Maybe give me inside between black and white take my life
too, seriously. This is Rumble with Michael
Moore and I'm Michael Moore. We have an excellent guest
returning to rumble here. Today the great Economist
Stephanie Kelton is going to help explain, what's happening
with the economy, what we should be thinking about when we hear
them talking about inflation. And what Democrats in Congress
need to be doing right now to help the economy and help the
American people. But before we bring Stephanie
out here, I have a special Thanksgiving episode request for
all of you this year, I'm going to put my Thanksgiving episode
together, a couple days before Thanksgiving.
Usually every year on that day, I go live.
Usually I step out away from the dinner.
So nobody can hear me. And quietly, I speak to all of
you checking and seeing how it's going with your conservative
brother-in-law, your q and on aunt, whatever actually it's
just gotten worse. I know each year.
So this year, I thought, what I would do instead of, you know,
interrupting your dinner in my dinner, to commiserate, with our
situation that I am going to give out some advice, some
coping techniques to all of you and Some good talking points to
to those of the table that just seemed to be a lost cause.
So here's what I want you to do. I want you to participate in
next week's episode with me, but I want you to do it now.
We're over the weekend. I want you to send me what
questions or concerns that you have before, entering your
Thanksgiving dinner, debate with Uncle Ned.
Or Grandpa herb. All right, I'm not going to wait
till that day to help you out. I'm gonna help you out
beforehand. So what questions do you think I
could help you with what do you need an answer to that?
Can make your Thanksgiving dinner more pleasant this year.
Okay. You know what I'm talking about.
I have a ton of built-up advice because most of us didn't get to
have Thanksgiving last year. So I've got two years of
thoughts about this. About how to deal with the
unruly conservatives at the table.
So all you have to do is email me at Mike.
Am I ke Mike at Michael more.com, Mike at Michael
more.com or send me a voice mail.
There's a link right here on the description page of this
episode. You do is click on and it sends
you to my voicemail and you get one minute.
I have to limit it to a minute because you know people call us
all to get one minute to Leave your voicemail and ask me, what
is it that you need help with and Thanksgiving dinner.
How can I help you just think of me as like the I'll be like the
invisible dinner, guest. I'll be sitting right next to
you helping you deal with the convergence in the Neanderthals,
who have decided to eat turkey with you.
And and for those of you who have been so generous and
letting them in the house when you know, they shouldn't be
there. All I can say is God bless you
or good luck with that. Also, I want to give a Big,
thank you to all of you who keep continuing to check out the new
more store with our Rumble. A t-shirts and coffee mugs and
ball caps and and other various items.
That would make a nice holiday gifts here.
So go to the more store that store dot Michael more.com.
A portion of all the proceeds go to help the various causes and
movements that we support here on this podcast and some of it
also goes Goes to help the efforts to bring back the Arts
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So, stored on Michael more.com, ball caps, coffee, mugs,
t-shirts, stickers, hoodies, it's all there and and thank you
to all of you who have already got your Christmas gifts there
for people, that's very cool. I also want to thank all of you
who have written to me, suggesting new items for the
more store. I love this.
We're going to do. Some of this if you have any
ideas just email me at my cat Michael more.com and we'll see
what we can get up in the more story here after the holidays
and a quick reminder to all of you that you can go to Michael
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that'll be a nice Christmas gift.
Me just to see all of you on my master list so that I can easily
send you this podcast and easily, send you my letter each
week and before we bring Stephanie on, can I just also
thank our Underwriters to have time to do this?
Okay. Oh great, great.
Okay, so we have two Underwriters for today's
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Um a n and then another n capital n and they make these
things things that I have every day.
They're called super beats. Heart choose.
Okay. I know that's a lot to process
their super beats. Yes, there is beet juice.
That's put in this and I know you think I'm Michael Michael
Moore. Beet juice?
Really? Yes, yes.
I had a friend, make me a birthday, a cake.
I don't know, maybe four or five years ago and she didn't say
what was in it, just eat. This is always a dangerous
operation here. But I ate it hits.
It just tasted like the greatest chocolate cake and she said, I
used beet juice, that's because usually you're tasting.
I want what, super beats heart choose.
It's a great way to start today by popping a couple of these in
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shipping and returns and a 90 day money, back guarantee at
Super b.com / Rumble. And now, let's bring out our
guest here in Rumble today. Stephanie Kelton So let's just
get right to it. Whenever we have a Democratic
president or Democratic Congress in power and they are discussing
plans to actually help the American people with Health
Care. Child Care, Elder, Care,
education. We the public get bombarded with
a corporate propaganda campaign. Warning us that we can't afford
to do it, we just can't afford to do it.
And there are two big talking points that Corporate America,
the politicians that they fund and the media that they own,
they that they are there to Big talking points that they rally
around to warn us that we can't have the government invest in
these popular things that the majority of the American people
want. And what What are their two big
talking points deficit? And what's the other talking
point? Lund the deficit or inflation.
They pound away at this and right now Panic about inflation
is their biggest angle. Here's the thing, there's often
a kernel of Truth to these lies. Actually, the lies that work.
The best are the ones that have a kernel of Truth in them.
If I tell you that there's a martian out on my porch right
now, watching me do this podcast, that's a lie and you
know it's a lie and I can't sell it because There was no kernel
of truth to it, but this is how they're getting away with this.
Now thinking that they've got us all believing that inflation is
going to be the end of us. Yes, prices are higher right
now. That's the kernel of Truth
prices are higher right now. For a lot of the goods we need
and by and yes there are reports out that say that prices have
risen 6.2 percent from last October compared to this October
but Like a well-oiled machine, the corporate class has now
unified to take this inflation panic and use it to weaken,
President Biden and to try to prevent him from passing his
signature. Build back better.
Human infrastructure. Legislation.
