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We Investigated The Collapse Of The American Mall · The Matt Walsh Show

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: If you're listening to this podcast in America, the odds
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: are overwhelming, actually about 70%, that you live within an
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: hour of a rundown or abandoned mall. The vast majority
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: of Americans can name at least one mall nearby that's
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: either growing tumbleweeds or has a very high vacancy rate
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: and low customer traffic, along with, in almost every case,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: a high crime rate. And these things are obviously related.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: If you're one of the few Americans who can't name
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: a mall that's failing, then in all likelihood, that will
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: change very soon. Half of the malls in the United
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: States have closed since the 1980s. By the end of
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: the decade, projections suggest 87% of the existing large shopping
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: malls in this country will also shut down. So we'll
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: have just a few hundred malls by 2030, along with
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: a lot of creepy, dangerous, dilapidated buildings where malls used
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: to be. But on the bright side, we'll also have
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: a lot more vape shops and, you know, pawnbrokers. Now,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: at the same time, bizarrely, a handful of malls are
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: actually doing very well right now. Some of them are expanding,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: while 90% of the industry is shrinking or disappearing entirely.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Why is that happening? Well, it's hard to explain, at
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: least on the surface. I mean, off the top of
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: your head, you could probably identify several different reasons for
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: the collapse of America's malls, from the convenience and lower
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: cost of online shopping. That's the big one that comes
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: to mind. Also, the COVID lockdowns, the priorities of private
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: equity firms. to the rise of social media and the
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: decline of interpersonal interaction in general. And we'll talk about
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: all those causes in a moment. And to one extent
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: or another, they're all true in ways that you probably
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: don't even realize. But the most important part, for the
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: most part, the decline of malls, while a small number
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: of malls are thriving, has been seen as a straightforward
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: economic problem, as a matter of supply and demand. Malls
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: in general don't interest people anymore, so they're dying. They're obsolete,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: so they're gone now. That's how it works. No further
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: explanation is required. Is that analysis wrong? Well, no, not really,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: but it's also incomplete. And for one thing, it ignores
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: the cultural significance of the American mall and how malls
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: were central to the social lives of millions of young people. Now,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: for me personally, when I was a kid, like a
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: lot of kids in the 90s, our local mall was
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: the hangout spot. And now the idea of going and
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: hanging out at a mall all day is totally foreign
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: to not even possible for most people. My parents used
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: to drop me off at the mall, like when I
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: was 11 or 12, they'd just drop me off. I'd
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: hang out there for several hours with my friends, and
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: now every part of that seems alien. Hanging out at
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: a mall for several hours, actually hanging out anywhere in
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: a physical location for several hours, dropping your child off
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: at a place without direct adult supervision, having actual friends
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: in real life. I mean, the whole thing is bizarre,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: like something out of an alternate universe. It's so bizarre
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: that it triggers kind of an existential crisis. If you
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: want to understand the popularity of movies like Back Rooms,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: this offers a pretty good explanation. Young people are genuinely
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: disturbed by the amount of empty space they see everywhere,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: to the point that they're wondering if malls are even real,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: or just like a PSYOP of some kind. Watch.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: So I'm in the mall. This place, so coming to
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: the mall makes me realize we're living in a simulation,
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: like this can't be real. Like, you're telling me... You're
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: telling me this place right here... That has two people
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: working in there... They're selling enough.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: Hats....
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: They're selling enough hats.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Just to pay two employees... No, I don't believe it...
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: I don't believe it, it's not real... Also... Um... Like, some.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Of these stores, like, okay.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Like, maybe, right? Like, women's... Women's lingerie, underwear, whatever. The buckle.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Are people still shopping there?
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: I don't even know.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: I don't even know. Okay, like, you're telling me this place, icing,
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: sells enough $ 2 earrings to pay the rent? No way.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: And then this place.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: This place, what do they even, what do they do?
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: They're selling nail polish and candles. That's not, no, there's
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: no way. Or phone cases, no.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: It's like he's coming across the ruins of an ancient civilization,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: which it kind of is, and he doesn't know how
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: to process it. We built vast structures all over the
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: country in every single suburb and designed them for the
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: express purpose of facilitating in-person human interactions, specifically the kind
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: of interaction that leads to merchandise sales. Now those structures
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: are hollowed out, but in many cases, they're still standing,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: alone and empty. It's almost impossible for today's teenagers to
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: imagine that when people flooded into these malls for the
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: first time 70 years ago, they were a revelation. The
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: malls were always crowded on the weekend. New malls were
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: constantly popping up in new towns. The typical teenager felt
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: like he was part of a growing country with new
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: industries and markets opening up all the time, all over
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: the place. Young people associated the mall with their friends
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: and their family, with innovation and excitement and community. To
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: give you an idea what it was like, this is
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: footage from 1957 featuring the brand new Hillsdale Shopping Center
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  Speaker 1: in San Mateo, California. The mall contained a Macy's, a Sears,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: a farmer's market, and it blew people's minds at the
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: time because they weren't used to centralized open-air shopping centers.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: So here's how the mall was announced to the public
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: via the short film Shopping Can Be Fun, a new
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: concept in merchandising. Watch.
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  Speaker 5: Yes, this is Hillsdale, popularly known as the heart of
• 5:52
  Speaker 5: the San Francisco Peninsula. It is composed of some of
• 5:55
  Speaker 5: the nation's great department stores, many of the leading national
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: chain stores and important local merchandising names. The 50-acre center
• 6:07
  Speaker 5: is bounded on the south by a large bustling Sears
• 6:09
  Speaker 5: Roebuck store, on the north by the unique Farmer's Market.
