>> let me say that my heart goes out to those people that are overzealous i would tell you if i could spend more time to be a politician i would kick their butt out but i didn't know what they were doing. good evening, everyone and

welcome to >> good evening everyone in the co-owner of politics and prose this promises to be a very engaging program for you this evening featuring journalist peter goodman talking about his new book a couple of brief housekeeping notes if any point during the discussion click on the q&a icon andnd in the chat : you find a way to purchase glcopies. iomany people marvel at the

outlandish parties and their estates in the details of their vastly extensive divorce settlement and tv shows based on their excessive lifestyle philanthropy and even elected to public office is when the detailed case the richest people in the world have done great harm to the rest of us. so with the social justice they deliberately engineer systems of business and ncgovernment and of the economic security and many others and during the pandemic. w this simply hasn't been the economic inequality but the meaningful consequences

including intensifying publicso anger and then to personify the narrative he focuses on five particular millionaires that you will hear more about in a minute overall he did livers a scathing account of narcissism and hypocrisy with the authority and journalistic skill covering the global economy for decades and in recent years in "the new york times" and then follows by three years of alaska and then to join the "washington post" were they spent ten years as bureau chief as a correspondent and during the .com bubble of the 1990s.

as a national economics correspondent playing a lead on —- a leading role with the financial crisis but then shifted to the left - - having them post and then became global editor-in-chief and the return to "the new york times" in 2016 and then to become the global economics correspondent and is also the author previously in 2009 about the economic and financial access that led to the great recession. a very accomplished director and producer is with us this evening for his work on multiple enemies and peabody's and most recently directing the hbo two-partbo documentary the crime of the century about

the opioid crisis. the screen is yours. >> so to talk to you the books is potent and it has given me a lot to think about but i will start to where we got to where we got to did you approach this at the anthropological look of a new species of economics did you start q somewhere different quick. >> that's a great question. i just want to say what an honor it is to have you as moderator and that's a great question right off the bat. i did not come at the story originally as the story of davos. i was covering brexit trump was elected president.

i was writing about the right wing populism in france and italy in germany even sweden is a bastion of social democracy suddenly a party born in the neo-nazi movement and then i was writing of the democratic order and asking how this happened i was in davos 2017 and at this .6 months into the torture that is brexit and trump is elected and there is a sense among the people now that i called davos man those ultra billionaires who write the rules that they refasten the global economy we better take note with the pitchfork to show up in its at the center of things with this program of seminars that most of thef cool kids don't go to

like a badge of sophistication not putting foot into the conference center and then this year of inequality and populism capitalism two.zero and all of the buzzwords. even tries to figure out what is happening and i just tried to figure out the solutions. i remember listening to this discussion with the consulting on —- consulting company in india that they need to take responsibility for their own problems and train themselves i remember listening to a hedge fund investor by suggesting the solution to inequality was at the regulatory process to unleash the animal spirit of the market to generate more conducive atmosphere for

making money a curious thing from someone who figured out to make quite a bit of money. i listen to my one time boss arianna huffington who just launched this website about spies and wellness and her solution involved meditation and everything except for the people that were here that have to give something up it was classic davos man thinking with a win-win solution and as we are doing well and we invest in the cosmic lies to trickle down it struck me that here was a beginning of an explanation for what was happening in the world. as i continued my reporting on the populist movements it was a reaction to something on the

surface like why was sweden suddenly interested? because there had been a dotremendous influx of migrants and suddenly they were blamed by the neo-nazis with the rhetoric that homogeneous society but it's always package as we don't want to pay taxes or a similar explanation and i came to see brexit as a response to scarcity. and of course to explain where trump comes from for those people inot a state of economic insecurity. t such that they may not understand what has happened to them but the people that are running the system don't

care much about what is happening to them or we wouldn't have so much desperation and each of these cases we have this opportunity for political opportunist.de there is someone else besides those in our midst. as i write the story i realize that what i just described in davos 2017 and then i realized i wanted to understand what sorts of stories the billionaires tell themselves to justify what seems like an economic system thatel used to function pretty well most of these economies you get up for work or stay out of trouble and then find a job that will allow you to support your