That's the bill with all the good stuff in it to help vast
sums of American people. So, to help us untangle these
lies, these half-truths, we are joined today by By one of our
favorite economist's Stephanie Kelton, she is a, professor of
economics and public policy at Stony Brook University.
And she was the chief Economist for the u.s.
Senate budget Committee in 2015 and the senior economic advisor
to Bernie Sanders 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns.
She's the author of the deficit, myth modern monetary Theory and
the birth of the people's economy.
That came out just last year in 2027.
He also has a newsletter on sub stack as do I it's called the
lens with Stephanie Kelton and you can read it by typing in
Stephanie just all you it's about Stephanie Kelton ke L tion
Stephanie. Kelton dotsub stack.com,
Stephanie, welcome back to rumble, thank you so much.
It's awesome to be back with you.
I want to Dive Right into this inflation thing so they say
things over. As in 6.2 percent since last
October, my first thought is, I hope so.
Because last October, it was, it's zero.
I mean, there is the economy was essentially wrecked and, you
know, it, none of us knew where things were going to go.
So, can you tell me in my listeners about how inflation
really works? And remember, we are civilians
and most of us did not do well in math or the Sciences.
So how does it work? Just the Explanation.
And what are the things that really impact it?
Okay, so probably a lot of people who are listening to this
are thinking, maybe they've heard that inflation happens
when you have too much money, chasing too few goods that's
sort of a, right? Everybody's heard that before.
So if, if you start there and you say, okay, well then, how do
I think about the inflation that we're experiencing today is much
higher than it normally? Is, is it the case?
That what Is that somebody made too much money happen?
Or is it the case that we're dealing with a too few goods
problem? Now, lots of Republicans and a
few Democrats, Joe manchin comes to mind are, you know, sort of
out there suggesting that the government's overdid, it
basically, all of the, all of the fiscal support the checks
that went out, the unemployment insurance, top up from the
federal government that Congress just put too much money into.
You people's hands and that this is the price of all of that, you
know, fiscal. Support people have too much
money and they're running around trying to spend it into the
economy and that's driving up inflation.
Now, the other way to look at it is to say, well, let's see,
we're in a pandemic. We've been in a pandemic for the
better part of, you know, 18 months plus and people shifted.
The way they spend money, we weren't able to go out in the
early part of the pandemic. You couldn't go To a coffee shop
or a restaurant or a hotel. You couldn't go to the gym.
You couldn't go to the salon and so forth.
So we spent a whole lot less of our money on services and we
shifted to buying goods. We were home.
Many of us. If we were fortunate working
from home, maybe we upgraded our computers are home offices.
We bought new furniture, some of us remodeled homes and
appliances, we bought computers and tablets for kids.
So we bought Goods will Goods have to Be produced somewhere,
they have to be manufactured and we have a global economy and a
global supply chain and goods have to be brought to Market.
Well where do they come from? Well, they come from all parts
of the world and so you know what we're experiencing now is
so overwhelmingly. Due to pandemic.
Induced spike in Goods consumption relative to services
and then all of these supply chain bottlenecks, everybody has
seen the TV, you've heard the stories, you know, The ports are
backed up, ships are floating out there in the ocean, waiting
to unload. So the stuff is there, it's just
we're having some trouble, getting it off.
The ships, getting the containers unloaded onto trucks
driven to the warehouses, in to the end consumer, and Michael
were working through this stuff. We're seeing the supply chain
begin where, you know, the, The Kinks if you think of a chain,
right? It's got many links, if any one
of those links break, Then you can't get from the beginning of
the chain to the end. You need the whole thing to
stand strong. And we've had breakages because
you get a an outbreak of covid and you know a factory gets hit
in Taiwan or Malaysia or China. You shut down a third.
Largest port or partially shut down the third largest port in
the world and so it has disrupted the flow and when
those links start breaking we see Rising prices and so that's
what we've been dealing with but we're working through it.
So yes. So I think to a lot of people,
this makes sense, obviously, the supply chain piece of this
trying to put that on on Joe Biden that there are all those
ships docked out at Sea of Long Beach and I don't know where
we're outside by Oakland maybe. But what on Earth could he have
done differently to to prevent the so-called supply chain
problem that we're having? Well, look, he walked in the
door at a moment when a lot of this was already baked in,
right? We made decisions.
And I say we, I mean, you know, producers CEOs, corporate
interests have decided over a long period of time.
That the way that they want to produce and manufacture things
is, in this sort of just-in-time model, right?
Where you go in search of the lowest cost producer, where can
I make this small piece? Of this thing that I use and I
assemble it together with a gazillion other pieces and it
becomes the final product, which part of the world?
Can I manufacture that in that has, you know, the lowest
environmental standards, labor, standards, and I get cheap wages
and all the rest of it. I go there.
I produce that part that piece, and then I have to move it
around to get the next piece snapped on and so forth.
So, this is the system that we had in place and this would have
happened if Donald Trump had been reelected The boats would
be floating in the ocean, none of that would change.
Now, there are things I think people are talking now about,
you know, given where we are, are there things that the White
House could do to start to alleviate some of the short-term
pressures? And I think, you know, people
have pointed to things. Like, you know, if people are
paying more at the pump, for example will help them pay less
for other things. Negotiate prescription drug
costs, bring those down, maybe that can be done through.
Executive action and maybe there are some other things that that
President Biden could do. But dealing with, you know, the
backlog at the ports. He's trying, he's trying to do
things like, you know, require that people run 24/7 operations
at the ports and try to ease that backlog, but it's a big
challenge. Let me give you my supply chain
anecdotal stories two quick ones.
One is we just started up a merch store here with my sub
stack and podcast sites called The More store, and it's got the
basic, you know, stuff like Michael Moore, ball caps in the
t-shirts and the coffee mug, and all that.
And and I said to the people that we're talking about this
last month about, we're gonna have trouble here, man.
People going to buy this stuff for Christmas.
