluation of the claim before it's being paid. Listen to the show for how this may (or may not) differ from what the TPA/ASO is supposed to be doing (ie, it's the TPA that's supposed to be [yeah, right] adjudicating and paying claims). 4. Pay and Chase Fees. This is where a bill was paid wrong, and it's not immediately the TPA/ASO's mistake. This is where something like a provider double billed or overcharged or something, and the TPA/ASO later figures this out and then chases the pay to get the money back. 5. TPA Claims Review Fees. Sort of self-explanatory but also not. Again, please listen to the show for more. When I'd been talking about all of this with Dana Erdfarb, as I mentioned earlier, just about this whole thing, she said something that Justin Leader echoes today: Many of these fees are structured as a percentage of savings. This is challenging for a plan sponsor because the savings is vendor reported and not validated. But it also means that if the savings increase annually with trend (as they, generally speaking, do), then the fees will increase with that trend as well—and that is something to keep in mind. Okay … so, here's the bonus thing that didn't get a number in the show today, but it is certainly a way that plan sponsors pay money to vendors. And this is medical claims spread pricing. This is buried in the claims wire and inside the dollar amounts the plan sponsor thinks they are paying a provider for a service. It turns out that it can turn out that the amount the plan sponsor is paying is more than the check that's being written to the provider for the service being delivered. Or the amount the plan sponsor is paying the provider for a service is more than for simply that service that has been rendered, right? The plan sponsor is paying the provider for other stuff as well, as is alleged in the DOL v BCBS of Minnesota lawsuit, which Justin brings up in the show today. It drives me nuts, honestly, when there are people who tout their transparency. But then it turns out if the equation is A plus B equals C, only like one of the numbers is transparent. Sorry, functionally, that doesn't count as transparency except in marketing copy. This is all to say—and here's Dana Erdfarb's actionable advice which sums up points Justin also made—when employers review their medical plan vendor contracts, they should make sure to identify, review, and document all fees being paid to their vendors and incorporate this knowledge into their renewal/RFP (request for proposal) discussions and negotiations. Jeff Hogan echoed this advice on LinkedIn the other day when he commented on this show: “Such a great opportunity for employers to have their administrative services agreements and other documents examined to discover these schemes. It's not hard to do. Also, a great advertisement for the value of having retrospective audits performed. It is eye opening to see not only the amount of arbitrage but often how payers don't even pay according to their contracts. Justin Leader is the perfect guest.” As mentioned a myriad of times already, my guest today is Justin Leader, who is president and CEO of BenefitsDNA. Justin works with plan sponsors, both commercial plans as well as Taft-Hartley plans, across the United States. Before we kick into the show today, I just want to thank By the 49ers for the really nice review on iTunes. By the 49ers calls Relentless Health Value a “leading voice in healthcare” and says he or she always leaves “with intrigue, a new idea or a new approach to problem solving.” Really appreciate that. That is certainly one of our goals around here. So, thank you so much. Oh, also, please subscribe to the weekly email that goes out. You can do that by going over to our Web site and signing up. There are a lot of advantages to doing so, which I've talked about before, so I'm not gonna do so again; but it is a great way to make sure that if you're a member of the Relentless Health Value Tribe, you are aware of the current goings-on. Also mentioned in this episode are Dana Erdfarb, Chris Deacon, Jeffrey Hogan, BenefitsDNA, Rik Renard, Cora Opsahl, Al Lewis, Julie Selesnick, Mark Davenport, Karen Handorf, Dawn Cornelis, AJ Loiacono, and Mike Miele. You can learn more at benefitsdna.com or wefixyourhealthcare.com. You can also follow Justin on LinkedIn.     Justin Leader began his career in the pharmaceutical and financial services industries. By 2011, Justin entered into the group benefits field consulting for many notable Fortune 500 clients. In 2014, he established BenefitsDNA, an objective, independent health and welfare benefit plan consulting firm providing compliance oversight, actuarial services, cost mitigation, and traditional broker services to Group Health Plan Sponsors. As a Certified Health Rosetta Chartered Advisor (eighth advisor to join), he's acknowledged for contributing to healthcare solutions in the United States both in policy as well as practice and is an avid supporter of Patient Rights Advocate. Throughout his career, Justin has been instrumental in introducing successful healthcare benefit solutions to the market, which have been pivotal in solving critical issues and saving millions for employers and their employees. As a mission-driven leader, he and his team are passionate about fixing healthcare one client, one member, and one partnership at a time. Having trademarked We Fix Your Healthcare™, their mission is one that his team takes seriously. Justin, a native of Bedford, Pennsylvania, holds a pre-medicine degree and a master's degree in exercise science from California University of Pennsylvania. His dedication extends to servant leadership, volunteering in the local community including serving on the PA State Council of SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) since 2016. Justin is a public speaker and owner of Leaders Never Quit, where he dedicates his time to inspiring others with a message of hope, humor, and resilience.   07:55 How is the claims wire typically explained to a plan sponsor? 11:18 What is the whole point of self-funding? 11:27 Why is it so vital to understand what you're paying for? 12:38 What are the five “buried” items that wind up in these claims wires? 13:03 What is a shared savings fee? 17:10 “Rates are important, but so are your rights.” 21:01 What's going on with prior auth fees? 23:35 What is prepayment integrity? 28:16 What is pay and chase? 31:54 What is a TPA claim review? 35:47 Is there medical claim spread pricing?   You can learn more at benefitsdna.com or wefixyourhealthcare.com. You can also follow Justin on LinkedIn.   @JustinDLeader discusses #plansponsor #payments on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #digitalhealth #healthcareleadership #healthcaretransformation #healthcareinnovation   Recent past interviews: Click a guest's name for their latest RHV episode! Dr Scott Conard (Encore! EP391), Jerry Durham (Encore! EP297), Kate Wolin, Dr Kenny Cole, Barbara Wachsman, Luke Slindee, Julie Selesnick, Rik Renard, AJ Loiacono (Encore! EP379), Nina Lathia  

Our five hundredth episode features long time labor organizer, Chris Townsend, who talks to Ralph about labor law reform, the Biden administration's attitude toward the labor movement, the UAW strike, the threat of automation, and much more. Plus, Ralph clarifies his position re the Washington Post article where he said he preferred “autocracy over fascism,” and we briefly discuss the chaos in the Republican caucus.Chris Townsend is a 44-year trade union worker and organizer. He is the retired Political Action Director for the United Electrical Workers Union and was the International Union organizing and field director for the Amalgamated Transit Union.The workplace in the United States is a dictatorship. And if you're willing to challenge that dictatorship— create a rebellion against it—you might be able to build a union. If you look at the statistics, the number of elections— the number of those campaigns that actually get that far, which is only a small number, most of them are incinerated, liquidated, poison gassed, fired, terminated out of existence before you ever get that election— but if you get that election, the labor movement is winning.Chris TownsendWhen you have a labor leadership that is lazy, unimaginative, unimaginative, rarely challenged, has a very timid view, a very limited worldview, and they see their role more as administrator as opposed to leaders— this is the modern situation that we face. We don't have much of a leadership, sadly. We have an administrator group, and they have administered the decline.Chris TownsendLet's be very, very realistic here. I don't think there can be a labor union movement in the United States under present federal laws. There are just too many hurdles, too many delays, too many licenses for these corporations to bust up the situation… And I'm amazed that you can listen to what the AFL puts out, what labor union leaders put out—they almost never mention card checks, they never mention repealing Taft -Hartley. They don't force the Democrats— who get elected in no small part because of union support— to put these labor law reforms in place.Ralph NaderIn Case You Haven't Heard with Francesco DeSantis1. October 1st marked the first day of Fiscal Year 2024 in Washington DC, and with it, DC's Cashless Ban finally goes into effect, per Axios. Now, district residents will be able to report businesses that do not accept cash and/or those who post signage saying they will not accept cash. If any listeners out there are based in Washington and wish to report any such businesses, feel free to submit them to me at francesco.desantis@csrl.org. And remember, if you see something, say something.2. Democracy Now! reports that Federal Communications Commission Chair Jessica Rosenworcel has gone on record saying she plans to restore Net Neutrality rules – which would “bar internet providers from blocking access or throttling customers' connections based on how much they pay or which websites they visit” – which were repealed under the Trump administration. This follows Democrats finally taking majority control of the commission. Common Cause remarked, “To allow a handful of monopoly-aspiring gate-keepers to control access to the internet is a direct threat to our democracy.”3. Brazilian President Lula has issued a statement in support of the United Auto Workers strike. Lula, who himself worked as a union organizer at the Brazilian automobile manufacturing facilities of auto giants like Ford, Volkwagon, and Toyota, made this statement after meeting with President Biden and seeing him take to the picketline in support of the striking workers. Lula added “It is crucial that presidents all around the world show concern for labor." More about Lula's history with automobile labor unions is available at the Multinational Monitor.4. Despite concerns raised by high-ranking Democrats in Congress, the Biden administration has approved Israel's entry into the visa waiver program, meaning Israelis can now visit the US for up to 90 days without a visa, and Americans can do the same. However, the Middle East Eye reports that Arab-American Nondiscrimination Committee plans to challenge this decision in court, as Israel may not meet the legal criteria for the program due to their discrimination against Palestinian Americans. Huwaida Arraf, a lawyer representing the ADC, added “This is all so unnecessary, all the US government had to do was maintain the standard it has with every other country in the Visa Waiver Programme. This lawsuit could have been avoided, but the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department resurrected the debunked notion that separate is somehow equal. As these plaintiffs show, that notion is a farce.”5. The Sacramento Bee reports California Governor Gavin Newsom has vetoed two major pro-labor bills that emerged late in this session of the state legislature. One would have granted unemployment insurance to striking workers, a push which emerged in the face of the extended entertainment industry strikes. The other would have brought domestic workers under “the umbrella of OSHA protections.” These vetoes were handed down along with Newsom's decision to appoint LaPhonza Butler, head of EMILY's List and a Maryland resident, to fill the Senate seat left vacant by Dianne Feinstein's passing.6. On October 1st, The State Department issued a statement decrying “Anti-Democratic Actions in Guatemala,” directed at President-elect Bernardo Arevalo and his Semilla Party. The statement expresses that “The United States is gravely concerned with continued efforts to undermine Guatemala's peaceful transition of power…Most recently, the Guatemalan Public Ministry seiz[ing] electoral materials under the custody of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal,” and goes on to add that “The United States…[is] actively taking steps to impose visa restrictions on individuals who continue to undermine Guatemala's democracy, including current and former members of Congress, judicial actors, and any others engaging in such behavior…The Guatemalan people have spoken. Their voice must be respected.”7. PBS reports that during a recent meeting between American officials and Mexican President AMLO, the latter levied scathing criticisms of US foreign policy, including the mammoth aid packages for Ukraine and economic sanctions on Cuba, Venezuela, and other Latin American nations. President López Obrador said the United States “should spend some of the money sent to Ukraine on economic development in Latin America…[and]…called for a U.S. program “to remove blockades and stop harassing independent and free countries, an integrated plan for cooperation so the Venezuelans, Cubans, Nicaraguans and Ecuadorans, Guatemalans and Hondurans wouldn't be forced to emigrate.”8. The Japan Times reports that “The Japanese government plans to seek a court order to disband the Unification Church…after a monthslong probe into the religious group over allegations of soliciting financially ruinous donations from members and other questionable practices.” The report goes on to say “Scrutiny of the group intensified after former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was fatally shot during an election campaign speech last year over his perceived links to the entity, an incident which also brought to light its connections with many ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers.”9. Finally, Disney World is being hit with a substantial tort lawsuit. A woman visiting the park for her 30th birthday suffered “serious ‘gynecologic injuries'” while on the “Humunga Kowabunga” ride. I will spare listeners the grisly details, but suffice it to say she experienced “severe and permanent bodily injury,” which required surgery, per Law & Crime. Yet, in typical fashion of corporate media reportage on tortious injury, this story is being presented primarily as nothing more than a “wedgie,” just as the McDonald's lawsuit was reported as merely being about hot coffee. A deep dive into that case is available at the Tort Museum website.  Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe

for full 4.5 hour episode support the show on Patreon 4.5 hour sequel of A History of Leisure and Free Time focusing on lesser known movements, innovations, and countercultural operations of the 20th century - a consummate historical excursion into how we can redeem the Realm of Freedom in the 21st Century.  Robert Rauschenberg's Captiva Island getaway in post 68', Bell Laboratories, Experiments in Art and Technology, and Expo 70' in Osaka, Robert Maynard Hutchin's Civilizations of the Dialogue, Book Clubs, Feminism and the 6 hour work day, The UK Free Festival Circuit: Ritual Madness at Stonehenge ft. Ozric Tentacles, Utopian Communities during the Great Depression, how labor unions turned into "a carbon copy of capitalism", Taft-Hartley act, Frank Lloyd Wright pt. 2, FDR and the spiritualization of work...

