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max kaiser this is the kaiser report i remember without stop. or in buffett's performance would be horrible all right yes they say with a well warren buffett's performance last year berkshire hathaway shares fell big time and that is on the write down of kraft heinz investment the world's most famous investor had one of his worst years ever in twenty eighteen buffet's kraft heinz bet dragged down berkshire hathaway in twenty eight hundred conglomerate swung to a twenty five point four billion dollar loss in q four due to an unexpected write down at heinz and realized investment losses right so in other words the mergers and acquisitions you know they strip the company of all the value player right then they stick stracke value they they they extract all the equity

and they leave that debt and then the enterprise crumbles in the case of warren buffett you know these doing the stock buybacks which is you know used to be illegal until recently that's completely fraudulent and he has no governance or oversight whatsoever you know he's a more the one of the biggest or the biggest shareholder of wells fargo for example during that period when they were engaged in serial criminality when they were engaged in absolute fraud and he's a party to that so here's a guy who given unlimited credit at zero percent and who's exempt from the rule of law still can't seem to make money for shareholders which is you know let's roll back a little bit because what you're talking about when you talk about private equity is that kraft tines kraft and heinz two major consumer products in america they sell food like products you know catch up and they'll be to cheese. they merged under the guidance of three g.

which is a giant brazilian private equity firm and private equity as we've talked about here and kaiser report for years is the extraction model they've you know these are two huge us multinational food giants who have been around for decades and had lots of assets and brand value they extracted the brand value by going through a radical austerity measures upon the company but also not innovating therefore they didn't come up with new products and millennialism the new generation of consumers in america are not like the generation of consumers that warren buffett is used to you know his first investment was in one thousand nine hundred two the beginning of the boomer wave and boomers didn't really expect much from their food but now here people actually want food they don't want just a tomato ketchup like products they want to actually catch up with tomatoes and no corn high fructose corn syrup and no genetically modified products but this entity

this mammoth multinational they were not they were slow to compete against younger more dynamic innovative startups offering products that younger consumers wanted when i say to make money for shareholders you know compared comparing that the bitcoin where his compound money at maybe twenty one twenty two percent versus bitcoins compound of money of thousands of percentage points and again that's something new and buffett you know he's eighty eight years old ok we've got to cut him some slack he doesn't understand it for something beyond chewing gum and railway he doesn't get it so his performance is not going to suffer and again if you take away the insider trading the stock buybacks the lack of corporate governance is performance would be less than a money market so i don't know why everyone celebrates this guy so i think of warren buffett as kind of the velveeta cheese of investment gurus i it looks like

she's. has the same color as cheese it's called but is it relates cheese i mean would velveeta cheese pass the cheese test and paris for example when if you show that to them when they say that here a worm buffet you know he he prides itself on his returns but the fact is was he lucky did he just start investing in one thousand nine hundred two at the beginning of you know the american century we became the empire we have this huge baby boom we had a huge investment by the government via the g.i. bill and other measures after world war two we had the exorbitant privilege of the u.s. dollar as the world's reserve currency that's tapped out and he actually mentions that in his newsletter where he disses gold bugs and people like kaiser reports for basically saying that the accumulation of debt under the american. system that he used to be concerned that that would be a problem but is clearly not

a problem he said we could go up forever right well gold's up reform the stock market over the past twenty years quite handily so these are wrong about that and. you know the fact is that in two thousand and eight he had to get bailed out by the taxpayer so i mean it's not it's just not dignified if he wants to go on c. and b. c. and talk about his performance he should do so in a way you know that it did require of taxpayers to bail him out to hold his hand him and charlie these tottering old guys we had to hold their hand and help them get through the their mistakes of the two thousand and eight period and give them tons and tons been billions of dollars to get through their problems like a giant you know depends diaper to keep these guys from hooping themselves and you know i don't see why that should be celebrated he's a big investor in goldman sachs and bank of america and wells fargo he himself invests in monopolies and all of that's what he tells people that's what he's tells

as investors we look for motes where. i used barriers to entry preferably regulatory so if the if government goons can come in and kneecap and incarcerate their competitors that's the sort of industry he invest in when you mention gold i do want to look at two charts because of course he's again he always compares he always tells like these milan emails like invest like me and here's a guy who started investing in one thousand nine hundred two when the united states had zero debt that there was zero student debt there was zero housing that where you could buy a house for one times or that annual average income across america things like that that we were in the american century but you know this is how you could deceive with that sort of charge because total returns last twenty years s. and p. five hundred up two hundred sixteen percent gold up three hundred sixty two percent so for the last twenty years i were first able to start investing actually