Sorry isn't even going to get here and he said, well, first of
all, we're not going to have a supply chain problem because
everything that you're going to have in your store is either,
Union made American-made Union printed, it's all here
essentially. I mean, there's a probably a few
pieces of that the come from someplace else, but basic my
goal is to set up a merch store that where the majority of the
stuff, not all of it, is either comes from, or made here or
printed here, or Whatever. So, so he said, so you're in
good shape because you're not depending on on, you know,
except but but but the other thing is, is that they're
blowing this to such a huge extent.
And its people don't really know the whole.
You can't just, you can't explain the supply chain in 30
seconds, but he says, I as a distributor, as a person who
helps, you know, people like you and others.
With herself. I'm not having any problems.
Number one, I said, wow, that's the opposite of what I heard my
second story is I'm finally. After 20 months, I have to
non-profit Art House theaters in Michigan and I'm opening them
tomorrow Friday, the 19th year and they've been, we had to be
closed during the pandemic. And, you know, it's not, not
been a safe place to be inside with no windows, no fresh air.
So, I recalled. The HVAC system.
So there's constantly fresh air coming in and and I put in these
Hospital sighs filters, that theaters don't have.
I did all these things. Right.
But, but then I was told, well they are going to have one
problem staff, are you to staff it?
Nobody wants to work. Nobody wants to work non-stop, a
mantra of nobody wants to work, so I don't think that's true.
I think, I think if I pay them well, and I think of, I think,
maybe people like the Work around the movies.
Might be fun. I don't know.
But what are you gonna pay them? I said, I don't know.
Eighteen to twenty three dollars an hour.
You mean to be an usher. Yeah, ticket-taker.
Yeah. I also have have covid security
Personnel because we check the, you have to be vaccinated to
come in. So it's, you know, you gotta
gotta go through a bit of a thing here.
And so I put it on, indeed, the post to post the job and indeed
the covid 30 people, 22, 22, 22, 15 hour.
And within one hour, we had 30 to 40 applicants in one hour.
And by five o'clock the next day, we'd whittled it down to
12. And then we hired the the top
four that will be, you know, doing some what of an I don't
want say a risky job but it's a you know they're going to deal
with belligerence, you know, from people because they don't
want to get backs vaccinated. But I just you know, I just I
just told, told everybody this story, this nobody wants to
work. And, within 24 hours, I had all
the people I needed for that particular job.
So Stephanie, what's going on here?
Because I'm getting, I just gave you my two examples.
I could be an outlier here, but I'm really tired of listening to
what my own personal experience is not and I say to the people
in the town where I live in Michigan.
Yeah maybe the reason why you're having trouble finding people,
Is that you're paying them, nine dollars and thirty cents an hour
which is the Michigan minimum wage.
You know, maybe you should just offer them a little bit more.
I can't believe you were offering people $22.
Well, that's what it takes. Now, thank God that people can
make, you know, in Michigan, if you if you do.
If we had the Bernie minimum wage, the living wage, $15 an
hour. Oh my God, it would raise so
many people up in the state of Michigan with that.
You know I'm paying double to Triple that and yes.
I have no problem getting people, but I'm not out to make
a profit. So I guess that's the big
difference, right? I don't know what is the
difference? Yeah, I mean, this is kind of a
circle laughing now, I'm laughing because it's, this is
not hard if you want to hire workers, there is a wage.
There's some people have a reservation wage.
They will not come to work in the middle of a pandemic.
Where, as you said, they can anticipate a certain amount of
abuse, you know, some segments of the population.
Is and can be hostile to workers when they're asked to conform
with covid protocols and so forth.
We've seen it on TV, we've seen people, you know, get spit on
and punched in the face and and all the rest of it.
So you know where especially in these kind of service
front-facing interacting with the public job.
So you offer people a safe place to work which you've done and a
good wage and you've done that and lo and behold you find that
people are not only will they The eager to come out and
compete for jobs like these. So I don't think this is a
mystery at all. I think what workers want is a
safe work environment and, you know, decent compensation.
It's not a whole hell of a lot to ask, Okay.
But well, yes, I know, but why is it left to people like you
and myself to give a lesson in capitalism to the gapless?
They fit, you know. I'm and I tell people store,
owners, whatever, in town, you know, all you got to do just pay
a living wage. Wage, you know, and let's be
start to be honest. For some of these jobs, you
don't need a college education, let people compete for these
jobs. They didn't make it.
I didn't make it through school. I made it through a year and a
half of college, let yes. I'm going to pay you twenty to
fifty an hour and you don't need a college degree because you
don't need a college degree to be.
There are covid safety staff and I had them trained by people
from the Department of Public Health.
I brought in a conflict resolution and the escalation
trainer to train them. Really what they needed to be
safe, to do the safely to not deal with again like I said the
belligerents and and, you know, go home and live the life, you
want to live at making a decent wage?
What is so hard about that? And why are you?
And I the ones trying to convince people who believe in
campus, they really believed in capitalism, wouldn't they just
make this equation on their own and they'd say, wow.
If I just paid a little bit more, I'm gonna make A lot more.
What's wrong with this? This picture here?
Yeah, I I don't know how to answer it, except to say that
employers have gotten accustomed to very cheap labor and a pool
of unemployed workers who are essentially desperate for any
job and they haven't had maybe the kind of negotiating power
that many workers now, feel like they do enjoy.
You know, for the first time in a very long time, there are a
couple Really more job vacancies than job Seekers.
That hasn't happened in a long time.
I don't know if it's happened in my lifetime.
Yeah, and you know, after the last so we had a recession,
right covid induced a recession. It was the shortest recession in
US history, but the recession before, that was the Wall Street
induced recession. It was the subprime housing
price trying on your mind. Yeah.
And seven, that that so-called recovery was a very anemic and
bad for workers recovery. In fact, the jobs that came back
were inferior to the jobs that were lost.