On this day, June 23rd, in legal history, the Taft–Hartley Act was enacted over the veto of then President Harry Truman. The Taft–Hartley Act, also known as the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, is a US federal law that imposes limitations on labor unions. It was passed by the 80th Congress and became law on June 23, 1947, despite President Harry S. Truman's veto. The act was a response to a wave of strikes in 1945 and 1946. Although it was introduced by Republicans, it received significant support from Democrats in Congress.The Taft–Hartley Act amended the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 and introduced new restrictions on union activities and unfair labor practices. It banned practices such as jurisdictional strikes, wildcat strikes, secondary boycotts, closed shops, and monetary contributions from unions to federal political campaigns. The act also allowed states to enact right-to-work laws, which prohibit union shops.The law emerged during the early years of the Cold War and required union officers to sign non-communist affidavits. The strike wave and Republican control of Congress in the mid-term elections of 1946 created a favorable environment for the passage of the act. Republican Senator Robert A. Taft and Congressman Fred A. Hartley Jr. introduced separate measures to curb union power and prevent strikes. Eventually, a compromise bill combining elements from both measures was enacted.President Truman vetoed the Taft–Hartley Act, considering it a threat to free speech. However, Congress overrode his veto with support from both Democrats and Republicans. Despite Truman's opposition, he invoked the act on several occasions during his presidency.Union leaders from the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) campaigned for Truman in the 1948 election, hoping for a repeal of Taft–Hartley. Truman won the election but failed to fulfill the promise to repeal the law. Additionally, labor's attempt to defeat Republican Senator Robert A. Taft in Ohio in 1950 was unsuccessful, highlighting the limitations of labor's political power.Overall, the Taft–Hartley Act remains in effect, shaping labor relations in the United States by imposing restrictions on unions and their activities.Two Manhattan lawyers have been fined $5,000 by a federal judge for submitting a court brief generated by ChatGPT that contained fabricated quotes from non-existent cases. In addition to the fine, they are required to send the sanctions opinion to the actual judges that ChatGPT falsely attributed the fake opinions to. The lawyers may face further disciplinary action from the New York State Bar Association due to their use of ChatGPT. The judge found that one of the lawyers knowingly made false statements to the court and that both lawyers persisted with the fake cases despite doubts about their accuracy. The extensive news coverage of the case and the imposed fines are expected to serve as a deterrent against similar misuse of ChatGPT in the future. The lawyers' conduct has been criticized for abandoning their responsibilities and failing to verify the cases they cited. The episode has wasted time, harmed their client's case against Avianca Airlines, and potentially damaged the reputation of the judges associated with the fake opinions. The lawyers may face a reprimand or censure from a state bar discipline proceeding, but the negative publicity alone is likely to discourage similar misconduct by others.We talk about this at some length on my other podcast, with co-hosts Jacob Schumer and Jason Ramsland. The name is Esquiring Minds, it's our latest episode, and there is a link in the shownotes. Fake ChatGPT Cases Costs Lawyers $5,000 Plus EmbarrassmentEsquiring Minds E20BDO USA LLP, the sixth-largest accounting firm in the US, has announced its plans to convert from a partnership to a professional services corporation based in Delaware. The conversion, set to take effect on July 1, will result in the firm being known as BDO USA P.A. According to the firm, this change in structure will provide advantages that will support its ongoing growth and transformation. By transitioning to a corporate structure, BDO will be able to make faster decisions and streamline its tax structure, among other benefits. Partnerships often face challenges when it comes to making strategic decisions, as they typically require extensive consultation and can impede agility. Moving to a corporate structure will also reduce the tax burden on retained earnings, simplify tax compliance for partners, and facilitate the attraction of investment capital. The shift is expected to enhance BDO's operational efficiency and competitive position within the industry.BDO to Convert to a Corporation, Replacing US Partnership (2)The US Supreme Court has ruled against the Navajo Nation in their efforts to secure water in the drought-affected southwest region. The court's 5-4 decision reversed a lower court ruling that allowed a lawsuit by the Navajo Nation over Colorado River water to proceed. The Navajo argued that the federal government had an obligation to assist them in accessing water under a peace treaty that promised a "permanent home" and the provision of necessary resources. However, the majority decision, led by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, stated that while the 1868 treaty reserved water for the Navajo Reservation, it did not impose a requirement on the US to take proactive measures to secure water for the tribe. Kavanaugh emphasized that the judiciary's role was not to update laws and allocate water resources. The ruling was seen as disappointing by the Navajo Nation, but the split vote gave them some encouragement. They plan to continue pursuing efforts to obtain quantified water rights in Arizona. The case highlights the challenges of allocating water resources in the arid regions of the American West during times of drought.Supreme Court Rejects Navajo Nation Bid to Secure Water (3)Plaintiffs' lawyers involved in a data privacy lawsuit against Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, have requested more than $181 million in legal fees as part of a $725 million settlement. The lawyers, representing plaintiffs in the case, argued that the requested fees, amounting to 25% of the settlement fund, are in line with similar cases of comparable size. They stated that the settlement is the largest data privacy recovery and the largest private settlement ever reached by Facebook. The lawsuit, which originated from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, has been ongoing for nearly five years, with class counsel dedicating over 149,000 hours to the case. The final approval hearing for the settlement is scheduled for September 7.Plaintiffs lawyers in Facebook data privacy case seek $181 million in fees | ReutersLegal experts suggest that liability waivers signed by passengers aboard the submersible that was lost during a dive to the Titanic wreck may not protect the vessel's owner from potential lawsuits by the victims' families. Although the passengers are believed to have signed waivers, judges can reject them if evidence of gross negligence or undisclosed hazards is presented. The validity of the waivers would be compromised if there were aspects of the vessel's design or construction that were withheld from passengers or if it was knowingly operated despite being unsuitable for the dive. The applicability of the waivers will depend on the causes of the disaster, which are still under investigation. Families could potentially seek damages from OceanGate or other parties involved in the submersible's design or construction if negligence is proven. OceanGate could file a limitation of liability action, but it would need to prove no knowledge of potential defects, which is challenging. If OceanGate fails in such a case, families could pursue negligence or wrongful death lawsuits. The central questions would revolve around what OceanGate knew about the vessel's safety and what passengers were informed about it. Previous allegations of safety lapses made by a former employee and concerns expressed by industry leaders about the vessel's safety could potentially be cited by plaintiffs during the discovery process.Titanic sub victims' families could still sue despite liability waivers Get full access to Minimum Competence - Daily Legal News Podcast at www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe

Chris Adair, Senior Managing Director, Head of Strategic Partnerships and Tim Boomer, Senior Managing Director, Head of Client Solutions at SLC Management, discuss the Special Financial Assistance Program in the American Rescue Plan Act and the implications for Taft-Hartley plans.   This content is intended for institutional investors. The information in this podcast is not intended to provide specific financial, tax, investment, insurance, legal or accounting advice and should not be relied upon and does not constitute a specific offer to buy and/or sell securities, insurance, or investment services. Investors should consult with their professional advisors before acting upon any information contained in this podcast. Any statements that reflect expectations or forecasts of future events are speculative in nature and may be subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions and actual results which could differ significantly from the statements. As such, do not place undue reliance upon such forward-looking statements. All opinions and commentary are subject to change without notice and are provided in good faith without legal responsibility.   SLC-20230404-2825634  

If this were a video show, I would stare into the camera with steely eyeballs right now and say that I have a special message for employer CFOs. If you aren't a CFO, pretend that you are so that you get the full effect here. So, now that we're all CFOs, let's pull up the company P&L (Profit and Loss) statement. This is what keeps us all up at night, right? Making sure that the net profit line at the bottom looks good. We could decide to lay off a few people. Reorg something or other. Beat up a vendor. Stop buying the gold paper clips. We also could go over and have a strident conversation with sales leadership about what they can do to jack up their sales revenue. Top line begets bottom line, after all. Or, here's another idea: In this healthcare podcast, I am speaking with Paul Holmes, who is an ERISA (Employee Retirement Income Security Act) attorney with a specialty in PBM (pharmacy benefit manager) contracts, especially the PBM contracts from the big PBMs that get jammed in employer plan sponsor faces by whomever and which they are told look fine and that the employer plan sponsor should just go ahead and sign. Now, if we, meaning all of us CFOs, sign that paper, or someone on our benefits team signs the paper … fun fact, our company just spent 30% to 40% over market for our pharmacy benefits. That contract we just signed contains all kinds of expensive little buried treasures—treasures accruing to the PBM and other parties, to be clear, and coming at our expense. There's 17-ish very common treasures in your typical PBM contract, and none of us will ever spot them unless we know what we are looking for. But let's dig into this for a sec, especially for all of us newly minted CFOs because the real ones already did this math. Say our company spends whatever—we're a bigger company, and we spend $100 million a year on our drugs. That's a minimum of $30 million that we got taken for … $30 million a year. That's a metric load of our cold hard cash that got dumped out back and burned. Because of the huge dollars at stake (30% to 40% of drug spend), it's certainly the advice of almost anybody that you talk to who's an expert in PBM contracts to have a third party—not your EBC (employee benefit consultant), which we'll get into in a sec, but somebody else (a third party)—review every PBM contract. I mean, what's the worst that can happen for anybody considering having an independent third party review their PBM contract? It costs a couple grand in lawyer fees, and they give it a stamp of approval. Knowledge is power, and now we know. But let's just say this third-party review doesn't happen. We all go with a “devil may care” about this whole PBM overcharging us by 30% to 40% possibility. And let's say the PBM contract is, in fact, a ride on the Hot Mess Express, but we don't know it. Here's two pretty bad downsides, especially now, this year, since the passage of the CAA (the Consolidated Appropriations Act) at the beginning of 2022. Number one bad thing: Plan sponsors may get sued as per the CAA for ERISA violations. It's not just the company paying that extra $30 million, or 30% to 40%, right? It's also employees. This is risk exposure, bigly. Just like it was on the 401(k) side of the house, which Paul Holmes, my guest today, mentions later on in the interview. He talks about just how much those lawsuits cost and, yeah, exposure. As I mentioned three times already, today I am speaking with Paul Holmes about PBM contracts in all their stealthy glory. The one thing I came to appreciate is that these things are works of art … if you're into those paintings of pretty flowers where, if you look hard enough, you spot a skull tucked in the greenery (memento mori). Paul is a longtime ERISA attorney. He has dedicated his career to helping plan sponsors in their negotiations with PBMs and trying to help them reduce drug spend, especially drug spend that isn't actually paying for drugs. Here's a link to an article we discuss about how a school district in Florida is suing their longtime EBC for taking $2 million a year in alleged secret payments. We also mention an episode with AJ Loiacono (EP379). And along similar lines, Jeff Hogan mentioned on LinkedIn the other day, “It's pretty amazing that just in the course of the [past few] weeks, I'm reading, seeing, and hearing about big new CAA breach of fiduciary duty cases.” So, Paul Holmes says this more eloquently, but if you're a plan sponsor, definitely get your PBM contract reviewed and maybe consider working with an EBC who's happy to sign the disclosure statement that your lawyer has provided without disclaimers. Oh, hey … one last thing and new topic. Here's a cool goings-on: Right now, the March Healthcare Classic is in full swing. Each spring, Josh Berlin's rule of three team collaborates with other experts to predict which major trend will find itself at the top of the healthcare agenda over the next 12 months. This year, their selection committee includes Anisha Sood; Danny Brywczynski; David Carmouche, MD; Shaheed Koury, MD; and Stephanie Mercado. Check it out and weigh in yourself should you choose to do so.   You can learn more by emailing Paul at pbh@williamsbarbermorel.com.   Paul B. Holmes, JD, is a seasoned ERISA lawyer with nearly 40 years of specialization in that field. Paul joined Williams Barber Morel recently, after 31 years with Nixon Peabody LLP and Ungaretti & Harris LLP. Paul has extensive and unique experience in representing large employers and Taft-Hartley welfare funds in their selection, contracting, auditing, and litigation with large pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). Paul has logged over 8000 hours during the past four to five years, advising large employers and Taft-Hartley welfare funds managing their prescription drug benefit plans. This work includes active oversight of the request for proposal (RFP) process for selecting a PBM, the negotiation of final PBM contracts (including pricing, rebates, and audit rights), and regular audits of PBM compliance with their contracts. He was selected, through a peer-review survey, for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America (2020 and 2021) in the field of Employee Benefits (ERISA) Law. Paul received his bachelor's degree from Bradley University and his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Illinois College of Law.   06:06 What are Paul's usual observations when a PBM contract crosses his desk? 06:57 “If you just sign … one of their model contracts …, you're probably gonna pay 30% to 40% above market on your drug spend.” 10:35 What is a PBM lawyer? And why is it important to find an ERISA PBM lawyer? 15:37 EP379 with AJ Loiacono. 16:05 Who is on the hook for the cost of the PBM contracts? 20:36 What's the problem with most ERISA lawyers today? 22:28 Lawsuit about PBM contract. 27:15 What's Paul's advice for benefits consultants? 31:11 How much might a plan sponsor be paying their consultant versus what a consultant might be making from a PBM?   You can learn more by emailing Paul at pbh@williamsbarbermorel.com.   Paul Holmes discusses #PBMContracts on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast   Recent past interviews: Click a guest's name for their latest RHV episode! Anna Hyde, Dea Belazi (Encore! EP293), Brennan Bilberry, Dr Vikas Saini and Judith Garber, David Muhlestein, Nikhil Krishnan (Encore! EP355), Emily Kagan Trenchard, Dr Scott Conard, Gloria Sachdev and Chris Skisak, Mike Thompson  

Words move the plot; your emotions tell the story.Born and raised in Brooklyn, Wass Stevens didn't take acting seriously until his mid-30s, when an actress he was dating insisted on him taking acting classes with her acting coach. Wass put his desire to become a lawyer aside, and after a couple of months of acting classes, he got Taft Hartley on his first audition by Joe Bologna. Completely in love with acting, Wass never stopped performing. He played Nick Volpe in the award-winning film, "The Wrestler," and Nicholas Cage's brother in "World Trade Center." Wass also worked on "John Wick 2" and the Netflix series "House of Cards." He also teaches at the prestigious acting school Susan Batson Acting Studio in New York. In this episode, we learn about Wass' life before becoming a Hollywood star and how he discovered his passion for acting. We talk about how hard Hollywood can be, the most common mistakes young actors make, and his experiences as an acting teacher. Wass also shares the takeaways from working with the best directors, his thoughts on self-taping, and much more. Tune in to Episode 75 of Hollywood Dream Maker and learn more about this outstanding actor and superstar human being. In This Episode, You Will Learn:A bit about Wass' childhood in Brooklyn (2:21)Acting is about being in the moment and tearing the walls down (11:02)Hollywood can be a tough place (19:03)You can't judge the bad guy you are about to play (27:13)"Nobody wants to cry." How to handle emotions on set (36:16)Why should every actor do animal and private moment exercises (46:31)Self-taping and the energy of the room. Wass take on self-taping (55:53)Wass shares takeaways and golden lessons from working with the best directors (1:02:57)Connect with Wass:IMDbLet's Connect: Manhattan Actor Studio Website Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Brandon Rees is the Deputy Director, Corporations and Capital Markets for the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).The AFL-CIO is a federation of 56 labor unions who represent 12.5 million members. Union sponsored and Taft-Hartley pension and employee benefit plans hold approximately $540 billion in assets.The AFL-CIO Office of Investment promotes the interests of workers' funds in the capital markets by leading corporate governance shareholder initiatives and advocating for legislative and regulatory reform. Brandon Rees is also a member of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board's standing advisory group. He received his B.A. in Economics and J.D. from U.C. Berkeley.On this episode of Outside In, Brandon talks with Jon about the importance of proxy voting, why Americans are overworked and the retirement savings crisis. They also discuss why 2022 was the year of the anti-ESG backlash and aligning the long-term investment horizons of retirement savers with their investments.

It's no secret that the statutory deck under ERISA is stacked heavily in favor of multiemployer pension plans and against employers contributing to—or withdrawing from—Taft-Hartley trust funds. Construction employers should take demands for withdrawal liability seriously. The failure to strictly adhere to statutory deadlines can be, and often is, catastrophic by denying an employer the ability to contest the withdrawal liability in arbitration. 

We discuss a short history of labor strikes in the United States and how the federal government dramatically reduced the power of labor with the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947.

