Latest / The Mark Belling Podcast / Mark Belling Podcast #161: In a special podcast released on Labor Day, Mark argues that a lot of Americans just don't want to work at all anymore which is why many embrace socialism. And a deep dive into data center opposition and how something has to give: we either embrace the jobs and money of these centers or kill off the economy's only real area of transformative growth.

Transcript

Mark Belling Podcast #161: In a special podcast released on Labor Day, Mark argues that a lot of Americans just don't want to work at all anymore which is why many embrace socialism. And a deep dive into data center opposition and how something has to give: we either embrace the jobs and money of these centers or kill off the economy's only real area of transformative growth. · The Mark Belling Podcast

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  Speaker 1: The Mark Belling Podcast is presented by Uline. For quality
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  Speaker 1: shipping and industrial supplies, Uline has everything in stock. Visit Uline.com.
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  Speaker 1: The Mark Belling Podcast is a production of iHeartRadio Podcasts.
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  Speaker 2: We're releasing this podcast on Labor Day morning. I don't
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  Speaker 2: know when you're all listening to this. It could be
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  Speaker 2: any time. but it is being released on Labor Day
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  Speaker 2: and we're going to do a special podcast today. I'm
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  Speaker 2: only going to cover two topics, but they're both going
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  Speaker 2: to be large topics that move in a lot of
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  Speaker 2: different directions. You know, I think of Labor Day, I
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  Speaker 2: almost feel like I should ask you to give money
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  Speaker 2: to the Muscular Dystrophy Association. For the longest time, Labor
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  Speaker 2: Day and Jerry Lewis's telethon were like synonymous. I don't know,
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  Speaker 2: 20 years has it been off the air? Some number
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  Speaker 2: of time. It heyday was in the 70s, 80s, and
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  Speaker 2: a little bit into the 90s. He lasted a long time.
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  Speaker 2: In his latter days, he was mean, bitter. He was
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  Speaker 2: on prednisone. He got fat. But boy, was that an
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  Speaker 2: American institution for the longest time. And during the time
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  Speaker 2: in which there was no Netflix, there wasn't any streaming,
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  Speaker 2: there weren't anywhere near as many cable channels. There were
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  Speaker 2: really just the broadcast networks. And in every major city
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  Speaker 2: in the country, one of the prominent stations carried the
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  Speaker 2: Jerry Lewis telethon. And it just became It's synonymous with
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  Speaker 2: Labor Day, and the charity that he fronted for all
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  Speaker 2: of those years is still there, the Muscular Dystrophy Association.
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  Speaker 2: I bet there are people who every year just think
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  Speaker 2: to make a donation to that organization, given the fond
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  Speaker 2: memories of the Jerry Lewis Telethon. Anyway, Labor Day, and
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  Speaker 2: I understand many of you will be listening to this
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  Speaker 2: after Labor Day, I think it forces us to consider
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  Speaker 2: labor right now in America. I don't mean the labor
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  Speaker 2: union movement. I mean labor. Work. One of the things
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  Speaker 2: that characterized America as a nation from the beginning was
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  Speaker 2: this country has an incredible work ethic. You were expected
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  Speaker 2: to work. Almost everybody did work. And many people work
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  Speaker 2: very hard. We bought into the notion that the harder
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  Speaker 2: you work, the farther you're going to go. There's a
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  Speaker 2: payoff there. There's an expectation that you work and also
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  Speaker 2: a dignity in your work. I don't think we have
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  Speaker 2: that anymore. And that's where I want to start the podcast.
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  Speaker 2: Uline moves fast because your business doesn't miss a beat.
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  Speaker 2: From shipping and industrial supplies to office furniture, Uline offers
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  Speaker 2: a wide range of products that are in stock and
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  Speaker 2: 6 p.m. Even the big stuff. Uline's expert customer service
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  Speaker 2: team is available 24-7 to answer your questions, help you
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  Speaker 2: quickly and easily place an order, or assist with any
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  Speaker 2: other business needs. Visit Uline.com. Labor Day. The unions tried
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  Speaker 2: to co-opt this day and it became a big day
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  Speaker 2: for the celebrations that were put on by the labor unions.
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  Speaker 2: But Labor Day was never a labor union day. It
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  Speaker 2: was to honor American work. And when you think about it,
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  Speaker 2: it was an interesting choice for a holiday. Labor Day
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  Speaker 2: has been around for decades. It's not one of the
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  Speaker 2: newfangled holidays that we've put up because we decided that
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  Speaker 2: there are certain people or certain individuals that need to
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  Speaker 2: be commemorated, like Juneteenth Day or MLK Day. Labor Day
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  Speaker 2: is the only holiday that we really have that doesn't
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  Speaker 2: seem to honor any particular person or any particular event.
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  Speaker 2: Maybe Thanksgiving's in this category. Labor Day is to commemorate labor, work,
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  Speaker 2: You know, as a kid, they talked about, in general,
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  Speaker 2: the work ethic, but especially the Wisconsin work ethic. If
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  Speaker 2: you didn't work, you were a bum. You were good
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  Speaker 2: for nothing. It defined people's character. The 40-hour work week
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  Speaker 2: was considered the minimum. If you worked in a white-collar job,
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  Speaker 2: you'd work more than that. If you owned your own business,
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  Speaker 2: you'd work way more than that. It became the way
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  Speaker 2: that individuals identified themselves. You meet a stranger, what do
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  Speaker 2: you do? What do you do? What do you do
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  Speaker 2: for a living? Oh, that guy, he works at, he
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  Speaker 2: does this. He's a doctor. He's this. He works at
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  Speaker 2: the paper mill. You can blame all of this on
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  Speaker 2: the leftists. And they're certainly largely to blame. But not entirely.
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  Speaker 2: I just look around and I see a country where
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  Speaker 2: an incredibly high number of people don't want to work.
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  Speaker 2: I think one of the turning points was COVID. When
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  Speaker 2: we moved to so many people, first of all, some
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  Speaker 2: businesses and some employers and some governments just shutting down.