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  Speaker 5: The central mall is flanked by a well-balanced selection of
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  Speaker 5: retail stores in every field and price bracket. which provides
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: all customers with the most complete comparative shopping in the
• 6:29
  Speaker 5: entire area. And now let's see just how shopping can
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: be fun, real fun, at this modern and convenient shopping center.
• 6:39
  Speaker 5: Hillsdale's first annual automobile show was launched with a horseless
• 6:42
  Speaker 5: carriage caravan, intermingling the cars of yesteryear with a full
• 6:46
  Speaker 5: showing of 1956 models. These cars paraded the entire peninsula area.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: So it was supposed to be basically the future of
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: shopping in the post-war era. The concept of the so-called
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: introverted mall, where the structure was built to encourage people
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: to remain inside, walking past numerous different stores on their
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: way to their destination, was a welcome development. And not
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: just because people could find the products they wanted in
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: a pre-internet age. As you just saw, as far back
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: as the 50s, people saw the mall as an ideal
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: gathering place. The birthplace of the Modern Mall was in
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: the Detroit metro area in Michigan, where the Hudson's department
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: store and the architect Victor Gruen set up four regional
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: shopping centers, one for every cardinal direction, aptly named Northland Center,
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  Speaker 1: Eastland Center, Westland Center, and Southland Center. And Northland, which
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: the locals pronounce as two words, like Disneyland instead of Northland,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: has a distinction of being the first large regional open-air
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: shopping center anywhere in in the United States. And as
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: Victor Gruen put it, quote, this is not just the
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: opening of a shopping center, but an important milestone for
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: city planners, architects, economists, merchandisers, and the American public at large.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: He was determined to give customers and businesses an alternative
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: to rows of strip malls in every suburb. In addition
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: to being inefficient, strip malls were ugly and undesirable, with
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: each store running its own operation for better or worse. Northland,
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  Speaker 1: on the other hand, was created by a single developer
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: with executive authority over all construction. As a result, there
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: was a much more cohesive and modern look, and customers
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: were naturally drawn to it. It was seen as a
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  Speaker 1: genuine breakthrough at the time. As reported by CityLab, which
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: compiled contemporaneous coverage of Northland's launch, the mall had a bank,
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  Speaker 1: a post office, an infirmary, fountains, even free gas for
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  Speaker 1: shoppers who desperately needed it anyway. it wasn't intended simply
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  Speaker 1: as a place for people to buy things. It was
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  Speaker 1: seen more like an indoor metropolis. It served a civic
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  Speaker 1: function as well as a commercial one. And even beyond that,
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  Speaker 1: it was just a marvel of engineering. It was something
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: that the entire community was genuinely proud of. The Detroit
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Free Press lost their minds over the thing. They wrote that, quote,
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  Speaker 1: the size of such a mammoth group of stores at
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Northland centers is often hard for the layman to visualize.
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  Speaker 1: They reported that the structure was built with 9 million
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: pounds of steel, which was, as they helpfully noted, the
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: equivalent of 4,000 autos. The mall, according to the paper,
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  Speaker 1: had the extraordinary capability of making 200 million ice cubes daily.
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  Speaker 1: The parking lot could comfortably store more than 8,000 vehicles,
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  Speaker 1: which at the time meant that Northland offered the single
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  Speaker 1: largest parking lot anywhere in the world. CityLab also notes
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  Speaker 1: that the mall even offered a lost car department for
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  Speaker 1: customers who couldn't find their vehicle. The lost car department
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: would dispatch a Jeep to roam around the vast parking
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  Speaker 1: lot with the customer in tow looking for the vehicle.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: As a columnist with the Detroit Free Pest put it, quote,
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  Speaker 1: wives who visit the new Northland shopping center will never
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  Speaker 1: want to go home. When they're not shopping, they'll just
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: sit on the benches under the trees, listening to the
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: splashing of fountains and dreaming up new ways of spending money,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: as women tend to do. Keep in mind, this was
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: an era where women could not obtain credit cards independently.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: They had to have their husbands co-sign the card. Otherwise,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: they had no access to credit whatsoever. Within a couple
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: of decades, by the mid-70s, the mall was fully enclosed
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: and much more developed. Everything was going well. In fact,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: the population around Northland and other malls in the Detroit
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: area doubled from 1960 to 1970. There were more jobs
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: available than ever before. It was an economic boom for
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: a city that, to put it mildly, is no longer
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: known for economic booms. As late as the early 90s,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: depending on where you lived, malls could bring the same
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: type of benefits to your communities. In the Twin Cities
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: metro area, the famous Mall of America, of course, opened
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: in 1992, complete with an amusement park, roller coaster, hundreds
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: of stores, a design that somehow kept people warm in
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: the winter without a central heating system. Again, it was
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: a marvel of engineering. And not just because of its size.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: And just like the Northland Mall decades earlier, it blew
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: people's minds. The footage from the opening of Mall America
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: was shot just prior to the Somali takeover of Minneapolis
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: and large parts of Minnesota generally. So you'll notice a
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: distinct lack of fighting and shooting and stabbing in this footage.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: A distinct lack of diversity, which these things are not unrelated.
• 11:09
  Speaker 6: Watch.
