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The Rick Smith Show 8-11-2026 · The Rick Smith Show

0:00
[SPEAKER_03]: It's time for the Rick Smith show.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Now, here is the voice of a working class, Rick Smith.
0:12
[SPEAKER_04]: And welcome, brothers, sisters working class heroes.
0:16
[SPEAKER_04]: This is the Rick Smith show.
0:18
[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks so much for being here today on the big program lots to get to lots to talk about.
0:23
[SPEAKER_04]: What an interesting weekend I had Took my daughter to Indianapolis to see a a band competition She spent all the time at the band competition.
0:35
[SPEAKER_04]: You see I it's called and
0:39
[SPEAKER_04]: her and her friends had an amazing time.
0:41
[SPEAKER_04]: I got to spend the weekend in Indianapolis, which you got to see where the 500 is run.
0:46
[SPEAKER_04]: I got to see Benjamin Harris' presidential site, which I got to tell you.
0:50
[SPEAKER_04]: If you're in Indianapolis, well worth the 18 bucks or whatever it was to be able to see because one of those things I was kind of amazing to me,
1:01
[SPEAKER_04]: Harrison died in 1901, the house that he and his wife built, I guess it's early 1800s.
1:10
[SPEAKER_04]: two owners, Harrison and his family, and then this foundation that has basically kept the house intact with about 80% of the contents being stuff that Harrison himself used.
1:24
[SPEAKER_04]: Now look, I've gone to a bunch of presidential sites, especially pre-presidential commission library sites, before Hoover.
1:33
[SPEAKER_04]: And some of them are hit or miss.
1:35
[SPEAKER_04]: There's one or two things that maybe they had, but a lot of stuff that was recreated or age appropriate, this was actually his stuff.
1:43
[SPEAKER_04]: And it was an amazing, amazing tour.
1:47
[SPEAKER_04]: And I love going to those places because they tell a story.
1:51
[SPEAKER_04]: They tell an interesting story.
1:53
[SPEAKER_04]: And the interesting story, you know, that I got from the tour and the tour guide was basically that, you know, Harrison's presidency wasn't a complete failure, even though the argument is, you know, some of his policies kind of set the tone for what was to become a major economic downturn, but
2:16
[SPEAKER_04]: They argued because of Harrison we began breaking up corporations and save the environment and without Benjamin Harrison there wouldn't have been Teddy Roosevelt and the argument is Teddy Roosevelt steals all the credit and it was one of those things that made me think about you know how
2:36
[SPEAKER_04]: one administration kind of bleeds into the next.
2:39
[SPEAKER_04]: And I look at the Trump administration who, you know, Biden handed a fairly reasonable economy was slowing a little bit, but some policies that were going to move us in a good direction, awesome investments in the future.
2:51
[SPEAKER_04]: And this administration is just cut all of that off.
2:54
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's this kind of bizarre pendulum stuff that has me kind of freaking out, but the bigger part was he, the guy talked about how Harrison's wife went before Congress to ask for money to renovate the White House because it was basically a death trap, you know, rats and mold and all kinds of stuff and had to get money from Congress to go and do it.
3:20
[SPEAKER_04]: So, which I find interesting because, you know, we got a president now saying, I don't need Congress.
3:24
[SPEAKER_04]: I can do whatever I wanted.
3:25
[SPEAKER_04]: It's always been.
3:26
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just seemed interesting.
3:31
[SPEAKER_04]: But history seems interesting.
3:33
[SPEAKER_04]: And in fact, it turns out, you know, another bit of history after Harrison's first wife died, he married a much younger woman.
3:41
[SPEAKER_04]: And I couldn't help but think of the diaper nurse of that, maybe of that generation,
3:49
[SPEAKER_04]: that house remained intact the way it was.
3:54
[SPEAKER_04]: She was basically the archivist and basically the person who shaped what was to be what I saw and the legacy of his presidency.
4:03
[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, kind of interesting to see how history kind of repeats itself and how things don't seem to change it in awful lot.
4:13
[SPEAKER_04]: But I'll tell you, I enjoyed the opportunity
4:18
[SPEAKER_04]: to visit and kind of the major step back in history and how maybe simpler things were back in those days because their archives were basically several filing cabinets, whereas I went to the George W. Bush one and it's an entire gigantic building of nothing but paper.
4:44
[SPEAKER_04]: But interesting, and again, if you have the opportunity to see Benjamin Harris' Harrison's presidential site there in Indianapolis, I think it's well worth the opportunity.
4:52
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm glad I did.
4:53
[SPEAKER_04]: Today on the program, I'm going to get some of the big noise.
4:56
[SPEAKER_04]: That's going on in DC, because evidently, Trump still mad about being called a tenant.
5:00
[SPEAKER_04]: We're going to get to that and all by the way, later, Mattay's Renango's going to be here to share some thoughts on just how bad the economy is for working people.
5:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Quick break, right back.
5:14
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
5:18
[SPEAKER_04]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1954.
5:22
[SPEAKER_04]: That was the day of the groundbreaking ceremony of what would come to be known as, the greatest construction show on Earth.
5:29
[SPEAKER_04]: The show was the development of the St. Lawrence C.way.
5:33
[SPEAKER_04]: The $1.2 billion project was a joint effort by Canada and the United States.
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[SPEAKER_04]: It included the building of seven locks and widening of canals.
5:43
[SPEAKER_04]: The completed project would allow large cargo ships to travel all the way from the Atlantic Ocean to Duluth, Minnesota.
5:50
[SPEAKER_04]: It connected cities such as Chicago and Detroit to international trade routes to the east.
5:55
[SPEAKER_04]: The project also included the construction of a 3,216-foot-long hydroelectric dam.
6:03
[SPEAKER_04]: More than 22,000 engineers, carpenters, and laborers made the project possible.
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[SPEAKER_04]: These workers dredged 360 million tons of materials, and laid 6 million cubic yards of concrete.
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[SPEAKER_04]: The massive construction project was finished in just five years.
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[SPEAKER_04]: England's Queen Elizabeth II attended the opening ceremonies of the finished C-Wet.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Within the first three days, 168 vessels had traversed the new waterwet, Jason Romano, owned a trucking company that helped transport gravel to the project.
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[SPEAKER_04]: He recalled the C-way opened up the Great Lakes and brought ships to the heart of the country.
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[SPEAKER_04]: And that is what makes this country great.
6:43
[SPEAKER_04]: The men who designed the project and worked with and under me are the unsung heroes.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Jason's story, along with many other workers who made the project possible, were collected by Claire Parman.
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[SPEAKER_04]: In her book, The St. Lawrence C-way and Power Project, an oral history of the Great
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[SPEAKER_04]: The book was released in 2009, commemorating 50 years since the completion of the massive project.
7:07
[SPEAKER_04]: Labor history in two brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show.
7:17
[SPEAKER_03]: Welcome back to the Rick Smith Show.
7:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, here is Rick Smith.
7:25
[SPEAKER_04]: So I'm going to tell you, I love this truth, social post from a few days ago.