It took more than six years to claw back, all of the jobs that
were lost in the, in the recession.
And when they came back, they were inferior to the jobs that
were lost. And what I mean, is that they
were lower wage and lower our jobs.
So employers have had the benefit of cheap desperate
workers for decades. And, you know, this is kind of
coming as a shock to the system for And they they're complaining
about it all right? Yes, because last time as you
said last time around and the last piece of that 08 Wall
Street banking crisis, was the fact that General Motors and
Chrysler went belly-up and so the new President Obama had to
step in and essentially have the government, take them over and
repurpose them, get their books in order and Obama became the de
facto Octo CEO of General Motors and Chrysler the best way to put
it. But basically, he was in charge.
He the government was in charge the way that he and Biden and
others at the time decided to pull ourselves out of that.
Crisis was to do what you just said.
So for instance, my friends, who work on the assembly line,
General Motors in flatter Detroit, they They were I don't
know what they were making an hour before that.
That crash but I'm going to say 25 to 30 dollars an hour plus
benefits Obama and the government the Larry Summers of
our world. So we say made it so that yes
we're going to get General Motors reopen.
The government is not going to be running a car company but you
the workers are going to have to switch the new workers.
The ones are going to come in. After this crisis, you're going
to pay $10 an hour, $12 an hour, Our that's it.
That was the part. The pay was like, literally cut
in half, but because people were desperate for work, people were
losing their homes. What are they going to do?
And so they agreed to be in an auto worker in the union.
Had to go along with this for ten twelve dollars an hour and
and some benefits, but not not like what they were, no
pensions. Please don't even use the b
word. So it ended up being a Bad
thing. This crisis.
This is why this is why the wealthy and the owners are just
flipped out because this crisis has not resulted in people being
pushed down. Further the boot on the neck,
put down harder, it was amazing, the fiscal response this time
compared to what was done under President Obama after the
financial crisis. Triggered, the Great Recession.
Basically last time, you know, you got to sort Of one-and-done.
Congress did the American Recovery and reinvestment act
that was the so-called, you know, Obama stimulus package.
It was 787 billion dollars which sounded too many like a lot of
money at the time. Larry Summers.
You know famously kept that number down and there were
others around Obama. The time telling him this was
this was never going to be sufficient.
You needed to go much bigger or, you know, you were going to end
up with a really crappy economy. Long period of time.
Larry said no, no, no, we can't touch the word trillion.
Nobody's ready for that and others around him.
Rahm Emanuel David. Axelrod David.
Axelrod said, people have sticker shock.
If you say trillion we can't do that.
So we got a fiscal package, one much too small to handle, you
know, the task and then we ended up with a very, very crappy
economy and a slow sluggish recovery this time, really
incredible, right? The panda.
Damn, it comes to our Shores, in March of last year.
And Congress with, with very little delay, bangs out a 2.2
trillion dollar fiscal package, the care is act.
And you see, you know, federal government step up with
unemployment insurance, right? Federal government says, will
Top up what the state is doing for.
You will give you an extra $600 a week and will expand the
coverage. So it includes people who
typically get left out noubar drivers in the like and we'll
And checks to almost every household in America.
Well, get you $1200. It's coming in the mail and will
do. Payroll protection programs will
help small businesses, stay afloat, pay their utilities.
Keep their workers on payroll in the light and we lost twenty two
million jobs in the first two months of the pandemic.
But then we went on to have the shortest recession in history
and Congress came back and did a 900 billion dollar package in
December of last year and then they came back this March And
did one point nine trillion, more and more checks went out in
December, more checks went out in March of this year, you had
extensions in the unemployment compensation and rent moratoria.
I mean, this was just incredible five trillion or so right.
And, and the proof is in the pudding.
I mean, there's a reason that boats are floating in the ocean
stocked with stuff because people have money to spend.
We've lifted almost half of all the kids in this country out of
poverty. It's the first time I'm that we
had a sharp downturn. A recession were poverty rates
fell, right. That's right.
And yet, and yet the people the people were pushing this
so-called labor shortage, the ghost of Larry Summers.
By the way, it's not a ghost. He's it's still alive and his
written op-eds, and he, and others of that.
Ilk, they were pushing the so-called labor shortage.
I have that in quote marks you can't see me this, they pushing
this line because they want and they expect A large class of
desperate and feckless workers. They need that to make the kind
of profits. They've been making for the last
decade or so. That's what this is really all
about. And I taking from what you're
saying here, Stephanie, I mean, they want the workers to be weak
enough. To have to work for crumbs
because crumbs is all they want to give because if they get more
than crumbs, then they're not going to be the gazillionaires
that they become in the people that become so rich.
During this pandemic, why they would have any problem paying
people a living wage or Beyond when they have done so.
Well during this time, this time, I live in northern
Michigan. I mean, the real estate, it's
not just in, it's not just in the big cities.
This is just a little town up in northern Michigan.
It's amazing. How I watched people swoop into
town, rich people and buy up everything they could and then
turn around and they start selling it for twice or three
times or four times as much as it was just months earlier, it,
I'm people. Listen this.
I know they've seen this in their towns.
It's all over the country and, and it seems like they were the
backbone of this has to be paid people as little as possible and
they're not getting away with it because But aren't showing up to
work for little as possible because if they if we had really
gotten rid of the pandemic, if we stemmed it right away, maybe
maybe they could have pulled this off because people would
feel, you know, that is unsafe but it's we're not out of the
woods and in this town in northern Michigan you can go on
the map look at Northern Michigan.
Is now the number one state this week in terms of covid
infections and it's the hospital has hit Code Red.
Head for the first time in its 80-year existence and it's no.
But people do not want want to work and I have told people to
who are working the theater Cerner.
Hey, you know, I don't want anybody working when you don't
feel right now, you know, we're all vaccinated.
