 And we're back. So, all right, so where were we? I wanted to ask you, I wanted to ask you, obviously Americans know, you don't have to, they don't have to be told that we have problems with the current system. I mean, every American I think can see there are problems with the economy, with jobs, with corrupt banking, corrupt government. I mean, everybody on every side of every spectrum can see these things. What would you say, what do you think Americans need to know or understand that they don't? You know, that's an interesting sort of, you know, hypothesis that you put forth. Because in a way, I think that was less true even two months ago, before the Occupy movement, the 99% movement. So the fact that we are now having a stronger conversation, the conversation certainly changed, we're all more facile in that conversation with the, you know, what is the problem? It's inequality, what, you know, is a result of that. So kudos to them for that, really. You know, where the, you know, so one of my working hypotheses is that we're seeing a convergence of basically angry people in America, right? First you could have said it was the Tea Party, you could say it's the Occupy movement. You know, at the end of the day, it's not particularly red, it's not necessarily blue, but what they share is anger. They share anger that the system isn't working. Now, you know, if you sort of just get out of bed in the morning and, you know, don't go read some books or talk to your neighbors or have them, you know, have a particularly maybe well-formed critique of what's wrong, let alone a vision for what to do about it. But there is a sort of pit of their stomach, intuitive sense that sweeping the country that something's just broken. Now, there are two places where that falls out. So, well, so some people sort of would say, all right, it's really business, big business, Wall Street, the way our economy works, that's what's broken. Someone would say, it's really government that's broken. Now, I think most actually agree with both. So the sort of, you know, on extremes they would, but most people think it's both. You talk to Tea Party folks, you talk to Occupy Wall Street folks, they agree, you know, look, Wall Street is rigged, it's a rigged game, and they own government, which is why government built that. Where the real breakdown that occurs, Bruce, is what you do with that. Because some people, right, and again, I think it sort of crosses partisan lines, some people say, well, the answer is, you have to reign in business, and you have to make our economy work for working people and for entrepreneurs. And that the only, if not the primary tool for doing that is government regulation, rules, restrictions, putting government back in the hands of people so that government can be a check and a balance to the market. Then there are others, again, I think they cross spectrums, but there are others who say no, the solution is actually to less regulation, less government, less restrictions, and to let the market sort of, that in fact the reason that these problems exist is because government has been intervening unfairly in the market. So that's the next step in the conversation, is really parsing that out. I'm a firm believer that it's the former. In fact, the reason we're in the predicament we're in is because we deregulated business, we deregulated the finance industry in particular, and let it do whatever the heck it wanted, and it did, and it destroyed us. But we have to have that conversation next as a country, and I think that's worth having. I was thinking about this very thing this morning, because I knew we were gonna talk today, and I was thinking, maybe this is my perception, but that the word regulation is key, because I was actually talking to somebody a couple days ago, another guest, and we were talking about that, and she says, well, this is maybe where we differ about regulation and free market and things like that. And I thought, I was thinking about this this morning, regulation, it seems to me, might be a word like love. It's not always appropriate, it depends on how it's used, and I think it might be that everybody really agrees, well, not everybody, but the majority agrees, they're just defining the word regulation differently, because even the most liberty-minded libertarian is for regulation when it comes to breaking up monopolies. So it depends on what you mean by regulation, right? I think that when we talk about corruption, crime and corruption, where it's obvious that it's a corrupt thievery that's going on, that everybody agrees with that, if you call that regulation, that's enforcement of criminal law really is what it should be. But if you call that regulation, I think everybody agrees with that. I mean, you know, I do think there's a nomenclature issue here, if you will. And it's sort of in the way I would compare it, maybe less to love, more to government, right? Some people hear the word government, and they think of the collective, the thing that we all invest in to make sure that our economy, our society, the world around us works fairly responsibly and accountably to all of us. Other people hear the word government, they think of that thing I pay for that helps those people, right? It's actually something that's very much removed from you. And that's part of, you know, it's interesting because people, you know, poll after poll shows, right? That people support taxes when they believe the things they're getting benefit them. They don't like taxes when they believe that they're helping other people. Now, of course, the vast majority of our taxes go toward things that actually benefit us all. Like roads, public safety, public health, the military and all these things, right? But there's this myth in the way that people who are against government have attacked government is by, you know, focusing on the food stamps or the welfare or the things that sort of help those other people. Of course, letting us, letting alone the fact that in this recession, a