7:30
[SPEAKER_04]: Trump angry at a judge for, well, calling him a temporary tenant.
7:36
[SPEAKER_04]: He writes two judges, one appointed by Barack, who sane Obama and the other by Slake Beach All-Biden, said it a ruling that, on the desperately needed secure ballroom slash military complex, including a major drone port on the roof that each president is a temporary
8:01
[SPEAKER_04]: goes on.
8:01
[SPEAKER_04]: We are not tenants who pay rent and do all other things that a tenant must do.
8:08
[SPEAKER_04]: We are presidents elected by the people of the United States of America and have many rights.
8:15
[SPEAKER_04]: including the right to fix renovate secure protect and beautify the White House grounds which has been built and rebuilt and renovated, re renovated, repaired and simply made better.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Many times since 1792 and never needing permission of Congress or anyone else.
8:36
[SPEAKER_04]: He finishes up by saying, this decision made after much of the work has been done and paid for is a national security threat at the highest level.
8:44
[SPEAKER_04]: It is also a national disgrace, make America great again, President Donald Trump.
8:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, here's the weird thing.
8:50
[SPEAKER_04]: As I talked about a moment ago, I visited the Benjamin Harris presidential site in Indianapolis, uh, oddly enough the person who did the the tour said that Benjamin Harris is wife actually secured money from Congress to fix the White House, which was basically a death trap at the time, but had to go to Congress to get money to do it to do the repairs.
9:19
[SPEAKER_04]: BS.
9:20
[SPEAKER_04]: But are we surprised?
9:22
[SPEAKER_04]: And the answer is no, but like any toddler, someone told him no, any throws his temper tantrum in here to share some thoughts about the temper tantrum, and the the ballroom that who knows what's going to happen now.
9:33
[SPEAKER_04]: I've asked our good friend Sarah Burst to come to share some thoughts.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Sarah's a senior digital editor over at alternate checkout her work alternate dot org.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Sarah, thanks for taking time for us.
9:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey Rick, how are you?
9:44
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, I guess the big beautiful ballrooms, not happening right now.
9:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Where are we?
9:51
[SPEAKER_02]: So basically, the judge has said, no, you got to shut it down, what is funny to me is that now he's trying to reframe the ballroom as being a military complex, like somehow it's going to be some of some of the US military from Fort Belvar located in the White House or something like that's.
10:13
[SPEAKER_02]: how he's trying to paint it.
10:16
[SPEAKER_02]: I do think it's funny he tries to say that, oh, this state of the art drone, whatever thing, that already exists in DC.
10:25
[SPEAKER_02]: There's like a whole bunch of different drone programs stuff going on at like right on the banks of the Potomac in Virginia and then in DC and then there's like
10:38
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a whole thing.
10:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, so we have a hole in the ground.
10:44
[SPEAKER_02]: The easing has been completely demolished, and
10:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And they told him you have to stop.
10:50
[SPEAKER_02]: You can't build anymore.
10:51
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess he can fill the hole.
10:52
[SPEAKER_02]: He can continue to build his bunker, which I guess the reason he wanted to build a bare bunker is because when he was sitting down there, a couple of times, I guess he thought it was really crappy.
11:06
[SPEAKER_04]: It was gold enough.
11:08
[SPEAKER_04]: There wasn't enough.
11:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
11:09
[SPEAKER_04]: Leave on the wall.
11:10
[SPEAKER_04]: I gotcha.
11:12
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think it's funny because he kept claiming
11:17
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I didn't go, I wasn't sent to the bunker by the secret service.
11:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I went down there to survey it.
11:22
[SPEAKER_02]: And so on to God, this whole like renovating the bunker thing feels like it's really just a continuation of him trying to create a story to cover up the fact that he was rushed to the bunker by secret service in 2020 because of the protests that were like a block or two away.
11:48
[SPEAKER_02]: But the decision has been that they can finish the bunker, they cannot build the ballroom.
11:54
[SPEAKER_02]: That has already been, I mean, that construction is already ongoing because he basically did the whole, I'm going to ask for forgiveness, not for permission, and just started doing it while we were in a government shutdown.
12:07
[SPEAKER_04]: and figured that nobody would go all you tore it down and I have to stop figured all while you started and you got to finish it and I look most people I talk to that's kind of where their mental state is.
12:18
[SPEAKER_04]: Well you know we can't leave it looking like an ice or and I said no the reality is what has to happen now is Congress now needs to intervene and do its job.
12:29
[SPEAKER_04]: which means that they're going to have to negotiate with Democrats on what this is going to be and what use of the people's house because I'm sorry.
12:37
[SPEAKER_04]: Don, buddy, you're a tenant.
12:41
[SPEAKER_04]: When your term is over, you get tossed.
12:44
[SPEAKER_04]: I or am I missing something here?
12:47
[SPEAKER_02]: No, for sure, and that I think should pack anybody off, you know, like this is they call it the people's house for a reason it is it is ours this belongs to us.
12:58
[SPEAKER_02]: It does not belong to the president and every president who has been there before has understood that the fact that he doesn't understand that is just blows me away.
13:08
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like where do you vote?
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[SPEAKER_02]: Donald Trump.
13:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you vote in Florida?
13:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, because that's your home.
13:15
[SPEAKER_02]: The White House is not your home.
13:17
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you're just staying there.
13:20
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, this this whole thing about Kim just deciding that he can do whatever you want, whatever you want.
13:29
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it started because he he was saying, oh, we can do this because I am having donors pay for it.
13:35
[SPEAKER_02]: But then he was like, oh no, I want the, I want taxpayer to actually cut the, cut the checked because he couldn't raise more than $300 million for the thing.
13:46
[SPEAKER_04]: So the difference here is it like you know you go back and Nixon had bowling alley had a bowling alley put in the in the White House and and that was paid for by I guess a couple of donors and I think the one of the lane AMF the bowling People the people who do the lane the company who owns the bowling alleys.
14:04
[SPEAKER_04]: I think they did it and it was a little bit of money.
14:08
[SPEAKER_04]: But you know that the sad reality is that they didn't
14:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, the same seems a bit excessive, just seems excessive.
14:19
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember when everybody, when this whole first things first started, they started making up this thing about, you know, we'll Barack Obama built a basketball court.
14:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Everyone's like, no, actually, Barack Obama took an existing tennis court and just put some tape on it and put up a goal and started using it for dual purpose, like, there
14:43
[SPEAKER_04]: But it left residue behind the left residue and that's a hall that matters there's that type of residue But this is going to end up before the Supreme Court isn't I mean because this is this is a one of the most trying Issues of our time.
14:55
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, we're at war.
14:57
[SPEAKER_04]: Job numbers came out horrible Economy sucks all this this you know winning all this winning is happening and this seems to be this and the trans stuff seem to be the most important issues on the right
15:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, they had to bring back Dr. Fauci too.
15:13
[SPEAKER_02]: I think had to come up with somebody that they could develop some sort of war with again.
15:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I think people have finally realized, they're like, you know, a couple thousand trans people in the United States.
15:27
[SPEAKER_02]: They're not gonna completely take over our entire culture and make you wear a dress or something.
15:34
[SPEAKER_04]: Don't just say, you're, that's the yard.
15:36
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not going to happen.
15:37
[SPEAKER_04]: And they're communists too.
15:39
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm sure you've seen this.
15:40
[SPEAKER_04]: So it'll be interesting.
15:41
[SPEAKER_04]: See what our Supreme Court does on this issue.
15:43
[SPEAKER_04]: Also, the Supreme Court's going to get called into, I guess something they've already decided, but Trump wants to take, he's not happy with the first decision.
15:52
[SPEAKER_04]: So we're taking a second bite at the birthright citizenship apple.
15:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so he kind of tweaked his little executive order that he did last year and now has two executive orders that he signed last week that pretty much do the same thing that it did before and it defines, you know, what residency means, what a citizen is who gets, you know, a pass and who doesn't and
16:22
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it is, it is the same thing that the Supreme Court already decided and what happened last time around is they kind of, the lower courts basically said you can continue, you know, enforcing this or whatever, but until we get to a court that shuts it down, like there was, there was, there was one court that would shut it that said no, I'm, I'm doing a, we're putting a big pause on this and the other courts and Texas that were like,
16:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, we're going to enforce this.
16:51
[SPEAKER_02]: So there was like this big fight over it for a lot of time.
16:54
[SPEAKER_02]: And now it's going to go back through the court system again.
16:58
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's just such a waste of time and money.
17:00
[SPEAKER_04]: No, but it's not, but it's not.
17:02
[SPEAKER_04]: And what it is is that you just said it, though, they're still going to be able to enforce it.
17:05
[SPEAKER_04]: They're still going to go out and harass people.
17:07
[SPEAKER_04]: They're still going to do all the things they're going to do.
17:09
[SPEAKER_04]: And when the Supreme Court goes, no, we already rules on rule down this.
17:12
[SPEAKER_04]: It is what it is.
17:13
[SPEAKER_04]: They're going to go, oh, well, you know, I knew they may even do it again, because these people don't believe it in the rule of law.
17:20
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the one difference in this is that before there was not pace law.
17:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Now there is.
17:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Now there's a Supreme Court decision.
17:27
[SPEAKER_02]: So the lower courts can basically say, no, the Supreme Court's already ruled on this.
17:32
[SPEAKER_02]: We have a decision on it.
17:33
[SPEAKER_02]: We're following the Supreme Court's order and tell the Supreme Court says anything different.
17:37
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that's the that is the argument that should be that there should be a shut down anything that he tries to do now.
17:44
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, but you've got a weaponized Department of Justice now this Todd Blanch got Cassidy's vote, which everybody's kind of crazy about Louisiana Senator built Cassidy voting for him.
17:56
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, man.
17:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought for sure that this wouldn't happen.
18:02
[SPEAKER_02]: What I found really bizarre is kind of the end of his speech.
18:05
[SPEAKER_02]: He started getting really emotional.
18:08
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, why, why is his conscience, basically trying to eat his soul right now?
18:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Like did he make some kind of deal with somebody?
18:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Is there something else that's going on here that basically made him compromise?
18:28
[SPEAKER_02]: whatever principles he had left.
18:30
[SPEAKER_04]: No, what I would say is argument was and maybe help me if you think I'm wrong.
18:34
[SPEAKER_04]: If I understand what his argument and changing his vote and voting for him is that that blanch is bizbap, but whoever Trump picks is going to be worse, far worse, so blanch is the best we're going to get.
18:47
[SPEAKER_04]: If I got his, his justification right, that's this argument.
18:50
[SPEAKER_04]: This is the best we're getting.
18:52
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to have to go over it.
18:53
[SPEAKER_02]: There was like a two-fold argument.
18:55
[SPEAKER_02]: One piece of it was like, yes, he's the least worst option.
19:00
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the second piece of it was Trump's going to do whatever he wants anyway.
19:04
[SPEAKER_02]: So we may as well just let him do it.
19:06
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's like, this is how it happened.
19:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Because you let him do it.
19:10
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't fight back at this.
19:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And I mean, if it was me, I would be so hacked off still about the RFK thing.
19:19
[SPEAKER_02]: But I, you know, Nick and just out of that, just out of spite, because you screwed him so much.
19:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm just like, man, I don't, I don't get it.
19:30
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't get it.
19:30
[SPEAKER_02]: I know what we're seeing.
19:32
[SPEAKER_04]: But here's the thing.
19:33
[SPEAKER_04]: Now Trump's got his guy.
19:35
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe they're going to over go over Piero's head and revisit the reflecting pool.
19:40
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, those are the vat, the terrorists.
19:42
[SPEAKER_04]: who, with the box cutter, you know, supposedly sliced something in the reflecting pool causing, you know, massive, massive damage that everyone agrees was the contractor did a really crappy job and they screwed it up, but no, no, we have to, we have to keep this facade of some, some communist left wing canoeing terrorist is out there with a box cutter causing all of this damage, you know, bringing the algae blooms back somehow.
20:11
[SPEAKER_02]: my missing something make algae great again um now i mean i wonder i i kind of hope you know this is really terrible i sort of hope that it does come back just because that i was really looking forward to that trial because it was going to be embarrassing for Donald Trump it's all of the way i'm sure of this all this right now is embarrassing but you know what i do find interesting and i've been saying this for years about republicans
20:37
[SPEAKER_04]: They go on TV, they lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, um, you know, they go on their part, they go everywhere and when their lips are moving their lie, uh, you look at the 2020 election on all the people who were saying there's all this fraud, there's all this stuff going on, but when they went into court,
20:56
[SPEAKER_04]: Miraculously, all of those allegations of zip drives in USBs and truck-striving around in circles, and I saw someone's none of that stuff.
21:08
[SPEAKER_04]: None of that stuff came after putting the hand on the Bible, swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
21:14
[SPEAKER_04]: So help them, God.
21:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, they didn't go there, which is interesting, much like Janine Piro, who I'm sure wants to please dear leader, but went into court and like, yeah, we don't have it, we don't have it.
21:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, this has been interesting to watch kind of the dichotomy between the Secretary of the Interior, Doug Bergham and Janine Piro.
21:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Bergham is going on TV and basically saying, you know, towing the line of their vandalism, box knife, crazy people, slashing everything, you know, the commies are coming, yada yada.
21:50
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, you're right, when a lawyer has to go into court or sign off on a legal document, you can't lie like there are rules about that and you get a big trouble if you lie to a judge if you make up evidence.
22:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Basically, if you took Doug Bergum's whole spiel on Fox News and tried to make that a case at the, you know, from the Justice Department.
22:17
[SPEAKER_02]: then Doug Bergham would not only be this board, he'd probably be held in contempt.
22:22
[SPEAKER_04]: Exactly.
22:23
[SPEAKER_02]: And have to pay a big ol' fine.