We're not letting them at anybody in without being fully
vaccinated, we are going to take their temperature at the door.
So if somehow, you know, they've there's a breakthrough here
whatever because they haven't been wearing your mask, you have
to wear your mask, still, they won't get The theater and once
in there, there's nobody sitting three or four seats to the right
of you or three or four seats to the left, you nobody in the
whole row in front of you and nobody in the whole world in
back of you. That's how I've set it up.
So, I mean, you know, because, you know, the coronavirus is my
enemy. So, I am going to, I am going to
win and we're not going to let it hurt people harm, people kill
people, that's my attitude. I wish it had been the Global
Response because you know, when a factories are shutting.
Down because there's a covid outbreak in a poor country that
we use to manufacture Nike tennis shoes or whatever.
You know, we did the global response has been absolutely
abysmal. You got what three percent of
the population of Africa that's vaccinated.
I mean if we were serious about trying to return to normal,
that's what needed to be done and all hands on deck, Global
coordinated effort to stamp out this the spread of this virus
and and we just didn't get it. The, you know, I have friends
who work in Africa, I have a friend who is a doctor there and
he was saying that, you know, the thing about a fraud.
So sad about Africa is Africans. Don't play this goofy game of do
this, this vaccine has chips from Bill Gates that they're
putting my Africans are so desperate and so wanting a
vaccines medicine. Any help and that if we were
truly committed because we will not get rid of this without a
worldwide effort. And if we look at Africa, like,
oh, well, what does that have to do with me in Michigan?
Well, the reason our hospital is full started with a virus in
China. Did you ever ask yourself how to
try to make it to Michigan? I mean we live and we live on a
planet that's not really that big.
And and we are all affecting each other with this.
But I just, you know, just getting back to this thing about
the labor. And I want to move on with the
next question. It's I just, I don't know how
you feel about this and I don't know if you are have to be
agnostic about it or whatever, but I I really salute the people
that have held out. I know it's not been easy, but
it be inch by inch the wages, go up.
More people last month and the previous month's 500,000.
I believe we're employing, new hot new hires, you know, Boy, if
we just all stick together on this, I just I don't know what's
the best thing I should say it. And if you, if you can't say,
because wait, are you saying so? We got five hundred and thirty
one thousand jobs last month and we had good upward revisions so
but you're saying hold out in terms of the people who are
still refusing to go back to work.
Yes. Yes.
If you can easy for me to say and I'm just saying that, I will
try to set my example by the people I hire who are Our who
are working jobs that you don't need a college education or
whatever. But I will make I want them to
be paid somewhere between 18 and 23, dollars an hour and I just
think that's the right thing to do.
I can do the math. You know, we're going to make
money II, don't, I don't, you know, you can see a movie in my,
in my theater for as little as seven dollars and and the
popcorn is two dollars in the pop, as we say in Michigan,
soda, pop is two dollars. And the candies the dollar, I
mean, I've kept my prices low and yet I can I can tell you
right now at the end of next year, we're going to be okay.
So, I don't know why other people aren't doing this and
maybe, yes, maybe we won't make as much as we did five years ago
or three years ago, but don't we all want to live?
I do in the community, I live in where people are happy and when
they're happy they live good lives and race happy children.
And am I missing the boat? I don't think you are.
I think it it's a wonderful thing to imagine.
I mean I I can't imagine not wanting to see your neighbors
and the other people in your community doing well, and you
know that's there, but obviously we know, we know, why not
everybody feels that way. It's, you know, you're a gain is
perceived to come somehow at my expense and you can pit workers
against one. Another clearly employers, think
bottom line first. And if there's a potential to,
you know, if they've got to pay a little bit of Higher wage.
And they've got a choice to either pass that on to the end
consumer by raising prices, or allow it to come a little bit
out of their profits. We know most of the time.
What that choice looks like it push prices up to maintain
profit. Margins.
So, you know, we have a, it's greed.
Michael, we know this, I know, and I want to say to those who
you call it capitalism, but it really honestly and just plain
language its greed. If you were just to pay people a
little bit more, Or instead of owning 5 homes.
You own three homes. Can you get by?
Can you get by on on that? I mean so that we can all get
out of this dark era that we're in.
Can you the wealthy join in on this you know, you don't, you
don't have to vote for Bernie. You don't have to follow me or
anything like that, but but how about just for your greater
good, if you want to play the long game, aren't you going to
be better off? If people are better off, one of
the other things that government in Japan has done over many
years, is they call it jawboning, you know this.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They just basically shame
companies ahead of time so that they don't raise their prices
and gouge consumers and so forth.
So the government just gives a little public statement of some
kind saying, you don't really want to do that, do you?
You know, and then it just keeps keeps the lid on you know just
how green Edie, corporations are going to get.
Let me let me go back to inflation for a second.
So here's, here's a kind of a contrarian question is
inflation. All that bad.
Now now my friend, John Schwarz, who works over at The Intercept.
He had this great piece in their, in their online,
publication The Intercept about inflation, not being so bad for
the working class that it's more detrimental to the rich.
Which is why they always are talking about inflation, not
good for them, but for the working, I mean, nobody wants to
pay another, you know, 50 cents for a half gallon of milk or
whatever, but it was just interesting reading.
This I don't know if you saw it or not but what's your take on
that? That that the sort of panic in
the sort of hyperbole about that?
How this inflation we're going through now is going to kill us
and it's going to kill Biden's chances of re-election.
The Democrats are going to lose the house in the Senate next
year. Here.
Well, I mean, just I mean, not saying that it doesn't exist
and, you know, some people obviously, it does hurt people,
but I'm just curious. I read that.
And I thought, well, that is a different way of looking at
this. Yeah.