About Gene Kalwarski and Cheiron: For more than 30 years, Gene Kalwarski has been one of the nation's leading actuaries to multi-billion dollar jointly-trusteed pension and health and welfare funds in the Taft-Hartley and public sector arenas. He is an industry leader in the development of PC-based financial applications and interactive analytical tools that empower fund trustees to understand evaluate and strategize alternative solutions to their financial challenges with respect to pension funding, escalating healthcare costs, and investment strategy. Gene's ideas and achievements have been chronicled in many industry publications, Money magazine, and at the annual Business Week CFO Forum. He specializes in creating innovative real-time simulation decision tools for financial executives facing major strategic decisions with respect to pension funding, investment strategy, and health insurance. His clients have been primarily multi-billion dollar funds of major corporations, states, Taft-Hartley funds, U.S. federal agencies, and the governments of foreign countries. Gene applies a "hands on" approach in designing and developing evolving technology applications for clients. Staying actively involved in this dynamic field allows him to incorporate his depth of knowledge and experience to the applications being developed, enhancing them to be more effectively useful from an upper management perspective. In addition, he has extensive experience presenting actuarial concepts to large audiences who have little technical expertise. Gene has testified on several occasions before U.S. Senate Committees and regularly testifies before state legislatures and boards of trustees on behalf of the many state-wide pension funds he represents. After more than 21 years at Milliman where he established the firm's Washington office, in 1984 he became the firm's youngest Equity Principal. By 1990 he was the youngest Equity Principal to serve on the firm's Board of Directors. He joined Cheiron in November 2002. Prior to working at Milliman, Gene worked for two years at Towers Perrin. He began his actuarial career at the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation or PBGC where he spent nearly five years. Cheiron (pronounced ki´• ron) is an employee-owned, full-service actuarial and financial consultancy, advising a national client base of public employers, Taft-Hartley plans, non-profits and corporations, from offices in Washington, DC; Charlotte; Chicago; Philadelphia; New York; Portland, OR; Los Angeles; San Francisco; and San Diego. Our primary business is in the pension and health areas, where we help clients identify, measure, and monitor financial risks, and assist them in addressing those risks. At the heart of these services is our proprietary line of sophisticated "X-scan"​ modeling tools that allow clients to see, in real time, the nature and degree of financial risk they face, and determine when deeper analysis is needed. We stand behind our work, serving our clients with integrity, responsiveness and objectivity. Our only business is providing analysis and advice. We do not ask clients to accept limitations on our liability for the quality of our work. Our advice is objective, serving only our clients interests and will not be affected by conflicts with other corporate alliances, outside advisors, external oversight entities, or between management and labor. Although Cheiron opened its doors in 2002, our seasoned consulting staff averages more than 24 years of experience. Our consultants have earned a strong national reputation for high professional standards, innovation and dedication to solving our clients'​ problems.

Seventy-five years ago last week, the U.S. Congress overrode Harry Truman's veto and enacted the Labor-Management Relations Act of 1947, better known as the Taft-Hartley Act. The law corrected imbalances of power among individual employees, employers, and labor unions that had emerged after the passage of the original Wagner Act in 1935 that had culminated in the largest strike wave in American history from 1945 through 1946. The law restricted “secondary” boycotts and strikes targeting “neutral” businesses, authorized the National Labor Relations Board to hold unions accountable for unfair labor practices, and explicitly recognized states' powers to enact “right to work” laws that prohibit contract provisions requiring payment of union fees as a condition of employment. Joining me to celebrate the legacy of the Taft-Hartley Act and discuss where labor policy might be headed in the future is Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. Links: https://www.nrtw.org/ https://capitalresearch.org/article/progressive-labor-plans-to-drag-u-s-economy-back-to-1946/ https://www.influencewatch.org/legislation/labor-management-relations-act-of-1947-taft-hartley-act/ Subscribe to the podcast on your platform of choice at: https://influencewatch.fireside.fm/ Follow our socials: • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenter • Twitter: https://twitter.com/capitalresearch • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/capitalresearchcenter • YouTube: https://bit.ly/CRCYouTube • Rumble: https://rumble.com/capitalresearch • Gettr: https://gettr.com/user/capitalresearch

In 2021 the pension assets of U.S. workers stood at 35 trillion dollars and amounted to fully 62 percent of all global pension assets. For almost half a century, this money has fueled the growth of the asset management sector, the likes of BlackRock, Vanguard, and Fidelity Investments to name only a few. New Labor Forum author Benjamin Braun casts a critical eye on the investment practices of collectively bargained Taft-Hartley pension funds which have contributed so significantly to the rise of a bloated financial sector. He also discusses efforts to redirect labor's capital to the benefit of workers and to investment in public goods projects, such as infrastructure and renewable energy.