22:25
[SPEAKER_04]: No, and just look, right after the 2020 election here in Gettysburg, just on the road for me, you had Doug Maustriano and Kim Ward, the senators here, held, I'm sure you remember that kangaroo court, but you know what they didn't do to anyone.
22:41
[SPEAKER_04]: They didn't swear anyone in.
22:44
[SPEAKER_04]: they didn't say is what I what you're saying true here a test to that sign on the line that what you're saying and they brought in a complicated crazy making every bizarre allegation that they could possibly dream up and I remember when that was over going that was a nice show
23:03
[SPEAKER_04]: But tell me again, when you go into a court of law and you put your hand on that book and you you swear to tell the truth under the penalty of perjury and going to jail, then I'm but then I will believe you.
23:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
23:16
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's the perfect thing.
23:19
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the one of the big reasons I wanted to try.
23:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Other than the fact that it was going to really humiliate Donald Trump and Doug Bergram is I wanted him to try and burger him in.
23:28
[SPEAKER_02]: you know and and make him testify and say you've said these things, you know, on Fox news, are you willing to say those say things under a before a quarter of law under penalty of surgery.
23:41
[SPEAKER_04]: And yeah, I guess or just come down and also discover it.
23:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, that's the miracle would have been so hot for that.
23:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh,
23:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Can you imagine the amount of money that that the canoe guy would have gotten in legal defense money and the dream team of lawyers that would have just to just to go after this and get access to the stuff that.
24:01
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, yeah, I want to I want you to hear a ton, please go go get them.
24:07
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're excited about that, keep an eye on the BBC lawsuit with Trump over defamation because Trump sued the BBC in a Florida court.
24:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
24:18
[SPEAKER_02]: And, and the BBC is going, oh, yeah, please work down with that.
24:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Please.
24:24
[SPEAKER_04]: Which is what I thought, ABC would do.
24:26
[SPEAKER_04]: I really thought ABC was going to do it, and then they got on their knees.
24:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, they totally caved and that may be wonder like, is there some shady stuff going on at ABC that they don't want us to find out in their emails?
24:40
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, not necessarily political, but like what else is going on there that is more financially damaging than giving just giving Trump money to shut up and go away.
24:52
[SPEAKER_04]: But here's the thing.
24:52
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, all of this is a distraction because like I said a moment ago, the economy sucks.
24:57
[SPEAKER_04]: We're at war, and we've lost the war in Iran.
25:01
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, we don't lose battles, but we lost this war because we're not even talking about nuke stuff anymore.
25:09
[SPEAKER_04]: We're talking about surrendering to reopen the state of her moves.
25:14
[SPEAKER_04]: And they're going, look, we want all the things that we would have agreed to in the nuke deal.
25:18
[SPEAKER_04]: We want that to reopen.
25:21
[SPEAKER_04]: But, you know, all of this going on, the midterms coming up, there are those who are saying that Trump should be really worried, but doesn't seem to quite be, and a lot of the feedback I'm getting is, they're just going to steal it, the fix is already in.
25:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Are you hearing something similar?
25:39
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm hearing there's definitely going to be hijinks and that they're going to do whatever it takes to try and steal it that it has to be, you know, people want to actually vote and want their vote to matter and make a difference they need to come out in such huge numbers that they're able that this is more of a movement vote.
25:58
[SPEAKER_02]: than it is just like, you know, a regular mid-term.
26:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, midterm.
26:03
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I think that should always, I should be always the case, but, you know, the midterms are usually low-turned-out anyway.
26:09
[SPEAKER_04]: But we need a presidential year kind of turn out, don't we?
26:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
26:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, exactly.
26:15
[SPEAKER_02]: I think, I mean, I was to God, it should be, that's the way it should be every year, there should be.
26:20
[SPEAKER_02]: everybody gets up as much as possible to vote, but here we are.
26:24
[SPEAKER_02]: I get it.
26:25
[SPEAKER_02]: People get tired.
26:27
[SPEAKER_02]: They got stuff to do.
26:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Kids to feed.
26:29
[SPEAKER_04]: But the outrage, I mean, I look at this administration and just the amount of theft, the amount of grip, the amount of, you know, flipping their finger at the rule of law, doing the things that they're doing in public.
26:42
[SPEAKER_04]: The amount of wealth that he's accumulated while people are struggling to keep food on the table and a roof over that, that should be one of those things where you're just, you're ready to go find the pitch forks and get the streets.
26:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, the amount of corruption that we're seeing and the anger around it, I mean, that's been interesting to see in some of the polls that they, the top issues are all economic related, right?
27:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Like they talk about housing costs, they talk about the economy, they talk about low wages.
27:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And those are like in the top five.
27:14
[SPEAKER_02]: So it kind of me is big, but the corruption angle is a big thing that's starting to pop up in issue related polls right now.
27:21
[SPEAKER_02]: And
27:23
[SPEAKER_02]: It's something we should be talking more about.
27:24
[SPEAKER_02]: There should be more stringent laws around this stuff.
27:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely.
27:28
[SPEAKER_04]: And we should be angry and ready to vote in huge numbers.
27:32
[SPEAKER_04]: And I hope, come November, we will.
27:33
[SPEAKER_04]: Sarah, as always, appreciate the time.
27:36
[SPEAKER_02]: My pleasure.
27:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Have a great rest of the week, everyone.
27:38
[SPEAKER_04]: You as well are good friends, Sarah Burris.
27:40
[SPEAKER_04]: Make sure you check out their work of our alternate.org, the website.
27:44
[SPEAKER_04]: One of your thoughts, is it the corruption stupid?
27:47
[SPEAKER_04]: Is that going to get people out of the vote?
27:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Or, look, the economy's crap.
27:52
[SPEAKER_04]: This is what it is.
27:53
[SPEAKER_04]: I want to hear your thoughts, work at theworksmithshow.com, right back.
28:00
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History In Two.
28:03
[SPEAKER_03]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1922.
28:06
[SPEAKER_04]: That was the day 1,300 workers from four railroad brotherhoods walked off the job in Jolie at Illinois near Chicago.
28:15
[SPEAKER_04]: The walkout threatened to paralyze freight service for steel mills in nearby Gary and other regional industries.
28:21
[SPEAKER_04]: 400,000 railroad shopmen had been on strike across the country for nearly seven weeks.
28:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Newspaper headlines that day warned a general strike of two million trademen loomed on the horizon.
28:34
[SPEAKER_04]: Brotherhood leaders promised sympathy strikes in response to threats made against their members by troops on duty at railroad centers and yards.
28:43
[SPEAKER_04]: There were also real concerns about the health and safety of trainmen, given Rolling Stock was no longer being maintained.
28:49
[SPEAKER_04]: In July, workers stayed away under threats from troops.
28:53
[SPEAKER_04]: Additionally, Illinois Central Trainman faced threats from striking miners throughout Kentucky and Illinois who warned stop transporting non-union coal or suffer the consequences.