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  Speaker 2: And you didn't have to do any work. To others
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  Speaker 2: who moved to remote work or work from home. And
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  Speaker 2: a lot of people complained about how the government, how
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  Speaker 2: dare the government use this virus as an excuse to
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  Speaker 2: stop people from working, to stop businesses from operating, to
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  Speaker 2: stop providing services and so on. The eye-opener was, I think,
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  Speaker 2: the number of people who love this. And I remember
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  Speaker 2: hearing from them. This is great. I get to stay
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  Speaker 2: home every day. I mean, I guess I've always understood
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  Speaker 2: that most people didn't like their jobs much and they
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  Speaker 2: would just as soon not work. I mean, even people
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  Speaker 2: who have great jobs would rather have it be the
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  Speaker 2: weekend than a work day. And I understand that some
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  Speaker 2: people didn't much like their jobs at all. I didn't
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  Speaker 2: understand the depth of it. In part because, you know,
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  Speaker 2: I'm one of the lucky ones. I've got a great job.
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  Speaker 2: For almost the entirety of my life, I was a
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  Speaker 2: talk show host. I get paid to shoot off my
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  Speaker 2: mouth and express my opinions. Talk about a great gig.
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  Speaker 2: Most people don't have that. I remember when I was younger,
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  Speaker 2: I'd see these high-rise buildings and these offices, and I'd wonder,
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  Speaker 2: what is everybody doing in there all day? Okay, I
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  Speaker 2: know this is an insurance company. What are they all doing?
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  Speaker 2: And you're in this cubicle over here at a 35-story
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  Speaker 2: building of a bunch of other cubicles? You go past
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  Speaker 2: a factory, and there are 900 people that are inside
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  Speaker 2: that factory. And a lot of them are doing pretty
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  Speaker 2: much the same thing. And I certainly, I think, was
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  Speaker 2: fortunate that I wasn't forced to be in one of
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  Speaker 2: those kinds of jobs. But until rather recently, nobody ever
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  Speaker 2: particularly complained about having to do that. There was just
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  Speaker 2: an expectation that you'd work. And you'd want to get
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  Speaker 2: the best job that you could get for your skill set.
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  Speaker 2: And for a lot of people, those are factory jobs.
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  Speaker 2: industry jobs, where the pay was relatively good, the work
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  Speaker 2: conditions were rather stable, the benefits were excellent, and you
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  Speaker 2: had an ability to have camaraderie with your coworkers. For
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  Speaker 2: other people who weren't in those kinds of works, that
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  Speaker 2: were either in professions or in competitive businesses where you
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  Speaker 2: would try to move up the ladder, what work gave
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  Speaker 2: you was an opportunity to improve yourself. You had the
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  Speaker 2: ultimate motivator. I'm going to do better, so I'm going
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  Speaker 2: to make more money, and maybe I'll get a promotion.
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  Speaker 2: We thrived on this. When you think of a lot
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  Speaker 2: of the TV shows from back in the day or
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  Speaker 2: recent shows, shows that are recent but were set in
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  Speaker 2: an earlier time, so many were focused on the rat race.
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  Speaker 2: So many of them were focused, even comedy. Take the
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  Speaker 2: Mary Tyler Moore show. It was a workplace show. We
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  Speaker 2: always looked upon ourselves as being superior to some countries
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  Speaker 2: in Europe that were overwhelmed with labor unions, where nobody
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  Speaker 2: ever wanted to work, where there were constantly strikes. Certain
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  Speaker 2: countries where they would take a break in the middle
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  Speaker 2: of the afternoon, their siestas. But look at us now.
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  Speaker 2: You have lots and lots of people particularly but not
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  Speaker 2: entirely young people, who I think just don't want to work.
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  Speaker 2: I think that mentality has always been there. But it
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  Speaker 2: was kind of like, I don't want to die. Okay,
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  Speaker 2: maybe you don't want to die, but you're going to die.
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  Speaker 2: It was an inevitability. You may not wanted or liked something,
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  Speaker 2: but it was accepted that it was simply part of
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  Speaker 2: the conditions. Now, there are people who really don't want
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  Speaker 2: to work. They do nothing when they're young to set
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  Speaker 2: themselves up in life to work. And when they become
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  Speaker 2: old enough to work, They don't seem to do anything
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  Speaker 2: to put themselves in a position to get a really
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  Speaker 2: good job. They may complain that great jobs aren't out there,
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  Speaker 2: but they don't show any particular initiative to either create
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  Speaker 2: their own job or move into a field in which
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  Speaker 2: there are job opportunities. I have some theories on what's
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  Speaker 2: caused this. I think we've had two really, really bad
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  Speaker 2: things go on for about 30 years right now to
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  Speaker 2: young people. Coddling parents who never introduced the notion of
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  Speaker 2: work to their kids at home. Kids who never had
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  Speaker 2: to do the dishes, didn't have to cut the lawn,
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  Speaker 2: didn't have to do any of the chores. didn't have
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  Speaker 2: to go to grandma's house and help grandma do such
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  Speaker 2: and such. And then when they got work from school, homework,
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  Speaker 2: their parents started to complain that the kids are being
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  Speaker 2: given too much homework. So rather than using childhood as
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  Speaker 2: an introduction to this notion of there is no such
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  Speaker 2: time as idle time, you work, you're productive, we're going
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  Speaker 2: to have you work around the house, that's a prep
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  Speaker 2: to actually doing real work when You emerge and grow up.
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  Speaker 2: You have a lot of kids who've moved toward adulthood
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  Speaker 2: without ever really having a culture of work within their
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  Speaker 2: own home. It hasn't helped that we have so many second, third,
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  Speaker 2: and fourth generation children that were raised by multiple generation
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  Speaker 2: welfare parents, parents that were just living on the dole
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  Speaker 2: who never worked themselves. When you're not exposed to a
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  Speaker 2: mom and a dad, or at least a dad, getting
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  Speaker 2: up at 6 o'clock in the morning and being ready
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  Speaker 2: for work at 7.30 a.m. and seeing dad go out
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  Speaker 2: there every day, if instead you're raised by a single
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  Speaker 2: mother who drags her butt out of bed at 9.45
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  Speaker 2: in the morning and never does anything, you don't have
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  Speaker 2: that sense of culture. But I want to go back
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  Speaker 2: to the larger thing, which is even in the traditional family, some.
