 There we go, sorry about that. That's okay. Sometimes you got to push all the buttons in a row. Oh, don't even get me started on technology. It's a love-hate relationship. It really is. Kat, I have a hobby where I talk to people. Normally I set up in public places and we talk about things that normally people don't think they can talk about. My only goal is just to help people get a chance to critically think about why they hold a position, particularly something they're really motivated by or something they really believe is true. Is there anything like that for you? Do you have something that you're absolutely sure you're right about? Bernie Sanders. I'm not very good with politics. Would you say that's the most important belief in your life? Right now I think that this upcoming election is more about humanity and it's about, we have an opportunity to make seismic change in this country which is vastly required. I was a supporter of his in the beginning and I'm like back in the game and yeah, it's more, I heard Killer Mike say it beautifully when he said, why does he support Bernie Sanders? And it was because he, of all of the potential candidates running right now, either party, he is the only one who by far manifest those same policies and beliefs and wishes of Martin Luther King. So that's true. Are you saying, could you boil that down to like, I like Bernie Sanders, I'm gonna vote for Bernie Sanders. Yes. Okay, I have no problem if you like that, if you like him, but I'm moving more something absolute, like, you know, like. On a spiritual level? Not on a spiritual level, like I don't mind if you like, like, so I had someone who wanted to talk about Marvel movies and we did a seven hour conversation. Wow. Listing all of them from beginning to end. Because I'm very passionate about Marvel movies. But at the end of the day, it's like, hey, you can like whatever you like. If you like a candidate, you like a candidate. Do you have something that's more absolute? Like, something that says, this is red and now the person says, no, it's not red. Let's do a test to see if it's red or not. I'll say this. Because I agree that you probably really, really like Bruce. Oh my word, I'm like one of the most ardent supporters. You're feeling the burn. Yeah, oh, oh, oh, yes, yes. I was in Philadelphia when they protested. So I was one of the protesters outside. Awesome, awesome, awesome. Random kiss? So I saw our future and it was beautiful. Is there something about like politics that you think should exist or shouldn't exist? Something like that, that could be a bit more objective. Like, what's the one thing you want Bernie Sanders to do because you think it's the most important thing possible? Medicare for all. Medicare for all? Yes. That's, okay, okay. So you think we should have Medicare for everybody? Absolutely. I have a Canadian colleague in fact who said, Kat, the first time I ever heard healthcare insurance was in the States. Okay. It's everywhere else, it's called healthcare. Only in America is it referred to as health insurance. Okay. I'm very anti-capitalist society. Why are you for everybody having Medicare? Because that is a right. All of our people, there is no, we want to call ourselves the richest country in the world, which, you know, whatever. I don't like boasting and I don't like, we're the best kind of idea. I think we're all in this together. Okay. But, and I am one of those firm believers in, you know, a rising tide lifts all boats. So how can we possibly, don't wave that superior flag if you can look around and your neighbor is hungry. Your neighbor is sick or dying. Your neighbor, you know, until everybody is loved and cared for and we are at least taking care of the most disenfranchised, the most vulnerable of us until we're caring for each and every single one of those, then we're not doing what we were meant to do, which is be stewards and love one another. Okay. Do you think you'd be for it if you got taxed just a little bit more? Oh, absolutely. You'd be totally fine with that? Would you be fine if everybody got taxed just a little bit more? Yes. In order to afford that? Well, where do our taxes go now? The military industrial complex. We already pay taxes. It's more about us being able to say we want a fair distribution of how our taxes are spent. Okay. The money's there. It's just, it's put into the wrong line item. I see. So you'd want someone to streamline the way how taxes are now. And in the event that they aren't, you'd be totally fine with just a little bit more taxes. Absolutely. So that everybody can maintain a certain level of standard of power. Absolutely. Because I tell you what, you may think, oh, my family's fine. Yeah. That's very arrogant. Because what I want to tell anybody and everybody is that your life can change in the blink of an eye. Okay. And I know this to be true because I went through a three year period where I got downsized from my field. I went through a divorce and I was misdiagnosed with two autoimmune diseases. Hugely expensive. Okay? Yeah. I lost my health insurance. I lost that. I almost lost my home. So I can tell you within a year's