29:04
[SPEAKER_04]: Resentment had been building up against state guard troops stationed in Illinois yards.
29:09
[SPEAKER_04]: Earlier in the week, striking shotmen had engaged in a fatal confrontation with Juliet sheriff's that left a striker and a railroad detective dead and scores injured.
29:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Riot orders were called when authorities sought to arrest striking shotmen who had stormed the home of a scab.
29:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Brotherhood workers refused to return to work, unless the troops were removed.
29:31
[SPEAKER_04]: Warren Stone, president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers stated, quote, We are not going to have our men shot up or beaten up or threatened by armed guards at railroad shops and yards.
29:42
[SPEAKER_04]: When the men could not go to work without having irresponsible armed guards endangering their lives, they may go home and stay there.
29:50
[SPEAKER_04]: There will be 100 more cases soon if conditions are not changed.
29:56
[SPEAKER_04]: Like what you hear, check out more at LaborHistoryInto.com.
30:00
[SPEAKER_00]: It's no secret that voters are increasingly disgusted but today's extremist right wing Republican lawmakers.
30:08
[SPEAKER_00]: But less known is the fact that extremist GOP lawmakers are even more disgusted by you voters.
30:14
[SPEAKER_00]: They're so disgusted that a top legislative priority of Republican leaders in the White House Congress and State Legislatures is to rig election rules literally to rule out issues and voters they don't like.
30:27
[SPEAKER_00]: For example, Republicans in Missouri, the show me state, showed us what they're made of by attempting to kill the people's right to amend their state's constitution.
30:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Missouri and 25 other states have long provided a citizen-led initiative process so the people can propose and pass their own laws, rather than always depending on politicians to do what's right.
30:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it's direct democracy.
30:53
[SPEAKER_00]: But the people, damn them, have been passing things like providing health care for the poor and raising the minimum wage.
31:00
[SPEAKER_00]: So no, no, no, screech Republican leaders in corporate lobbyists who otherwise control the entire state government.
31:08
[SPEAKER_00]: In a perversion of people power, they wrote a ballot initiative that effectively would leave direct democracy dead in Missouri.
31:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Clever, huh?
31:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Use the initiative process to kill the initiative process.
31:22
[SPEAKER_00]: But the people rallied, exposed the fraud, and in a massive turnout of voters in last week's elections, 80 percent, 80 percent.
31:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Rejected the establishments anti-democracy ploy.
31:34
[SPEAKER_00]: This is Jim Hi-Tower saying, Missouri and Shodham, but anti-democracy elites are now pushing direct voter bands in 15 other states, including Arizona Florida, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Utah.
31:48
[SPEAKER_00]: To keep track and shove back against these plutocratic power grabs, connect with a nationwide monitoring and grassroots campaigns of the fairness project, the fairnessproject.org.
32:03
[SPEAKER_03]: Welcome back to the Rick Smith Show.
32:05
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, here is Rick Smith.
32:12
[SPEAKER_04]: So, uh, July, jobs numbers, uh, got to tell you not not showing a lot of winning.
32:19
[SPEAKER_04]: Not showing a lot of winning when you look at July's job numbers, uh, and not really showing America as, as, as, as, as great.
32:27
[SPEAKER_04]: as employers unexpectedly they're saying unexpectedly shed 23,000 jobs negative 23,000 jobs.
32:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Now CBS reports that the latest employment figures suggest that the labor market may be much weaker than previously thought maybe maybe weaker.
32:46
[SPEAKER_04]: And even further, that the Labor Department also, they revised May and June downward, also a combined 103,000 jobs.
32:57
[SPEAKER_04]: So, so not great.
33:01
[SPEAKER_04]: And I look at this story from the folks over at CME, FedWatch, who were saying that the interest rate futures
33:09
[SPEAKER_04]: We're evidently decidedly tilted towards the fed, hiking its benchmark rates for September.
33:16
[SPEAKER_04]: I guess that's not the thing, because according to reports, they're going to hold steady for now, and I've seen reports arguing that they should lower the rates because of these horrible job numbers.
33:27
[SPEAKER_04]: So inflation's hot, job numbers are cold, but somehow employment still 4.1.
33:32
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't get it.
33:33
[SPEAKER_04]: You're here to help me work through all of this.
33:36
[SPEAKER_04]: That's my good friend Mattay's for now.
33:37
[SPEAKER_04]: Go to come share some thoughts.
33:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Mattay's is the director of the B. Bucknell Institute for public policies, also an economics professor there.
33:44
[SPEAKER_04]: Mattay, I should have taken time for us.
33:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, thank you for having me, Rick.
33:48
[SPEAKER_04]: So a lot of stuff here.
33:49
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, you got the negative job report.
33:51
[SPEAKER_04]: You got the revision down, which happens.
33:54
[SPEAKER_04]: There's nothing to ferrous there, I don't think.
33:56
[SPEAKER_04]: But the idea of this, the job market's not great.
33:59
[SPEAKER_04]: Inflations really hot because of the war and all the nonsense that Trump's pulling.
34:04
[SPEAKER_04]: And yet, somehow still 4.1% unemployment, which is telling me that people are just dropping out.
34:11
[SPEAKER_04]: And now the feds, who knows where any thoughts?
34:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean, the job market hasn't been good for a while.
34:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's the truth.
34:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So...
34:23
[SPEAKER_01]: to be fair in the last year of Biden, in the mistakes of, you know, which allowed Trump to win the election to some extent is that the labor mark, the economy was already slowing down.
34:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So the stimulus that they gave correct stimulus to help people, all of that sort of transfers, and, you know, and new programs that, you know, kept wages finally at some point after the pandemic winning against inflation.
34:52
[SPEAKER_01]: and the recovery, which was a very fast recovery.
34:57
[SPEAKER_01]: The post-pandemic recovery, the first recovery that was in jobless in three decades.
35:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And all of that has since the 2024 led to a, you know,
35:15
[SPEAKER_01]: an economy that it's slowing down and not yet in a recession, but you know, it's slowing down and and the last year and a half with Trump has been dismal, so so that the job numbers have not been good at all.
35:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's not to surprise, so the level of unemployment in the United States has not reflected the actual situation in the labor market for a long, long while, as you know.
35:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So the number of discouraged workers, if you look at broader measures of unemployment, yeah, not the traditional measure is called U3, so once you get U6, which includes people that are discouraged, people that would like to work, you know, working part-time, it would like to work full-time and so on and so forth.
36:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I haven't checked in last numbers, but they're almost double and so and I think that that's more of a better sort of picture of what's going on in the labor market.
36:13
[SPEAKER_01]: There's significant structural transformations, I should say, the only number that looks good is as we have talked in your show before, it's health jobs.
36:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're becoming a nation of health providers for the elderly.
36:26
[SPEAKER_01]: and manufacturing jobs have not come back.
36:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So the tariffs, the only thing that they have done, it's not as I mean, most of the inflation, as you said, is caused by the war and the effects on the price of oil, but the tariffs have not helped.
36:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And part of that has been paid.
36:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I know.
36:44
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, there isn't help this, because there was no strategy or no strategy to using it.
36:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Of course.
36:48
[SPEAKER_04]: But you're here with the thing.
36:49
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I'm not, I'm not against using them as part of a, you know.
36:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
36:53
[SPEAKER_04]: We've talked about that extensively, but you know, you know, the things we're doing.
36:58
[SPEAKER_01]: But the point in this is that didn't bring manufacturing jobs back because in order to do that you have to use them intelligently, so so they have not brought back manufacturing jobs and so So there is very little that can so my point here is not that tariffs as a general instrument should not be used it's more like Trump management of the economy has been terrible I think that it's hard to disagree with that that creates progress for his fat, so he brought this guy you know that
37:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Kevin Warrish, who is a Wall Street guy.
37:28
[SPEAKER_01]: He's married to the very wealthy sort of a stilotter hairs.
37:34
[SPEAKER_01]: He had been at the Fed before.
37:36
[SPEAKER_01]: He was an inflation hawk, but he goes with the times, and he was supposed to keep interest rates down.
37:45
[SPEAKER_01]: The problem that Trump created from himself is that with the war in Iran,
37:51
[SPEAKER_01]: and the higher price of oil, everybody expected interest rates to go up.
37:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's more or less what you were suggesting at the beginning that markets were sort of expecting a higher rate of interest.
38:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And in fact in the last meeting, this week, last week, three of the members of the federal open market community voted for increasing rates.
38:12
[SPEAKER_01]: So, warship had held the line and said, no, no, we're not gonna do that.
38:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that this report suggests that, you know, correct, I think, that they shouldn't raise the interest.
38:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And probably they should should lower it.
38:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?
38:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Because the fed doesn't have, you know, no effect on what happens on the price of oil.
38:30
[SPEAKER_01]: So hiking the rates will not make gas on the pump cheaper.
38:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And the Fed hiking interest rates makes the lives of working class people much harder.
38:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm not against reducing interest rates on that.
38:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I think Trump, it's like a broken clock sometimes, you know, it's right.
38:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So, and so on that, I am for, you know, even reducing interest rates because I think that they, the labor market is in a delicate position.
38:59
[SPEAKER_04]: No, but it's a second ago you said that there were job numbers were going down during the at the end of the Biden term.
39:06
[SPEAKER_04]: And they were, I mean, the last six months were 88,771,240,44,261,37,000 and January was 143,000, not a negative 23,000.
39:21
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no, of course not, no, no, what I said, things got much worse.
39:26
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how I said it has been dismal since what I'm saying is that we're not trajectory.
39:31
[SPEAKER_01]: So we were using, we were using fiscal policy and all of those programs, you know, to improve the, the lives of everybody and even wages went up.
39:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So you one of the sort of indicators that you know,
39:43
[SPEAKER_01]: that the labor market is healthy in my view is when wages are growing more than prices, when you're winning against inflation.
39:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Real wages are doing, you know, going up, particularly the wages of the people at the bottom of the labor market.
39:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So you looked, when you look at the data, it's not supervisory, you know, wages that you want to see them grow and faster than inflation.
40:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's an indicator that things are doing well.
40:05
[SPEAKER_01]: The labor market is really
40:07
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, in a good position and you actually won that.
40:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I should say many economies would, you know, particularly if I was treated kind of, say, oh, it's terrible.
40:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Look, your wages are growing faster than inflation, because they won wages to be low.
40:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And what we won, you know, if you're concerned with a well-being of people is you won wages to be growing faster.
40:23
[SPEAKER_01]: So, so that was happening for a while, but you know, at the tail end of that recovery, it wasn't happening anymore.
40:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And in
40:35
[SPEAKER_01]: possible because of the pandemic.
40:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And so there was a humongous backlash, the inflation that happened during the pandemic led eventually to even within the Democratic Party.
40:45
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of the pushback against, you know, transfer programs, the idea that, you know, we went too far.
40:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we need to sort of retreat and retrain Chalilobet.
40:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And that I think was part of the problem, not the only problem.
40:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, you know, you may have a whole discussion of why, you know,
41:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Biden, Kamala, eventually, you know, didn't work out.
41:07
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, but the point is that that also happened, you know, helped Trump.
41:11
[SPEAKER_01]: With Trump, it has been dismal because, you know, they, they haven't done anything to stimulate the economy.
41:16
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no policies.
41:18
[SPEAKER_01]: He, he may very well tell you that, you know, he wants to bring manufacturing jobs.
41:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of his discourse, he's a populist.
41:25
[SPEAKER_01]: So some of his discourse goes and talks about working class issues, but then he doesn't deliver.
41:30
[SPEAKER_01]: He delivers for the
41:31
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, bro's and, and he's pal's in in Silicon Valley, you know, so we started a war so that's you wartime is usually good for production so maybe maybe if he gets us deeper in even though it seems like he's he's moving back from it now the reason the reason I bring this up is
41:49
[SPEAKER_04]: As you pointed out, wages haven't gone up, jobs aren't getting any better.
41:52
[SPEAKER_04]: There's a lot of negative stuff out there, and I mean, I'm even watching right-wing commentators talking about working class issues, like I've never seen before.
42:01
[SPEAKER_04]: But one of the frames that I again has popped up again is that the reason, and we talked about this earlier a couple of months ago, that the national income, the percentage of the national income, that goes to working people.
42:16
[SPEAKER_04]: to wages and salaries, fell to about 43% of national income earlier this year.
42:22
[SPEAKER_04]: And now the reason that they're giving is it's all Nixon's fault.
42:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Nixon took us off the gold standard.
42:28
[SPEAKER_04]: Therefore, that's why this is happening.
42:31
[SPEAKER_04]: Not the fact that they've been crushing unions for the last 50 years.
42:35
[SPEAKER_04]: And now I've also heard, well, you know, they took us off the gold standard that America was great in 1913 before the Fed because now there's all of this stuff that's being weaved into this tale.
42:46
[SPEAKER_04]: And I see a smiling, you know, I know this is diversion, but it helped me work through some of this because for, I've gotten so many people go, see Nixon, see Fed, every reason except what we know is the answer.
43:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So, that's a lot of confusion.
43:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So, let me first let's go before we go all the way back to the 1913 and the other guild at age.
43:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's sort out the crisis of what used to be called the Golden Age.
43:16
[SPEAKER_01]: So from the 30s to the 80s, particularly from the 40s, after the recovery from the Great Depression and the war.
43:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And when we compress wages, when unions with the Wagner Act get significant power, there is a period of high growth that not only is a period of high growth, but a period that makes blue-collar jobs, middle-class jobs, that creates a middle-class in the United States.
43:41
[SPEAKER_01]: that makes the life of the vast majority, you know, affordable, that, you know, people see that there is a possibility of having a good life.
43:51
[SPEAKER_01]: With problems, but, you know, also with expansion of rights, so women's rights, expand civil rights, expand, and so on and so forth.
43:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I'll be here to prosperity, that more or less by the late 60s, when Nixon becomes president, starts to close.
44:04
[SPEAKER_01]: But in all fairness, he has nothing to do or directly to do with the position of the dollar and leaving gold or anything like that gold bugs always exist.
44:13
[SPEAKER_01]: When you look at the trend that you, the data that they're citing, the trend when wages as a share of national income start to fall.
44:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And they fall about 10%.
44:23
[SPEAKER_01]: So depending on what you measure, if you put inside of that,
44:27
[SPEAKER_01]: the compensation, the full compensation.
44:30
[SPEAKER_01]: So some of the benefits are not, it's in the 40s or in the 50s.
44:34
[SPEAKER_01]: But it falls from, you know, whatever, from the 50s to the 40s or from the 60s to the 50s.
44:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's speak.
44:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's compressed by 10% and the advantages implies that they're going to capital.
44:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So who benefits from this?
44:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Very often the videos.
44:49
[SPEAKER_01]: and who loses the vast majority, particularly working class people at the bottom.
44:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So that happened.
44:55
[SPEAKER_01]: It starts while in the 80s.
44:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So the 70s, the period of crisis, there are many things that happen in the 70s.
45:02
[SPEAKER_01]: In part, the social reasons for that happen and are associated to some extensive rights.
45:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And the fact that incorporating with civil rights a series of movements that,
45:16
[SPEAKER_01]: That your people that were left out, you know, they couldn't vote, you know, black people in the South.
45:21
[SPEAKER_01]: It changes things in society.
45:24
[SPEAKER_01]: They weren't, you know, Vietnam, all of those things generate a lot of social people.
45:29
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, the 70s per se, when you have two oil shocks and inflation, it's high wages actually increase, because unions were strong, and they managed to push back.
45:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, wages don't fall until Reagan.
45:41
[SPEAKER_04]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
45:57
[SPEAKER_01]: same story in Argentina, same story, but my father tells the same story of he's more got you in Argentina, by the way.
46:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's a parallel of all of these things that I go about in the United States is that the forefront of these things.
46:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And I should say some of the things start to change with Carter, even.
46:12
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I say this Carter was a decent man, I think in many, in many ways, but he was not a pro-union president, but
46:21
[SPEAKER_01]: But the fact is that with Reagan and the, you know, air flyers, you know, the air controllers sort of strike and whatnot, that's when we start breaking the, the legs of unions and that's when there's a clear spot.
46:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you can see it in the data.
46:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I just read it the graph before the show because it's something I show in classes and whatnot and it's from their onwards that sort of really you have a collapse of that so so.
46:44
[SPEAKER_01]: It's with Reagan.
46:45
[SPEAKER_01]: So what happens is that, you know, in order to bring down inflation, the Fed also at the same time, Hikes interest rates violently, and Reagan then sort of breaks, when you knew a lot of the regulation eliminated a lot of the protections for workers.
47:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's the long story of the slide of the share of wages in national income.
47:13
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, the pre-1913, sure, so, the idea that the Fed is an instant, the Fed can be used.
47:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me put it this way.
47:20
[SPEAKER_01]: The Fed certainly can be used as an instrument of capital to hard labor.
47:25
[SPEAKER_01]: So high interest rates can be used to hard workers.
47:28
[SPEAKER_01]: But the idea that central banks and the Fed itself are always and have always been an instrument of capital at some extent.
47:36
[SPEAKER_01]: You're in the period that goes from the new deal.
47:40
[SPEAKER_01]: through the 1960s, the Fed actually was intrinsic in this general management of the economy, that allowed workers to be in a better position, providing finance in relative cheap interest rates for the programs that the government indirectly sometimes.
48:00
[SPEAKER_01]: The Fed holds a public
48:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And the Fed, for example, during the 30s, had an agreement with the treasury, that it would finance it at 2.5% on a persistent basis.
48:12
[SPEAKER_01]: So the deficit that FDR had to run were, you know,
48:17
[SPEAKER_01]: finance with bonds and a lot of those bonds were held by the Fed and the Fed guaranteed that the interest rate on those bonds would not surpass two and a half percent.
48:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can borrow cheaply in order to do all of these programs that allow everybody to benefit.
48:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Electrification, expansion of education, infrastructure in general, all of those things that are massive, important, massive home buildings, federal housing authority, building of, you know,
48:43
[SPEAKER_04]: cheap credit for mortgages and some is so forth so I can just for a second you know jump in you know so basically because you know I know people who think the Fed is just this evil empire who has all of this control I've argued it's just another tool that if we use it properly can do good things but if we use it poorly like any tool that you use poorly it's going to get bad outcomes I think my analogy is probably a little bit better than it's the evil empire.
49:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly, no, it's absolutely correct.
49:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Your point is exactly, it's exactly on point.
49:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I always said.
49:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So the Fed represents the people that we put there.
49:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the federal law per market community, the people that make the decision, which are eight governors that are determined essentially from the regional federal reserves.
49:31
[SPEAKER_01]: that rotating the only one that it's always sitting there is the New York fan.
49:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And then our governors determined by the president.
49:38
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, the president can decide, if there's no reason there shouldn't be a person, for example, an economist that has worked for the AFL CIO.
49:47
[SPEAKER_01]: and that when he makes monetary policy, he is thinking not just in the interest of Wall Street and the banks, but he's thinking in the interest of working class people.
49:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely, nothing precludes that.
49:59
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, somebody chooses a governor qualified.
50:03
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, with all the degrees that they need and so on and so forth, but, you know, a person that is represented, you know, all the say the idea that fiscal policy is political, it goes through Congress, it's Congress that does the budget and the president that determines and we discuss how we're going to spend money and whatnot and somebody says our monetary policy is different, it's technical and it's not political it's not true.
50:24
[SPEAKER_01]: My trip policy is very political as much as physical policy and so there's nothing wrong with having people with different views because for example, what is more important right now the labor market being weak and the effects that that has on working class people or inflation which also affects working class people and there are many ways of sorting out this sort of slicing this sort of you know,
50:46
[SPEAKER_01]: This problem and how you see that it's relevant.
50:49
[SPEAKER_01]: For example, think interest rates should be low.
50:51
[SPEAKER_01]: In order to solve the unemployment issues, we should...
50:55
[SPEAKER_01]: spend money on social transfers and so on that.
50:59
[SPEAKER_01]: There are many ways of dealing with that that don't imply that we have to make credit more expensive.
51:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And so if you have inflation, you know, other than dealing with the cause, which is the war in Iran, we should have price controls.
51:12
[SPEAKER_01]: In United States, it's very difficult to do something that in other countries you can do.
51:15
[SPEAKER_01]: When you have a national oil company,
51:17
[SPEAKER_01]: You can subsidize the price of the of gas and and reduce it and so and I'm not against doing that.
51:23
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a kind of a price control So which we used in the past by the way, next effectively.
51:29
[SPEAKER_04]: So No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
51:46
[SPEAKER_04]: Give me the, I know there's so much to this.