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  Speaker 2: And I think that the kids who are not raised
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  Speaker 2: this way, they're the ones that still have the work ethic.
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  Speaker 2: That wasn't introduced to them. But then secondly, there's this.
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  Speaker 2: And I just think that there is nowhere near enough
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  Speaker 2: attention to this problem. And that's the drugging of kids.
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  Speaker 2: Both illegal and legal prescription. We started noticing that there
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  Speaker 2: were all of these kids that had attention deficit disorder.
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  Speaker 2: I claim it always existed. Maybe it got worse because
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  Speaker 2: of the diet problem. All the sugar that kids were
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  Speaker 2: consuming and the caffeine that they couldn't pay attention because
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  Speaker 2: they were so hyper. I don't know. But we started
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  Speaker 2: treating this condition by medicating these kids. In the same
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  Speaker 2: way that many adults are on anti-anxiety or anti-depressant medications
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  Speaker 2: to deal with their mood, they kind of level you off,
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  Speaker 2: lower your highs and also raise up your lows. You
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  Speaker 2: start doing this to kids, though, with younger bodies and
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  Speaker 2: developing brains? When you start dulling their senses, are you
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  Speaker 2: dulling their ambition? And then add in the illegal drugs.
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  Speaker 2: I'm sorry, you start smoking pot when you're 13 years
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  Speaker 2: old or popping the gummies when you're 13 years old.
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  Speaker 2: All of these things low-level opioids, or then the higher
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  Speaker 2: level of opioids, these things that are constantly giving you
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  Speaker 2: a buzz. Everybody's seen a pothead after they've smoked pot.
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  Speaker 2: They're a log. They just sit there. Well, imagine this
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  Speaker 2: being a chronic condition in yourself. Of course you don't
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  Speaker 2: want to do anything. You're either stoned or coming off
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  Speaker 2: a stone. And then let's add in the fact that
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  Speaker 2: you may be taking these drugs that were prescribed to
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  Speaker 2: you by the pediatrician well-intended to deal with this short-term
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: problem of you were either overactive or couldn't wake up
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: or whatever it is, all these drugs that are in you,
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  Speaker 2: here you are now 20 years old. You are a
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  Speaker 2: far different human being than somebody who didn't have all
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  Speaker 2: of these things. So now let's combine the two. Raised
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  Speaker 2: without a culture of work. And now let me up
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  Speaker 2: the ante on that lack of culture of work. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: when I was a kid, it was just a given.
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  Speaker 2: 16 was the age at which you could legally start
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  Speaker 2: working unless your parents owned your own business. The farm kids,
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: there were, you know, there's farms around our community. So
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  Speaker 2: I would guess about 10% of the kids in high
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  Speaker 2: school were from farm communities. They were working since they
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  Speaker 2: were three. If the family owned a business, you know,
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: a hot dog stand or something, the kids could be
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  Speaker 2: working there as young as 8, 10, 12. But otherwise,
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: if you didn't have that, $ 1, 600 a year, it was
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  Speaker 2: just an expectation. When you hit $ 1, 600, you're going to
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: get a part-time job. And again, I think back to
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: when I was a kid. I think just about everybody
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  Speaker 2: did other than the losers. And who were the losers?
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  Speaker 2: They were the ones that were on pot, even back
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  Speaker 2: in my era. But you got a job. Of course,
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: it wasn't full-time because you were still a kid and
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: you were still going to school, but it was your
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: introduction to work. And if you had a job, that
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: meant you had a boss. That means you had to
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: do the job well or you'd get in trouble. Maybe
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: you'd get fired. Maybe you'd get yelled at. Now let's imagine,
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  Speaker 2: in addition to not having to do any work at
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  Speaker 2: home and then being doped up with legal and illegal drugs,
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  Speaker 2: you've never worked. Suddenly you hit the age of adulthood, 18,
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  Speaker 2: or if you went to college, 22, and it's time
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  Speaker 2: to work. You've never worked! Of course you don't want
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: to work. And then you start doing it, and of
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: course you don't like it. This is a brand new thing.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: You have to do something. I've never been told I
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: have to do anything. And then, so many people that
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: are miscast. College is a big part of the problem.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: I've argued for a long time we send too many
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: kids to college. College is great for kids that are
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: pursuing careers in which college is a benefit or a necessity.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: And it's great for kids that are book-smart good students.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: But it's not great for kids that aren't really book-smart
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: but may have all sorts of skills or different kinds
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: of smart. People who can tear apart an engine may
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: not do particularly well in geometry. There are people who
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: just have a knack and a gift for sales. I
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: don't know if college is going to do any good
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: for them. So we've ended up sending all sorts of
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: people to college many of them majoring in subjects in
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: which there are very limited jobs or way too much
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: competition for those jobs. In the meantime, all sorts of
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: industries in which there's a tremendous shortage of people to work.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: So the college graduate that majored in comparative literature understands
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: that there's all sorts of people that are needed in
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: the construction industry, but they don't want to work construction.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: They don't want to work outside. They want to work
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: in comparative literature. So, of course, they don't want to
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: do a job like that that they don't like. Again,
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: I admit I was very lucky. You know when I
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: decided I wanted to be on radio? When did you
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: decide you wanted to be on radio? I'm Jason in here.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: Late high school or college? I decided when I was six. No,
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: I mean, everybody has. I mean, I might have had
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: nine other things too. This is in addition to being
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: a Green Bay Packer and all of these other things
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: that turned out to be pipe dreams. You know, people
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: want to be a, kids want to be a cop.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: They want to be a fireman. They want to be
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: all of that stuff. I had an interest in radio
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: from the point that I was a kid. I mean,
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: kids get interested in different things. Some kids get interested
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: in butterflies. Some kids get interested in going out into
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: the woods and in fishing. Other kids get really interested
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: in sports. I became interested in radio. I was fascinated
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: at these voices that were on the radio and talking
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: and doing all of that stuff. Then as I advanced
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: in high school and college, I was in the media
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: and I got exposure to television. I got exposure to
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: newspapers and all this stuff. And I needed to be
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: in the media in some form or another. And I
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: went back to the one that was the original all along,
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: which is radio. I'm a rarity. I got to do
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: exactly what I wanted to do. But I think that
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: we have lots of kids that aren't taught to start
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: thinking at 10, 12, 14, what do you want to do?