I mean it's a little bit nuanced and so I would have to know more
like lower income. People spend a higher percentage
of their income on gasoline or rent or Healthcare and
wealthier. People pay a higher percentage
On housing, for example. So, when we talk about
inflation, you know, there's a consumer price index, and there
are other price, indices and different ways to measure
inflation. So, you can have headline
inflation zooming higher because just one component in the
consumer basket is getting much more expensive.
So say, health care if you had Rising health care premiums and
skyrocketing prescription drug costs and everything else was
staying the same, right prices. Weren't Rising.
But just Healthcare was getting more expensive that would
produce headline inflation. And so then you have to say,
well who who is more hurt by Rising health care costs, you
know, they're very red sure. The lower income.
Usually when people talk about inflation in sort of class
terms, I think they think of the investor class.
So you might think of bondholders who are getting you
no interest or stock market investors.
Maybe if dividends or In at a pretty stable Pace or your
interest on your bonds and inflation is eating up your real
gains then you don't like it. You know because you're honest
in a sense on a fixed income as a bondholder but it's just
tricky. It depends on what what exactly
is getting more expensive because different income groups
feel those things differently, right?
So if well we know some prices are higher.
So is there something? President or Congress can do is
or something that Joe Biden could do maybe tomorrow next
week, stroke of the pen. That could provide some relief
for people. Well, the answer is yes, and the
question really is relief, when in the short term, that's what
we'd like, right? We're all feeling the effects of
paying a little bit more for that gallon of milk.
Paying quite a bit more to fill the tank.
If you're, you know, driving a car that requires gas I mean,
that's harder, but there are things that he could do to
reduce the costs that we pay for other things.
So if we were paying a little more for milk, paying a little
bit more for gasoline. Well, he is sending, you know,
three hundred dollars a month to families with kids under six and
two hundred and fifty dollars a month to families with kids, you
know, six and over up to 17 and that's in the form of the child
tax credit and that's reassuring.
Yeah. It's per child so that does help
take the sting out of some of that.
But of course, in this build back better act that, you know,
he's trying to get through right now.
There are additional things that will reduce costs for the
average person. If you're, you know, if you have
a spend a lot of money on childcare, well, Universal
Pre-K, and doing things to help, people find affordable,
childcare options, negotiating prescription drug costs for
people who are paying out the nose.
For medicines. If we could bring some of those
costs down, then yes, your milk costs more, but your
prescription drugs cost significantly less, right?
So what can you do? In terms of housing, he wants to
build something like a million units of affordable housing.
Some of these things take time, you know, there's money going
into ports, unconscious in rail. Yes.
But on those things that could happen in our happening.
Now, I mean this is a very bar just want to repeat what you
just said that the child tax credit.
That that his family's. If you have two kids, you're
already getting at least around $600 or more a month.
Are you spending six hundred dollars more a month on gas
right now on milk and eggs? I mean seriously if you start to
add up and then look at the extra 600 that you've got per
month because of what Joe Biden is done.
I just think like, okay look, yes, I don't, I don't want the
gas to go up. This is a global first off the
global price of gas going up, is a global issue and it's nothing
to do with Trump losing her Biden winning this.
This doesn't get reported enough.
And so the second thing you mentioned is childcare and I
mean, listen to everybody who's listening right now who has to
pay child care, right? What are you paying a month or
even a week? 250 300 350.
I mean, this is It's Madness. And the fact that he's proposing
to set this up so that no more than what is it, seven percent
of your income of your home. With the numbers is 7%, okay, it
can go to Chuck at the rest of it.
The the government's going to handle this.
The and the rich are going to pay for it.
So so that that $250 for childcare, did you just did you
spend $250 expert on gas? Look I'm not putting it down.
It's, it's serious. You know, I went through the
first as a teenager, the first gas crisis, they're back in the
70s. And, and so, what do we do?
We start to carpool. Gas was like 20 cents a gallon
by the way, and we were horrified when I went to 35
cents, but we started to carpool.
We started to do things out. If people got bikes bike lanes
were created in towns. I mean, you rolled with it
because you are going to be defeated by it.
To let the Republicans and others start to trash Biden.
And let's be clear. Well, I want to repeat this once
again. What we're saying about buying
them with the in the goodies trying to do.
This is your if you're listening at home or on that bicycle,
you're talking to. These are two people who were
out on the road with Bernie Sanders.
And and in separate, of course, had a very important role in
helping them put together essentially his economic
package, which, and now, the Republicans have finally figured
this out. His good friend and that's not
said lightly his good friend. Joe Biden.
Has listen more to Bernie then to Joe manchin already.
Can we could we put a victory up for that, that that, you know,
the goodness that he's tried to do is doing is trying to get
this bill passed. You know, you and I vote in the
primaries. We voted for Bernie.
So, when you're hearing a say these things about Biden,
there's no, you know, this is not an official whatever, right?
Can can I bring you into that and say that or, or are you
working out for the bike Administration that I didn't
read about it? No, no, I did serve.
I mean I served as one of eight members of the Sanders Biden or
Biden Sanders Unity task. That's right.
She's on the economy. So yes.
So after Bernie didn't make it through the primaries, you were
on the Biden. Bernie economic panel, that put
together these proposals. That that that's right that
Stephanie I and Tens, hundreds of thousands were listening to
this right now. Want this past, we're not
satisfied with this roads and bridges thing.
Yes, good thing good, thank you internet, especially up where I
live. We're all thank you but man it's
looking more and more like this is going to they're not going to
do it in the year 2021. This is going to get pushed to
2022 and then more Democrats will be more frightened to do
the thing that they know is right to do.
But they're listening to all the wrong people, what do we do
about this? So we get this human
infrastructure, bill passed, the help parents with children,
parents with elderly, parents, all the things that we should
have, and we don't have, well, the pressure is definitely on
and it's really on to people. And I don't know, because I'm
not privy to the conversations that take place between the
White House and the two key Senators, that stand in the way
of potentially passing this legislation, and I think, Like
that you've got 48, Democrats or senators and the 48 members of
the US Senate who are prepared to vote for the bill back better
agenda, remember that this thing started off with people like
Senator Sanders saying, we it should be a six trillion dollar
package and then a compromise was arrived at and you had
Senator Schumer. You had speaker Pelosi.