Intro: Lost Boys, Chapelle's Show, Dianne Wiest, Brian Cox, Hillary and Bill. Let Me Run This By You: I need to KNOW what your major malfunction is. Compulsive liars, mushrooms.Interview: We talk to Scott Torrence about raves, feelng famous as a club kid, and surviving Tulsa.FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited): 1 (8s):And Jen Bosworth and I'm Gina . We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it. 20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all. We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet? And then we watched lost boys, which by the way, the lost boys is the lost boys, like from the eighties and that movie. It's hilarious. So in a real way, like there's some comedy gold in that movie that both Myles and I were like, like, look, it's a cheeseball eighties movie, but it holds up.1 (53s):There's not, there's no real. I'm trying to think of like, look the thing that Dave, there's no people of color in the movie that sucks. Yeah. But in terms of overtly racial, racist, or sexist, sexist jokes, not, and obviously it's creepy and it's a vampire flake, but it holds up, I was shocked. I thought this is going to be a piece of shit. So what is the thought, how did you arrive at watching this movie? So, okay. So that is such a great, that's a great question in that Myles and I never agree on what to watch ever, ever, ever, ever his idea of like, he wants to watch good things, right?1 (1m 35s):Like he wants to watch real stuff. I have to be in a very specific mood to watch real shit. I can't be triggered about anything in any way. I can't, it's really lame. Like I can't, so you're a delicate flower. Yeah. And I think it's also, I just am unwilling to use the brain power and the emotional wherewithal to focus on something that's like really good. So, okay. So which is why I thought lost boys. Right. Cause who cares? But it was so good, but Myles likes to watch, like he wanted me to watch the harder they fall, you know, the new sort of Western on I, I watched a little bit and it was, it was, I thought it was really, really well-written, but it was also Uber violent and Uber, like it was just too much.1 (2m 23s):So it didn't. Okay. Chappelle show. Interesting choice. We started watching the first season of Chappelle show. Wow. Wow. No, it is not a shocker that Mr. Chappelle is, is having the problems that he is having. Now, if you go back and watch the show, it's really interesting. And I, I don't know where I fall. I do think that if you kill affordable housing, I hate your guts because those were all of my former clients. And also, and just for humanity's sake. So I hate that. And we talked about that on the podcast. Right. And then, but anyway, so we stumbled upon and I was like, let's watch it pops up on my Netflix feed because why not?1 (3m 6s):And, and I was like, all right, let's watch it. And I'm expecting it to be so bad. First of all, Diane weest is a goddamn national treasure. She,2 (3m 16s):She really is. She really is. She's such a good,1 (3m 20s):Okay. So if I had to pick my, I always play this game, my new parents, my parents are going to be Brian Cox and Diane weest. Yes. I mean, it's, it's going to be very weird, but it, it, that if I quirky, I told you how I met Brian Cox and asked him to be my new dad. Excuse me. It's a lot before,2 (3m 43s):After all of the time I've spent talking to you about succession and reading Brian Cox's autobiography.1 (3m 49s):I just remembered it. I remembered it when I was talking, thinking about Diane, Diane weest lasted. It was before it was during adaptation that Nick cage made. And I like, I somehow it was, he, he was in a anyway. It doesn't matter. The point is I got to talking to him at a party and I was like, I want you to be my new dad. And at the time my dad was still alive. Right. So, oh, wow. Like, you know what his response was. I get that a lot. And he was serious. He said, people project all this shit onto me.1 (4m 30s):I believe2 (4m 31s):That makes a lot of sense. Oh, wow. Very interesting.1 (4m 35s):Yeah. This is like, before I knew anything about anything and right, right,2 (4m 39s):Right, right.1 (4m 40s):Oh my God. So we watched the lost boys, all this to say, and we just did it because it was something that we both could agree on that wasn't going to cause me weirdness because I'm weird and it wasn't going to four miles or what ends up happening because I, you know, I was watching about a Canadian cannibal the other night and he's like, I can't watch this before bed. Like, I can't under fair enough. Fair enough. But you know who, the stars of this movie are the true stars. Corey Feldman inquiry, aim pain. Yeah. And the other frog brother, they were Hulu like Cory Ames, Hames, his him, Hey right.1 (5m 25s):With age Corey Haim's delivery costumes. Oh my God. The clothing, like from the eighties and his delivery and his, his acting chops, his comedic acting chops are like fucking unparalleled. They're like on par with some deep shit. Anyway. So I that's my recommendation wash the lost boys. I wish there were people of color in it, of course, but2 (5m 53s):Maybe they'll do a remake, but that seems to be the way that they, they, you know, fix that well, not to brag, but at my dinner, my mellantine dinner last night, two other very special people were at our same restaurant. Whew. Hillary and bill Clinton. Yes. And it was so moving to see them. It was especially her, him. I'm like, I've changed my tune a little bit about him, but, and she is just as energetic and bubbly and, and kind of course, I didn't want to go up up to them.2 (6m 36s):I've never done that, but I've never gone up to a celebrity and said, can I whatever, say hello or take your picture with her. But on the way out, they were seated in such a way that you could sort of see in when, when you left. And I just didn't, you know, I just blew kisses at her and she just, you know, waved her hands and gave me a big smile. It was really, really nice. That is so awesome. We it's okay. We didn't deserve her honestly. Right. We would have, we would've ruined it in one way or another. And then juxtapose that with reading this morning. I don't know how I got on this topic. I start reading about what's happening with Kanye right now.2 (7m 19s):It's really sad.1 (7m 20s):It's2 (7m 20s):Really sad. And why are we still in this place where we, don't not enough of us to know that this is not something to joke about. This is not something to salivate over. Like this person really needs help. And the rich, the Oop, the ultra rich in some ways are in a similar position to the ultra poor when it comes to basic things like, you know, health care, we've talked about it a lot with respect to drugs and all the yes, yes. People that are in celebrities lives that ultimately I think lead to their death, but also the, this issue of mental health going, and I'm sorry, but Brittany Spears seems to be going off the rails too.2 (8m 1s):I, I'm not saying that it was right. That she was in that conservatorship, but I think she was on meds that she's not on now. And I'm sorry. I wish it weren't the case that really sick mentally ill people needed to take meds, but they do. They just do there's no, it's just the truth. There's no point in like, quibbling about it.1 (8m 29s):All this to say. I have never been in the presence of someone who literally is a compulsive liar. Like I've been around people that, cause this is LA right. Everyone is a blowhard. This person is a pathological compulsive liar. It is so, so, and the reason I bring it up is one to gossip, but to like, right, but to, to talk about this is why, like I was thinking about you, how you posted, how you saw that my name is Anna, right? Like, and how we're writing about Agnes.1 (9m 10s):Right? So Agnes, I don't think is a compulsive liar at all, but she's a con person. So there's there's and this person I was around was fascinating. And I actually, once I knew the diagnosis of a person of this person, it, it, it, it settled me. So I find, I don't know if you have this experience where, when I'm around someone and I don't know what their major malfunction is, but there is a malfunction, I am petrified. Right. I'm like, stick me in a room. And someone's like, okay, this person has narcissistic personality disorder with, you know, with, with, with psychotic tendency, whatever it is.1 (9m 57s):I'm like, okay, I know what I'm working with. Right. I know what I'm working with. The once her diagnosis, like this is a diagnosis that she's received, right. A personality. But anyway, it put, when I, so I could be in the room or outside with this person and I could say, oh, and this person is so narcissistic. They never listened to our PA, like they, they won't listen to our podcasts. She didn't even really remember who I was in a way in that way. Anyway. So they had a context or whatever. So watching a compulsive liar at work, fascinating, Gina, fascinating.1 (10m 37s):Because you can see as I'm, so I'm a kind of a gregarious gal, right? Duh. But like, I am, I like people, but I could see when I was telling a story, I was telling the story about my mushroom use. Right? And so how I tried to drive a car on mushroom, it's a Berry funny and sad and funny story. And it's a true story. Fucking happened to me with Ana Maria, who came from Vashon island and Jeffrey Brown and I, and Ana took mushrooms. You've never told me this story. It's the greatest story ever told. I mean, like you told me that you saw a family and you thought they were calling themselves the large family. That was when I was on acid. So different in solving or something different, different fake.1 (11m 18s):So, okay. Went to south America, went to Paraguay for a Migos, gave vaccinations. My partner was on a Maria Ana, Maria. She was from Vashon island off the coast of Seattle on bash on island is a hippie island on the, on the grounds of the police station. Grew hallucinogenic mushrooms. All the kids knew about it. Ana Maria decides I want to come visit you. We, we kind of made friends. I'm going to visit you in Chicago. She fucking brings tons of hallucinogens on the plane at 16 she's 16, I'm 16. But to just to disguise them, she puts them in a huge bag of popery.1 (12m 1s):So we don't know what's the mushroom and what's the popery okay. Oh, like just mixed it in. Oh yeah. So here in burping up. Well, so we didn't know Jeffrey Brown, of course. And he's fine talking about this. Cause we've talked about it. Jeffrey Brown is like, I'll do them with you. They were no measurements. There were no, we grabbed handfuls of what we thought were, oh, I was 16. Okay. Fine. It all was fun. We had a good time. It was really gross in my throat. Burned from the popery don't know how many mushroom caps I took probably a lot. Probably like, cause it doesn't take a lot, depending on the phone, it's all fun and games until they were, we, I had to drive home and I was driving my mom's Honda.1 (12m 46s):So I get in the car and we're on lake shore drive and I stopped the car and I say on lake shore drive and Ana and Jeffrey, we had dropped Jeffrey off and Jeffrey's like honest, like what are you doing? And I'm like, I have to stop the car because, and she's like, why? And I was like, I gotta be honest. I don't know how this car works. Like I couldn't figure out the mechanics of why it was. I said there's piston pistons involved. And she was like talking. Okay. So it crazy. So I'm stuck on lake shore drive. Right. And you were 16. I mean, there's so many things vulnerable about this attrition and I protein anxiety.1 (13m 29s):Right. So that's a whole, so, okay. Finally she's like, and she doesn't drive. Right? She doesn't drive. She's 16. She's never licensed yet. She doesn't know how. I barely know how so it was, she's like you have to pull back on. You have to, I think I probably managed to pull off a little bit and she's like, will you, do you know where you live? She's in a new city. She doesn't, there's no cell phones. And I'm like, I live, I know where I live. I live in Evanston. And so that was good. But then I get back in the car and I'm like, oh my God, Ana, I have bad news. And she's like, oh my God, what? And I'm like, there are people chasing us because the headlights in the bed, I was like, there are a lot of cars chasing us. What do you mean women?1 (14m 10s):Yeah. And I was like, oh my God. And so I then started to panic, of course. And I, and I go home and I'm like, my parents are having a fucking dinner party Sunday night. Here's this poor girl who brought drugs on an airplane with me who doesn't know my parents from Adam. I lived with her for two months. They don't know her. So I walk in to the dinner party and I say, I'm so sorry to interrupt, but I've just taken. Apparently I've just eaten a lot of hallucinogenic mushrooms and I'm, I'm freaking out. And my mom goes, oh my fucking God.1 (14m 52s):Like she like was pissed off. And my dad just put his head in his hands and was like, I'll talk you down. And so he was lovely. Yeah. It was great. My dad, thank God. He was a psychologist, even though he's fucked up. He had some training in this. So I sat with my dad and talked for, and then they were like, we got it. He's like, you should eat something. So like, they should have ordered it, but they're like, no, let's go to the bagel. And I'm like, okay. So we go. So we all go, my parents and this were this woman who is unknown to us other than now my parents know she's a drug dealer. Right. So we go to the bagel now.1 (15m 33s):I don't know what was happening, Gina, but we walk into the bagel and there's a clown and full clown suit behind. And I start hyperventilating and I want to leave. And my mom was like, no, you have to stay like, she's punishing me. Right. So I'm like, oh my God. Oh my God. So we say it was like a birthday party or something, but it was like Sunday night. Okay. So we sit down, the waitress comes over to the dinner party. So they all leave. Like it was a bad situation. It was like three other couples crisis teenage crisis. Okay. They leave whatever. All right. So then we go to the bagel and we see the clown or I'm like, oh my God, no, no, no.1 (16m 16s):So we set in another area and the waitress comes and literally this is what happened. My mom's like, Hey, the way they were, my mom is like a huge, super dot. And she goes, what's the soup. And the lady goes, oh, cream of mushroom. And then my mom and everybody wraps into laughter. I feel like I'm on, you know, again, tripping. So it was a bad scene. It was a bad scene. And, and I had panic attacks from that from weeks on. So I know that I need to be very careful, but okay. I tell the story for this reason. One, it's a funny story. Yeah. It was my introduction to psychedelics, but too, as I'm telling this story, I see this other person at the party livid and thinking, how can I out story this story?1 (17m 10s):Oh shoot. Oh, no, I didn't mean for that. And I thought, oh, of course not. Of course you're not living your life to injure and are looking and looking at me and thinking, you can almost see the wheels turning about like, how am I going to one up the story at this dinner party outside at 8:00 PM. Like, it it's crazy, but there's competition going. And I'm like, and then, so then this person launches into this totally unbelievable, like crazy story about hallucinogens. It was so sad. And I, I wanted to say so many things to this person.1 (17m 56s):I said nothing, cause I'm not.2 (17m 59s):Yeah. Right. That's, that's their, that's their journey. But did the person whose name we will have bleeped by the time this airs, did that person like say something to you in advance? Or you're just saying you experienced this compulsive liar.1 (18m 14s):No, no. They've known, you know, they've known this person forever and it it's the things that this person says is wild. Like we'll say I bought a house and they didn't buy a house. I am going to Greece tomorrow.2 (18m 30s):No, no. And, and the person who was having the party is just okay with it because1 (18m 36s):My husband chimes in. Cause he's, he's, he's like, why, why the fuck are you friends with this person? And they say, it's like family. It's like this weird. And the answer is, I don't know. And I don't think they know.2 (18m 50s):Yeah, right. Anyway, he was like family. I well, and you're right. What you said about when, when you know the context, I like, I have a few friends who, yeah, they, they have diagnosable personality disorders, but knowing this about them and loving them anyway, kind of gets me off the hook of like having to feel bad about it or having to feel worried about it. I mean, yeah. Those are not the people that you're necessarily going to go to with your, every intimacy. Right. But, but to just, just to like, know what brand of crazy you're dealing with can kind of make it because at the end of the day, you know, the only way, not, not that it was anybody's job to change the compulsive layer, but the only way that those people ever do eventually kind of see to a life full of more integrity is not by, I mean, sometimes I guess it's from people abandoning them, but mostly it's from people saying, you know, I love you.2 (19m 47s):And I know you're lying to me, you know, which is a hard thing for me, lying is like, is that if I'm, I don't think I've ever said before that I have a trigger, but that's, my trigger is lying. When somebody starts lying to me, I, I well up with such rage and I realize it's my own narcissism. Right? How dare you lie to me? I, you know, like as if it's something they're doing to me, instead of something that they're doing defensively for themselves in the same way that everything I do is defensively for myself. Like it's just a different brand of defense.1 (20m 25s):Yeah. It was wild2 (20m 26s):That, that recasts my own experiences with that person. Wow. Okay.1 (20m 34s):Yeah. And criminal, we've talked about this criminal things. So it's just, it's what it is for me was real reckoning with my own desire. Right. To be something that I am not like, I understand that in my bones. Okay. I guess, I guess like I practice before, like say, what would I say to this person? Cause I thought like if I was to try to quote, help this person, which I'm not going to try to do, but I'm just saying like, okay, well the urge is there to, to compat have compassion.1 (21m 16s):This is what I would say, oh, how I get it? This deep down in my bones need to be something I'm not something greater than I'm not than me. Something prettier, something thinner, something more attractive, something smarter, funnier, all the things I know that feeling. So what I grew up with that feeling it's been reinforced and I know it in my bones and I have tried every way I can think of to combat that. And nothing has worked except for the thing that I'm running the most away from, which is the truth.2 (22m 5s):Right.1 (22m 5s):It's such a fucking catch 22. It's like, so when I tell the truth, I'm so scared sometimes to tell it whether it's, I feel inadequate, I made a mistake. I, whatever it is, I'm feeling less than I feel you're mad at me. I feel all the things. If I don't say that, if I say anything, but the truth, the suffering I experience only gets multiplied.2 (22m 36s):And the person who is a compulsive liar in a way you could think about it like being a verbal tick, like if somebody had Tourette's, you know, and, and was an, every other thing they uttered was like an involuntary sound. That's almost how you could think about the compulsive liar. My, the problem that I have is I get into this thing of like, well, if I don't confront your lie, that I'm co-signing it. Which actually is not how it works. Right. I, I'm not in charge of what you say. You, you, you have lies spewing out of your mouth. I mean, that's, that's your problem.1 (23m 8s):Right. It's so interesting. And I think it, I think it, it, it, it, it just is. So it's just a fascinating part of human of human. What is it like pathology when stuff gets, and that's the way it manifests, because we just want to be so much sort of more safe and, and special. We want to be safe and special.2 (23m 39s):I think it would be like for a person who is so sick with the line, what do you, it would be like for them. I mean, what, I wonder if it's something as simple as like walking through. Okay. So what do you think is going to happen? If you tell the truth? People aren't going to like me. Okay. Well, has it ever occurred to you that people don't like you for not telling the truth? Right. Well, people aren't gonna like you. And then what, you know, because of course the thing is like, the problem is not that other people aren't gonna want you to promise that you don't like yourself. This is, this is my news. Like not pro, not profound, but profound to me, realization about life.2 (24m 20s):Is this just like really the whole thing is whether or not you love yourself. Yeah. Right. And when you're talking about relating to other people, loving other people, supporting other relationships, like pretty much RuPaul said it, if you can't love yourself, how the hell are you going to love somebody else? It's just what it is. It's like a fact, it's not even really an opinion. And, and, and I, I'm on a journey of figuring out how to love myself. And it's really scary. It's like, I have no idea how this is going to turn out. I don't know, from this. Right. But so far my furtive little steps are turning out great.2 (25m 3s):As an example, you know, I was talking to somebody about, I was talking to somebody that I'm in a, you know, that I have a closeness with about prob not even problems, but just, you know, areas of challenge and in the, in the relationship. And for the first time I didn't take this person who was telling me what they are struggling with with me. And I didn't take it personally. I took it like, oh, you're telling me what your struggle is. Okay. I get that. I didn't, I didn't have to take it on, like, as my own person, didn't have to make it about my own ego.2 (25m 48s):You know, getting feeling rejected. I could really see. And it, the only thing I can attribute it to is I have somewhat more of a better sense of myself, such that I'm not constantly looking to another person to tell me if I'm good or not. Today on the podcast, we are talking to Scott Torrance. Scott Torres is an actor. You may know him from a film that started many theater school graduates like Sean Gunn and Judy Greer and Lee curves, some called the specials.2 (26m 33s):He was also in six feet under and a film called Ray and Buffy. The vampire Slayer. Scott is currently living in his hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma. He is running his very own hair salon and he is funny and charming and sweet and lovable. So please enjoy our conversation with Scott Torrance, Any race. Oh, okay. Good recording progress. Got it. All right. Scott Torrens. Congratulations. You survived theater school.3 (27m 7s):Thank you. By the grace of God,2 (27m 10s):Grace of God. No. Wait, did you guys graduate the same year? Right? Because you, Scott was in the class right below mine. And then1 (27m 21s):What year did you graduate? 98. Yeah. We were in the same, but listen, but listen, I was so far gone that I don't, I just couldn't even, cause I took a year off that I don't remember. Literally I remember nothing. So, so yeah, they were the same class.3 (27m 39s):Okay, awesome. Cause I was trying to rack my brain. I was like, I remember you. I remember you being a year ahead of me, both of you. And then, you know what, to be honest, if I was just gonna blame it on a whole lot of ecstasy that I did for four years, I blown out a lot of brain cells as I there's a lot of things to remember. And a lot of things that I did,2 (28m 1s):That's good into it because honestly that I think, I mean, I remember that that is what you were going through or getting into or whatever you want to call it. You were the first person I knew who was like really into rave culture, which I thought was so cool and dangerous and adventurous and exciting. Was that something you were involved in before you came to theater school?3 (28m 26s):A little bit. I am from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I was this little gay boy raised by my mom and my aunt. And I knew from the time I knew, I knew once I knew what a big city was, I belonged in. You know, I knew that I never belonged here. And so I just started acting when I, my, my aunt Coco, my crazy aunt, Coco was an actress around town and community theater. And she took me to see Peter pan when I was six. And I fell in love with it because they flew.3 (29m 7s):And three years later at the same theater company held auditions. And I was like, I want to play Michael because I want to fly. And I practice and practice audition for it and got called back. And I got that part and the bug bit. And from that point on laser focused, and one of the things that I have, that's a blessing and a curse, I think is I have the ability to get laser focused on something and not stop until I get it. But I usually get laser focused on the wrong things. Be it the rave culture and the club, the club kids. I mean, it was fun, but I, should've probably been focused a little bit more on class.1 (29m 48s):Well, I have a question. I think that for me, I don't think there's, I mean, look, I'm not gonna de eh, say your experience. Wasn't valid because it sounds like it, but at least you had fun, right. While the rest of us were like slick. I mean, like tell us what that was like, how did you get into that culture? Because I remember being like, oh my God, these kids are so cool and they're having a fucking blast. Was it fun? First of all,3 (30m 16s):It was so much fun. It was too much fun, you know, and coming into the theater school, I knew I wasn't going to be, I knew I was going to be surrounded by people that were better than me. You know, we were all kind of like, I felt like the best of where we came from, you know? So I was prepared to not be the golden child. But what was interesting was I was very curious and I was, you know, dropped into Chicago from Tulsa, Oklahoma. And so I had no fear when I was 18. I mean, I feared the professors, but not Chicago nightlife. And so I just, I went to pro bar one night by myself. I took a class, I waited in line, freezing my ass off for like an hour.3 (31m 1s):And then I saw these magical people, like just walk through with these huge platform shoes and this crazy makeup. And I was like, oh my God, I want to beat them. And finally got in and like bought my way to the back of the club where all of these fantastic people were. And I had the nerve to just ask one of them. I'm like, where'd she get those shoes? And I'm like, oh, I have a maid. I was like, where, okay. I like a cobbler or something like that. So I got my dad's combat boots that he gave me. Cause he really wanted me to be a tough guy. And I said, I'll keep these boots. And I took them in and I got six inches of like platform attached, dressed up in these, like these like striped overalls.3 (31m 49s):And I had this like matching hat and I wore those shoes and I walked up to the club the next time. And they were like, right, this way you don't have to pay. Like, and from that point on, I felt like I felt famous.2 (32m 4s):Never occurred to me until just now that raves or theater. I don't know why that current, till, till you just said it, you made your entrance and with your correct costume on, and then you got the part. Yeah.1 (32m 18s):Great. And you were also famous. Yeah. I mean, I think that's the other thing that I've learned from talking to people like you and another guest ed we had on kind of talked about this, that like that and watching documentaries that the club kid thing was a tr a mix of like fashion show meets theater meets like calendula, like D like, so what debauchery, but it's, it's a theater. It was like theater of it meets the fashion shows. It was fantastic.3 (32m 51s):I agree. And I also on the, on the touching on the famous part, feeling famous, not having to pay $20 at the time, which was pretty hardcore. I thought to get into anywhere. I was like hobnobbing with like a Dennis Rodman in the VIP lounge was totally, he was totally hot now. He's not anymore. Billy Corgan. I mean, I was hanging with these like stars. So I felt famous. I remember talking to Billy Gorgon. I was as tall as he was, because it was six inches on this five, seven foot body we were face to face and he like, where'd you get those shoes? They're pretty cool. And I'm like, oh my God, I love you so much.3 (33m 33s):Like, it was just, it was magical. But I was also like, I was so wrapped up that it got me into some like, kinda like bad situations. And do you mean like dangerous situations? Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. Okay. So did you guys remember the seven minute rule? Like if you were late seven minutes, the door would close and then if the door closed three times you were completely kicked out of school. It didn't matter if it was like last semester, senior year, three times you're out. And from what I remember, our credits wouldn't transfer.3 (34m 14s):So they put the fear of God in us to like, make it on time, which I agree with. Like, I think, you know, time is money. I've never really had a problem with being prompt, but there was one night that, okay. So I had bill Burnett for voice and speech. I think it was our second year. And I just could not with him. I would just say1 (34m 40s):I got in a fight with him in class where I stormed out, because he's told me I had, I was a chicken necking and that I did this too much. And then I looked like a chicken and I couldn't take it because, and I just stormed out that motherfucker. I never liked him. Well,3 (34m 55s):He just put me to sleep and granted, I probably wasn't on any sleep, you know, going into that class. But I risk, I risked it, that biscuit and I just skipped twice. I was like, I can't, I can't, but I won't miss the third time. Now this is kind of a dark sword, but I went to so Tuesdays and Wednesdays in Chicago where like the nights that like weren't ethic and back then, and I remember just going to this gay bar and boys town just to have some drinks. And I remember all of a sudden waking up in the emergency room with restraints on my arms and legs and a catheter.3 (35m 37s):And I was like, I had no idea how he got there. I was like, what happened? And finally the doctors came in and said, you know, you were fighting us. We were trying to have, and I, I don't remember. I don't, I'm total blackout. And you guys, I've never laid a singer on anyone in my life, but they said it was a possible GHB overdose or roofie overdose. So someone bought me a drink the one night that I just went out to just have like a couple of drinks, not like eat a bunch of eggs to see, and like, you know, dance still done anyway that morning. If I hadn't gotten out of that and gotten to build Burnett's class, I would have been kicked out.3 (36m 22s):So after they removed the catheter, sorry, this is Jolene. It was, it was very, very painful. And they took the restraints off. I was like, I have to get to Bill's class or I'm going to get kicked out. And I gained my Ivy out of my arm. I like dress as fast as I could. I ran. Cause I feel like it was really close to the theater school that ER, I ran to his class and I got in there in time. I was mortified, but I was like, I can't miss this class. Like I can't or I'll be kicked out. So yeah. Does2 (36m 59s):That mean you don't know what happens to you that night?3 (37m 2s):I don't. I, I don't think because the guy that I went with supposedly like just like dropped me off. But anyway, I don't believe that anything happened to me. I think that I was trying to fight maybe because I was like in a blackout that I felt like people were like trying to undo my clothing, but it was probably like the nurses and the doctors and stuff, you know?2 (37m 30s):Right. Oh my3 (37m 31s):Dad, it was nuts. And I think about it now and I'm like, oh my God, that really was fucked up. But you know what? I made it to Bill's class. And I been,2 (37m 40s):How old were you? Eight? Was that our second year? So 193 (37m 44s):Funnier, 1920.2 (37m 47s):Oh my God. Well, I'm really sorry that happened to you. I'm really glad that nothing, nothing terrible happened to you. But I wanted to jump just back to the thing that you said in the beginning about feeling famous, because that is what my, I wouldn't have occurred to me until you said it, but that is my impression of you like that. You not in a jerky way, but that you were, it seems, you seem very self-possessed to me. Well, and for sure you had a life outside of school, which many of us didn't, so that was sort of like intriguing, but overall it does seem like you have a lot of grit as a person.2 (38m 28s):Would you say that's true?3 (38m 30s):I definitely did. Back then. I had kind of had no fee, well, I had all the fear in the theater, but, but yeah, there was, I don't know. I, you know, I think it's that like invincibility thing when you're younger, you know, the older you get, the more, or for me, the older I get, the more I'm I cherish, you know, I, I think about what I have. Like, I don't just, I don't ride brides on rollercoasters anymore. Like the last time, I mean, I went to Hawaii a few years ago with my family and my mom, like I kept being told, like take the helicopter tour is magical. It's it is a religious religious experience. I was like, so looking forward to, well, my mom booked for whatever reason, book the helicopter with the doors off you guys, it was like an hour long panic attack.3 (39m 17s):Like my nails dug it into my mom was like, I was like, make it stop. This is horrible. And then when it was over, I was like, when did I become a web? Like when did I? But I think it comes with age, right.2 (39m 28s):It totally does. I was just talking to somebody about this the other day. Oh, it was about skiing. I was talking about, about skiing. I'm saying like, I just can't ring this bell of knowing people die from skiing, like from kind of minor, sort of you make one false move and you're just dead. And just seems like not a, not a way to, it's not worth it in terms of a way to go. If you're going to take a danger, take a risk, it should be like really, really worth it. But you, so is it right to say that the thing you sort of regret or feel badly about with the partying and school, is that you, that you might've almost gotten kicked out or did you, was it, was there more to it than that?3 (40m 16s):I don't think I regret it. I mean, I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but like I had to be somewhat talented to like roll into like Shakespeare class, no pun intended roll into Shakespeare class and do some Shakespearians on it after coming straight from after hours, like on no sleep, like, I don't know how I did it, but somehow I did it and I also came out, you know, alive that God, I had a girl in my class that something really horrible happened to. And I don't know if we, I don't know if we can bleak names.3 (40m 57s):Do you guys remember like names, like, remember who I'm talking to? So that could have happened to me. You know what I mean? Like I put myself not to say that she did anything wrong at all, but you know, that could've happened to me, you know? And2 (41m 13s):For the grace of God3 (41m 14s):There, before the grace of God out,1 (41m 16s):Did you make, were there a bunch of kids at, in our class, in our school that, that you went with? I remember some, but like, did you, or did you have two totally separate groups of friends?3 (41m 28s):So starting out, I remember listening to Noel's podcasts with guys and I heard her say I was sitting around at a friend's place and I'm like, let's go to a club. But I think she was talking about me because Noel was hot and I is beautiful. She's gorgeous. And I was like, well, that'll help me get into this club. And we were friends, you know? And so she was like happy, like hanging out in the VIP room. Whereas I was ex to see did something to my body. It made me dance all night long without stopping. And so I started dropping all this baby weight. And so there was another part of it, which was body image.3 (42m 9s):You know, I was as chunky monkey my whole life. And then I just started dropping weight, like crazy because I was dancing literally all night long.1 (42m 19s):Yeah. You literally were doing cardio for 12 hours at a time, right?3 (42m 24s):Yeah. Well, yes, yes, totally. I could ring my jeans out, my big old raver jeans that I got in a lot of trouble out of theater school for wearing. Cause they said that, you know, we can't see your full movement. I could ring those with. So, I mean, it was, it was like hot yoga for 12 hours, but like, or Zumba.1 (42m 45s):So what, w w why and when, and how did the party at,3 (42m 50s):So not till later on? Not till, honestly, not till after, so, okay. So I never felt like the golden child at the theater school. I don't know if any of us said, although listening to these podcasts, like some of the people that I thought were golden, they didn't, they didn't, you know, we all have this similar experience where it's like, oh, you were scared too. Oh, wow. I had no like, Hey, you guys are scared. I thought everybody loved them. Yale. The, the only real feedback like that I had that was positive from any teachers were John Jenkins and Jane Jane alderman.3 (43m 36s):And I know that's not, I haven't heard a lot of that on this podcast, but, and I almost had kind of like imposter syndrome in her class because I was like, well, she hasn't seen my work all four years. So like I, and I felt like that was kind of competitive, like pretty competitive, but grade.1 (43m 56s):It was very weird, very3 (43m 58s):Weird. Especially the girls. Like I didn't get, you know, like I didn't get a lot of, I don't, I didn't feel the same heat from the guys as I did from some of the girls. But anyway, so I had a really amazing, it's weird. Like I had the most amazing showcase experience ever. I think I was blown away. I couldn't believe it.1 (44m 25s):This is a great story because I'm obsessed with showcase stories and they've all been horrific. It pretty. So can you tell us your experience? I'm so excited.3 (44m 35s):I would love to. Okay. So I was like freaking out about a monologue. Didn't know what to do, but Jane, you know, Jane was just, she was just kind of, you know, she didn't favor me. I didn't believe she was just kind. And she was like, just ask Zack helm to write your monologue. So I reached out to Zach who I'd never, I mean, we weren't really friends. I mean, I knew who he was, but I got his number. I called him and he said, okay, I want you to make me a mix tape and send it to me. And I'm like, okay. He's like, don't think about it. Just make me a mix tape, send it to me. And so I did, and he wrote me this monologue and it wasn't, I think this is important for actors that are about to graduate.3 (45m 24s):It wasn't a character. It wasn't, I wasn't playing anybody else. It was me ranting on stage. I walked out and I just was going off about what really pisses me off in the world. And, and so I lucked out with that Chicago showcase. I was one of those, I walked off stage and I was like, I have no idea what that was. You know, that was an out-of-body experience. I don't know if that went well, then we go to LA and it was like, all the stars aligned you guys. Like, I cannot even tell you, I got out there. I like started into this laughter started happening. And I was like, okay, I've got these people in my pocket.3 (46m 6s):So I just go on and on and rant and rave. And I got a fucking standing ovation shut. I'm not kidding you. I could not believe it. I was like, is this real? This can't be real. Like it did that. Did I imagine that? And then I remember afterwards,1 (46m 21s):Oh my God, this is the greatest thing I've ever heard.3 (46m 25s):It was one of the best moments of my entire life. Rick Murphy walks up to me and he's like, well, someone did well this evening. And I was like, oh my God. And then Jane called me into her hotel room and she sat me down and she goes, okay, look, listen, I want you to know that you have more interest than Judy Leonard or Mike Moody combined. And I was like, are you fucking kidding me? She's like, no. So I need you to go home and get some, or go to your hotel room, go night night, because you are booked like this entire time. So I don't know what everybody else did. But I took meeting after meeting, after meeting, after meeting, then one of the1 (47m 7s):Interrupt, can I interrupt you? Because I just have a question. What was that I have where you like, my whole life is about to ch like I am now a star. Cause I would be like, Hey mom, I'm never coming home. Like I'm now fucking a star.3 (47m 22s):I couldn't, I couldn't believe it. I honestly felt like I was dreaming the whole time. I was like, oh, just my dreams are coming true. And I of all people me, like, because I just felt really not, I don't know. I just, I was never, I felt like I was never really liked by most teachers, you know? And I don't think they knew what to do with me casting what? I didn't, I couldn't picture me in a lot of things. Like I couldn't see a clear picture of where I belonged in the business.1 (47m 50s):It's so interesting. I think you hit LA and LA hit you at a time where you said the stars aligned, but they were looking for something and that something was you like, that is the clear thing of like perfect match and perfect time for that. Anyway. It's just so it's such, I'm so intrigued. Keep going, keep going.3 (48m 14s):No, I agree with you. So then I, then every, so I think people were there for two days. Maybe I didn't see anybody. Cause I was just, it was one meeting after the other. And then I was told I needed to stay a day later because there was this audition for this movie called rave. And I was like, okay. So everybody else flew back to Chicago. And I had to stay in the hotel room by myself and I got the sides to the script and I was like, oh my God, I'm going to audition for a movie in Hollywood tomorrow. And by the way, all the meetings that I took, they were like, go back to Chicago, get your sad card and then move out here. That was like, basically what everyone said, go back to Chicago, get your sad card, move back here.3 (48m 59s):So I go to this audition by myself. First of all, it's hard as fuck to find a cab in LA coming from Chicago. I was like, how the hell am I going to get there? But I figured it out. I went, I auditioned for it. I didn't really know how I did flew back to Chicago. And then I found out that I booked, I booked it and I was like, wow,1 (49m 22s):Are you fucking kidding?3 (49m 26s):Not totally true. And I wasn't sag. And so they did something called a Taft-Hartley, which I don't know. I think that I should probably look that up, but it's like waves of magic wand and now you're. Yeah. So I graduated and then two weeks later flew to Los Angeles. I moved in with so Zack helm, Kate McKinnon, Kat Phillips, Ellen, Mel's Jeff you'll Terman. We're all living in this huge house in Korea town. And they're like, we would love to have you as a roommate. And I'm like, that's great because I have no idea where the hell I'm going or what I'm doing.3 (50m 9s):I flew in $5 to my name. Oh, in saffron. Don't let me forget. Saffron also lived at that house, went to sleep, woke up and I think it was Kate or Zach that drove me to set the first day. Cause mean, I didn't know directions. I didn't have a car. And I started shooting this movie and it was just totally unbelievable.1 (50m 31s):I have to just say this whole thing is unbelievable, but like, can I ask you, like when you're sitting in these meetings, because you were like, what, how old were3 (50m 39s):You? I was 21.1 (50m 42s):So you're sitting in these meetings with people. Were you able to like, do you think here's what I'm making up? Okay. And I could be wrong. Like all your stuff with like the club scene where you have to pretend and dress up and like you, and you're already famous, kind of, do you think that helped prepare you for these meetings in terms of feeling like you deserved to be there?3 (51m 4s):I don't know if, no, but you know what it did teach me like hanging out with all those club kids. When I got the, the sides to that movie, I was like, I know this guy. I argued with this guy. I mean, I, it just felt like I could totally do this. And there weren't a lot of parts. I did bomb and Gilliad with John Jenkins, my second year as an intro where I got to wear my stacks in that, in that thing. And I got to be this like over the top, flaming, like hooker boy, not to say that, you know, but I, I had something to base that off of, you know what I mean?3 (51m 45s):So that was really fun. Rave kind of just like fell. Right? I mean, it was, again, it was luck. It was like winning the lottery stars aligned. I party with this character before, so I know how to play him. And, but, but they a lot. So the agency that I liked the most, they still wouldn't sign me. They were like, this doesn't happen. So, but we still like use, so we're going to hit pocket you and we're going to send you out on auditions. And I was like, okay. And they're like, and get ready to not work. And I was like, okay. And I didn't feel entitled. I mean, I felt like I was just lucky, like right place, right.3 (52m 26s):Time stars aligned. And they started sending me out on auditions. And then I remember going to an audition that they said, you know what go, you just need to go meet this casting director because she just want to award for buggy nights. And I was like, cool. Okay. And I went in and Sean Gunn was in the room and his brother was in the room. And I, it was like a two liner for this movie called the specials and Judy was in it and, and Sean was in it. And so I walk in and I do the two lines. They're like, did you Goodman? And I said, yes, I shared it. And they're like, thanks. And then I get a phone call for me. You booked it, come in and sign the papers.3 (53m 8s):Like you're signed, let's do this. And I was like, yes. So that paid off because connections. Right. Like knowing people, right? Like the theater school was a connection for me in that room. Little did I know then? But the gum brothers, how like amazing. Right. But, but1 (53m 25s):Yeah, you, you hit the ground clearly running like clearly. So you just, could, we never talked to anybody that literally has had this experience where you, your showcase went so well, that you basically just stayed, you, you, you, you moved to LA and you had an agent and everything, but I want to say, how was it shooting the rave movie? Just not knowing how to make movies? Like how did you do that?3 (53m 56s):Well, I learned very quickly that you know, the camera's right in your face. So I got, you know, I first day they were like tone it way down, dude. Like, camera's right here, you know, don't act for the back of the house. And I also was getting cues from my fellow actors. We were, I think the first scene, we were all like laying in bed after like this raid goes terribly wrong. And one of our friends Odis, and we're talking about like, is she going to be okay? And I'm like, she'll be fine. And they'll know like, listen, and the other two actors were like whispering and, and we were whispering in bed. I was like, oh right. Yeah, the camera is like right here.3 (54m 38s):Okay. I got, I got clocked by a couple of directors for just being too big. I did an episode about the, the vampire Slayer. And I, I was this half, this kid that blows himself up with a bomb and he's half zombie, half burned victim and comes back to wreak havoc on the high school. And I, all this makeup, it took like four hours to get into this makeup. And I would practice in my trailer and I'm like, and I did these nervous ticks and stuff for this job. I mean, I got called in like five times for this part, which was just like one episode. But I had, it was this nerdy guy with these ticks. So I was like, you can't really see what I'm doing in this makeup again.3 (55m 18s):I was just told you, bring it down, like stop being so extra. Like, we'll see you. And I'm like, got it. Okay. Gotcha. But yeah. Well, Scott,2 (55m 29s):At the risk of sounding like a terrible television movie, and then what happen because you got all this, what happens?3 (55m 38s):So the thing is I got really close to a lot of pilots. I would go in tests for network and it would always need it to me. And one other person, another person, and every single time it didn't work out. I would cry. Like I would, I would be devastated. And then, then I would go to work with like the swollen red face. Like I get red and splotchy anyway, I would get red and slushy walking into auditions that was before I knew anything about beta blockers, but Hey guys, if you're out there auditioning and you turn red as a beet, if you feel any sort of beta blockers can be a big help, but I was tired of crying. I was tired of having my heart broken.3 (56m 18s):I mean, and I feel like Larry Bates said on this podcast, confidence is everything. And I can, I cannot agree more when I would book a job, then I would be confident and that would lead to three more jobs. And then I wouldn't, and I wouldn't work for a year or more, you know, and then I would get so close. So close every single time. Nope. Nope. And my I'm S I'm a sensitive guy. Like I think I was like born with like an extra like dose of emotions and I was just tired of crying and having my heart broken. And I had had my, my laser focused on being a movie star from the time I was nine years, six years old, honestly.3 (57m 2s):And there was no plan B. It's so funny when my mom dropped me off at DePaul, she was like, you know, you could go to beat beauty school and like, learn how to do that. So you can cut hair in the dorms to make money. I'm like, there's no plan B. Like I'm going to be a movie star. That's all there is to it. Well, that's what I do now. I own my own hair salon. So she, you know, but it all worked out the way it was supposed to, but basically I stopped because I was like, is there anything else in this world that will make me happy because I am miserable right now. I'm tired of crying every day. You know, you're selling yourself, they're telling you, you know, there's only so much rejection that I could take at that time.3 (57m 45s):So1 (57m 46s):Where you, where you still did you feel like you had a community out here in LA or no? Like, did you, or, and also where did the raving continue in LA? Yeah.3 (57m 56s):Prior to that? Yeah. So I was also suffering from like, I don't know if this is stage fright or a mixture of stage fright and drugs, but anytime I would get, you know, like I would go out for something that I got really excited for. I remember they were casting this gate character on Dawson's Creek. And I was like, oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. I couldn't remember the lines you guys. And it was, it wasn't, you know, pages and pages, but I just, I was psyching myself out. I did better at auditions on things that I didn't know really a whole lot about. But yeah, I, so I, I think it was a mixture of partying and also just kind of like being set up and I couldn't remember the lines and there's nothing more humiliating than, you know, that's like the bait, you know, you guys know when they're like, listen, remember those lanes,1 (58m 53s):I have the same thing. And so I was diagnosed. It's like, my therapist literally thinks that what happens is that it is, it's obviously anxiety, but it's also, there is some kind of shame, fear of shame that happens that becomes so large shame of not remembering shame of not doing well enough. This is for me. I don't know if this resonates with you, but like, and she was like, it is. And then the brain literally shuts down and, and goes into, I will protect you at all costs, which means all of my resources have to go into like, basically keeping you in your body and who gives a shit about copy written by some dude in a room like you now are in survival mode.1 (59m 43s):So that's, it's panic, it's, it's panic and it's fear of humiliation and it it's real. And it, and it has really debilitated me as an actor and I'm still working through it.3 (59m 56s):Yeah. Can I just tell you both, I'm so obsessed with you, both, like, are you, did you both become therapists at some point? Because this, I, I, I, I so wanted to, I'm a huge, huge fan of therapy, huge and endorsed it, love it will go for the rest of my life. And there's a part of me that wishes, gosh, you know, if there weren't so much school and if I wasn't 46, like I would love because it's fascinating to me. And I think you're absolutely right, Jen. I think that, you know, it was like, I remember, okay, there's really, really bad, bad show on MTV TV.3 (1h 0m 37s):It was called undressed. And it was this really bad soap opera. And I, and it was really bad acting. But then when I got on, on set, I was like, oh, it's really bad acting because they're giving everybody line readings. Like, they're telling you to say it just like this and I forgot my lines. I kept forgetting my lines. They were getting so frustrated with me. And I was like, I didn't know that I could never ask questions. Like, I was always scared to ask for what I wanted. Like I just was like, I don't know, just, oh, sorry. I'm bouncing all over the place. But Christine Goodman said something so amazing. And in her podcast about how the whole MFA's, they looked at it as like, I'm paying you to learn that blew my mind.3 (1h 1m 26s):Like if I went in with that, just, just with a notion of that, like, oh my God, I, I taught, I mean, she just, I love her so much, but I wish that I had thought that a little bit more. And I mean, that's not the case when you're working on set, but you know, in Hollywood they're paying you to do a job, but like what Lee paid those, those professors to teach us. And I feel like some of the things that I don't know, th their behavior, I think sometimes we wouldn't fly today. I'll tell you that1 (1h 1m 57s):Right now. Well, no, it wouldn't.2 (1h 2m 0s):Well, you probably know boss and I are kind of big into this idea that like, when success doesn't happen to people or it doesn't happen in the timeline that they want or whatever, it's often for the best, because you know, like I've said to her, if she hadn't made all of these terrible choices, basically turning down opportunities that were coming her way left and right. She might have found herself fit successful and not able to handle and kind of blow it up. And like, you know, I mean, I'm using her your words positive. They use I'm like, I probably would have ended up dead.2 (1h 2m 40s):Oh, I would have been dead. Yeah. So Scott, do you think that that's kind of, there were some, yeah, that's what I thought. That's what I thought3 (1h 2m 50s):I would've pulled a Lindsey Lohan. I would've, I would've ended up dumpster. Yeah, no. I mean, so I, I truly believe that, like, I, I I'm so happy that I did it, you know, I it's, I don't, I think you'll only regret the things you don't try, the things you don't do, but then there's also this part of me, I'm not gonna lie that, you know, the love never goes away that I, I don't wanna say it's an empty hole that, you know, I do hear now, it's very creative. I own my own salon. It's just me and my clients. And, you know, we all, I think everybody puts on their work face or, you know, whatever, but it's nice to be able to be adaptable and, and entertain while you're doing, you know, whatever.3 (1h 3m 38s):But you guys have been such an inspiration. This podcast has been such an inspiration for me because you guys got my creative juices flowing. That, that part that I have, not that hasn't been full in 24 years, you know, like I'm, I am like, I'm like, I'm going to do a podcast. I, you guys2 (1h 3m 58s):Do it, do it.1 (1h 4m 1s):We're doing a documentary. Or we're planning to do a documentary on the theater school times. And you will be in that documentary. So2 (1h 4m 11s):Road trip, road, trip to Tulsa, you're in Tulsa, right?3 (1h 4m 15s):Buckle on the Bible belt.2 (1h 4m 16s):Okay. Now, yeah. That's what I was going to ask you about. Like, what's it like to live in Oklahoma when you're not the most traditional person?3 (1h 4m 24s):Right. So, I mean, if you told me, you know, you're going to move back to Tulsa one day and you're going to find your husband and you're going to be content. I would have been like, you're smoking crack. Like there's no way in hell. You couldn't pay me enough money. What, what, what, what person, what, what, what any sort of minority, why would you choose to live in this horrible red state? Right. But, you know, I really lucked out there's good people and bad people, wherever you go. And the pandemic, I actually had a silver lining with the pandemic. I was working at a competitive salon, kind of like the theater school.3 (1h 5m 5s):I don't know why I'm drawn to those kinds of things, but pandemic happened. And I have, my mom has a heart patient. She had triple bypass at 42. So she's immune compromised. My husband is immune compromised. And then there's me that just tends to catch every cold that's out there. And I was trying to rack my brain during lockdown. Like, how do I do my job? Six feet away from someone like, I have to be like, I have to touch you. Like I have to cut your bangs and basically in your mouth, what I'm kind of like, how am I going to do this? And I, I, I took this, this pandemic very seriously because I, I have so many loved ones that it wouldn't be good if they got it.3 (1h 5m 48s):So I just decided to take a chance and open my own salon where it's, COVID, it's basically, COVID free and people have to be like fully vaccinated and show me their card. And I have air purifiers. We wear masks. It's just a single room with me and my client one at a time. And what's so wild is I thought I was going to shoot myself in the foot. When I said, you have to be vaccinated or else I can't take you, but there are all these unicorns, all over Tulsa, Oklahoma, they come to me and honestly, business is booming. It's never been better. And it's wonderful because it's just me and it's, it's very private.3 (1h 6m 29s):We don't have to worry about, we can talk politics as loud as we want, because there's nobody sitting next to us. Like, you know, looking at us up and down or telling us we're wrong. Or so there are good people here and they're all my clients.2 (1h 6m 45s):And by establishing those boundaries, you created the unicorn club where everybody can, is drawn to you because you've established from the outset, what your thing is. And that makes people understand what is, and isn't tolerated by you. And then that makes, that draws all the right people to you.3 (1h 7m 3s):And I will say, I will tell you, I don't think I'll ever work for anyone ever again. Like, I don't think I'll ever have a boss ever again. I mean, I I'll work with someone at least in the hair world, but oh my God. Being your own boss, you guys is the best. I highly recommend it.1 (1h 7m 21s):So, Scott, how did you end up? So what was the transition like leaving LA? Like, did you, did you go out in a fi like me in a fiery blaze of driving drunk into a swimming pool? Or like, did you,3 (1h 7m 34s):I, you know, again, like, I'm very lucky that I, I moved to New York. So when I quit, I was so I decided, I was like, okay, I'm done with, with acting for a while. I'm going to take some time off. And then I was like, well, why am I living in Hollywood? I've always wanted to live in New York. So I moved to New York partied and worked retail for four years. It was kind of tired of being like a broke college student. And I'm like, well, let's go back to LA where at least it's a little bit easier. And the weather's nice. And I went back to LA this whole time, by the way, never sucked partying. Right. And I got to the point where I was like, you know, I don't think that I can be here. It's too triggering for me to go out and dance.3 (1h 8m 15s):And it graduated from ecstasy to speed. And I was a functioning addict, but I was like the only way I'm going to be able to not get fired from work. And I, I really just wanted like two months to sleep, to catch up. So I went to rehab, which was one of the best things I ever did. And I learned that I am a drug addict, but I'm not an alcoholic because drinking was never my thing. It's still really kind of, not my thing through lockdown. I will say. I mean, I was guilty of maybe pouring a martini at like 10:00 AM, because I felt like we were all living in Vegas and nobody had any idea what day or time it was.3 (1h 8m 58s):But, but yeah, no, so I can socially drink and that's fine. But I just was like, I'm going to die if I stay here. And my mom got divorced from my stepdad and I wanted to come back to Tulsa to check on her. It was, I was like three months. That's it? And then it was weird. Like growing up here, there was nothing happening. And coming back here, I think I changed, but also to also change a little bit for the better. So like the best nightclubs, like the best shopping. No, not here, but that's not the most important to me. And like the traffic's not bad here. The cost of living is real cute here. And I met my husband here on grinder, by the way, Gina,2 (1h 9m 44s):I love that. That's beautiful. I mean, you guys, what would it take? I'm just thinking about your experience there. Like they built you all the way up the first day you got to LA it couldn't go any higher than that. You got to stay an extra day. You gotta to your meeting after meeting. Well, you know, P people like me and boss are like going to the beach and whatever is she wasting her time in LA because we were getting any minis. So everybody loved, you got a standing ovation, you got Rick Murphy to say you did great. And then it was a process after, you know, some sex successes of getting jobs. Then it was a process of like tearing you down. When if there could have been a way for you to tolerate or survive the rejection, you might've stayed and had like a sane career.2 (1h 10m 33s):I think that's the problem is like, there's no sane career. It seems like, and you like either go balls to the wall and, and burn, you know, crash and burn, right? Like, so what would it take to have an environment that was even just 10% more psychologically minded? I mean, I'm interested to pause to what you have to say about that.1 (1h 10m 58s):Well, I think it would take each so interesting. It's such a business for me anyway, that thrives on youth. Right? And, and, and when we're young, our brains aren't fully formed. So you've got weird ass people running around doing weird ass shit and their brains aren't formed. So I think it would have to, for me with literally have to take us embracing the knowledge and wherewithal of people as they get older and not so much capitalizing on youth because you don't know shit and we can't know anything. So when you're youth centric industry, it's, it's a mess.1 (1h 11m 39s):So what, what, what I would say is like D what would it, what it's going to take is people to say, oh, wait, people of all ages of all races of all can have careers. And I think then it becomes less of a, like, I have to capitalize on what is hot right now, right now, because later is not going to be so hot. It would take a more holistic view of like the human experience. And I there's so much money involved. I'm not sure. And I think coming back at 46 and doing this, and I'm not really trying to be an actor, but as a writer, I'm seeing that, like, you kind of have to go away from like 25 to 40 and come back to LA, if you're going to do it,2 (1h 12m 22s):Dude, that I just had this image, like it's, it's LA has kind of run like, like porn. Like, it's all about, like, what's going to get you off, like in five seconds, instead of anything beyond what's going to happen in five seconds. And there's a, there's like a short term memory problem. There's a 'cause I think you described by the way about being the, you know, the thing of the moment, whatever Sean said, the same thing Shawn said, I think that I was able to do what I was able to do, because I just had a particular look at a particular time when they were just looking for my look, you know?2 (1h 13m 2s):And that's important for, to, to say again to people out there, like, if you don't succeed, you can't necessarily say it's because of your talent. It really could be like, it's just not the, it's just not your moment. Your Hollywood is not having the you moment right now. It might have had it 10 years ago. It might have it in 10 years. It's just not right now.3 (1h 13m 26s):Amen to that. I, I fully agree with you on that. And, and what I love now is that, you know, everyone's writing, it's like, I remember my agency said, you know, you're just not like anybody else. So we're just going t