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: That's when you need to start thinking about the kind
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: of person you're going to be. So they end up
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: not wanting to be anything. Or, if they have an
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: interest in something, they don't put themselves on a path
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: to become employable in that field. Taking advantage now of
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: this malaise where many people don't want to work are
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: the socialists. After all, if you don't want to work,
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: you probably don't have a lot of money. So therefore,
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: You want somebody to give you all the stuff that
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: in the past you would have to work to earn.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: So they promise you a free lunch and give you this, that,
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: and the other thing because you are too damn lazy
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: to go out there and try to earn yourself. There's
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: another part of this, and that is the erosion of
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: the American middle class. Both political parties are to blame
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: for this. For the longest time, Republicans would argue and
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: argue and argue when lefties would claim, the rich are
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Well, it
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: wasn't entirely true, but it was mostly true. I always
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: added my part and the middle class is losing ground.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: It was true. The boom in the stock market and
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: the housing market and the commercial real estate market meant
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: that the people who had enough assets to get involved
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: in those things, pretty much from 1980 on, got very wealthy.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: The only way you're not is if you blew it.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: If you were smart enough to buy a home when
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: you were 30, if you were smart enough to start
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: putting money into an IRA or a 401k or some
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: type of retirement plan and took advantage of the 40-year
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: bull market and the stock market, it's almost impossible not
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: to have money. If you bought a bunch of homes,
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: to be a landlord, almost impossible that you didn't get
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: appreciation in that while cash flowing positive. The explosion in
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: the value of commercial real estate, it's since going the
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: other direction, but when you think about what some of
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: these big buildings in downtown Chicago or downtown New York
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: sold for in the early 1970s and what they are now,
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: but again, in order to do that, you already had
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: to have enough money to do it, to start it
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: and get there in the first place. And now at
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: the very high end, the people who own 42 buildings,
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: Or imagine if in 1986 you could put $ 35 million
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: into the stock market. Now you're talking people who've turned
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: into billionaires. Those people indeed did and have gotten richer.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: The poor haven't so much gotten poorer as they've gotten
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: stuck in a long-term duel that has been comfortable enough
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: that they've never felt the need to get out of it.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: But the big problem is the middle class. The middle
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: class is the country that made and did everything. Trump
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: is right. When pro-business Republicans started approving of companies outsourcing
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: all of their production overseas, it killed off a big
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: chunk of the middle class. Interestingly, now that Trump is
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: trying to force it back, there's been objection to this
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: from liberals who don't like his tariffs and don't like
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: the fact that he's trying to punish companies that are
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: sending products and dumping them over here and instead to
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: create an incentive for companies to create manufacturing here. But automation,
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: outsourcing of jobs overseas, and generally realizing that a lot
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: of people who had replaceable jobs aren't worth much if
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: you can replace it with somebody cheaper. This has all
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: resulted in an erosion of the American middle class. So
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: now for these people who lack something of a work ethic,
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: if many of the opportunities are only on the lower
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: end of the economic totem pole, I got to admit,
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: I understand why maybe you're not all that motivated. One
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: of the things that I see with, I'm sure some
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: are illegal, but mostly legal immigrants to the United States,
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: is they don't have those hangups. Even in Milwaukee, I
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: swear more than half the Uber drivers are foreigners. They've
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: got some sort of accent from somewhere. A lot of
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: them Eastern European. The people that are, are there any
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: Americans left who own any gas stations in Southeast? There
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: actually are a few. It started when Asian Indians, especially
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: from the Sikh community, started buying up gas stations and
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: then convenience stores. A lot of the stores in the
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: central city were operated by Arabs. They were seeing America
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: as a land of opportunity and they were willing to
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: work long hours, put in 70 hours a week, run
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: in your own store, run in your own shop, have
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: a gun behind the counter and being willing to pull
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: it out if some jackass was going to try to
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: rob you. There were people who came from other countries
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: who wanted to make money who saw us as a
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: land of opportunity. In the meantime, we've got people here
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: scratching our rear ends, whining and complaining that the duel
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: that they had wasn't great enough. Now we hear about,
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: we need a three-day workweek. Excuse me, a four-day workweek.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: I'm all in favor of it. I moved to a
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: four-day workweek four years ago after working my whole damn
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: life six days a week. Then five when I got
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: to Milwaukee. There are people now at 25 who want
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: to do it. Now, I know you can be sucked
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: into thinking that Facebook and Instagram are real, but the
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: number of people in their 20s that are taking 19
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: million trips. You weren't supposed to be able to do
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: that until you raised money and paid your dues. But
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: people want to spend and want to have time off. Mostly,
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: I think, because they don't like their jobs and... They
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: don't feel any particular desire to try to get ahead
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: in their field. Clearly, there are fields in which there's
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: still incredible competition. In the tech world, where if you
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: come up with the right idea, you can be a
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: billionaire in a week. Some of those people work like crazy.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: And you could say that we need to have more
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: people trained to go into technology, but I acknowledge. You
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: could have trained me forever. to do the kind of
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: thing that Zuckerberg did when he was able to create
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: the code that built Facebook, I never would have been
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: able to figure out how to do the computer code.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: I understand that. You have to be really, really smart
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: to succeed in those fields. So I think the allure
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: of socialism, something that we've never had in this country
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: in the past, comes from the fact that we have
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: a growing number of people who are dead asses who
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: don't want to work, don't want to be responsible for themselves,
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: don't want to compete, don't want to get ahead, are
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: willing to be in the lower middle class, stoned all
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: the time with government paying for everything. Part two of
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: this special podcast, which is debuting on Labor Day, deals
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: with The great conundrum that I see in our society,
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: we have a transcendent, massive new industry coming into play
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: right now that will be, I think by far, the
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: biggest industry in the world over the next 10 to
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: 80 years. It's also one of the cleanest industries that
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: we've ever had. Yet, a country that was willing to
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: embrace digging holes into the ground and sending miners down
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: there to get coal, drilling oil for oil, tearing down
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: trees and putting in stinky paper mills, steel mills, automobile
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: assembly lines, is turning its nose up at this new industry.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: Of course, I'm referring to The overall area of data center,
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: and I think it goes beyond data center, the fact
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: that I think in the next 25 years, our need
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: for electricity is going to quadruple, meaning power plant construction
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: combined with data centers will be the driver of our economy,
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: which as I say, you would think would be a
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: good thing at this time in which we worry about
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: so many of the factors out there that are destroying
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: the middle class. You have this opportunity. to create massive
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: wealth and an almost limitless supply of jobs that clearly
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: the majority of Americans don't want it. This requires some
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: analysis as well, and I'm going to try to do
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: it when we come back on the Mark Belling Podcast.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: This is the Mark Belling Podcast. I want to start
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: this segment this way. There's a story on JS Online
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: a couple of days ago about the latest high voltage
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: power line to run through Wisconsin's so-called Driftless area. This
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: is an area of southwestern Wisconsin. Crawford County is south
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: of La Crosse. This line would run from there in
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: western Wisconsin through the Madison area and then toward the
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: Illinois state line. It's kind of the western to southwestern
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: portion of the state. A high voltage power line is
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: exactly what it says. Power line that carries more voltage
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: than the regular power lines. You can always tell when
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: you're under a high voltage power line. If you're listening
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: to AM radio, that'd be static. Or the poles just
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: seem to be bigger and the lines just seem to
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: be thicker. There's opposition to this. Well, what's the alternative?