You had the Democrats come out, and stand shoulder to shoulder,
and say, You know, we have come to an agreement.
Our number is three point, five trillion, the Democrats are
united and we got what's called a budget resolution, which is
the formal document that affirms that number.
It says, okay, we have given ourselves permission to move
forward to write legislation to spend three and a half trillion
dollars and then Senator manchin Senator Cinema said, hold on,
I'm not prepared to go there and Mansion said I want to pause and
we all know what happened. And and so they have been
negotiating with themselves and that number is now down to what
some 1.7 trillion and I suspect that it will continue to fall
because the house moved with 1.75 but now we're waiting on
the Senate. So I think you're quite right.
If you're paying attention and listening to the things that Joe
manchin is saying just in the last 24 hours, he is channeling
that you know he's using this current bout of Just say, I
think maybe we've already done too much and I'm not sure we
should go forward this year. And that's where the pressure
point. Is you've we've got find some
way to make him comfortable and I'm not.
In fact, I'm not sure that it's really a genuine concern about
inflation. That is what need he needs to
overcome. I think it's an excuse and he's
not happy with this. Scope and the size of the
package and inflation is a convenient way to sort of raise
a flag and say, I'm not comfortable.
So we're going to go either smaller or we'll go later and if
we do, I think that and we probably won't go at all.
I can't handle it you know and I'll tell you who else can't
handle it. All those people that came out
to vote for Biden. In this Democratic Congress last
year 2020. A lot of them are going to stay
home. They're going to go.
Wow, I was promised this they would make this happen.
We gave them the majority of the house, the Senate, and the White
House. And now we don't get to see this
now, you and I are going to vote next year and the year after
that because that's we are. But a lot of people, you know,
we are, we usually have over 100 million adults, who do not vote.
They're just going to go what I told.
You politicians, same old story. No, I have no interest in
whatever they're doing and we lose.
We depress our vote the Democratic vote that the people
who vote for Democrats that it gets depressed next year.
And we lose, we lose the house with the Senate and Biden is an
island in the in the white house.
It's so critical to get this passed now.
And Ooh, I don't know what Biden has to do, I don't know.
I mean, I know I'm old enough to remember what Lyndon Johnson did
when he had a cinema and in a mansion and they got invited to
the Oval Office, the they shut their doors, they lock them and
20 minutes later. The senator from Mississippi was
voting for civil rights. Yeah.
Ah, you know remember when it when it was Georgia on the line
and voters in Georgia were told you delivered, Georgia and will
deliver the check right? Because there was this promise
that Made you give us this vote and you put us in charge?
And that money is headed your way without these two seats.
There is no next check for you and sure enough voters turned
out. We got the two seats in Georgia
and the checks went out and now because of a bill that was
Democrat. Only that one point, nine
trillion dollar package, this March that started sending you
know that expanded child tax credit.
That three hundred or two hundred and fifty dollars a
month that people are getting for their To help support their
families. That is because Democrats were
in charge there, that never happens without Democrats in
control and it ends at the end of this year.
So if people want to see those checks again, next year, there's
only one way that happens. That's what the passage of build
back better. It's in the build back better
and you know we can't control mansion and we can't control
Cinema. We most of us don't live in
their states so what do we do? I mean seriously what do we do?
Because I'm telling you right now people Sing to this in and a
lot of other millions of others feel like the hand is to their
throat. And if we can't figure out
politically how to make this happen, how to get these votes.
First of all, what good are we number one.
Number two, there goes the house in the Senate next year.
I will not let. That happen says me, I'm one
person, but I'm telling you that is more where my head is at.
And, and I think I'm not alone. Alone.
Well, I'm sure not. It's just, you know, you turn on
the news and you know what? People are being bombarded with
right now. It is story after story, after
Story of, you know, inflation, it's really becoming entrenched
in the narrative. And I think the mainstream media
is playing this in a way, they're spinning this inflation
and tying it to the next round of the spending package.
And I think in People's minds. You're starting to see kind of
some support begin to slip and I think we've got to do whatever
we can to help people understand that this current bout of
inflation is in fact, temporary that this is not the new normal
in the United States of America or work.
And through these Supply chains, the energy prices are going to
come down by early spring. I think people are going to be
seeing something very different at the pump and and a lot of
this is going to be in the rearview mirror but their
hypothetical Being this up. It's creating some fear and
anxiety in people and we just need a very strong
counter-narrative to keep people focused on the opportunity.
We have to make these investments in our people, you
know, people are calling it, The Kids Care and climate bill.
This is an opportunity to make investments in our people, in
our communities. And we shouldn't let it slip
through our fingers, out of an irrational, kind of fear of this
Ian becoming entrenched in a part of our everyday life.
It's not going to happen. How do we, how are we able to
get overcome our own fears? Well, we it would be nice if
they would put someone on television other than Larry
Summers to communicate with the American people.
You know, all of these shows these producers have a choice to
make, they get to decide which economists store expert to bring
on to talk and and help the public understand some of these
things. But inevitably, it seems to me
and I watch a fair bit of this stuff because I'm trying to keep
a sense of where the whole narrative is going.
It just seems to me that there's a lot of hype out there.
Ooh, this inflation stuff. They're not bringing on many
people who could speak in a more level-headed way about where we
are and why this is really pandemic induced and related to
the bottlenecks. And you know the sort of growing
pains it Michael in a lot of ways it's it's a good problem to
have and it doesn't sound. I know it's not good.