record number of people are relying on food stamps including formerly middle class people. So, you know, there's something about the words and what they mean to people. Regulation has a, you know, sort of tight fisted, you know, framing to it, right? Yeah. Even though, by the way, you know, groups after groups, I mean clusters of small businesses have come out and said that actually regulation is not their problem. And in fact, the fact that the United States regulates some of its industries is what gives us a competitive edge abroad, right? People are gonna buy lumber, for instance, from US manufacturers because they know it is free of certain toxins and things. That gives them a competitive edge against non-regulated markets. So bearing that in mind, I actually think, talking about safety, safeguards and standards, may be the better way to go because we're really not talking about stopping companies from doing things. What we're talking about is making sure that what they do is ethical. It doesn't hurt people, doesn't, I mean, you know, we don't want people to pollute the air. You know, we've been there, we've done that, we had record asthma, it was bad, you know, I mean, right, and it's not like we don't want them to because we're mean to business, we don't want them to because we don't want our kids getting sick. That's what I mean by people hear the word regulation. I think they literally have like a different mean. It's like I always say, you know, labels and expectations, we talk about relationships, you know, we're gonna be, okay, let's say, let's go steady, I'll be your boyfriend, you may be my girlfriend, then, well, boyfriends do this and do this and do this and don't do that, like we hear a word and we each have a different meaning. So when some people hear regulation, they think standards and safeguards and ethics and things like that. And I think other people hear regulation and they think it means blocking certain markets, you know, preventing people from trading and things like that, which I think is the opposite of what we want, we really want. No, and those who've attacked sort of government infrastructure as it relates to the private sector have done a very good job of masquerading their concerns about safety, safeguards and standards, masquerading their concerns as concern for small business and little business, where in fact we know that deregulation, that getting rid of all these safeguards and standards has disproportionately helped big business to get bigger and bigger and bigger while making it harder for small businesses and new businesses to compete. And that is the engine of our economy. I mean, most of our jobs are created by small businesses. I mean, it's not, you know, so we know all these things. Yeah, I think it's both. It's a mixture of people honestly having a different understanding of what it means and also a lot of disingenuous manipulation of terminology to say, you know, to call it this, just to influence people to vote against it or whatever things like that. So much manipulation and dishonesty. When you're talking about people, a little bit of that going around. So when you talk, also when you talk about government and, you know, government and big business corporations banking, especially, you know, some people think it's this, some people think it's that. And I say it's inseparable, literally inseparable. I mean, completely incestuous, literally. Like the, you know, when the regulator's in charge of overseeing this is the former CEO and he promotes his buddy, then he becomes the regulator like it's literally the role in one big bed. Yeah, I mean, people don't, you know, we, these aren't like the necessarily glamorous things to talk about. It's like, you know, cause it's so many layers of possibly boring, you know, TDM like, well, who fills out the paperwork that regulates the, but you know, we learned in the Gulf oil disaster that literally it was big oil company executives who would pencil in the answers on the forms that the government overseers were supposed to fill out. And the government overseers would go over them and print. I mean, come on, now, again, you can sort of look at that one two ways. You can use that to attack government, you know, or you can use that to attack business. And I think the third path, which is where most Americans would fall, and I think are falling right now, as most of the people already am, most of the occupy Wall Street as well, the third path is to say no. Look, there's government can work. The private sector can work. We're not doing what it takes to make them work and thrive and create prosperity for everyone. We've let them, you know, sort of co-join and be in cahoots to enrich a very, very, very few and screw the vast majority. We've let it happen on our watch. We're gonna stop it now. Yeah. I think you're right. It really, it seems to me like the bottom line is a big gigantic mirror that this is putting up in front of all of the American people saying, somebody here is not doing their job. The corporations are doing their job. They're just a machine like software to make money. Corporations are not humans. They're obviously not people. Even before that issue, I've always said, corporations are just machines. You can't blame a corporation for not having morals and ethics. It's just a machine to make money and is doing it really well. It needs to be reigned in like a lawn mower machine with a blade on it. It has to be harnessed and framed and to do its job properly. It's just a machine to make money and they're doing really well at that. The government, the politicians, well, they're doing really well. They're doing exactly what they're paid to do. They're bought and owned before they even run for election and we know that. There's corruption and that's human nature. It's to be expected if the system is set up like that. Who's not doing their job in this picture? It's the American people. We have felt so powerless for so long. We are realizing like it's time for us to stop being