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: The people who are opposed to more high voltage power
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: lines are the same people that are on their smartphones
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: 16 hours a day or are constantly on Instagram or
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: uploading to the cloud 8,000 photos. What do they do
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: with all these photos? I always wonder what these people
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: that are constantly taking photo, photo, photo, photo, photo, photo, photo.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: Do they delete them after they've taken them or do
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: they have 150 million photos in the thing in the cloud?
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: They do have 150 million. Do they ever go through
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: and delete them? You're not really charged though. I mean,
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: you get so much storage space on your phone that
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: at some point they might start. Yeah. In any event,
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: my point is, is that all of this data and
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: the storage of data and the cloud is nothing more
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: than storage of data. And then the amount of electricity
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: necessary for, say, convoluted instruments like cryptocurrency. Or the incredible
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: amount of computing power that's necessary to do any of
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: our kinds of high-tech solutions now. Everybody wants all of
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: their answers instantaneously. They want streaming speeds at warp speed.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: We've got all of this going on. Well, we still
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: need to get the power from point A to point B.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: And that means you need to have some of the
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: power lines carry lots and lots and lots of power.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: There's no alternative. So what I hear people opposing this
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: is I say, what's your solution? Even the people say, well,
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: we need alternative sources of power. Okay, fine, let's suppose
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: you put solar everywhere. You still need to transmit it.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: That means there's still going to be power lines. Well,
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: but it shouldn't be here. I mean, everybody's going to
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: say it shouldn't be here. This driftless area that they're citing,
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: one of the things that makes it attractive is there's
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: nothing there. They run it through a bunch of nowhere.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: And some people say, well, you're just spoiling nowhere. Okay, fine.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: What do you want to do? Run the high voltage
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: power lines right over the top of cities so that
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: you've got the voltage going over the top of 175,000 people? Well,
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: you don't want that either. I understand that I would
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: not want to live near a high voltage power line.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: This story goes back 1989. It's nearly 40 years. I
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: was dating a woman on the northwest side of Milwaukee.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: We didn't go out much. We just like three or four, five, six,
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: seven dates, somewhere in that range. She lived on the
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: northwest side and she lived in an apartment complex. Maybe
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: it was a condo complex. This is all before the
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: northwest side changed. This was before Jesse Anderson or all
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: of this stuff. Anyway, there are high voltage power lines
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: out in that area. And they were like in her
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: parking lot. I remember getting out of the car to
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: pick her up. The noise was deafening. The noise was
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: the power lines. And they're running right there over this
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: part of the city. I asked, doesn't this bother you?
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: She said, well, I can't ever listen to you on
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: WISN radio because the radio is all static because of
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: the power that's out here. That was minimal high-power lines,
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: nothing in comparison to what we transmit. Of course nobody
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: wants to live near it. But they have to be somewhere.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: So when I hear this opposition to it, it's opposition
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: without an alternative. It's like opposing death. Which brings me
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: to the cousin story, and that is Really the elephant
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: in all of the rooms, and that is the data center.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is the issue of the fall campaign.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: The Democrats have decided nationally to make opposition to the
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: data center their big issue. They're smart enough to change
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: the subject from all the things that they actually care about.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: In 2024, they were running on allowing boys to be
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: on girls' sports teams, to put boys in the bathroom.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: They were in the pronouns and all of their crap.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: So now they're changing the subject to something that people
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: actually care about. We're going to oppose data centers. And
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: you're seeing significant chunks of people saying that they want
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: to slow down a moratorium or not have data centers.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: We need to deal with this issue. If you step
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: back 15 years, in fact, let's go back farther than that.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: Just about any community of size in the state of
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: Wisconsin or the United States is a Department of Economic Development.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: And then there's a local regional business group that's in
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: charge of economic development. Your Chambers of Commerce and your
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: Association of Commerce, they do that. And state governments have
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: giant economic development departments. The purpose of those departments is
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: to attract employers, to attract investment and employment in your communities.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: While the deal became controversial, remember the battle to get Foxconn?
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: When Foxconn was going to build a manufacturing facility in
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: the United States? It was down to, I think, was
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: it Wisconsin and Ohio? Wisconsin and Scott Walker won it.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: The plan never came to fruition. There was some objection
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: over how sweet the deal was for Foxconn. But of
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: course everyone wanted that because everyone realizes that if you
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: don't have jobs, you die. When we see an economy
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: right now that Clearly, many jobs by their nature are dying.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: Let's just grab some industry. The print newspaper business is dying.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: I just read a thing. The Chicago Tribune's daily circulation
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: is now 43,000. 20 years ago, it was 600,000. They
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: may run a website, but there are industries because of
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: changes in technology that are going away. There are zillions
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: of them. Nobody knows what the long-term future of the
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: car business is. Will there be a business in creating
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: internal combustion engines? How many jobs will AI displace? Well,
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: it's going to have to be a replacement for this.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: The good news is, some people believe it's the bad news,
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: is that the one thing that a high-tech society requires
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: is data. That's what high tech is. When all of
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: this stuff is happening, it's happening because of the data
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: that is driving, powering, and storing it. And we need
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: to produce massive amounts of it. I think the stage
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: of AI that we're in right now would be like
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: Before I was born, I see some of these clips
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: of television in the 1940s. Before most people had TV sets,
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: some TV stations would come on. Hardly anybody had a set.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: They'd show like a baseball game, and it was all staticky.