If you're struggling to, you know, pay to fill up the tank
but compared to the alternative to an economy that That was
looked more like it did last October, we don't want to be
there. We're much better off where we
are today and some of the pain associated with higher prices at
the pump and a paying a bit more for food and so forth, it is
going to Abate. We are going to have a much
better stronger economy. If we get this next package,
we're going to have a stronger social safety net to go with it.
One last question, the CBO thing, this score, that mansion
and Cinema say, they're waiting on some some even some A
moderate so-called moderate Democrats in Congress in the
house. They want the score from the
Congressional budget office to tell them, you know, is this
paid for? Are we going to go into further
debt? What is this?
And what what is the CBO is a CBL going to block this by
coming up with some crazy thing? Well, I don't know.
Is the answer to the question? I think that the White House has
been saying for a week or so that they are confident they're
confident that the Congressional budget office, which is
basically you know the score keeper who will take a look at
the build back better act they are in fact looking at it and
there they say they will have a score by the end of the day.
Day. And so their job is to take a
look at everything, Congress is proposing to do and to project
the impact of all of that on the federal budget.
In other words, will it add to the deficit?
If it does by, how much? And that's, that's the way they
evaluate legislation. They don't say how much good
will this do for our climate, for our kids for our future?
That's not what they're asked to do.
They're just asked to tell tell Congress.
What number is going to fall out of the budget box at the end of
the year, for the next 10 years, and add that up and give it a
score. So from my perspective, this is
about the least useful thing. You could ask someone to do in
terms of advising you on major legislation.
I tell me tell me how it tell me how it impacts the budget that
is an important question. Tell me how it impacts the
broader economy. Tell me how it impacts the
number of kids living in poverty.
Tell me how it impacts our communities.
And the number of people who are able to get an education, who
are able to get the health care, they need and so forth and so
on, that's not, that's not the objective here.
So, yeah, Congress has asked the CBO, they created the
Congressional budget office, they gave them this job.
So it's a product of their own creation.
And, you know, they may, well, come back with a score that
gives The moderates as you said in the house or people like
Cinema and mansion and an opportunity to say it's because
of the score that I can't bring myself to vote for this.
Wow. So now we're on pins and needles
until tomorrow Friday night. Yeah.
But what would Republicans do? You know?
That's the difference? You're good.
If CBO comes out with a score and they did this, they did this
with the Trump tax cuts CBO scored that legislation came out
with a score in the Republican said, oh you're wrong.
It pays for itself CBO said it would add a little over 1.4
trillion to deficits over 10 years and then they revised it
up to one point nine trillion. So call it 2 trillion and
Republicans just laughed at them.
They said I don't know what you're smoking over there at the
CBO because this thing pays for itself.
You guys are you're doing funny math over there.
Democrats tend not to play like that, right?
They they don't play to win in the same way that Republicans
Publicans usually do. I lying basically what you're
saying, right, Democrats, no matter what, anybody thinks that
I am, or how you wish they do, more better, whatever they do
have a hard time when it comes right down to the numbers of
just saying, what are you talking about?
That's not a to, that's a three. What do you want to harm?
What are you talking about? What, what caught, what climate
change, they show deference and reverence and for norms and
things in ways that Republicans don't.
But I think the bigger problem is You know it is quite
reasonable to say we're going to ignore this score because we're
not going to let a projection of what might happen over the next
10 years where we all know that nobody knows what's going to
happen over the next 10 years. This is just your best guess and
our priority is and we are laser focused on meeting the needs of
the American people making these Investments, and so thank you
for the score. But we're going to say laser
focused on delivering for the When people Stephanie Kelton,
thank you so much for being on Rumble with us here today.
And I encourage everybody who's listening to do their part to
let the White House to let your representatives know how you
feel about these issues. Don't forget Stephanie's book
latest book, the deficit myth modern, monetary Theory and the
birth of the people's economy. And I know what you're saying to
yourself. Mike, this is not what we're
going to do on Friday night. Read about modern monetary
Theory, I'm telling you my friends.
If you do, you'll have a much better.
Saturday? I'm not kidding.
Thank you so much. Stephanie and your sub stack by
Ranch spawn. Point out again, is called the
lens with Stephanie Kelton ke L tion and you can get it by just
simply going and typing in, in at the most of us are free, but
you can subscribe and support stuff, and you and her work.
And if you are a producer for the any Cable News Network,
please we'd like to see some Nobody other than Larry Summers
on the shows and I know Stephanie is very busy but I'm
sure she would like to talk to the American people about some
of the stuff in a way that we're not being talked to Stephanie.
Kelton dotsub stack.com, is how you go to her writings.
Thank you very much, Stephanie, and keep up the very important
work that you're doing. Thank you so much, Michael take
care of yourself. All right you too.
Bye-bye, bye-bye. Well that was all very
interesting. Please share this with people.
This is important information. We need to not be connived into
thinking that this inflation situation.
We're in is something that it isn't and really appreciate
everything Stephanie shared with us about that and and we need to
get this other human infrastructure.
Bill passed. We can't let put this off until
after January this has to happen right now friends.
And you must have your voices heard.
So thank you for tuning in to rumble today.
Don't forget to send me your Asks for Thanksgiving dinner
conversation. How to handle the trumpster at
the table. Write me at my Kitt Michael
more.com or leave a voicemail on the link here on the description
page and ask me what you want to ask me.
And I will on our podcast here, the beginning of Thanksgiving
week, I will share with you my advice as to how to handle the
craziness at the Thanksgiving Day table.
All right. My friends.
Thanks to our executive producer bezel Hamden, Our editor and
sound engineer. Nick quos.
Our jack-of-all-trades, Donald Bornstein, our researcher and
overall good guy, Harrison Malkin.
And to all of you who've been with us here, now in these
almost two years of Rumble with Michael Moore greatly appreciate
it. We have a lot of work to do so
let's get busy take care. Everyone twice as Verity.
These questions.