millennial would have done better than warren buffett how they just invested in gold the last seven years however s.m.p. if you look at that they were it was up one hundred thirty six percent and gold was down twenty five percent so it depends on where you start looking at the market and where you are now so millennialism i have to look at a different situation than where warren buffett started investing back in one thousand nine hundred two and certainly corn syrup rich genetically modify. food is perhaps not what the future will hold for you know consumer staples oh you also pointed out that people for some reason don't retain the taste of cola during the course you can drink kolo all day long with the flavor of cola he likes that even though it causes the obesity epidemic in the health crisis that we end up paying for again so again i'm subsidizing everyone subsidizing warren buffett's performance through our obamacare through the bailouts through the lack of

oversight lack of governance lack of jurors proved. you know that's like ok grandpa we get it you need your diapers changed but shut up but let's look at his also his cash on hand so here's a guy telling me who are hugely in debt with student loans student loans which by the way you cannot write off they follow you for eternity for the rest of your life you will have to pay this that you cannot write it off there are loaded with obamacare sort of debts they have to pay tens of thousands of dollars in premiums every year for service by the way they can therefore not access because it will cost another five thousand dollars to actually access and use the health care system so here he's telling these people take any penny you have and invest it in the stock market like i do because it's the american you know companies that you have to invest and well look at the cash pile piling high berkshire hathaway cash in two thousand two thousand and one he had less than five billion in cash on hand

right now he has nearly one hundred twenty billion in cash on hand that's him as a guy who's makes his living as an investor that's saying there's nothing worth investing in he can't put that cash to use in a zero percent interest rate environment and he's saying that for you know i warren buffett worth seventy billion dollars i'm not going to put my money into this stock market but you stupid children should do it so you have a guy like hoarding like those hoarders they keep old newspapers billions of dollars of the cash doesn't do anything with it is like probably you know it's house of soul of cats and stinky cat litter and old and sacks of money like some old drug dealer. is totally subsidized by the people and the government has no ritual ideas doesn't make a single thing never made a single product those life never entrepreneurially did anything for neural it is life they simply has a cozy relationship with the central banks and the banks on wall street and

accumulates huge so. positions and then goes on c. and d. say and they say. he is older and that's his benefit that's why he's wealthy and you're not going to be able to be like he was he got to invest in one nine hundred forty two you do not have that advantage you can't go back in time there are many people who want to be able to invest and be queen from two thousand and ten and twenty eleven those days are gone you'll never get back there so you going to have to look at other sectors within the economy here he got to invest in one thousand nine hundred eighty two and even look at all of our how the mergers and acquisitions of consolidation the rise of all of these the rise of monopolies the rise of bureaucracies no where back in one thousand nine hundred two we didn't have mass bureaucracies look at the health care system we still have almost the same percentage of doctors to this day from one thousand nine hundred two in fact perhaps a little bit less fewer doctors than there were back in one thousand nine hundred two as a percentage of the economy in the sector but we have thousands of percentage more

of administrators so you have the investor coming in now have to pay for those huge bureaucratic soviet like sort of like. it's a stale old system like. sixteen years ago we put forward you know and then we added when big came around in two thousand and eleven gold silver bitcoin so that portfolio divided equally among those three asset classes will beat warren buffett by no less than a thousand percent or more i mean he's literally standing still going backwards in relations again is over rated over hyped and he works purely on subsidies and he's. a serial lawbreaker i mean i've got to take a break and when we come back hopefully we'll be talking about people that actually do stuff not warren buffett who's just raunchy a do nothing don't go away. the

trumping ministrations attempts to impose regime change in venezuela appear to be faltering this self-proclaimed interim president. hasn't gain much traction this me explain the administration's escalating rhetoric after all we're told a military option is still on the table. welcome back to the kaiser report time out it turned to randy volar former mayor of pittsburgh. north carolina the former head of the democratic party of north

carolina now the publisher of shout of county line this fine newspaper the chatham county in county long graduations on this randi great to be here max this is our twentieth year i've worked with julian serrano who's been the publisher for the last one thousand years to keep this publication going in its a way for local people to have their voices heard right and of the logline is where all voices are heard this is a radical idea in today's america where not all voices can be heard there is a drastic increase in d. platforming on the rise and echo chambers your thoughts you know it's very hard obviously to make money or make a living putting out print media but i think in micra media like this where we're not in it to make money we're just trying to break even so that we can actually put out a publication and let the community be heard is important and you know maybe in the future you know we might make a few dollars but the bottom line is to provide