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: It's in black and white, and the picture's jumping around
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: all over the place. That's where AI is right now.
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: I can't even imagine in five years. I marvel right now.
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: As I say, I think Google AI is incredible. I
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: haven't used Grok much. I know that some people think
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: Claude is almost flawless. That's the product from Anthropic. The
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: one that seems to be losing ground is OpenAI with
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: its product, ChatGPT. It's only going to get better. Scott Besant,
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: the Treasury Secretary, issued a statement earlier this week saying
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: that this is going to be deflationary. One of the
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: reasons that inflation is going to be over the next
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: several years plummeting is because the cost of making goods
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: is going to be so much lower because AI is
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: going to speed along the process. So many things that
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: take a long time right now will be done instantaneously.
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: Costs will go down. But in order to do it,
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: it means we have to have all the data centers.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: And in addition to having all the data centers, let's
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: go back to the power lines, we need way more power.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: So we need way more power plants and we need
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: way more power lines. This is the point I was
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: going to make a few minutes ago. Go back 15 years.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: If you said that the new industry of the future
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: had no pollution, there were no smokestacks, had almost zero
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: carbon footprint, where the jobs were very, very clean, that
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: the inside jobs were a combination of white collar and
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: semi-skilled blue collar, you'd think that these were dream jobs.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: We used to fight over who'd get a paper mill.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: I remember when I was a kid, that was when
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: some of the paper mills in northern Wisconsin and the
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: Fox Valley started to close. Some are still there a
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: lot closed. These were tragedies. Do you realize what stink
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: bombs a paper mill are? The paper mill in my
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: town famously did smell. It was a pulp mill. Our
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: city smelled constantly. When it was muggy outside, it smelled
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: a lot. That mill, by the way, is still operating.
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: I think it's downsized from what it was, but that
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: mill's still there. Paper mills always had trains that were running,
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: constantly blowing their horns. We were tearing down trees and
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: running these mills that had huge smokestacks behind them, carving
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: up all these trees and turning it into paper and
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: trucks and trains piling out of there constantly. And people
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: wanted that. The first wave of the high-tech revolution, Washington
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: stayed in Silicon Valley. It created all of this money
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: that allowed those areas to go lefty. Nobody turned up
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: their noses at it. California's turning up their noses at
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: it now, but.
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: In the scheme of things, when you look at what
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: American industry has been over time, the data centers are
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: about the coolest, least problematic that you can imagine. The downsides?
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: They make a little bit of a noise. As I said,
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: I grew up across the river from the paper mill.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: I don't know about at night. We only lived there
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: until I was seven. I just remember that it was
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: constant noise. You just hear roar coming out of the
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: place the entire time. We didn't have much money. That's
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: why we lived across the river from the paper mill.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: Then we got more money and we moved to the
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: edge of town. Didn't have the paper mill there. The
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: smell still managed to move its way out. And they
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: use a lot of water, some of them. The small
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: ones don't. Compare this to, say, a coal mine or
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: a steel mill. President Trump has been fighting to bring
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: steel production back to the United States. It's been a
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: major initiative of him. Well, if he does bring it back,
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: that means that we're going to reopen some of these
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: mothballed steel mills. Would you rather live next to a
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: steel mill or a data center? I think I'd take
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: the data center. I grant you this. I wouldn't want
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: to live near a data center. I'll asterisk that a
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: little bit. I live in downtown Milwaukee. I wouldn't have
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: any problem living next to a data center. Where I live,
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: it's loud 24-7. But I choose to live there. Nobody's
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: making me live there. One of the reasons that I've
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: argued data centers would be great for big cities is
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: big cities are already loud. Big cities are already sucking
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: in all sorts of electricity and everything else. There's dense populations,
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: so there's enormous water use. And big cities are also
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: the biggest areas of underemployment that we have. Yet in
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: big cities like Milwaukee, they say that they don't want
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: data centers. As I said, I understand not wanting to
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: live near one, especially if you live out in the countryside.
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: These places, while being built, I've seen some of the
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: numbers on construction. You're talking about the biggest build-out in
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: terms of construction in the United States since the beginning
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: of the Industrial Revolution. I've seen discussions, 10,000 or 15,000
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: construction jobs for some of the large data centers. Construction
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: of all possibilities. Then once opened, anywhere from 500,000 to
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: 15,000 people per data center. When you consider especially all
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: the support and ancillary jobs associated, the delivering of all
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: of the supplies, the maintenance of the equipment, the amount
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: of money going into human resources, and then the outflow
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: to the community if you're lucky enough to have one
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: of these things nearby where you attract all of these
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: people who get these weather well-paying jobs. But, If you
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: live in a smaller community in, say, Ozaukee County, where
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: one of these is very controversial, you're taking a rather
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: tranquil pastoral area and turning it into a massive industrial center.
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: I would say it'd be great if I lived five
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: miles from it, but if I lived half a mile
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: from it, I probably wouldn't like it. But that's, again,
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: true of almost anything. I mentioned all the paper mills
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: in northern Wisconsin. The rich people never lived near the
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: paper mills. You didn't want to be near it, but
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: you sure wanted to be in a community that had
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: one because you had all those jobs and the managerial
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: jobs were high paying. You have people on the left
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: and on the right opposing the data centers. Bernie Sanders
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: is against the data centers. Steve Bannon, who's on the right,
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: some people think is a demagogue, is against the data centers.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: They're appealing to a whole lot of people who I
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: think are afraid of the data centers. And as I say,
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: many of the fears are legitimate, but again, what's the alternative?
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: Without the data centers, there's no tech. And without the tech,
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: there's no economy. They got to be somewhere. Musk's idea
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: is long-term, they're going to be on the moon. It's fascinating.