family at a middle-class standard guys who systematically dismantle public infrastructure? tolo lobby campaigns through financing think tanks or hiring accountants are finding tax loopholes for lobbyists to write new ones. to dismantle public infrastructure transferring the proceeds to themselves leaving huge numbers of people in the state of desperation. what are they telling themselves? that became my goal. >> we can get to trump, but before we get to the main character. i recall professor of mine said he is a rationalize her

and police have an expression with the idea that it determines the noble cause will allow you to become more corrupt because the end justifies the means. but running across the psychological experiments where people cheat more when they imagine they do it for a good cause. so what are the stories the key characters tell themselves? that what they are doing is so good it allows them that we have been the heroes of the global pandemic.

that does not allow them in such a way that they don't even recognize the carnage how do you describe that psychological paradigm from davos man? i>> i think with the commonality there is a messiah complex. it is a gift. to make $1 billion you have to be pretty good at selling something. and these case are especially good at selling themselves and their own virtue as a prophylactic against redistribution. so they preempt the conversation about progressive us that by telling ndgovernment is bureaucrats who can't do anything and if you think about it but there were

not wasting our money on bureaucracy why they tell us about the philanthropic endeavors. you are right but the focus on one complex character. this is a guy he was a real philanthropist and fought some significant fights. he is the founder of the large software company based in san francisco and favors countercultural rhetoric. like a silicon valley cliché. he hangs out with metallicaci drummer and tweets pictures of himself on a sailboat. he has dream force his own davos by the cn flies out to hawaii and they all hold hands and have blessing ceremonies and he co-opted the word that sort of means family and the

inspiration for his company came where he was having an existence of crisis early in his career and they said you have to give something back and to his credit he donates 1 percent of all revenues, staff time and then to provide homeless services by taxing big companies like is in san francisco. but as a company he pays the modest sum of zero to the federal government and taxes on several billion dollars worth of revenues at i least twice. the rest is a rounding error compared to that. how do we pay for all of the stuff that helps to create his

fortune? the electrical grid and universities financed by public dollars churning out graduates who can help him code? this is just what he doesn't engage with h' just tells you about or philanthropy or how in the first wave of the pandemic he selfishly due on his connections ingo china to serve 50 million pieces of ppe gowns, facemasks and to fly back to the states for those who did not have it that why are we dependent upon to answer front-line medical workers in ways that are supposed to be the most powerful country on earth? how does that happen? because people have systematically pillaged the system through tax cuts that yet he tells the story. last year he said ceos are the

heroes and the government did not save you. we saved you. and those that is the biggest private equity investor were $30 billion talk about the epic foreclosure disaster that you just did a podcast on, meltdown, he will to you as an investor who literally bought that thousands of homes per day on the court houses of america and took possession, rented them out to people with and those that just say it's an active civic responsibility. i do this for we put on fresh

coat of paint template families in them. you can almost hear the soundtrack for a life insurance commercial and then cuts maintenance makes it impossible to get a hold of anybody if anything goes awry. schwartzman runs off with the money so billions of dollars, you use some money around the world that once there is blood in the streets of europe that is a time to buy into real estate there. and guess what cracks in the last couple years during the pandemic he has been saying publicly this is a fantastic time to be a landlord. you can jack up the rents there is distressed assets he's board buying more real estate has a new plan the rent to own model which seems like

a repeat of the last one. but if you ask him again he will tell you he is doing a favor to society. this is notar the robber barons that are content or with carnegie hall state to ourselves and be protected. these guys play for the whole thing. they want the actuation. they seem to believe their own narrative. that is the function of davos more than anything. a coming together of the tribe just being there is a signal of her own virtue. and then simulation of the refugee experience we can watch billionaires gap blindfolded while somebody usually get them in languages theybo don't understand to demand and then they feel great about themselves and go off to dinner thrown by a global consulting firm but then they go home but then to continue the real fight.