apathetic and also our attention span. Like you were talking about the detail, the tedium of it. I always say, you know, if you put just one layer of complexity, much less two layers of complexity, people are like, oh, it's too complicated. I don't understand, you know, if it doesn't fit in a tweet, I don't get it. And you know what I mean? Like we don't even remember who won American Idol last season or something. I mean, we have very short attention spans and one layer of complexity and we don't understand. It was Scotty McCreary. Who won American Idol? Oh, I see, I don't know. I don't really watch American Idol much. Wasn't it? Anyway, I think it was. I don't know, I don't watch. No, you're right. But it's different from saying we can't, right? Right, we are. And, you know, I wouldn't absolve, I wouldn't absolve leaders in business either. I mean, there's sort of, you know. Yeah. Or when there's committed crimes. It's kind of like saying, well, do you, no, no, no, but I just mean even for sort of general ethical standards, right? In other words, you know, there's a sort of reverse of keeping up with the Joneses, which is sort of, you know, going into the gutter with the Joneses, right? So sort of, it becomes this kind of self-fulfilling prophecy or reality or whatever, where it's like, oh, well, they're doing that. Everyone's doing it. So I should do that. So meanwhile, you know, it's like, do you blame any individual reality TV show producer for, you know, creating kind of socially destructive junk? Do you just blame the zeitgeist? Do you blame, I mean, you know, it's sort of, you can't just say, oh, it's your fault or it's not your fault. It's like, right? It's like the culture of Wall Street. That was their defense. Well, everybody was doing it. We were doing it worse than we were. Right. And that's half an answer. That's half an answer, right? It becomes, you know, ingrained and inculcated in a culture and individuals are still autonomous and responsible. In fact, in a way, sort of psychologically, it's the equivalent of what we talk about when we talk about the government balancing out market, right? We talk about the collective, right? The greater good, the common good, balancing the individual. So there's individual rights, freedom, autonomy, responsibility balanced with, you know, what is in the greater interest, you know, helping people do what they can't do themselves, helping the community do what it, what no one would do on their own, right? So you sort of balance those interests in the same way you balance individual responsibility for moral behavior with the sort of culture and what the culture allows, permits, endorses, et cetera. So, you know, I mean, again, 30 years ago, the highest paid CEOs made about 40, 30, 40 times more than their lowest paid workers on average. Now they make about 300, 400 times more. Now, is that individual CEO greed? Is it culture? Is it deregulation? Is it, it's all of them. Only love, yeah. And, you know, everybody can kind of point the finger, but it's wrong. And, you know, the vast majority of Americans look at something like that and say, that's wrong. 30 times more, fine. Even 100 times more, fine, but come on, you know? I think I saw the chart reason it was like, I think if I remember, it was like nine times more in CEO compared to the average worker in Japan. And everything was pretty much single digits until you get right down to the U.S. and there was like 497 times or so. Crazy number. Everybody knows that's wrong. And especially when they get a massive bonus for doing something really criminal and driving the company into the ground and then leave. Well, and yeah, I mean, and that's where it's like, wait a second, but, you know. Oh my gosh. You know. And others are like, good for you. You got away with it. Again, it's not to demonize, you know, I think sometimes we have black and white conversations in our country right now politically, because we're so hyper partisan and we don't talk about the complicated, messy gray in the middle. It's not to say that a CEO, you know, running a Wall Street firm or a big business or, you know, is working hard. Of course they're working hard. I wouldn't want that job. Those are more than full-time jobs. We know it and they're complicated and they had to work their way up and those are hard jobs. The question is, how much harder? And I mean, I really want to like, you know, they should switch for a day or something, but how much harder is that person's job than, you know, a single mom who's on her feet all day, you know, restocking at Walmart? Or the school teachers or their back to the line. Take that person working at Walmart, full-time working at Walmart, you still qualify for welfare and food stamps. So now, do I think the CEO is working harder? I mean, in material terms. They harder, maybe they're more talented, whatever you want to say. Even if you buy all that, which is fair. Even providing more value. How much better are they? Are they working? Because in most of those discrepancies, if you're going from Wall Street, if you're going from Walmart to Wall Street, you're actually talking about, in some cases, a 1200-time discrepancy, right? The average starting salary for a Walmart worker is about 1200 times less than, say, Lloyd Blankfein who runs Goldman Sachs. Now, is Lloyd Blankfein really working 1200 times more? Is he 1200 times better at what he, I mean, really? Like, really, just contemplate what that would mean. I couldn't work 1200 times more than I am now. So, you know, that's the conversation that we really need to put in some perspective. And it's the society's fault as well as the individual's. Right. And then, so there's that. I mean, they may be stealing 1200 times more money from the American public and the whole wiping out the middle class. Who knows? But then the other thing is just a simple accountability. Like, even if that were theoretically justifiable, right? To take the money and when they know the company's going bankrupt, sell all their