The Taft–Hartley Act, is a United States federal law that restricts the activities and power of labor unions. It was enacted by the 80th United States Congress over the veto of President Harry S. Truman, becoming law on June 23, 1947. Taft-Hartley was introduced in the aftermath of a major strike wave in 1945 and 1946. Though it was enacted by the Republican-controlled 80th Congress, the law received significant support from congressional Democrats. The Taft–Hartley Act amended the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), prohibiting unions from engaging in several unfair labor practices. Among the practices prohibited by the Taft–Hartley act are jurisdictional strikes, wildcat strikes, solidarity or political strikes, secondary boycotts, secondary and mass picketing, closed shops, and monetary donations by unions to federal political campaigns. It also enabled states to pass right-to-work laws which would ban union shops. Although Truman vetoed the Taft-Hartley Act, congress overrode his veto with the required majority needed. The Taft-Hartley Act would continue to generate controversy for some time. However, what would happen if the Taft-Hartley Act never existed? Would the Wagner Act remain unaffected? Or could we see the potential repeal of the Wagner Act as a whole? The Wagner Act guarantees the right for workers to unionize in private industry. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Want to discuss this further, or just want to contact us? Reach us on our socials, or join the community on Kloka! Twitter: @BackToThePastP1 https://bit.ly/39ts3CG Instagram: @backtothepastp1 https://bit.ly/34lcwBD Rate this podcast! https://ratethispodcast.com/althistory Check out our website! https://kloka.org/backtothepast Email us if you have any questions or comments! back2thepastpodcast@gmail.com Podcast Transcript: https://kloka.org/go/althistranscripts --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/rohan-parikh7/message