>> because in the case of schwartzman but then to go beyond to the new york public library with those stories but when it comes to criticism or even more so when it comes to attacking their money making plans for those who compared the edge of the hedge fund loophole. >> walkg that back it did not go over so well because jamie dimon one year after he paid a big fine involving the london whale disappearance

multibillion dollars of funds based on bad derivatives. right after he settled the scandal and paying other fines to sell during the mortgage-backed security crisis. i feel misunderstood and my feelings were hurt. that but it's the way that they protect themselves from democracy in the way they prevent the public getting with the public clearly once like healthcare or affordable housing, education to all of the things we are told we cannot afford but if we try to operate other large

economies then we could monkeywrench the whole thing. but with these false binary choices we could have covid vaccines and except part of thaton is we pay through the nose to pharmaceutical companies who will sell them to the highest bidder leaving most of humanity elected so we should have that or we die because we have no vaccines at all so all of those then to have the wonders of e-commerce of those lucky enough to work from home we could go dive into dumpsters for dinner and there other options on the menu they are very skilled at convincing us but if we try to

change the system in the flaw of backward ideas. >> and it is fair to say in the case of covid in the beginning of the pandemic with the trump administration but carrying on with schwartzman talked about how his business model found a way to profit from the covid pandemic? >> i think schwartzman in particular is part of the investor group that is responsible for worsening and extending the pandemic schwartzman is a lot of things but he is no dummy he has a masterful instinct for going where the money is and figured out early on that healthcare

is a fantastic arena it is $6 billion into a staffing company that is the dominant supplier to american emergency rooms and 2016 and this is a huge wave of private equity investments that injected considerations profit into the sphere where the stakes are higher of the local starbucks runs and now the sense of patience for customers or doctors or nurses and then we need to maximize the revenue to move quickly and then eliminate capacity the same like an airline we want that to be full to charge more per

seat but the magnate who owns a hospital one some stuff to the gills and that is how we ended up reducing our stock of hospital beds in the united states by roughly one third in the decadeto leading up to the pandemic. and in schwartzman's case going to emergency rooms is a stroke ofpl genius the way he invested in low incomeho housing, they will pay the extra fee and will suffer the crappy maintenance. but people coming into the emergency room's may not and then to say what is who is going to take care of the pain and get back into the room? not a lot of comparative shopping when you are lying on a gurney. but this emergency room staffing industry has been accused of participating in this kind called surprise

billing is not of the happy variety. but people going to emergency rooms thinking they are dealing with medical staff apart of their health insurance groups and signing off on paperwork acknowledging whatever state they may be in andhe then surprise they get a huge bill people are hassled by collections agents so this is the run-up to the pandemic and then in the middle of the pandemic, i focus on one emergency room doctor near the world trade center after 9/11 he is working for blackstone company, and he is horrified early to see that nobody is

wearing masks at the reception area when he asked they say we don't want to frighten people. he asks as things develop where we doing elective procedures why are we having people come in for plastic surgery? shouldn't we limit the useak of facilities? he was told that is the money maker and then he protesting gets no traction on —- traction so blackstoney attitude is as a company the client is a hospital we don't want to upset them eventually he is fired to go on facebook and get fired trying to spare us from a pandemic and for that he is fired and then we go to this hell we're still in with a pandemic spreading like wildfire and now he's running around to say it's time to expand our holdings in healthcare.

that is where we are headed. >> jumping right to politics because at a time increasingly and the davos men that sit on top of them but in your book claiming power is democracy but in a world in the united states it's is so infused with money that you can buy those results what is the solution to that? that they have us covered? >> they are very good at confusing us and essentially

exploiting discord and confusion to reinforce the status quo. anyone who works in politics you'll see it's very easy to kill the bill and want to get one past they managed to come out of the 2008 financial crisis and wall street essentially causes it to be a global catastrophe theret is noe accountability. they use that as a moment to turn the rescue package into corporate welfare. now we're in this emergency with trillions of dollars. this time we did a much better job dealing with things in this country like expanded employment benefits and help a for small businesses. there is a 170 billion-dollar boondoggle for real estate developers. if you ask what do we do? what we need to do is not that

complicated. you don'tvo have to be utopian but we need the restoration of capitalism. i don't wanna time machine back in 1975 there are all sorts of problems of the post-world war ii in 1975 period but what was right that we should get back to is that the labor unions were strong and workers could receive compensation that was in accordance with the overall gains in the economy. if your company did well then you did well. there opportunities for people to support families with a middle-class standard and that has disappeared. davos man has engineered a bottom-up transfer of wealth from tax cuts, the evisceration of antitrust enforcement the destruction of labor unions to m take trade and