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: I actually think you could make that work. When you
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: wonder why Musk is so fascinated with the moon and Mars,
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: I think he thinks... that the data can be transmitted
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: to the satellites that he's going to put up, and
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: you can just send this stuff through space, and the
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: data centers can be run entirely by robots so that
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: you won't need people up there. That's the long-term vision,
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: but that vision, the reason I think that he'd be
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: hard-pressed to pull that off is somebody still has to
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: build that data center, and the robots can't do all
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: the construction. Nonetheless, When you consider what all of the
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: industries that we currently have have always been, this would
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: seem like the least problematic. All are problematic. I think
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: if you had to come up with like the ideal
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: employer for our community, you come up with say a
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: giant insurance company like Northwestern Mutual. Huge buildings, I live
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: very close to their headquarters. which they're open like a
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: high rise seemingly every three years now. Sprawling huge thing,
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: no pollution, zillions of jobs at every part of the
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: economic spectrum, all the financial managers and the bosses and
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: the human resources people and the actuaries and all the
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: administrative assistants, all of that stuff. And they don't put
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: out any pollution whatsoever and the building doesn't make any noise.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: And if you consider what like the worst employer would
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: be to have still an essential, but something that would
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: be the least attractive, I don't know, a strip mine
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: or something or another, it would seem to be that
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: the data center is closer to, say, the big insurance company.
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: Healthcare is another giant employer. Nothing wrong with living near
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: a hospital. I guess the only downside would be that
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of traffic and there's the occasional ambulance
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: running by. But see, if you live near St. Luke's Hospital,
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: there's no real pollution that comes off of the thing.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: A lot of commotion and a lot of attention, but
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: zillions of jobs across the economic spectrum that are in there.
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: Let's say the data center would be on the more
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: attractive side of them, yet I can't deny that this
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: is a real thing. People seemingly don't want to have them.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: I kind of think this. While we're in a funky
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: economy right now, Bessent, the Treasury Secretary, is right. There
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: is massive corporate spending going on right now, which is
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: a sign of a very strong economy. They call it CapEx,
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: capital expenditures. Much of it is in the tech industry.
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: The amount of money that the tech companies are spending
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: to move toward AI and advancing their cloud and all
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: the other tech stuff that they're doing, they can't afford
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: to fall behind, so they're spending billions and billions and billions. Well,
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: that billions being spent is circulating through the economy. Yet
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: the consumer economy seems to be sluggish. Inflation is hitting
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: the consumer seemingly harder than it's hitting the manufacturers. The
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: tech companies doing the capital expenditure don't seem to be
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: bothered by the rising cost of the stuff that they're buying.
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: Unemployment is rather low, but misleadingly low because we're not
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: counting any of the people who've decided not to be
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: in the job market. But usually, when you have high unemployment,
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: that's when communities fight for everything. I remember when I
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: was constant, communities would fight for prisons. Prison is another
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: industry that some people didn't want to have the prison,
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: but the prison would seem to be the ideal type
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: of industry. Well, but there's criminals in, yeah, but they're inside.
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: The number of people that break out of a prison
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: is minuscule, which is why they love the prisons that
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: they have in Waupon and elsewhere. So when you have
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: a tough, tough economic times, that's the communities are fighting
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: and fighting and fighting for factories and every type of economic.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: development they can get. One of the reasons why the
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: great industrial boom of the last 40 years has been
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: in the South is the South historically has struggled more
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: economically than the North. The Rust Belt was called the
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: Rust Belt because this was where all the heavy industries were.
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: 40 years ago, were there any car plants in the South?
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: There wasn't much of anything down there. So they desperately
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: wanted it. And they wooed businesses. And they also said, look,
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: the people that we have down here aren't going to
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: be the kind of people go join up for a
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: union and become pains in your rear ends. And that
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: became true. Most of the Southern auto plants have not unionized.
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: So the North has seen a loss of industrial jobs,
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: yet also seems to be turning up its nose at
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: replacements for those jobs, while the South has chased them.
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: There might become critical mass here. At some point, Texas
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: may say we have too many data centers. You know,
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: and Texas is becoming a little bit more lefty each year.
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: But I mean, it's Texas has fallen all over itself
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: with data centers. I'm sure a few people down there
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: are objecting, but it can't be many of them because
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: they're going up there right and left. So Texas is booming. Memphis,
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: one of the few big cities that's embracing them, Musk
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: has landed a giant footprint down there. He took a
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: community in Memphis where the economy is terrible, destitute. They
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: were desperate. Yeah, bring it on down here. We're not
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: going to sneeze at this like some of these stupid
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: cities up north. So maybe we need an economic downturn,
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: which I've contended, sadly, the only way to kill inflation
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: is a recession. It may be different this time around,
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: but in my life experience, that's what it's taken. The
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: people will then open their minds to the notion of
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: true economic development, long-term jobs, and what happens when you
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: create the new giant American industry. And as I say,
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: I think that high tech in general will be the
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: largest private sector employer in America within 30 years. Not
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: counting health care, which is private sector, I would say
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: profit-generating private sector. Most health care is non-profit. They act
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: like competing corporations, but in terms of regular old traditional
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: American industries and so on, I just think that the
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: build-out associated with a world that is becoming far more
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: technologically advanced than ever is what's going to define... the country.
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: And as I say, the stuff, the power lines, the
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: data centers, the job, it's got to be somewhere. And
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: Musk's idea of putting the stuff on the moon and
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: Mars seems to me to be decades away. Is it
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: possible to put it all in Mexico? I mean, that's
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: been raised. Do you trust the safety of putting those
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: facilities in Mexico? And secondly, after all this time that
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: we spent whining and crying about all the jobs that
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: we've lost to Mexico, do we want to put 15%
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: of our current workforce in somewhere other than the United States.
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: I have no answers to any of these things, but
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: I felt Labor Day would be a good day of
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: examining them. And a final thought of this. I mentioned
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: that the Democrats nationally, the national playbook is just run
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: against data centers. Wisconsin becomes a weird state though on this.