Dr. Ryan Pettengill explains how communist activists in Detroit worked with labor activists during and after the Second World War to enhance the quality of life in the community by advocating for civil rights, affordable housing, protections for the foreign-born, and more. Excerpted from the Tales From the Reuther Library podcast. And, on Labor History in 2:00: Taft-Hartley's effect on labor. Produced by Patrick Dixon and Chris Garlock. To contribute a labor history item, email laborhistorytoday@gmail.com Labor History Today is produced by the Metro Washington Council's Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University. #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle #LaborHistory @ReutherLibrary

 Dr. Rasmus follows up last week’s analysis of the Union defeat at Amazon by placing it in historic context, from the growth of union membership in the 1930s and 1940s to the great strike wave of 1970-71 and the Great Detour and decline of unions under Neoliberal industrial parties that began with Reagan in the 1980s and continues to this day. How the 1947 Taft Hartley and 1959 Landrum Griffin Acts stopped union strikes for recognition in their tracks and how Employer-State strategy cooperation in the 1970s and beyond have rolled back union membership in the private sector from its peak of 35% (80% in basic industries like auto, steel, transport, etc.) to its barely 5% today. Rasmus explains the strategies and tactics used by employers, with aid of government, to prevent unionization in NLRB elections, such as recently occurred at Amazon. How these strategies and tactics—along with offshoring, free trade, onshoring of H1-B visas, outsourcing, contingent, gig, and other work—have together resulted in a near collapse of private sector unionization in America. Rasmus concludes with a comment on the failure of Obama administration do reform the problem of de-unionization and pass ‘card check’, as well as a review of the Biden administration’s recent PRO Act bill recently passed by the US House of Representatives but all but dead in the US Senate committee.