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  Speaker 3: The bargains are coming! The bargains are coming! Hear ye,
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: hear ye! The mother of all shopping crowds was waiting
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: as the doors opened.
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  Speaker 7: Yes, shop till you drop.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: We are professional shoppers.
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: By noon, the two parking ramps were filled with 13,000 cars,
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: and that sent the mall's war room into action.
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: We were able to divert to off-site parking properly and
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: efficiently and effectively within five minutes.
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: There was congestion on the roads, but the plan seemed
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: to work. Meanwhile, the traffic jam continued inside the mall.
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: It took almost an hour to get on some of
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: the most popular amusement rides, and the wait continued in
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: the food line.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: Well, I placed an order at about 1.27 and got
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: the food about 2.20.
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: Mall officials say the delays were due in part to
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: a green workforce.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: You sure got a variety.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: You can buy anything you want, I guess.
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: This place has over 300 stores, some very specialized. Just
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: what this doctor ordered. And I found a book that
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: I've not been able to find anywhere else.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Human Anatomy by an illustrator.
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: Some people came just to look. This California man says
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: he likes taking pictures of cultural icons. This is really
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: one of them.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: This is a high-water mark of where we're going.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Well, he was right about that. It was the high
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: watermark of where we're going, and it was all downhill
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: from there. Northland is defunct now after a deep decline
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: in foot traffic around the turn of the century, and
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: the Mall of America potentially won't be far behind. Let's
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: pull up some representative footage of what the Mall of
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: America looks like today and the kind of quote-unquote Minnesota
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: residents who are spending time in this mall.
• 12:58
  Speaker 8: Watch.
• 12:59
  Speaker 9: In several videos circulating on social media and more widely
• 13:03
  Speaker 9: reposted and shared over the past day. This incident from
• 13:08
  Speaker 9: Wednesday night in the North Food Court at Mall of America.
• 13:11
  Speaker 9: Crowds running as police broke up a fight among teenagers.
• 13:15
  Speaker 9: A statement today from Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges. Eid
• 13:18
  Speaker 9: should be a time of peace and some use this
• 13:21
  Speaker 9: as a time to settle beefs. And that appears to
• 13:24
  Speaker 9: be what happened here. The Mall of America is a
• 13:27
  Speaker 9: traditional gathering spot for thousands of Muslims to mark the
• 13:31
  Speaker 9: two Eid holidays, the first of which came at the
• 13:33
  Speaker 9: end of Ramadan on Wednesday. In fact, we did a
• 13:38
  Speaker 9: story on this Mall of America custom eight years ago
• 13:42
  Speaker 9: on that year's second Eid holiday, and one of the
• 13:44
  Speaker 9: organizers explained this tradition.
• 13:47
  Speaker 8: The Mall of America is part of our Somali-American culture
• 13:50
  Speaker 8: here in Minnesota.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: We love malls. We've got seven Somali malls. So this is.
• 13:57
  Speaker 8: Where we work, where we shop, where we enjoy. So
• 14:01
  Speaker 8: that is really, we feel very safe and.
• 14:04
  Speaker 10: Part of it.
• 14:05
  Speaker 9: But because of the large crowds, and especially teenagers, and
• 14:08
  Speaker 9: as they do for other large events, Bloomington police had
• 14:12
  Speaker 9: extra officers on duty at the mall Wednesday. In the end,
• 14:15
  Speaker 9: they arrested three juveniles for disorderly conduct and obstructing police.
• 14:20
  Speaker 9: They say it was a purely physical fight, no weapons
• 14:23
  Speaker 9: involved or even found.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Well, just teenagers being teenagers, pay no attention to the
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: fact that they're all black, every single one of them.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: That can't possibly be relevant. It's just how teenagers behave
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: across all cultures, across all family structures and races and ethnicities.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Nothing to see here. And no, your ears did not
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: deceive you. A sandwiched in between footage of the black
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: teenagers fighting one another. You heard the news anchor say, quote,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: the Mall of America is a traditional gathering spot for
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: thousands of Muslims. A traditional gathering spot, the Mall of America.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: And then we hear the Somali guy say, quote, the
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Mall of America is part of our Somali-American culture. I
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: actually know the Mall of America is not part of
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: your culture. That's our culture. It has nothing to do
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: with your culture. It's in the name, Mall of America.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: We built it. It's for Americans. Somalia doesn't have a
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: structure like the Mall of America because they're too primitive
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: to draw the blueprint, much less begin construction. The fact
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: that you people commit wanton acts of violence inside the
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: building and make it undesirable for everyone else does not
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: mean it's part of your culture. Showing up to a
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: place and destroying it and driving all the civilized people
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: away does not make it yours or make it a
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: part of your culture. What it means is you're destroying
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: a very important piece of American culture, which is what
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: invaders tend to do. In this case, the invaders are
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: being welcomed with open arms by the people they're conquering.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: That's why the news anchor calls the mall a traditional
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: gathering spot for Muslims. You know what it was before that?