stock and the last 12 months before they know the company's going bankrupt. I mean, that's just insider trading. That's absolutely criminal. It's just unbelievable that, I mean, it actually is believable because like I say, government politicians, Washington are just completely bought and paid for. It's just completely incestuous. We have this concept of separation of church and state. But we don't have any concept of separation of corporation and state and banks, which are the most powerful corporations. And we didn't even get to talk much about which one of the things I'm most interested in is the Federal Reserve, which is a private corporation that has this, for some bizarre reason, has this exclusive monopoly to print U.S. money and then loan it back to us at interest. And it's completely private corporation that has no accountability. The government is like accountable to the Federal Reserve instead of the other way around. And, you know. Well, that's a longer kind of approach. Yeah, that's... But look, you know, they're a promise. And this is why you're starting to see, like I said, more voters who are identifying not necessarily as red or blue, but angry. And they're coming across, you know, and sort of coming out in all different political stripes and varieties and so forth. The fact is, I just heard this the other day, blew my mind, that in one day, right, the financial sector is producing almost more, you know, just by trading, just by buying and selling stuff. I mean, not even things, not even things, right? Buying and selling other... Electronic goods, yeah. Right, buying and investing in other people's investments and, you know, shorting other people's investments and blah, blah, blah, are creating more wealth than virtually an entire year's worth of production coming out of our manufacturing sector. I mean, the proportion is, or maybe it's 30 times more than in a... But I mean, it's... I heard some of it, 40% of our GNP was financial services. Exactly, on top of that, you know, not only are these income discrepancies huge, right? But all of our nation's quote unquote wealth, which, incidentally, the making of which is what? Bankrupt our economy, bankrupt our housing market. But all of that isn't even making anything. They're not actually, it's not productive, it's not producing things, they're not producing ideas, they're not producing, no, they're not. And, you know, I'll be damned, I think America's better than that. And I think Americans are waking up and saying, hey, wait, we're better than that too, we're not gonna be a country run by, you know, a few dozen people that benefits 400 people and shafts everyone else. It's just modern, high tech, you know, we're so sophisticated at coming up with new ways of doing things, and so innovative, we've come up with the most brilliant scheme for modern electronic slavery, by shuffling digits in computers and having the masses be poor in debt. And we use debt as a slavery mechanism. Yeah, I wouldn't quite go that far. I'm always very cautious about slavery metaphors because, I mean, really, there's slavery as slavery. I mean, it's like the subjugation of African-Americans as actual indentured services in this country versus having a lot of debt. I really wouldn't draw that analogy, but I know where you're going with the metaphor, which is, you know, that people have been, they have literally, and you can't, I was talking to someone the other day who filed for bankruptcy. I mean, just filed for bankruptcy, this was a solidly middle class guy, has a family, had a good paying job, but it's like one thing after another. The economy is, the economy is actually set up so that someone like a Lloyd Blank fine, someone who's born into money, someone who has one of those top, top, top 1% of the 1% of the 1% jobs, they really have to do anything and they succeed. And meanwhile, everyone else in this country is running as hard as they can, trying as hard as they can, working and working and working and working. And still not able to succeed. At even a reasonable level. It's almost setting up. They may be too big to fail, but they're setting us up to fail. And it's, you know, it's a bad proposition. Oh, from childhood, they give me, I got my first MasterCard in the mail when I was 16, which is unbelievable. And then, yeah. Danger. And it's been downhill ever since. But also, like, but now, with all of this occupied stuff, it's really enlightened my sensitivity and my awareness, you know, like if you buy a, you know, a car, you see that car everywhere. I've been noticing, if you walk around town, I've been noticing every ad on the subway, the buses and the billboards, like everything is Citibank, Chase, this and that, every single thing is a bank, MasterCard, Visa, even things that you don't think are banks, are banks, they're schools because student loans, they're pushing student loans like crazy. You know, we can get financing for this school, that school, the other school. No, and I travel a lot around the country and somebody recently pointed out to me, like, why is the biggest building in every downtown the bank? The bank and the insurance company. And I started paying attention to that, and they're right, right? I mean, it's a little, and it used to be the factories. Right. Right? It used to be, you know, I mean, to some extent, still we have universities, but I mean, it's a changing landscape and it is, it's sad. The bank and the insurance companies, then if there's a pharmaceutical company in town, and then the old church, which is abandoned, and they're trying to keep the 1929 building, they don't know what to do with it, yeah. Yeah, hopefully they don't turn them into banks, although a lot of churches go the way of banks, too. Like you say, that's a whole other show. So, well, thank you so much for joining us. I'm sorry we don't have more time, this was great though, thanks for having me on. For sure, let's do it again. Fun conversation. All right, thanks so much. All right, see you guys tomorrow. Mm-hmm.