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: Because the Democratic candidate for governor in Wisconsin is is
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: a guy whose entire career has been bankrolled by companies
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: who want to do data centers. He's the bag man
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: for the tech industry. And it started before he started
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: running for governor. A lot of these companies that want
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: to do data centers are targeting areas like Milwaukee County,
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: So they've been supporting and kicking money into David Crowley's
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: campaign fund, and then when he ran for governor, he
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: needed to find a fundraising niche. Remember, there were seven
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: of them in there, and they all were, this one's
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: going for this money, and this one's trying to get
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: the Soros money, and this one's trying to get the
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: Teachers Union money, and so on. So Crowley was out there.
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: You know, the companies that want to do data centers
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: realize the Democrats might get the governorship. They've been creating
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: PACs and spending a fortune on him. So you have
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: the rare case here of a Democrat who can't with
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: any credibility be anti-data center because he's whored himself out
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: to the data center industry. You have the weird situation
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: of Wisconsin's the state where the Republican candidate is running
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: ads on the Democrats saying data center Dave. In reality,
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: I think the positions of Tiffany and Crowley on data
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: centers are about the same. But it will be very
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: hard to make opposition to data centers The backbone of
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: the Democrat campaign for governor here, as it will be
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: in all the other states that have governor's elections, because
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: of the odd situation here of the candidate that's been
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: taking all the data center money is actually the Democrat
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: rather than the Republican. This is the Mark Belling Podcast.
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: This is the Mark Belling Podcast. What was your first job, Jason?
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: A basketball referee. I did stuff like that when I
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: was a teenager. I worked for the city, and I
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: started as a scorekeeper and all of that stuff. Then
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: I did umpire and youth sports, and then I did
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: more of that when I was in college, side jobs
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: and all of that stuff. When I was in college, obviously,
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: I worked while I was on campus, and then I
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: got paid jobs in the campus. I worked on the
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: student newspaper, then became the editor of it. was the
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: student news director of the radio station. And then the
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: professional news director quit one summer and I got a
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: full-time gig running the news department of the college radio
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: station because there was no professional person in there. Eventually,
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: I got a job at a commercial radio station. But
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: the first couple of years that I was there, I
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: wanted to stay in La Crosse. I didn't want to
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: come home. And I needed a summer job. And the
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: alternatives were the university itself had lots of jobs for
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: students who stayed around in the summer because... They needed
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: vacation relief for their full-time employees and there were other
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: things to do. And there were also private sector jobs.
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: And one of the private sector jobs that a lot
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: of college students were known to take in the summer,
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: still remember this, there was, at the time, the Highland
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: Brewery in La Crosse was booming. You're from Chicago. You
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: know all about Oldstow. Oldstow owned Chicago. I think before
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: Harry Carey, I think they did the Cubs radio broadcast,
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: didn't they? Yeah.
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because Harry was always the Budweiser thing and so on.
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: But Old Style was a big company in Chicago. Well,
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: Old Style was a booming beer, and all of the
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: production was at the Highland Brewery in La Crosse, which
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: was a giant brewery. I mean, just booming in the 1970s. Well,
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: one of the jobs available to college students, in fact,
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: if you were a walking, breathing body, you could get them,
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: was to get hired in the summer for the breweries.
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: And the reason for that is, as you might guess,
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: employees in Wisconsin tend to take vacations in the summer.
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: And the breweries, of course, the brewery then was operating 24-7.
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: And they were short-staffed because of all the full-time employees
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: that would take vacations. So they would hire college students
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: to work the summer. You usually have to work graveyard.
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: But there were even other jobs in there. And, I mean,
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: the pay, you had to join the union even as
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: a part-timer. And the pay was not spectacular because you
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: were coming in at the bottom. But this is when
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: all your other alternatives in that era were minimum wage.
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: And a lot of kids would take it. And I
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: remember going down to the brewery. I had been to
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: the brewery a number of times because they did these
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: brewery tours and we would go on them every Friday
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: just so we would get, you know how many beers
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: they gave you at the end of the brewery tour? Four!
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, some of the things that, there's certain things
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: in my life that I can't believe it was ever
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: like that. I still can't believe you could once smoke
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: on an air plate. That wasn't even that long ago.
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: Doesn't that just seem bizarre that you could smoke on
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: an airplane? I know, but I mean, an airplane in particular,
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: that enclosed thing, I mean, you're still on these planes.
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: You can always tell how old the plane you're on
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: is when you see the place where the asteroid was
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: that's now soldered closed, when that thing is still on
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: there that they haven't even pulled out or replaced the
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: railing from that thing. Anyway, I went in for the
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: brewery when I was considering this, when I was going
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: to fill out the application. And I just remember it
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: was deafening. The deafening is the big metal barrels. When
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: the beer is being filled into these barrels, they're coming
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: down this long. I guess it wouldn't be an assembly line,
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: but it's this machine. It's this belt where they run
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: through the whole thing. where the various ingredients are being
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: put into the beer and they're running down. And as
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: the barrels are running into this, because they're tightly packed
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: and they're slanted, they're banging into each other. People talk
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: about the data centers. It was so loud and it
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: was constant. I'm guessing, I don't know if it ever changed,
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: but I'm guessing that when we had all three breweries
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: here and when Miller was still up in full production,
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: that the brewery workers here had to put up with
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: the same thing and so on. And I ended up
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: taking a job working for the university in the library,
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: which is about as soft a job as you could have.
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: I got to work 9 to 5 on that gig
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: rather than the 11 to 7 at night that would
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: have been at the brewery, but I think I would
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: have been even more deaf than radio has made me.
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: And those were, as I say, a lot of college
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: students took those jobs because they paid fairly decently. You're
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: working for free for the first three weeks because you
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: had to pay the union dues, and you paid them
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: up front. But then once you did it, you were
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: covered if you wanted to go back the following year.
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: As I recall, there was some upfront charge the way
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: the unions did it at the time, but those were
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: thought to be good jobs. You know, as a kid
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: in the late 70s and you're going to college, you
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: needed money. The economy was terrible. So when I think
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: now that people whine about the data centers because it's
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: just a little weird and I... I go back to
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: hearing the metal beer barrels banging into each other at
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: the Highland Brewery in La Crosse. I realize we are
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: in a different and far more soft wussy world. Now,
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: that's it for today's podcast. Talk to you soon.
• 59:52
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• 59:56
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