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: A gathering place for Americans. People who obeyed laws and
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: behaved in a dignified fashion when they're out in public.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: So much for that. Of course, it's not just Somalis
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: who are making malls completely unusable. Somalis are concentrated mainly
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: in places like Ohio, California, Maine, and Minnesota. And meanwhile,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: malls are failing all over the country. One of the
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: broader problems here is something we discuss at length in
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: part one of our documentary, Real History of the Civil
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Rights Movement, which is one of the best documentaries we've done.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: But the simple version is that as part of the
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: civil rights movement, the government engineered massive demographic shifts that
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: made malls far more dangerous. The Civil Rights Act, as
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: we discuss in the documentary, was akin to an entirely
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: new constitution. It was not, as you're taught in schools,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: a mere declaration of equality among the races. In fact,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: it was the exact opposite. The Civil Rights Act and
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: the government policies that followed had the legal effect of
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: authorizing a wave of anti-white terrorism all over the country,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: especially in the suburbs. Places where white people once felt
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: safe in their homes and shopping malls and so on
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: became war zones. The government provided housing vouchers to enable
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: poor black families to rent property in white areas so
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: they were no longer confined to urban centers. The government
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: also implemented busing at gunpoint, which didn't simply transport black
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: students into white schools, but also forced many white students
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: to attend black schools. where in some cases they were
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: brutally attacked. Any landlord who refused to rent to a
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: black tenant, even for a legitimate reason, faced the risk
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: of crippling lawsuits. And as elderly white people in places
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: like East Fort Worth were abused and tormented for sport,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: as documented in Left Behind in Rosedale, the government did
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: nothing to help. Here's a strange reality. Success can actually
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: create a financial emergency. Well, let's say business is going well. Great, congratulations. Well,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: now you have too many customers, which means you need
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: another employee. except that employees need to be paid. Maybe
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: you need another truck or you need more equipment. Perhaps
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: you're low on inventory. You need to stock up. Maybe
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: you need a bigger space. Some of your reward for
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: making more money is that you need to spend a
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: whole bunch more money that you may not actually have
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: yet to spend. And this is what people mean when
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  Speaker 1: they talk about a good problem to have, which frankly
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: is a weird term. You've spent years building a business.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: The opportunity finally arrives. Customers are standing there ready to
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: give you their money. And you have to tell them
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: no because you weren't prepared for the growth. That's where
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  Speaker 1: Cardiff comes in. Cardiff helps business owners get access to
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  Speaker 1: more than $ 12 billion for businesses since 2004. Banks try
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  Speaker 1: to lock out small businesses. Cardiff has the key. Big
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  Speaker 1: banks may not want to approve your business loans, but
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• 19:20
  Speaker 1: might as well lie in your cat box. New York
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Times readership among young Americans has totally cratered. Nobody wants
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: a scolding lecture pretending to be journalism. Here's the thing.
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• 20:05
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• 20:11
  Speaker 1: One legacy of the Civil Rights Act is that as
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: a result of government-mandated demographic change, property values began to
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: fall in suburbs that were once considered highly desirable. Many
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: families moved further away to avoid the carnage, which was
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: a rational decision, even though every history textbook presents it
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: as an act of extraordinary white supremacy, white flight, they
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: call it. These white people left, and they took their
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: high-paying jobs with them. The result is that malls became
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: surrounded by low-income residents who were more interested in shooting
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: each other than buying expensive shoes or anything like that,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: and they've left widespread defecitation in their wake. Many Americans
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: over the age of 30 witnessed this transformation and can
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: remember it vividly. My own mall, where my parents used
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: to drop me off unsupervised and was for many years
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: a family-friendly place, became, by my mid-to-late teens... totally unusable.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: They swapped out the preppy clothing stores for urban fashion outlets,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: and suddenly there were shootings in the parking lots and
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: crime and fighting and violence. A piece of our community
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: was taken from us. Here's another side-by-side for you. This
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: is an advertisement from 1983 featuring a store called World
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Bazaar at the Greens Point Mall in Houston.
• 21:28
  Speaker 8: Watch. World Bazaar in Greens Point Mall, truly the marketplace
• 21:32
  Speaker 8: of the world, with low direct importer prices, such as
• 21:36
  Speaker 8: silk flowers in an array of styles and color, vases
• 21:38
  Speaker 8: and glass, brass, porcelain and clay, baskets for every need,
• 21:42
  Speaker 8: choose from hundreds of styles and shapes, burry, wicker, rattan furniture, arches,
• 21:47
  Speaker 8: wall shelves, all at low direct importer prices. Burnt bamboo
• 21:50
  Speaker 8: and matchstick roll-up blinds on sale through June. World Bazaar,
• 21:55
  Speaker 8: marketplace of the world. It's in Greens Point Mall near Sears.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: You can go to Greens Point and get silk flowers,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: baskets for any occasion, even bamboo blinds. Sounds pretty nice.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: As a bonus, it's near Sears, a convenient department store
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: for middle-class families looking to pick up an appliance or
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: maybe some other household essentials or get a pair of jeans, whatever.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: Greens Point doesn't exist anymore. It's been known for several
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: years now as Guns Point Mall because of the constant
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: shootings and carjackings and stabbings. Somebody was actually just killed
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: at the mall or what's left of it a few
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: months ago.
• 22:31
  Speaker 6: Watch.
• 22:32
  Speaker 5: Hey, we have new insight into what's next for Greens
• 22:35
  Speaker 5: Point Mall following a deadly shooting overnight.
• 22:37
  Speaker 11: Yeah, police say a 19-year-old man died during an unsanctioned
• 22:42
  Speaker 11: car meetup.
• 22:42
  Speaker 9: Jason Miles live from the scene with more.
• 22:45
  Speaker 8: Jason.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Hey there, guys.