that is the progressive force as far as i am concerned. there is nothing evil about trade. it has been m turned into the evil idea like jeff pazo's from the davos man who harvest the winnings for himself and then the opportunists say china is a problem. it is a big problem and a complicated issue and cannot be solved so easily. but it is wrong to tell laid off manufacturing workers their problems are china or mexico. there problems are the people word rooms it from in seattle and washington and in the hallsro of congress and excessive presidential administrations who have allowed davos men to engineer system where they get all the

games. we needs progressive taxation to invest in social safety net programs to make us more entrepreneurial. how many of us are so stuck in crappy jobs that don't have much upside but have health insurance how many can't sell their homes and their homes are underwater and they are terrified they can sleep under an underpass somewhere? if we expand the social safety net we become more competitive. but that requires taxing wealthy people which is something we do not do because davos man is so successful. we need to enforce antitrust laws induce labor power and all of that involves taking on the power of davos men and onthat is not easy. >> one more question.

i will circle back around because i agree with thosen proposed solutions but with that said even in the biden administration 15-dollar minimum wage seems impossible. when it comes to economic solutions like that we see if you want to be elected next time you need to have money for us where they are promising social solutions that they are going to people who are not in favor of the redistributed solutions. it doesn't create a world with the people say government is the solution not the problem habecause they are trying to please the people who are undermine the government

solutions. does that make sense? >> i thank you have diagrammed the problem with that was easy to solve it would have been. the moneyts in politics is corrupting. there are a lot of things americans want that we just don't get. we don't get expanded healthcare or affordable education or help when we're in trouble. a meager social safety net that zaps our competitiveness. is difficult to imagine how we solve these problems without getting the interest out of politics of money. i don't know how to do that. i sketch out solutions that bypass government there is some interesting work from the democracy collective that rely on cooperatives in places like cleveland where they formed a

cooperative or to handle the linens at the cleveland clinic but because they don't pay dividends to shareholders they don't have to think about the profit margin they can compete while still handing out a living wage there are conditions like that in england like universal basic income which was seen like a total outlier that we have expanded trillions of dollars with the money the idea that what seemed the unit of - - the government can handout a unicorn to everybody now seems possible. nancy pelosi said that is something we need to look at. a basic level of support given out to every american regardless of income. i do havear some concerns davos man like it and libertarians

like it because they can imagine we can get out from the other social safety net programs and that is re- contents for having your job handed to a robot or having safety standards or environmental standards. that is problematic but the idea we are talking about an all-encompassing social safety net is interesting. >> so forgive me i have one more follow-up question. getting back around how you made a shift and back to the leaders, to the people in davos, you said in 2017 they were concerned. this isru terrible.

but then it is understood they were the ones leading us into this moment rather than leading us out. >> not in the way that i thank you mean that. i did not feel like we really overdone it in terms of monopolizing capitalism it was more that those who did not support trump initially that were especially troubled by his rhetoric on china to do a lot of business and just like those scholars from beijing did not like that. but then to see trump who he has dinner with he is on the

waterfront mansion one is very close tomorrow lago. he dines with trump all the time. but i care more about anything else is the regulation and tax cuts. but then he goes around to manage trumps problems for him and i heard from multiple a people that schwartzman would say he doesn't have a racist bone in his body he loves women and respects them you have him all wrong but to see a vessel to realize his dreams that maybe just to silence the rhetoric but in 2018 trump came back. actually it was his first trip

and he arrived but then he was promoted for inclusiveness in america and then the conventional wisdom was this will be a clash and here is trump the wrecking ball. to yank us out of the paris climate accord. he use the enemy of everything and then they were falling for the original program but now the real davos. >>h but then off the main street in davos they have

culminated every bank and consulting outfit ever and they are like the one —- licking their lips and then talking to the rich people to say we can stand to have a little less of the misogynistic rhetoric we don't want to apologize but we don't want to disown the national debt as if it's something. and then at the end of the day that's of the understand. >> so here is a question. given the backlash what are the chances it goes away. >> that's a good question. nothing is forever.