a platform for folks across the spectrum to put out their opinions and report on local news right now in north carolina is in the national news this week randi our audience is global so for those not aware the news explain what happened in the ninth congressional district the significance of the story what happens next well i think finally candidate reverend mark harris folded i mean for the longest time we're hearing you know that they're going to keep in it they were challenging and you know when push came to stuff with the state board of elections and you know they had the hearings last week and his son who's a u.s. federal attorney came in and said i warned my father and you know mark harris got teary eyed about it warned them about the consultant mccrae dallas. i think o. or dallas mcrae. i think that he finally realized he had to fold and now we're going to have a new election and this isn't the only election we're going to have for congress in north carolina in two thousand and nineteen we've got the third district war

longtime congressman walter jones passed away so the governor's going to have to call a special election there too so north carolina is going to be in the national and world spotlight for two congressional elections one has name because it's a purple state and the kind of back and forth between the blue and the red is right here in north carolina so it looks like that tension or that drama will continue oh yes i want to go to the national level so bernie sanders as enter the race going back to our previous interviews from a couple years ago we've talked about these burning extent of what are your thoughts now bernie has entered the race now the front runner i believe in new hampshire i think the race is different now than it was in two thousand and sixteen where we had a pewter front runner you know secretary hillary clinton and bernie came in there is a challenger now bernie has had four years to be building his message our revolution getting out who he stands for what he is and and we have a whole lot of challengers in the race but bernie is the one who's. who's stood up

before and said here's what he wants here's what he stands for on things like fifteen dollar minimum wage or universal health care for and so on and you know i you know he's one of the most popular politicians in america it seems like he if i hear the critics correctly they made a shift toward more of identity politics of baal and away from just attacking big banks etc is that true and if so does that change anything when you ask the question has made a shift toward identity politics what do you mean by that exactly that and my understanding is that there is now at the entrance into politics of a o c and others this kind of emphasis on this was called identity politics where you are you know who you are born and not what you. your political affiliation necessarily is so he came out kind of making an appeal to folks based on their gender based on their sexual preference etc there right there their identity their

identity politics seemingly is that fair is that true that await the way to go maybe that's not the way to present himself what are your thoughts well i think he has to respond to where we are in two thousand and nineteen and certainly president trump you know has made identity politics a topic for discussion you know from the events in charlottesville to his every day tweeting you know his attacks on spike lee after spike lee called him out at the oscars i think bernie's just responding to where we are today what the guys of today is i mean and certainly identity politics is addressing some of these justice issues that still haven't been addressed whether they're in the black community or the brown community for women for people to be t.q. community. and i'm aware that actually that gender was a bit further i can't keep up with the acronyms that are out on but i think he has to have an ear to it and he has to understand that if he's going to put out an

economic message in a justice message part of that justice message and social equity message will be dealing with people's long time concerns that need to be addressed and they did support and i mean she came out of a campaign supporting him and now she's you know a congresswoman who certainly lit up washington yeah that's that that's for sure talk about these other candidates of course it's not eligible for the next presidential run she's too young so let's focus on twenty twenty here for a second if god told c gabber amy klobuchar sure i'm not sure if i'm saying that correctly elizabeth warren county harris how many handicapped these folks. where you can start seeing where their numbers are when they came out i mean certainly joe biden if you were going to the race would be right there with. even surpass them in name name recognition and identity. i think campbell had a you know she had a great announcement a lot of attention bernie of course surpassed her and fund raising but she

certainly raised a lot of money and they're all kind of tacking to the left on issues that the sanders campaign raised in two thousand and fifteen and two thousand and sixteen raising minimum wage. dealing with the issue of student debt and how we can handle that which i think are some of the elements of the green new deal you know do we provide a free college education or free access to community college education for instance issues of the environment i think that senator warner certainly raised a really interesting question about the tax on the uber wealthy i mean that two percent tax i think on wealth over fifty million i mean these are all good questions to be discussed these are put you know that's the nature of policy discuss the questions work it out maybe it's not a good idea maybe it is but at least raising it in a presidential campaign will get people talking about it and i think that's important yeah and i think when bernie sanders says the other candidates in the race of kind of embrace his platform that seems to be true. that's his platform and

now with the case of hillary clinton and she now finished completely what are you hearing you've got your ear to the democratic party pretty closely what's the scuttlebutt there is she what are we going to expect there any idea why i think anyone that has had the public service of the obama's of the clintons are going to have stock in horses in this race isn't and you know legitimately so they've served this country and they've done a lot of work on behalf of americans so i think the role that former senator secor clinton would be is probably advising or supporting some of these campaigns some people say she's connected to senator harrison mean the proof will be in the putting when they start having fundraisers and you see who goes to who's fundraiser you know that's woman really no but i mean my. i guess is that some of these folks have stalking horses amine the latest we heard is former attorney general eric holder might get in the race well obviously you know served in the obama administration interest you know we have julian castro in the race he served in the