• 22:48
  Speaker 6: Yeah, police say these car meetups are a regular nuisance
• 22:52
  Speaker 6: and problem here in the parking lot of Greens Point Mall,
• 22:54
  Speaker 6: but Like the old mall itself, they should eventually be
• 22:59
  Speaker 6: a thing of the past. Houston police were called to
• 23:02
  Speaker 6: the former Greens Point Mall overnight for the same reason
• 23:05
  Speaker 6: they've come here on the weekends before. Only this time,
• 23:08
  Speaker 6: a 19-year-old man died on the scene.
• 23:10
  Speaker 10: There was an unsanctioned car meet here, and during that,
• 23:14
  Speaker 10: at some point, a shooting occurred.
• 23:18
  Speaker 6: We saw multiple bullet holes in this pickup truck, although
• 23:21
  Speaker 6: police say many potential witnesses scattered inside.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: After shots were fired.
• 23:25
  Speaker 10: Constantly on Sundays, the North Belt Patrol is dispatched to
• 23:28
  Speaker 10: this parking lot regarding these car meetups and reckless driving.
• 23:33
  Speaker 10: And they come out here regularly on Sundays and run
• 23:37
  Speaker 10: everybody off and end up making arrests when they can.
• 23:40
  Speaker 6: This latest incident in the Greens Point Mall area prompted
• 23:43
  Speaker 6: us to ask about ongoing redevelopment efforts. Right now, a
• 23:47
  Speaker 6: fitness connection inside a former anchor store appears to be
• 23:50
  Speaker 6: the last remaining tenant. There is no longer access to
• 23:53
  Speaker 6: the mall's interior. And while this affordable housing complex recently
• 23:57
  Speaker 6: went up on the south side of the mall, other
• 23:59
  Speaker 6: projects have been slow going due in part, I'm told,
• 24:02
  Speaker 6: to multiple parties owning sections of the building.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Aside from the police spokesman who appears to be heavily
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: intoxicated for some reason, the most interesting part of the
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: clip is the news that there's an affordable housing complex
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: right next to Guns Point Mall. Imagine that. As best
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: I can tell, he's referring to the Summit at Renaissance
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Park complex. which is a government-backed housing project. And these
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: kinds of housing projects are all over Houston, but let's
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: focus on this one just to keep it simple. The
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: city of Houston contributed more than $ 10 million to the
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: project using federal funds that were allocated after Hurricane Harvey.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: And on top of the direct funding to build the
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: affordable housing complex, the government also provided low-income housing tax
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: credits to the developer in addition to tax-exempt bonds, all
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: of which dramatically lowered the upfront cost of building and
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: also operating the apartments. And the way this works is that,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: in almost every case, the developer sells these tax credits
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: to investors, like big banks, who are looking to lower
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: their own tax bill. In exchange, the developer gets an
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: immediate cash infusion to the tune of tens of millions
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: of dollars, in this case. The only catch, from the
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: developer's perspective, is that the apartment is legally obligated to
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: rent to poorer people. And not only that, the rent
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: is capped based on the income and family size of
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: each tenant. usually doesn't exceed 30% of the tenant's income
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: or the typical median income in the area at a maximum.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: So ordinarily, a one-bedroom apartment in a building like this
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: in Houston might cost $ 1, 200 a month. But with the
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: benefit of affordable housing programs and all the subsidies that
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: you're paying for as a taxpayer, the rent drops to
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: only $ 500 a month. No matter where you live, your
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: federal taxes are being redistributed to the states to pay
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: for programs like this. You're subsidizing other people's rent based
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: on the income they're reporting. And you're subsidizing other people's
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: rent so that your own communities can become less livable.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: We can assume that this program, like every other government program,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: is constantly defrauded, by the way. That's the other part
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: of this. But even if it's not defrauded at all,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: which it is, it's still an insane idea because it's
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: giving these people an incentive to maintain a low income
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: or at least to report a low income. So the
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: government has created a large housing complex full of poor
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: people and given them an incentive to remain low income.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: And the government has placed this gigantic housing complex directly
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: next to a mall that for many years was functioning normally.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: Now it's a decaying husk where people get shot every
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: other week. This kind of thing is happening at an
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: enormous scale all over the place. There's just one example.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: And by the way, in case it wasn't obvious, these
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: affordable housing programs overwhelmingly benefit non-whites. So although we could say, well,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: this is for poor people, it's actually not really. Very specifically,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: this is non-white is what ends up happening. In the
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: case of that Houston complex, that area is around 60%
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: Hispanic and 30% black. That's 90% non-white, if you're doing
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: the math. It's a government policy that by any measure
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: has a disparate impact in terms of benefiting people who
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: aren't white. But as always, disparate impact only works one way.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: You see, it's fine for the government to come up
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: with programs that only benefit non-whites, but at the same time,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: it's totally unconstitutional for the government to treat everyone equally
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: without giving any special benefits to any particular skin color.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: That'd be racist. This is the magical reasoning of the
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: civil rights movement. And we see the effects all over
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: the place, particularly on Worldstar. This is what malls look
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: like today. Notice in the first clip, the woman leaves
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: her child behind in the stroller so that she can
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: kick someone during the brawl. You've got to have your
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: priorities straight.
• 27:47
  Speaker 8: Watch.
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: Watch.
• 28:08
  Speaker 7: What in the hell is going on?
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: Hey!
• 28:13
  Speaker 8: Hey!
• 28:13
  Speaker 6: Hey!