where it doesn't work anymore if it ever did but i think that the pr tap dancing at the mountaintop trying to save the world doesn't work with increasing numbers of people and it is a cosmic joke for a lot of people but i still think of it as a morale booster for the people who fashion the narratives. to not only ignore but work with a tremendous i've because especially wired drug prices

so unaffordable? what a mystery there must be a model but if you look at the real secret of davos isn't about the program that is covered on tv but multinational companies paying hundreds of thousands of tdollars in memberships to schwab who was running a supposedly non- profit and place matchmaker. you have access to secret executive suites for the rest of the davos participants can't go youan get a lanyard

nobody is around to know regulators around. making sure you sit down. you can be the head of an oil company or meeting a saudi prince to has the capacity to make your dreams come true and this is bankable. the matter with the rest of us think that function is what keeps it going. >> so do we see any reformed but to be on the record to support higher taxation to support homeless services but it's only in collusion with the reality to avail

themselves of whatever tax perks are available for him. what ceo would keep their job if they didn't? this isod a guy who's actually writing the tax code in the business roundtable at the time was headed by jamie dimon who played a critical role to get that huge package one.$5 trillion of tax cuts passed from trump. in my goal if you don't meet any. but thereig are a lot of interesting people in davos itself. academics, the odd movie stars. i met peter gabriel he told me he wasas making music with chimpanzees. but that was interesting. but this some legit people and it's exciting to be around so much creativity but in terms of people actually having

power and those who are impassioned. >> how much cooperation did you get n in writing your book? >> thought a lot. that he is a believer of his own talkingt, points. and that going late into the night he opened up about the fact so your thesis is davos just gives air cover for what we're doing? and theno the idea that you champion those who are not

committed that now trying to solve our problems? you think thaty is all just pr? but that may be but then with the vaccine expertsts who pioneered away but then with steve schwartzman has thish unbelievable conference including president xi and with the premier. i see him up close i went to give away. jamie davos i have and spend some time with them. but then what was striking to

me as a documentarian this complex stuff is lying there to be processed. i'm sure he was going off and doing the virtual events all around the country telling the over and over. he told the story at one point how he talked to manage to get a hold of the dean of admissions at harvard when he wasn't accepted he tried to talk hisis way in off of the waitlist. he constantly gives of the origin story is a middle-class kid from the suburbs of philadelphia who worked in his dad's linen store. it helps to understand their mindset but then i ran and

extra in the times talking about it that all of this stuff is just out there unprocessed. host: the ftc chair talks about exploiting most vulnerable population and how we treat them at the most vulnerable moments. do they have the will and the resources in the broader sense and emergency medicine? >> that's a great question that the ftc does celebrate but byef happenstance it comes to the engineering of the davos men. they have this idea from

robert bork but as those good —- those goods get up at that thinks about how the us won the cold war with the very careful lobbying pushing the think tanks they are brought fires but then with the individual list and doing what they want to do and then they have to mobilize the way that they did and then it becomes that technocratic worshiping of big business. and this idea is what animates the government green lighting increasingly huge mergers with sthe monopoly power in terms of

supply chain and to be extremely successful tends to be this review article a few years ago about amazon essentially saying with the tech companies we will let a lot of damage happen. so we are all interested in prices then we will allow the huge companies to marshal god like treasure trove's of data. we will use that an anti- competitive ways. amazon is capable to drop the price even though selling on their own platform. and then eventually we get higher prices andso then less consumer choice. that is an idea that and then

the staff being companies but then they have resources. and in both cases davos man has protected self-regulation by backing a bill that looks like it solves the problem well-being a tremendous compromise and then to unleash a sophisticated ad campaign that blames all problems on the insurance industry that i don't have to tell you is unpopular in the united states so you have private equity people squaring off against insurance companies and the winner is confusion and status quo. >> and then to fetus to a

territory to —- authoritarian disaster. >> look. i my book is not written to depressed people but i say it's not sad it is outrageous. i am catering to outrage in this book in the service of people understanding we have been here before. in the united states all these fights i'm talking about and a writing about we have been here before and then there is a massive tremendous monopoly power toward labor and competitors may have antitrust enforcement financial regulations, we got the new deal, social safety nets, modicum of

security, medicare, medicaid, ut benefits and all of these things that it works pretty the well.ki and have a fetish for the sixties and seventies. talking a period of jim crow and vietnam war where by today's standards of racial discrimination how do we compare but we do want to go back to having the government play a role in the marketplace to save capitalism. so my argument is it doesn't require a revolution or a utopian fantasy but using what has been there all along that is under assault and that is democracy. host: how are we on time?