obama administration we have bait o'rorke out there possibly getting in seen as you know a new obama type and so there's a lot of exciting people here and i would certainly suspect that some of these folks are tied to these candidates bernie on the other hand is not tied to any one and bernie is tied to the ideas that he's been espousing for well over forty years whether you agree with his ideas or not that's another thing to discuss but he's been consistent with those ideas now you mention a green new deal in that's certainly a huge issue in politics and not only in america but around the world the climate change and the existential threat that this poses but i wanted to ask you about another issue that seems unique to america and seems like there should be some urgency around and that is the life expectancy of americans is rapidly declining if you look at chart compared to other countries it's off the charts how badly we do

is america compared to other countries our life expectancy is collapsing primarily i think it's not unfair to say to due to this opiate crisis and yet over to a crisis now this seems to be can cross party lines and regardless of our differences politically and party i mean this is a crisis i mean there's more americans died last year from opiate overdoses primarily from prescription opiates then we lost in the vietnam war and soldiers in the vietnam war and yes you know the outcry is great you know big fat zero. what what about this crisis. is it isn't a political solution and what have what's your thought on this i think this crisis exposes the hypocrisy of the american system i mean at the same time l. chopper was being tried and convicted and being sent away permit. ali as a drug lord right from mexico you've got the sackler family who you know essentially built purdue pharma and put out these opioids for discussing you know

they're being protested at the guggenheim in new york you know for the fact that you know they've given money to all these wonderful non-profits and museums and yet there's a price to be paid hundreds of thousands of people have died so on one angle we're saying here is this the spanish man that obviously headed up a violent cartel and we're going to convict him for what he did but did he kill him to be killed hundreds of thousands of people did he did he make did is he being you know treated as if he's a hero and you know has his name on the side of you know substantial public buildings but i want no mainstream media in here in the united states a i get the impression that venezuela is an existential crisis for america and yet i'm thinking about the number of americans that the political elites in venezuela have killed last year and i think that number would be a big fat zero yes family as you point out they killed fifty five sixty six thousand americans they murdered them essentially and but they are not mentioned in

the media so they should be mentioned in the main we'd be invading their homes should we be sending troops to cycle families on should they be arrested should they be thrown in there in the in the gulag i mean what i don't get it i mean walk and we be saying venezuela is a crisis and yet no americans are dying cycle families openly murdering tens of thousands of americans annually why isn't that a crisis or maybe it is a crisis and not and i would ask any of the viewers to your program to go online and look up the actual case that was filed by massachusetts attorney general which is now public and you can read you know what's been stipulated the facts and what they found with produce pharma. and what they say about the soccer family and how the sackler family put profits above people consistently you know as far as the venezuela question well that's a great question and then to raise up i mean certainly you could say that one of the reasons venezuela is in the fix it's in people probably in america don't like to go back in history but they did have austerity programs and they did have

a different form of government before chavez was there and the people rebelled and chavez was able to seize power and the united states did have their fingerprints on that as well right now richard branson thing in concert to help the venezuelan people and the problems that they're experiencing and how many brits have the venezuelans hailed a hero right branson why didn't richard branson organize a concert to help the victims of the cycler family in america. that's a very good question. and they hypocritical i mean i think that the bottom line is why are we allowing these kind of dangerous drugs to be prescribed in our communities drugs that if they were sold by brown or black people you know we would be talking about you know border crisis is an invading countries but because they were sold by in a wealthy white families and put out there through our you know our american capital system their view this ok or their legitimize say yes you know what white

privilege and you went in there you go and kill people this made it's ok in america that's white privilege baby a thanks for coming on the show randi great to be here max last time i was here i talked about this book by professor nance mclean if people want to know what's happened to our system of democracy in america and how money is actually gotten in there we talk about the cyclers read this book and that's going to do it for this edition of the kaiser report with me and stacy i would like to thank our special guest randy volar a former mayor of pittsburgh all around swell guy johnny cash just on twitter it's kaiser report until next time read his newspaper and look at you next time by. what politicians do something that. they put themselves on the line. to get accepted or rejected. so when you want to be president or injury. or somehow want

to be rescued. that's a right to be pressed that's what the flag asked for in the morning can't be good that i'm interested always in the wild card. i said. just. off for isis fighters and boarding a philippine naval ship. to your mom evidence. they have been let down until. the.

sixteen metal diamonds honestly did you know and i look around me. it's so. easy. to. see into. it didn't ask for nothing but. the love of the.