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: What is going on here? Pull up to the bar.
• 28:22
  Speaker 5: He said go in the jail.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Uh oh, what's this one doing here? So keep footage
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: like this in mind when you're told that online shopping
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: explains entirely the death of malls in the country. Actually,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: that's not true. Online shopping is part of the picture,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: but the main problem really is that When you import
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: criminals to places, those places become less desirable. It's one
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: of the reasons housing prices are so high. If the
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: cities were safe and livable, we'd have a lot more
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: available housing. As it stands, you need to pay a
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: premium to avoid places like this. Now, part of the
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: reason we can't blame online shopping is that this decline
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: was underway long before the arrival of Amazon, certainly before
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Amazon became what it is now. And that didn't really
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: happen until late 90s, early 2000s. The other reason is
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: that we can look at other countries like China. So
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: this is footage from the Shenzhen Wanda Mall, which I'm
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: reliably informed is located in the Longgang District, specifically in
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: the Pinggu Sub-District near the South China City. Of course,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: I knew all that already without even looking it up,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: but we'll put it up on the screen now. You'll
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: notice immediately that it's extremely clean, high budget, packed full
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: of people. offers plenty of activities in addition to shopping.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: There's an indoor glass suspension bridge, an indoor arena for
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: team-based first-person shooter-style games, an indoor surfing pool, a rock
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: climbing facility, a go-kart track, an equestrian area for horseback riding.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: There's also a huge bookstore, a culinary museum, an escalator
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: that goes to the sixth floor. It's a major landmark
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: to the same degree or more as American malls in
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: the 1950s. And I'm not cherry-picking here, by the way.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: China overall has many more malls than we do, and
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: they're much nicer. Again, we only have around 1,200 malls now.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: China has something like 7,000 by most estimates. They've doubled
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: the number of malls they have since 2013, while we've
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: closed most of ours. And as for the Shenzhen Wanda
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Mall in particular, it's also important to point out that
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: based on my extensive research into the Chinese suburbs, the
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: mall isn't even located in a rich area. It's working class,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: and it's frequented by people from a wide array of
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: professions and income brackets. People are almost exclusively Chinese. Now,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: you won't notice too many Somalis in that mall, nor
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: do they typically host any unlicensed teen takeovers. It's just
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: a normal working class, historically industrial part of town. Everyone
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: there is Chinese. On the other hand, to the extent
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: that we have functioning malls, nice malls anymore in the
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: United States, they're all in wealthy areas with overwhelmingly white,
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: homogenous populations. So take the Ross Park Mall in North Pittsburgh,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: for example. Local news reports will tell you that it's
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: doing very well. I'm going to tell you the truth, though,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: about why it's doing well.
• 31:32
  Speaker 8: Watch.
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: Across the region, you see the empty promenades, the closed
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: gated stores, the leaky roofs and the cracking facades. Century
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: three has gone under. The Pittsburgh Mills is teetering. The
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: mall at Robinson is shedding tenants and shoppers alike. By
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: some accounts, the whole idea of a shopping mall is dead.
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: But others say reports of its demise have been greatly exaggerated.
• 31:57
  Speaker 7: We are evidence that malls are doing well. They're surviving.
• 32:00
  Speaker 7: They're thriving. People are coming here in droves.
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: Ross Park Mall is the region's biggest exception to the
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: dying mall. While other malls have suffered from online shopping
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: and disinvestment, its parent company, Simon, has aggressively reinvested in
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: its properties, managing to stay ahead of the curve, assembling
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: cutting-edge stores.
• 32:21
  Speaker 7: We have stores like Aritzia just made their grand debut
• 32:24
  Speaker 7: here in Pittsburgh. Aloe Yoga, they were brand new. We
• 32:28
  Speaker 7: have Rowan where they have nurses that actually do all
• 32:30
  Speaker 7: of the piercings. It's important that you know your market,
• 32:33
  Speaker 7: you know what stores are going to really resonate with
• 32:37
  Speaker 7: that shopper that's in that area and give them what
• 32:39
  Speaker 7: they want.
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: And the mall continues to evolve, aspiring to be more
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: than a shopping destination but an experience. Dick's House of
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: Sport offers hands-on tee shots and a climbing wall. The
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: mall currently updated and expanded its food court and added
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: new restaurants like Plaza Azteca for lunch and dinner.
• 33:01
  Speaker 12: They've got the right location and they've done very well
• 33:04
  Speaker 12: on bringing in some of those additional amenities to make
• 33:08
  Speaker 12: it a place for people to have experiences and not
• 33:11
  Speaker 12: just shopping. And that seems to be some of the
• 33:13
  Speaker 12: secret sauce for the malls that are doing well.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, give the customers what they want. At the Ross
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: Park Mall, you can hire nurses to do all your
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: piercings when you're done with the yoga studio, the rock
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: climbing wall, Topgolf. Then you can sit down for a
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: nice steak dinner. Why didn't any other mall think of that? Well,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: Ross Township, where this mall is located, is one of
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: the richest enclaves in North Pittsburgh. It's much wealthier than
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: that Chinese province that I mentioned earlier, where the Space
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: Age Mall is located. To the extent that any malls
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: are doing well in the United States, This is the
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: secret sauce. They're selling high-end products and services to rich
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: white people in an environment where they won't come across
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: any Somalis living in an affordable housing complex. Not exactly
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: a revolutionary discovery. Any place that caters to upper-class white
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: people is going to be nice. It's going to be
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: the sort of place where you can spend the day
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: without having to worry about getting robbed or stabbed or
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: shot in the parking lot or anywhere else. Southdale Center
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: in Minnesota, the first enclosed mall in the country, is
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: doing the same thing as Ross Park Mall, which isn't
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: surprising since it's owned by the same company, the Simon
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Property Group. Watch.