Chip Harris is a Partner in RubinBrown’s Assurance Services Group and Chair of RubinBrown’s Benefit Plan Audit Services Group, which provides employee benefit plan audit services across the country to more than 300 plans per year. Glenn Goodnough is the Managing Partner for RubinBrown’s Las Vegas office, as well as a Partner in RubinBrown’s Assurance Services Group, providing audit, tax, and consulting services to numerous employee benefit plan audits. Both Chip and Glenn bring years of experience with them in the employee benefit plan space, and they join us today to talk about what sets Taft-Hartley plans apart from the rest, what they see as the most common risks and opportunities in benefit plans, and where they recommend starting if your plan needs an overhaul or clean-up.  You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: https://bit.ly/38L2z3f

This is episode 51, “Public Option, Unions, Obligation, Part 2.“ My guest, James McGee, has spent his career in and around collectively bargained benefit plans, especially health care plans. He has primarily worked on union benefit plans, which are technically known as Taft-Hartley plans.  Mr. McGee recently retired after 17 years working for the Transit Employees' Health & Welfare Fund as its Executive Director. The Fund provides the health care benefits for the active and retired members of ATU Local 689 employed by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). In this role, he become acutely aware of the deficiencies of our current health care system and began to take an active role in organizations advocating for reform, especially a single-payer solution. Mr. McGee is on the Steering Committee of the Labor Campaign for Single-Payer, the Montgomery County Chapter of Healthcare-NOW, and on the Board of Directors of Universal Health Care Action Network (UHCAN). In Part 1, we discussed problems with the public option. Part 2 discusses how unions would benefit from Medicare for All and why health care is an obligation.  Do not miss this episode as Mr. McGee discusses how unions would benefit from Medicare for All and why health care is an obligation. 

This is episode 50, “Public Option, Unions, Obligation, Part 1.“ My guest, James McGee, has spent his career in and around collectively bargained benefit plans, especially health care plans. He has primarily worked on union benefit plans, which are technically known as Taft-Hartley plans.  Mr. McGee recently retired after 17 years working for the Transit Employees' Health & Welfare Fund as its Executive Director. The Fund provides the health care benefits for the active and retired members of ATU Local 689 employed by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). In this role, he become acutely aware of the deficiencies of our current health care system and began to take an active role in organizations advocating for reform, especially a single-payer solution. Mr. McGee is on the Steering Committee of the Labor Campaign for Single-Payer, the Montgomery County Chapter of Healthcare-NOW, and on the Board of Directors of Universal Health Care Action Network (UHCAN). My interview with Mr. McGee covers two episodes 50 and 51. This episode discusses problems with the public option. Part 2, available on March 1st, discusses how unions would benefit from Medicare for All and why health care is an obligation.  Do not miss this episode as Mr. McGee explains why the public option is bad for the public. 

Description: Rachel, Kelley, and Bill discuss the passage of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act and its effects against US labor unions, as well as the potential role of white-collar workers in organized labor’s future. Links and notes for Ep. 340 (PDF): http://arsenalfordemocracy.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/AFD-Ep-340-Links-and-Notes-Taft-Hartley.pdf Theme music by Stunt Bird. The post Jan 10, 2021 – Taft-Hartley – Arsenal For Democracy Ep. 340 appeared first on Arsenal For Democracy.

Bill Sokol is a practicing labor lawyer with the largest union-side law firm in the nation. He is a senior partner in the firm, which represents over four hundred labor organizations and Taft-Hartley benefit Funds. He litigates in State Courts, Federal Courts, and practices extensively in arbitrations, as well as participating in collective bargaining from time to time.Chapter Markers:00:00:50 - Summer Job with Mineworkers Pension00:04:41 - The Story of Kaiser (kp.org)00:14:15 - The Bill Sokol Story00:24:43 - Yale on a bet00:31:15 - To CA for a girl 196900:34:44 - Story about a guy named Ybarrolaza00:46:02 - Back in the Day00:51:07 - The Union's role in all of thisUnionist is hosted by Phil Ybarrolaza in Oakland, CA.This episode was recorded in Alameda California. Unionist is a proud member of the Podifornia (podifornia.com) podcast network.

Ivory Day is Managing Partner at Ivory Day Clear Investment Consulting based in the Chicago area. He started his career close to 50 years ago and has held a long succession of investment consulting roles, during which he advised public, Taft-Hartley, corporate, endowment and foundation plans. He is a frequent participant on the industry conference circuit where he discusses his views on asset allocation and the active v. passive divide. Our conversation covers his early career, when he juggled three jobs, including one as a cab driver, and how he learned the ropes of investment consulting. We spend some time on his long held investment beliefs, the use of passive v. active managers, and the importance of asset allocation v. manager selection. Ivory is not afraid to speak truth to power, and to tell clients what they need to know, not simply what they want to hear.

“It’s not enough just to have the mayor and chancellor say, ‘Trust us.’”Today’s labor history: Supreme Court upholds Taft-Hartley strike-breaking.Today’s labor quote: Paul Jennings@wpfwdc #1u #unions #LaborRadioPod @radiolabour @WTUTeacherProud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network

Sam hosts organizer Joshua Kahn Russell (@joshkahnrussell) to explain how people can get involved after the election in the event Trump tries to wrap up results before all votes are counted. Then Sam explores the possible Election Day outcomes, including which states may experience a red mirage or blue shift with the record number of mail-in ballots. On today's show: Jon Ossoff crushes David Perdue in Georgia Senate debate. Trump could not be less enthusiastic about helping Martha McSally's re-election efforts. Joshua Kahn Russell (@joshkahnrussell) joins Sam to explain how people can get involved after the election in the event Trump tries to wrap up results before all votes are counted. How activists can attack the pillars of capitalist society via demonstrations and strikes. How to defend against another "Brooks Brothers riot." Writing letters to local officials to tell them to release their counts. And more! Trumps says he's hopeful courts won't allow vote counts past Tuesday. Brian Kilmeade mad about NC PA SCOTUS ruling because people shouldn't need "extra days" to cast vote. Tucker Carlson says Tony Bobulinski documents were stolen in postal transit. On the fun half: Chuck Grassley warns that Democrats want to repeal Taft Hartley and end right to work states. During tech hearing, Marsha Blackburn asks to speak to Google's manager about Google employee that criticized her. Breaking down the Senate Commerce Committee's Big Tech hearing on Section 230. Ron Johnson cannot understand satirical tweet, rages at Jack Dorsey. Plus, your calls and IMs! Become a member at JoinTheMajorityReport.com Check out the Brand New Majority Report Merch Shop https://shop.majorityreportradio.com/ (Merch issues and concerns can be addressed here: majorityreportstore@mirrorimage.com) The AM Quickie is now on YouTube Subscribe to the AM Quickie at https://fans.fm/amquickie Make the AMQ part of your Alexa Flash Briefing too! You can now watch the livestream on Twitch Check out today's sponsors: BetterHelp gives you access to your own fully licensed and accredited therapist via phone, chat, or video. A lot of therapists elsewhere have long waitlists and it can take weeks or months before they can see you… But when you sign up with BetterHelp, they match you with a therapist based on your specific needs, and you’ll be communicating with them in less than 24 hours. BetterHelp is giving our audience 10% off their first month when you go to https://betterhelp.com/majorityreport Subscribe to Matt Binder's YouTube Channel today! Subscribe to Discourse Blog, a newsletter and website for progressive essays and related fun partly run by AM Quickie writer Jack Crosbie. https://discourseblog.substack.com/ Subscribe to AM Quickie writer Corey Pein’s newsletter at theend.substack.com Check out The Nomiki Show at patreon.com/thenomikishow Check out Matt’s podcast, Literary Hangover, at Patreon.com/LiteraryHangover, or on iTunes. Check out Jamie’s podcast, The Antifada, at patreon.com/theantifada, on iTunes, or at twitch.tv/theantifada Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @SamSeder @MattLech @mattbinder @jamie_elizabeth @BF1nn

Honey bees, we are back for season three and so glad to see youz. We are kicking off our new season with the brilliant Persia White. You Might Know Her From Girlfriends, The Vampire Diaries, Breaker High, and Dysfunctional Friends. We start off our very first “remote” interview with us in New York and Persia in LA talking about Girlfriends coming to Netflix, the possibility of a reunion film, meeting her husband Joseph Morgan while they were both wearing vampire prosthetics, and cutting her teeth on a “semester at sea” in Canada with a young Ryan Gosling. All that plus some exclusive Dustin Diamond and Stacey Dash scoop. Folx, it’s You Might Know Her From and we’re back!  Follow us on social media: @damianbellino || @rodemanne  The Masked Singer now in Season 4 (not 3) Shannon Hoon of Blind Melon “No Rain” video  Celsete Holm died in 2012  Is James Caan dead? No Robert Loggia is.  Lena Horne death announcement Popcorn is Cyndi Lauper? Screening of Kindergarten Cop was canceled  (cast ftd Linda Hunt, Penelope Ann Miller) Boys have a penis, girls have a vagina (AARON) Mara Brock Akil’s Girlfriends streaming on Netflix Kelsey Grammar produced Girlfriends on CW Kelsey Grammar falling off the stage Married to Joseph Morgan from The Originals Reunion on Blackish Jill Marie Jones leaves show after Season 6 Tricky as musical guest on Girlfriends The Vampire Diaries Was up for Willow in Buffy (but still had a role) Breaker High with Ryan Gosling Parker Lewis Can’t Lose Blue Chips Nick Nolte got her Taft Hartley  Last Action Hero Themes: Girlfriends, Breaker High, The Vampire Diaries  Mustaches: Robert Townsend, Steve Harvey, Tim Reid SBTB The New Class: Dustin Diamond and Dennis Haskins Earthlings: Persia’s doc on vegans Dysfunctional Friends AFI Tracey Ullman & Meryl Streep Anne’s essay in “The Sound of Music is the Hottest Movie I’ve Ever Seen” in She Found it At the Movies: Women Writers on Sex, Desire and Cinema. Get a free copy when you follow us on all social media and leave a 5-star review. 

Today I have attorney Mike Ledbetter here to discuss health and welfare funds and how they work within apprenticeship programs. Mike is a partner in the law firm Ledbetter Parisi LLC, which specializes in the representation of multi-employer benefit funds—primarily construction industry plans located in the Midwest. Mike has spent 25 years working in the industry and devotes 100% of his professional practice to Taft-Hartley trusts. You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: https://bit.ly/32BVYWw 

As Chief Investment Officer, Kurt heads the TownSquare investment committee in the design and construction of client portfolios including asset class selection and the vetting of outside money managers. With nearly 25 years of both buy and sell-side capital markets experience, Kurt has managed portfolios for Fortune 500 companies, hedge funds, university endowments, Taft Hartley plans, bank trust portfolios, and individual retirement accounts. Prior to forming TownSquare, Kurt was a principal at Alta Capital, a high-quality growth equity manager based in Salt Lake City, Utah. During his 12 years with Alta, Kurt helped grow the firm’s assets under management from $300 million to over $3 billion. In addition to his investment work, Kurt is frequently called upon to speak at investment conferences, universities, and CPA and Estate Planning conferences. Topics include capital markets inefficiencies and conflicts of interest associated with investment products and brokerage firms. Prior to Alta, Kurt was with Black Rock Capital and Bank of America / Montgomery Securities where he advised institutional clients on trading and risk management issues including the divestiture and hedging of concentrated equity positions and the creation of structured product. Kurt studied Finance and Economics at Brigham Young University where he currently serves as an adjunct professor and board member of The Ballard Center for Economic Self Reliance.