period of time everything changed, you know? And if you had told me the year before, if you'd said next year, you're gonna go through this, this, this. I would have laughed and said, you don't know what you're talking about. Okay. I'm fine with this. It sounds like you have like, so the way how I manage my conversations is someone says something and if they say something that meets the standard, like you tell me something, I say, okay, where's my, how extraordinary is that claim? Mm-hmm. Is the evidence you're providing me meeting that standard of evidence or like is the extraordinary evidence you're providing the meeting that extraordinary claim? You're saying everyone should have health care and you're willing to pay for it or organize the way that we pay for it in order to make that happen. Yes. Would you make it mandatory for everybody? To have Medicare for all? To have to pay that tax. Oh yeah. Or could people opt out? People pay taxes already. I'm just. But could they opt out specifically the Medicare tax? Like say there's 70, they're already happy with their health insurance. They don't wanna pay extra money to pay for their losses. Well if there's 70, they have Medicare. Okay. So say they're 25. Yeah, say they're 25. Say they're 25 and they're making $250,000 a year and they want to pay for their own top of the line. I just wanna pay it myself, forget it. Let them. They can do it. What they will find is, but they still have to pay into the tax because that's how you have social security. That's how you have everything. It's about social services. It's not about, I'm not alone. I don't have the mindset of what's mine is mine and how much I, because you don't become wealthy by yourself. Okay. You don't. Okay. Other people contribute to your wealth. So just make sure if they wanted to opt out, they could, but they'd pay taxes in some indirect way back into the system. Yeah, they'd have to pay taxes. Okay, but they could check some boxes and say, hey, I don't wanna give money to that, but eventually the money's gonna get to them, to the system. Anyway, is that what you're saying? No, I'm saying that if they wanna decide to pay for their own top of the line that they imagine that they will have way better coverage, blah, blah, blah. Let them pay for that. But your taxes need to go to our schools. They need to go to all those things. Yes, schools. Social services. That's a specific Medicare thing I hear you talking about. No, that's part of it. That's what I'm saying. This is what I'm bringing up. Yes. Let me be clear. Yes. I'm thinking of it as like car insurance. Everyone who's on the road should have car insurance, but there's some people who just choose not to. Would you make it a law that everybody has to have the health insurance? And there is a law. Hypothetically. You have to. Hypothetically. About this Medicare system that doesn't exist yet. Would you make it such that everybody has to pay starting at a certain age? Yes. Okay. No way to opt out of it? No. It's for the society. It's for the greater good. Okay. And we have to stop. We have to stop being a capitalist society. We have to stop being a narcissistic society, which we are. We've got to get rid of all this competition that it's like I got to beat everybody else so that I can be at the top. Because what they're finding is that that is not a sustainable economy. It is not a sustainable socio-economic belief system. It, that's why you're seeing such the disparity now with the top, top, top down here. And what's happening is we don't have, when you look at people who pay taxes, what's going on right now is the top percent are paying the least amount. Okay? So we don't have a middle class anymore. When you raise taxes on the top percent, let me explain something to you. So you've got people over here that are paying the majority of the taxes. Us guys, we are. And we are quality of life. We're suffering. Most people are living paycheck to paycheck. There's not a lot of discretionary income left over. You've got these people up here paying the least amount of taxes and they're sitting on this big stack of money. Okay? Because that's really all that means. They just have more of a stack to sit on. You tax them more. What happens is they're not sitting on such a high stack. But their quality of life does not change. Let me go something out. Is it a flat tax for everybody that's going to be paying into this? I don't know. I don't know. I think that's a fair answer. Yes, I don't know. There has to be a restructure of the tax system and I'm not knowledgeable enough to tell you what that should be or what that looks like. I don't have that information on me. But it's got to be a more fair tax structure. You know what I feel about certain things is if I don't have enough information to come to a decision, I'm fine with I don't know as the right answer until I get better information to come to a better understanding. Yes. Here's something I want to throw out. Going back to Bernie Sanders. If it turned out, this isn't the case because I know what his platform is. But if it turned out, he's not going to focus on Medicare for this