great. that was a helpful answer but now i have a counterpoint so what is the common theme so talk about president clinton what would you say it is the government that made the deal and not the private sector and that they can't be trusted to get us out of the current mess? >> when we think government adopted nafta in the structure we got it why do think china entered the wto to have access to our marketplace in 2001? it was in response to excessive lobbying from industry. that was a davos man moment

larry summers they said it's not about business it's about democratizing china if we trade with china we will have a vibrantla middle-class demanding the same thing every middle-class once with freedom and theno markets will require a free flow of information and a free press. but it was really about shareholders gaining a way to cut cost in wealthy places like the united states to transfer production to a place where there are no labor unions if there is a labor movement you can end up in prison for the rest of your life so we have a joint venturet between walmart and the people's republic of china

there are ways to manage the trading relationships i'm not saying it was wrong to let china into the wto. i do think it is but with a few safeguards without a say over the work place standards and without any check on the process but the us is overwhelmingly the biggest winner from globalization and how we have chosen to distribute the bounty and that is not by accident and hast been dictated by the davos men who finance people's campaign who are highly skilled to get the word out in their own interest. >> clearly the issue is global but how much difference with

tax reforms? is that a drop in the global bucket? >> the us is the outliner on —- outlier. at some point looking at the data that shows in denmark six months after the breadwinner with the family for loses their job living on 87 percent of previous income because there is that much of a social safety net because the same family living on 27 percent. so of the us becomes more like the rest of the developed world than that contributes to more consumption or a revival of the approaches to a government helping people out when they are in trouble if

they have the most work to do on this front it is the us. >> speaking strictly on covid and vaccines was it a davos man mechanism and then to say to the highest bidder with the vaccines that it is the mrna secrets and then to desperately use that to fend off the variant. >> and then to be of money from large pharmaceutical companies that time and again we have heard this but if you

mess around with the sanctity of international property you undermine the incentives incentives of those geniuses and then we die either they get paid or we die. that is an aggressive way to state the logic that really that's the understanding that governs how we approach the pharmaceutical industry because it is incredible we have omicron but then you have front-line medical workers in africa treating covid patients at a time hitting a booster shots to children in wealthy countries. you don't have to take umbrage on humanitarian grounds but we have a system where society is

subsidizing that we pay through schools and then with their own economic livelihood and then thath, continued desperation going into the third year of the pandemic we all payn so a handful of davos men can continue to hang on to the monopoly profits. [laughter] >> then if we change that we don't have vaccines and that is ridiculous but it seems to work as an argument. >> terrific. this is a tremendous. you have been portions.

>> thank you. i'm thrilled to be here i appreciate it so much. thank you. host: great moderating. now you have a documentary. [laughter] >> what a devastating takedown for billionaires but then with those super wealthy people, hopefully by that to everyone watching thank youan for tuning in and day reminder

you can find a link to purchase copies of davos man and for all of us here stay well and be well read. >> i grew up in a democratic

farmer household. but of those conservative and rural democrats with those advocates i can remember when i was 12 years old we got in the car to go all the way up

to hear mlk's speak my mother detoured into hunter's point because she found african-american people who may not have access and have to take the bus we picked up three women. we had a very small car in the aid of us drove we didn't know where to park and then we walked up it was over packed when the door started to close she pushed me in i was only one who heard him speak a very classical liberal and the idea that today you cancel somebody out because you don't agree with them more tear down statues from city council or rename things without any consistency that is like trotsky that we wash away people or names or ideas that we don't like we don't do in the light of day who are

always on a majority vote or constitutional means. we are suspending free speech and due process. this is not the democratic party that we once knew. >> thank you for joining us for this event starring financial expert as a member of the