Investment expert Carl Gagnon discusses how HR teams can discuss financial wellbeing with employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. As AVP of Financial Wellbeing and Retirement Programs at Unum and a thought leader who regularly speaks at industry conferences, Carl brings a calm perspective and decades of expertise. He reminds us of the big picture vision and explains how employers can talk to employees about the resources available to them, such as a 401K provider or their own benefits portal.  Key takeawaysEmployers who have a 401(k) or financial well-being program have built those with care. Now is the time to share those resources with your employees. [01:22]Don't make investment choices based on emotion or reactions to the market. [03:00] If you're close to retirement age, and if your employer offers tools and resources — especially third parties — reach out to them. They have financial planners who can help you work through this. [04:56]Lean into the volatility. Some employees may be saving money by not driving to work, eating out, etc. Take some of that excess money and reinvest or build some emergency savings. [07:18]If you have reduced income, use the resources available to you. Take stock of what you have and talk to your creditors and vendors about deferring payments. There are programs available to help. For example, Defined Contribution programs may have loan features. Student loan forgiveness programs may be available, including federal student loan deferment. [08:40]Carl GagnonAVP Financial Wellbeing & Retirement Programs, UnumCarl Gagnon is responsible for the day-to-day operations, regulatory oversight and compliance of the Unum global financial well-being and retirement programs which include their Defined Benefit, Defined Contribution and Non-Qualified retirement plans and various flex benefit programs within its international operations. Unum employs approximately 11,000 employees worldwide with key U.S. locations in Chattanooga, TN; Columbia, SC; Portland, ME and Worcester, MA. Globally, Unum has operations in England, Ireland and Poland. Carl is also involved with developing, implementing and aligning these global retirement program designs with the overall business objectives of Unum and serves as a key partner in the implementation of the strategy, design and investment structure for these financial benefit programs. Carl has 25 years' experience in various HR and Benefit positions, including benefit strategy, managing corporate benefit programs as well as implementing administrative systems to manage these plans. Prior to joining Unum in 2005, Carl worked in similar roles with Apogent Technologies, Thermo Fisher Scientific and in the Taft Hartley benefit field. He holds a CEBS certification, is a Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Administrators and is a member of Society for Human Resources Management and the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans.More resources: Making Remote Work Navigating well-being and productivity during a global pandemic. Download. Get in touch: hrtrends@unum.com(207) 200-6685 

Chet calls all the action from Ronkonkoma, NY, as crazy people bolt down a snowy hill in anything but a sled, including sheet cake and a stolen Nativity manger! Chet’s joined by Taft Hartley and 4-time Non-Sled champ PJ Bottoms!

Chet calls all the action from Ronkonkoma, NY, as crazy people bolt down a snowy hill in anything but a sled, including sheet cake and a stolen Nativity manger! Chet’s joined by Taft Hartley and 4-time Non-Sled champ PJ Bottoms!

Episode 51: The fourth entry in a multi-part series on labor, this episode covers labor developments from 1920 to 1947. Beginning with the Oahu Sugar Strike of 1920, and ending with the Taft-Hartley Act, it’s time to talk about the Columbine Mine Massacre, the Loray Mill Strike, and right to work laws.

How do you deal with a bifurcated market, and what can we learn from our Taft/Hartley cousins? Jim Garrison, President at Pacific Federal, a private TPA in Southern California, discusses that and more in this episode. You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: http://bit.ly/2Nf1AQm 

Mark Roberts and Rod Rinks discuss Taft Hartley’s, Closing an investor and raising money for a documentary!

Our guest on this episode, Jacques Loveall, is Chairman of the United Food and Commercial Workers Trust, which, after being buffeted by the system as end users and an (almost) afterthought, has made some long-overdue changes in ownership and control of healthcare delivery. It is has been a fascinating journey, and they are just getting started. Get full show notes and more information here: http://bit.ly/2BHq7pa 

Chapo News Network senior political analysts Franklin Darrow and Taft Hartley run down the winners and losers of DC in 2018. Then, Matt and Virgil engage in a freewheeling discussion of predictions for 2019. New Years, baby, gimme dat new ass year.

Guest Bio:As Chief Investment Officer, Kurt heads the TownSquare investment committee in the design and construction of client portfolios including asset class selection and the vetting of outside money managers. With nearly 25 years of both buy and sell-side capital markets experience, Kurt has managed portfolios for Fortune 500 companies, hedge funds, university endowments, Taft Hartley plans, bank trust portfolios, and individual retirement accounts. Prior to forming TownSquare, Kurt was a principal at Alta Capital, a high-quality growth equity manager based in Salt Lake City, Utah. During his 12 years with Alta, Kurt helped grow the firm's assets under management from $300 million to over $3 billion. In addition to his investment work, Kurt is frequently called upon to speak at investment conferences, universities, and CPA and Estate Planning conferences. Topics include capital markets inefficiencies and conflicts of interest associated with investment products and brokerage firms. Prior to Alta, Kurt was with Black Rock Capital and Bank of America / Montgomery Securities where he advised institutional clients on trading and risk management issues including the divestiture and hedging of concentrated equity positions and the creation of a ​structured product. Kurt studied Finance and Economics at Brigham Young University where he currently serves as an adjunct professor and board member of The Ballard Center for Economic Self Reliance.

Chris Brockmeyer is the Director of Employee Bennefit Funds for the Broadway League, the national trade association for the Broadway theatre industry.  Chris serves as an employer-appointed trustee, in most cases as Co-Chair, on eleven multi-employer pension funds, seven health funds and four annuity/401(k) funds with approximately $7 billion in assets. For 11 years, Chris has artfully navigated delicate relationships across unions and employers and was honored for his great work by Institutional Investor magazine with the 2014 award for Taft-Hartley Plan of the Year.  Before arriving at the Broadway League in 2007, Chris worked on both sides of the table – first representing employees in eight years of work for performer’s unions and then seven years representing employers as Director of Labor Relations at Live Nation/Clear Channel Entertainment. Our conversation dives into the tricky governance dynamics of Taft-Hartley boards, including their challenging regulatory structure, keeping the peace among constituents, setting investment objectives, strengths and weaknesses of a slow-moving decision-making body, best and worst in relationships with investment consultants, and OCIOs as a governance solution. Those struggling with governance challenges will take a step back and admire Chris’ dexterity in working productively with an ostensibly untenable set of circumstances.   Learn More Join Ted's mailing list at CapitalAllocatorsPodcast.com Write a review on iTunes Follow Ted on twitter at @tseides For more episodes go to CapitalAllocatorsPodcast.com/Podcast   Show Notes 2:08 – Chris’s background and how that led him to a job on Broadway. 4:59 – Key skills that make Chris effective at his job 5:44 – Current role at the Broadway League 7:10 – What makes an effective board and a less effective board 10:25 -  How do Chris and these various boards set out the investment objectives. 12:41 – What needs to change in Taft-Hartley plans 16:48 – The regulation of the Taft-Hartley Plan Boards 20:25 – Strengths and weaknesses of the consulting relationships 24:20 – How do discussions about increasing benefits translate into investment risk 27:17 – How wide is the range of asset allocation across all of the plans 29:05 – How do you explain expected rate of return assumptions in the current environment 31:15 – What are the strengths that Chris has seen in successful investment consultants 32:40 – Chris’s core investing beliefs and how much he can influence these boards with them 35:31 – Are there places where the governance of Taft-Hartley plans could be improved 39:31 – Switching to OCIOs 41:32 – Would they ever go back to a regular consultant from an OCIO 42:59 – Other areas that have similar governance struggles 45:06 – What happens when Chris comes up with an investment idea 46:30 – Any concern that Chris’s team is working with only average OCIO’s or consultants as they look to scale up and attract larger funds   48:59 – Closing Questions

What basic principles should you live by when making great money in Door to door. We are like professional athletes, we make a lot at a young age but also tend to waste it all. Save in small amounts is OK. Kurt heads the investment committee in the design and construction of client portfolios including asset class selection and the vetting of outside money managers. With nearly 25 years of both buy and sell-side capital markets experience, Kurt has managed portfolios for Fortune 500 companies, hedge funds, university endowments, Taft Hartley plans, bank trust portfolios, and individual retirement accounts. Previously, Kurt was a principal at Alta Capital, a high-quality growth equity manager based in Salt Lake City, Utah. During his 12 years with Alta, Kurt helped grow the firm’s assets under management from $300 million to over $3 billion. In addition to his investment work, Kurt is frequently called upon to speak at investment conferences, universities, and CPA and Estate Planning conferences. Topics include capital markets inefficiencies and conflicts of interest associated with investment products and brokerage firms. Prior to Alta, Kurt was with Black Rock Capital and Bank of America / Montgomery Securities where he advised institutional clients on trading and risk management issues including the divestiture and hedging of concentrated equity positions and the creation of structured product. Kurt studied Finance and Economics at Brigham Young University where he currently serves as an adjunct professor and board member of The Ballard Center for Economic Self Reliance.

This is the second podcast on labour relations and the Truman Presidency. In 1947, Congress took up the baton of anti union legislation, just as the president was having second thoughts. The Taft Hartley Act was the most significant anti union legislation of the post war era and rolled back many of organised labour's achievements during the New Deal. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Join Jason Hartman and Investor Watchdog, Jack Waymire, for a discussion concerning the ethics of the financial services industry. According to Jack, the frequent lack of integrity undermines the achievement of investors' financial goals. Companies do not do what is best for you. They are very good at hiding information that they do not want their investors to know. Investor Watchdog investigates these companies and products, acting as a go-between for investors and advisers, answering frequently asked questions, such as, “How do I know I'm getting the right financial advice?” Jack shares examples of deceptive practices by various companies and how the executives that run the companies, i.e. Goldman Sachs, are insulated from accountability simply by paying fines rather than serving jail time for unethical and illegal practices.  Jason and Jack touch on the subject of the Madoff Ponzi Scheme, where Jack talks about some of the evidence that was found, as a glaring example of unethical sales pitches and conman tactics. Jack also informs listeners of what deceptive sales practices to watch out for when dealing with financial advisers. Jack entered the financial services industry as a financial consultant in 1976 for Warburg, Paribas Becker. He provided financial advice to companies, public entities, Taft-Hartley funds, endowments, and foundations with assets exceeding $7 billion. After spending two years with an investment firm, Jack co-founded Lexington Capital Management in 1983, a money management firm that wholesaled its services through wirehouses and regional broker-dealers. In 1989, Jack also founded a broker-dealer and built a national retail distribution system to market its products and services. Between 1996 and 2003, Lexington was sold to two larger financial service and technology companies. In his last position, Jack was President of Sungard Advisor Technologies. During these 20 years, Jack worked with thousands of investors and financial advisors and was responsible for providing services to individual investors with billions of dollars of assets. In 2004, Jack left the financial services industry to market a book he authored: Who's Watching Your Money? The 17 Paladin Principles for Selecting a Financial Advisor. Published in December, 2003, by John Wiley & Sons, his book was widely regarded as the first to provide an objective process investors could use to select higher quality advisors and to avoid the risks and consequences of bad advice from lower quality advisors. In 2004, Jack co-founded PaladinRegistry.com, a website that took selected content from his book and made it available to investors over the Internet. Later in 2004, a Registry of pre-screened, five star rated financial planners and financial advisors was added to the website. Paladin became the first online firm that vetted financial professionals for investors and provided comprehensive documentation for their credentials, ethics, business practices, and services. In 2008, Jack was instrumental in the development this blog site (InvestorWatchdog.com) that reports on investment risks that result from ethical conflicts in the financial services industry. Jack has appeared on CNNfn and over 100 national, regional, and local radio shows to talk about the subject matter of his book, the risk and consequences of bad advice, and Paladin's free online solutions. He is also widely quoted in the print media including Forbes, BusinessWeek, Worth, and Kiplinger and is a columnist for Worth Magazine. Jack can be reached at Jack@InvestorWatchdog.com.

Bob is a former US Army Special Forces officer and Vietnam Veteran who is the recipient of 2 Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star brbr Robert Gerometta brbr Bob began his 40-year business career with the State of New York where he was instrumental in developing the State's computerized drivers licensing system. Bob was the Commissioner of the Department of Information and Records for the City of New York. As Commissioner. After leaving New York City, Mr. Gerometta served as president of Information Design, Inc., a computer systems and management consulting firm. He later moved on to act as Managing Director of Computer Systems. He moved to Chicago in 1986, where he became head of Client Computer Systems Analysis and Design for the Midwest region of the Martin Segal Company, a premier Taft-Hartley benefits consulting firm. From 1993 to 1998, he was a managing partner in OBA Midwest, Ltd. a premier health claim and pension transaction processing company. From 1998 to 2005, he was Chief Executive Officer of MonetaPro, LLC, and Internet-based asset management software developer. Bob is a former US Army Special Forces officer and Vietnam Veteran who is the recipient of 2 Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star Bob is an avid “gear head” and racing fan, having built, wrenched, and driven a variety of sports, drag racing and circle track cars. He has authored articles in Hot Rod Magazine and Car Craft, and currently he a contributor to Muscle Car Review. He also co-authored Oldsmobile In Action,. He currently owns a 2003 Mustang Cobra convertible, an Audi S4 and a pristine 1968 Ram Air 442. Bob's duties as the CEO for Wild About Cars and website operations manager for the Automotive History Preservation Society - a Michigan-based not for profit.

Join Jason Hartman and Investor Watchdog, Jack Waymire, for a discussion concerning the ethics of the financial services industry. According to Jack, the frequent lack of integrity undermines the achievement of investors' financial goals. For more details, listen at:  www.JasonHartman.com. Companies do not do what is best for you. They are very good at hiding information that they do not want their investors to know. Investor Watchdog investigates these companies and products, acting as a go-between for investors and advisors, answering frequently asked questions, such as, “How do I know I'm getting the right financial advice?” Jack shares examples of deceptive practices by various companies and how the executives that run the companies, i.e. Goldman Sachs, are insulated from accountability simply by paying fines rather than serving jail time for unethical and illegal practices.  Jason and Jack touch on the subject of the Madoff Ponzi Scheme, where Jack talks about some of the evidence that was found, as a glaring example of unethical sales pitches and conman tactics. Jack also informs listeners of what deceptive sales practices to watch out for when dealing with financial advisors. Jack entered the financial services industry as a financial consultant in 1976 for Warburg, Paribas Becker. He provided financial advice to companies, public entities, Taft-Hartley funds, endowments, and foundations with assets exceeding $7 billion. After spending two years with an investment firm, Jack co-founded Lexington Capital Management in 1983, a money management firm that wholesaled its services through wirehouses and regional broker-dealers. In 1989, Jack also founded a broker-dealer and built a national retail distribution system to market its products and services. Between 1996 and 2003, Lexington was sold to two larger financial service and technology companies. In his last position, Jack was President of Sungard Advisor Technologies. During these 20 years, Jack worked with thousands of investors and financial advisors and was responsible for providing services to individual investors with billions of dollars of assets. In 2004, Jack left the financial services industry to market a book he authored: Who's Watching Your Money? The 17 Paladin Principles for Selecting a Financial Advisor. Published in December, 2003, by John Wiley & Sons, his book was widely regarded as the first to provide an objective process investors could use to select higher quality advisors and to avoid the risks and consequences of bad advice from lower quality advisors. In 2004, Jack co-founded PaladinRegistry.com, a website that took selected content from his book and made it available to investors over the Internet. Later in 2004, a Registry of pre-screened, five star rated financial planners and financial advisors was added to the website. Paladin became the first online firm that vetted financial professionals for investors and provided comprehensive documentation for their credentials, ethics, business practices, and services. In 2008, Jack was instrumental in the development this blog site (InvestorWatchdog.com) that reports on investment risks that result from ethical conflicts in the financial services industry. Jack has appeared on CNNfn and over 100 national, regional, and local radio shows to talk about the subject matter of his book, the risk and consequences of bad advice, and Paladin's free online solutions. He is also widely quoted in the print media including Forbes, BusinessWeek, Worth, and Kiplinger and is a columnist for Worth Magazine. Jack can be reached at Jack@InvestorWatchdog.com.