term. He's going to do everything else and he says but he can't do Medicare. And some of the candidates said they could do the Medicare overhaul. And that's what they're really going to focus on. Would that in any way reduce your confidence that Bernie Sanders is the best candidate for this? It's hard for me to even fathom that because he's been talking Medicare for all for 40 years. We're talking about a hypothetical situation. I'm just wondering like, is this? I am, oh, oh. Is this the cornerstone of why you like Bernie Sanders? Would that reduce any chance if he says I actually can't do that? But here's all these other things I'm going to do. It would have to be a whole, I'd have to look at all the policies and I'd have to look at all the individuals and I would have to look at their history of how they have voted and what they have supported. You have two Democratic candidates. One can do Medicare. The other one's Bernie Sanders and you cannot. Would that reduce your appeal? Would that reduce his appeal at all? The way you're using what I'm asking that is if it didn't reduce his appeal at all, maybe that's not the reason why you like Bernie Sanders very much. But if it did reduce your appeal, then you can say, yeah, that's a very important thing for me and I'm hoping Bernie Sanders does that. Yeah, it would reduce my appeal. Okay. Because I just turned 60 years old in November. Same here. Yeah. Black doesn't crack. I know. I have noticed. Sooner or later, I'm just going to go all gray hair. Yeah, but you still will be smooth. Oh, I appreciate it. Oh, it's going to be like, you know. Oh, you don't know the women I meet. And they're like, the women of color and they're like older than I am. And I'm like, oh, she is so beautiful. She must be like 45. No, she's older than I am. Oh, wow. That's not fair. All right, so I'm glad I can stay young until 45 after that in my mind. What was I saying? So you said Medicare is in fact really the cornerstone of why you are attracted to the platform for Bernie Sanders. Oh, because I just turned 60 years old. Now, I mentioned to you, I lost my job. I lost my husband. Okay. I have no healthcare. I'm a college educated woman. I ran departments. I was an executive director of a nonprofit. And here I am at this age with no healthcare insurance. And I also, it's like, once you are downsized, I have learned this, that now they're saying 40 plus. If you are downsized from your field at 40 plus, which I was downsized at 55, you will never be rehired. Or the chances of you being rehired in your field at the same monetary level and all that dramatically reduced. Wow. I couldn't buy an interview. Took me two years. I had five interviews in two years. And then they, in each interview, they've hired somebody younger. Yep. And cheaper. Yep. So there you have it. Yeah. So here's what I'm gonna say. So I can say, from my perspective, a bit of a grab on my end, but like I'm, I got a PhD, Georgia Tech. I've done nothing but laboratory work for a long period of time. And when you are ready to transition to another job, it's hard because the hiring practices are, well, we could hire a PhD, but we could get someone at a lower degree for at the same cost, lower price, and just train them up. So that they're good in that one capacity that we need them for. Yeah. You know, it's like, so you tend to be overqualified for a lot of roles anyway. Oh my word. I lucked out in the position I'm at right now, but it's one of the situations where I'm like, shouldn't be this hard. You shouldn't be this hard. And every year there's a new wave of PhDs in the market, bright-eyed, ready to invest in a company, so. Work 60, 70 hours a week, you know. Yeah. I mentioned you don't like a capital of society. What's the alternative that you would prefer? Democratic socialist. Yeah, I get it. I get it. I'm more about, I'm, big government doesn't scare me. You just want people to look out for each other. One another, yes. A humanistic point of view. Humanistic point of view. But not to the point where there are some people who, for example, work really hard for their money, like work really hard for it, have it, maybe have a family and just want to give them that money and like, hey, I work for this, I should be able to do whatever I want with it. Right, right, right. Government knocks on the door and says, hey, we got some new tax initiatives, we're gonna take some of this money. It's like, no, this is mine, I work for it, this is my family, I'm gonna give it to them. You stay out of my business. Well, I'll tell you this though. As a parent, you do your children a great disservice by leaving them a ton of money. It is wrong. What you do is that you are feeding the narcissistic, elitist, entitled human being. So if that's what you want to put on this plan. If that's what you want to do with your money, you should be able to do it, don't you think? Like, hey, it's my kid. Yeah, except that we all suffer. Look at who's in the Oval Office, you know? The reason, here's the train of thought that I have is like, if it's mine, even if it's gonna affect, like I'm not responsible for whatever another person