• 34:26
  Speaker 13: I'm going to throw a number at you here. $ 94 billion.
• 34:30
  Speaker 14: That's a billion with a B.
• 34:32
  Speaker 13: That is how much money is expected to be spent
• 34:34
  Speaker 13: on luxury retail items in the United States this year alone.
• 34:38
  Speaker 15: That's insane. And malls in the Twin City are responding.
• 34:41
  Speaker 15: In Edina, Southdale Center, the nation's first enclosed mall, is
• 34:45
  Speaker 15: in the midst of a $ 400 million upgrade, including a
• 34:49
  Speaker 15: luxury wing that opened in June.
• 34:52
  Speaker 13: Some of the businesses going in there at Southdale actually
• 34:55
  Speaker 13: moved over from the Galleria, which if you know the area,
• 34:58
  Speaker 13: you know the Galleria is right across the street. So
• 35:01
  Speaker 13: what does this mean for what was once considered the
• 35:05
  Speaker 13: ultimate mall for luxury in the Twin Cities? We bring
• 35:08
  Speaker 13: in Beth Perro-Jarvis and Mary Van Note from Ginger Consulting.
• 35:12
  Speaker 14: Thank you both for being here.
• 35:13
  Speaker 6: Hey, yeah.
• 35:14
  Speaker 13: I live in Edina. There's so much activity going on
• 35:16
  Speaker 13: at these malls. Southdale was very quiet for a long time.
• 35:19
  Speaker 13: And now you're seeing this like big push to bring
• 35:21
  Speaker 13: in luxury. Talk a little bit about that because the
• 35:24
  Speaker 13: mall has such history that like it almost couldn't fail.
• 35:28
  Speaker 13: So they're kind of revamping the whole thing.
• 35:30
  Speaker 16: Yeah.
• 35:31
  Speaker 11: So Simon Properties owns Southdale and they own almost every
• 35:34
  Speaker 11: great mall across the country and they have tons and
• 35:37
  Speaker 11: tons of money. So they're pouring 400 million dollars into
• 35:40
  Speaker 11: the first enclosed mall in the U.S.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: We're very proud of.
• 35:43
  Speaker 11: And it's mostly about luxury. So they're taking, they have Kowalskis,
• 35:47
  Speaker 11: they have the Lifetime Fitness, and then they are putting
• 35:49
  Speaker 11: in 50 new high-end stores, 50 over the next year.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: Now, even outside of Simon Property Group, this is the
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: strategy that pretty much every successful mall is now adopting.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: What few remain. This is from a local news report
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: about Lakeside Mall in the New Orleans area, for example,
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: which is one of the only malls in the country
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: that is growing, quote, The mall's management has done a
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: good job attracting trendy new tenants from outside the market,
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: like Aloe Yoga, a Beverly Hills brand. It opened its
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: first Louisiana location at Lakeside last year. And Aretizia, a
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: fashionable Canadian label, opening this spring. The mall also has
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: been effective in attracting retail tenants away from other shopping
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: centers in the local market. Our House, a high-end furniture store,
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: left the South Market District for Lakeside in 2023. Anthropologie
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: vacated its two-story location in Canal Place, where it was
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: an anchor tenant for Lakeside in 2025. So if a
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: mall is going to survive and remain economically viable, this
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: is apparently the only route that's available. And as a result,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: what you end up with are these high-end retail places
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: for upper-class people. And then you have low-end garbage dumps
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: like Dollar Tree on the other end of the spectrum.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: But what you don't have, and there's basically no equivalent
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: to what Sears was in the 80s and 90s, which
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: is a nice, clean, family-friendly retail location that sells relatively
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: high-quality products affordably. That sort of thing basically doesn't exist
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: in the country anymore. And by the way, since we're
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: on the subject of Sears, it's important to acknowledge that
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: there are several other factors that led to the decline
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: of malls. The Civil Rights Act and related policies were
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: a main contributor and online shopping obviously didn't help. But
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: when you're talking about a complicated development like this, there's
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: always multiple factors at play. And one of those factors,
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: which is relevant to what happened with Sears, relates to
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: the involvement of hedge funds and private equity style leadership. Now,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: to be clear about this, Sears was in financial trouble
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: for many years before any hedge fund got involved. I'm
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: not claiming that without private equity, Sears would somehow be
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: thriving today. I'm not going to blame private equity for
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: the death of shopping malls on their own. But at
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: the same time, it's obviously true that when the hedge
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: fund took over Sears, they had some very mixed incentives.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: So to give just one example, they had Sears sell
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: off their real estate and pay rent to a separate firm,
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: which the same hedge fund owned. They could also collect
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: interest on their loans to Sears. In other words, the
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: hedge fund made as much money as possible from Sears'
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: failing business before it shut down for good. This was
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: beneficial for the hedge fund, and arguably it was the
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: fate that Sears was going to meet anyway. You could
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: make the case that this outcome was economically efficient, but
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: it's also true that when malls existed back in the
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: 50s and 60s, this kind of thinking simply didn't exist
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: at any meaningful scale. Massive hedge funds had not perfected
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: the playbook of strip mining failing companies and then erasing
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: them from existence. And as a result, someone who hypothetically
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: might have purchased Sears on the cheap back in, say, 1950,
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: What about every incentive to make the company work? They'd
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: retool the brand. They'd start stocking different kinds of products,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: run different kinds of advertisements. They make a good faith
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: effort to save the company. That doesn't happen anymore, like
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: to anywhere near the same degree, at least. Instead, our
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: overlords are maximizing every available dollar they can possibly earn
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: to a degree that's demoralizing, over the top, and frankly, strange.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: For instance, some empty store are now being converted into
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: makeshift housing, complete with tiny 250-square-foot units. Developers realize that
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: people are too poor to afford rent, much less the
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: products that they're selling in these malls, so their solution
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: is to repurpose the stores into these stores dystopian pods. Watch.