does. I'm not responsible for the actions of another person. Some guy decides to rob a bank. I don't go to jail for that, he does. So if I give him, at least my kid, my money, and he decides to be a jerk with it, that's his problem. But if he decides to do something good with it, maybe that's a good thing. But I'm not responsible either way. And it's my money, I should do whatever. What I'm saying is, you know, whatever if you have, just that that's taxed appropriately. Okay. You know, so if you're gonna give a chazillion dollars. I don't even know what that is. It's a bunch. If you give a chazillion dollars to your one kid, you know, who happens to be like 12, okay? Cause you know, that means he's really gonna be able to handle it. Anyway, if you're gonna give a chazillion dollars to a child or your children or whatever, fine. But tax it appropriately. So that, you know, there is a, I think, I can't remember. Put it in like a hedge fund that can be like, reciprocated into the government. And you'll always have that amount, but at least give it as a pay into the city, blah blah blah. But at least you're paying a fair share of taxes. I think there's a reasonable aspect to what you're saying. I'm trying to wonder what would convince you if you're wrong. This is the last question I asked. I'm not saying you are wrong, but what would make you wake up and be like, let me just look into this policy again. Oh, maybe these numbers don't quite add. Maybe- I don't even know if that's possible. I'm not even saying like you're, it's a 100% turn. I'm just saying, actually be better if we did this. Oh. Keep this foundation, but maybe just tweak it here and now it's perfect. Look at this guy. No, I'd be open to that. Yeah. I'd be open to that. One of the things that, you know- What would that look like? What would that look like? I don't know. But what I will tell you is that I'm the kind, I am one of the most ardent, vocal- Okay. Believers and whatever I believe in. Okay. So I'm gonna be the one that goes, blah blah blah blah, you know. However, if you give me a good argument or you go, hey cat, you know, but what about this? I'm not one of those that's so focused and laser focused that I'm not listening to anybody else. Okay. You share with me something because not every person can know everything. Sure, yeah. You know, you gotta listen. Yeah. I didn't know about Medicare for all forever and ever. You know, I mean, how about, how would I become where I am now and have the beliefs I have now is because I listened. Okay. Because I learned. I love this because normally when I talk to people, they say they're absolutely 100% confident about the thing they believe. That's just never gonna change their mind. But I find that to be a fairly dangerous position to be in. Yes, always. Because when you're not willing to change your mind, you have to put these blinders on that can just blindside you or people that you love or make you unempathetic to other people's positions or make you close-minded really. Yes. How would you grade your confidence in Medicare for everyone from a scale from zero to 100% being there's no way I can be wrong about this, 0% being the same thing on the other side. I would say 100%, there's no way I can be wrong on this unless somebody comes forward with a brand new thing I've never heard of that is a far better system. Okay. Right now it is by far the best system that I can think of. It's universal healthcare. There's nothing wrong with saying 100%. Okay. Though I could imagine someone who's even more confident than you and saying I don't care if someone comes to me with a good argument or not, I'll never change my mind. And I would say that person's more convinced or more confident than you are. Well, okay, then say 90. Okay, okay. I want to go in there. So may I say one final thing? Yes, you may. I've been through such challenges over the last five years that it's been crazy. And what I ended up doing is I went to Puerto Rico and volunteered and I'm now going back. So in April I'm leaving for Puerto Rico again. And they just had a hurricane over there, right? Oh yeah, Maria. I think I left my hat. We're in the second year of recovery. It's horrible what's gone on there. But anyway, what I learned through all this because you gotta pay attention. You can't just whine about everything. And you can't wanna jump off the bridge every day. Sure. So this is something that I noticed. It's like, how did I get through this and what did I learn? And one of the things, it's like, whatever knocks you down, heal from that. Do everything that you can do to heal and then serve. That's what I found has worked for me. With Puerto Rico, it's like heal and serve. And that's the pathway to happiness. Okay, healing and serving, pathway to happiness. I've got a very long way to go. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Did you enjoy this chat? Thank you. Thank you. Oh, sure, what happened? Thank you. You're welcome. Have a good one. Good luck to you. Thank you. I appreciate it. Have a good one. You wanna take a card? I got one. Okay, okay, cool. Well, she was fascinating, so you can take a card.