• 39:53
  Speaker 17: So welcome to the teeny tiny shoebox apartment inside the arcade.
• 39:58
  Speaker 17: There are lots of others in the building just like this.
• 40:01
  Speaker 17: So mine is about 250 square feet. There is a
• 40:05
  Speaker 17: walkway right in front of the facade because this used
• 40:09
  Speaker 17: to be a shop front. And so people had to
• 40:12
  Speaker 17: access all of the shops in the building.
• 40:14
  Speaker 14: While malls across the U.S. are facing store closures and
• 40:17
  Speaker 14: empty parking lots, some are finding a new life from
• 40:21
  Speaker 14: an unlikely source. We are here at the Arcade Mall
• 40:24
  Speaker 14: in Providence, Rhode Island, the oldest indoor shopping mall in
• 40:28
  Speaker 14: the country. The Arcade had long been a center point
• 40:31
  Speaker 14: in Providence's bustling downtown. But like other malls, it fell
• 40:35
  Speaker 14: on hard times and was completely vacant. But rather than
• 40:38
  Speaker 14: letting this historic building fall into ruin, Developers came in
• 40:42
  Speaker 14: and decided to build 48 micro lofts here on the
• 40:45
  Speaker 14: second floor and up here on the third floor. Another
• 40:47
  Speaker 14: obstacle is design. Most malls have limited windows, which are
• 40:51
  Speaker 14: essential for residential spaces because they need natural light, making
• 40:55
  Speaker 14: it difficult to convert certain parts of the mall. Usually,
• 40:58
  Speaker 14: only the exterior facing retail spaces are suitable for housing.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: Well, at least you get a window. So they won't
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: stick you in an old abandoned footlocker store or something
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: like that where the big metal security grill is your
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: front door. Give it a few more years, I'm sure
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: that will change. In the meantime, your kitchen is a
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: bombed out Auntie Anne's pretzel store. The mannequins will be
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: your only company. Enjoy owning nothing and being happy. The
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: same malls that used to be a symbol of American progress, ingenuity,
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: and growth are now massive empty husks where human beings
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: are jammed into shoeboxes because they can't afford anything else. Now,
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: if you're measuring the success of our economy by traditional metrics,
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: none of this really shows up. You'll hear that we're
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: a much more efficient country now, we're wealthier than ever,
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: and so on. But even if you can seed all
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: that data, and even if you're generally happy with the
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: way things are going, if you are, there's no denying
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: that monuments to American greatness have now become evidence of
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: our decline. They are no longer inspiring or interesting or desirable.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: They serve the opposite purpose. They're demoralizing and demeaning and
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: even dangerous. They're totally defunct. And in their place, we
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: have what? Amazon.com? Walmart with 24-hour delivery? Dollar Tree? This
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: is a trade that, according to every economic textbook, is
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: a worthwhile one. You have to wonder, as you think
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: of those pod dwellers going back to their depressing little bedrooms,
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: otherwise known as the storage closet of a JCPenney, And
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: as people continue getting stabbed and shot during teen takeovers
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: in the parking lots of once great American institutions, you
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: have to wonder whether any of the official data is
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: actually capturing the full extent of what we've lost. That
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: will do it for the show today and this week.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: Have a great weekend. We'll talk to you on Monday. Godspeed.
• 43:04
  Speaker 16: But in all of my years of public life, I
• 43:07
  Speaker 16: have never profited from public service. I welcome this kind
• 43:11
  Speaker 16: of examination because people have got to know whether or
• 43:14
  Speaker 16: not their president's a crook.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm not a crook. For more than five decades,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: from Iran-Contra to Monica Lewinsky to Russiagate, every political scandal
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: has been measured against one, the Watergate affair. But what
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: if Richard Nixon was telling the truth? What if Watergate
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: isn't what it seems? What if hundreds of thousands of
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: pages of sworn testimony, memoirs, and newly released government documents
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: tell a different story than the one you learned in school?
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: In 1972, Nixon won the biggest electoral landslide in modern
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: American history with grand plans to remake the federal government.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: Two years later, he was out of office. You were
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: taught that Nixon's men broke into the Democratic National Committee
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: headquarters to spy on his political opponents. You were taught
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: that when he found out, Nixon covered it up. and
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: that the cover-up was worse than the crime. You were
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: taught that two heroic Washington Post reporters, guided by a
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: righteous FBI whistleblower, brought the most powerful man in the
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: world to justice. But you were never taught what really happened.
• 44:17
  Speaker 16: I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: The real history of the Watergate scandal is available now
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: on Daily Wire +.