51:49
[SPEAKER_04]: But the simple answer to me is maybe it's just that I've got one tool in my box, the way it looks like.
51:55
[SPEAKER_04]: But the fact that union rates fell so fast and so far.
51:59
[SPEAKER_04]: To me, that's the reason we've seen this massive redistribution of wealth and that 43% number, just highlights the fact of how bad workers have been getting hurt.
52:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Think of the solution, I mean, at the end of the day income distribution is a question of the rallies with strength of social classes.
52:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And the working class depends on unions, the unions have been eviscerated in the United States.
52:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And that being eviscerated as we speak, part of what the Trump government is about, you know, an Elon Musk with the, you know, the crazy agency that he had in 2025 was, you know,
52:31
[SPEAKER_01]: It was to eliminate a good chunk of the protections of federal workers, which was the practically speaking, the only sort of group of people in this country that were fully protected.
52:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I think at this point, you know, the only people that have really, you know, the socialism for people in the army and everybody else is left with with with with harsh capitalists and corporate Americans, their socialism, Matthias.
52:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, but this is, this is, it just is what it is, but I want to, I want to make sure we got the right message.
53:00
[SPEAKER_04]: So I appreciate the time as always incredibly important, and I look forward to having you back again to work through some more of our economic nightmare during this administration.
53:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, thank you for having me.
53:11
[SPEAKER_04]: I appreciate the time.
53:12
[SPEAKER_04]: Our good friend Mattias Renango.
53:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Make sure to check out his work over at naked canesism.
53:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Naked Canesianism.blogspot.com.
53:21
[SPEAKER_04]: We'll get some of your thoughts.
53:22
[SPEAKER_04]: Want to hear it?
53:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Tell me what you think.
53:24
[SPEAKER_04]: Rick at therixmithsshow.com.
53:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Quick, Rick, Rick, Rick back.
53:39
[SPEAKER_04]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1931.
53:43
[SPEAKER_04]: That was the day that the airline pilots association affiliated with the American Federation of Labor.
53:50
[SPEAKER_04]: The need for pilots to organize became apparent as early as the mid 1920s.
53:55
[SPEAKER_04]: The airline industry was new and pilots often faced dangerous conditions.
54:00
[SPEAKER_04]: They were often put under pressure to fly under adverse conditions, especially if they were tasked with delivering the mail.
54:08
[SPEAKER_04]: As the Great Depression swept the country, pilots were asked to fly more and more hours for less money.
54:15
[SPEAKER_04]: The organization
54:16
[SPEAKER_04]: of pilots started off small and in secret, but soon it grew.
54:21
[SPEAKER_04]: In 1930, the Union got its unofficial start, holding its first convention the following year.
54:27
[SPEAKER_04]: David Bank was elected the first president.
54:30
[SPEAKER_04]: Bank had served as a flight instructor for the US Army.
54:33
[SPEAKER_04]: He then led the Bank of Flying Circus, performing air shows all across the Midwest.
54:39
[SPEAKER_04]: From there, he went to work for a private air mail service.
54:43
[SPEAKER_04]: As Union President, bank established the organization's headquarters in Chicago.
54:47
[SPEAKER_04]: Over the years as plain technology has changed, the Union has fought to ensure the continued safety for the pilots.
54:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Pilot fatigue, as well as security concerns, especially after the terrorist attacks of 9-11, have also been important issues for the Union.
55:03
[SPEAKER_04]: Today, the airline pilot's association represents more than 50,000 pilots flying for 31
55:13
[SPEAKER_04]: their mission statement begins with the commitment to quote, promote and champion all aspects of aviation safety throughout all segments of the aviation community.
55:31
[SPEAKER_04]: Labor history in two brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show.
55:39
[SPEAKER_03]: You're listening to the Rick Smith show.
55:41
[SPEAKER_03]: We're working people, come to talk.
55:46
[SPEAKER_04]: No, when you stop and think about 43% of the U.S. gross domestic income is going to wages and salaries.
55:56
[SPEAKER_04]: We're at, we're at, we're at a great depression era numbers.
56:01
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, this is, this is not great, this is bad.
56:05
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's interesting watching some of the, the justifications, you know, the, it's the reason it's that low is, you know, employers are paying more for benefits and some of that is true.
56:17
[SPEAKER_04]: But, you know, we had health care back then.
56:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Another saying, look, wages went up 3.2% in the previous year, but it didn't keep pace with productivity and it hasn't.
56:30
[SPEAKER_04]: In fact, since 1979, productivity has risen far faster than hourly compensation.
56:37
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, understand what the right will tell you is they believe in a meritocracy.
56:42
[SPEAKER_04]: And if we were in a meritocracy, if we really were there, wages would be sky high because of the wealth that our labor creates.
56:51
[SPEAKER_04]: And this has always been my argument.
56:54
[SPEAKER_04]: But seeing this nixon gold standard thing coming up again and all, it's the fed.
57:00
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, inflation's eroded our wages.
57:03
[SPEAKER_04]: No, inflation hasn't eroded our wages.
57:06
[SPEAKER_04]: The lack of bargaining power to keep our wages up with inflation has eroded our wages.
57:12
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's a message that we're just not, we're just not hearing.
57:18
[SPEAKER_04]: And understand, is there's far more that affected the collapse of that number.
57:27
[SPEAKER_04]: You can throw in our trade policies a bit of business.
57:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Most of this stuff has been self-inflicted.
57:33
[SPEAKER_04]: We had our grandparents' generation fought blood and died for one of the most prosperous economies and working class economies in the history of humanity.
57:47
[SPEAKER_04]: because the billionaires, the rich people said, you can be like us if we just give these dirty manufacturing jobs away.
57:58
[SPEAKER_04]: And oh, you could be like us, just take on massive amounts of debt, because you too can live like we do.
58:07
[SPEAKER_04]: And unfortunately, a lot of working people bought it.
58:11
[SPEAKER_04]: But for me, the answer to this, and I've been saying this for 21 years now, this is not new.
58:17
[SPEAKER_04]: what we need is a militarized muscular labor movement.
58:24
[SPEAKER_04]: And we need working people to start demanding that they get those rights to fight for better wages, hours, conditions, you know, like our grandparents' generation did.
58:34
[SPEAKER_04]: They weren't wrong in demanding some of the wealth that their labor, their blood, their sweat, their tears, their broken bodies created.
58:45
[SPEAKER_04]: They're not wrong.
58:48
[SPEAKER_04]: I think about when I entered the work of the workforce, the country was about 20 little over 20% unionized.
58:55
[SPEAKER_04]: We're now in the private sector, what about 6%, maybe?
59:02
[SPEAKER_04]: So I think about my grandfather, as I said, the Mateus and his father as well.
59:08
[SPEAKER_04]: That period, that stagnation period, we're inflation was really high, wages kept up because
59:16
[SPEAKER_04]: when more people were in unions, more people had cost-deliving adjustments, and those wages went up.
59:23
[SPEAKER_04]: So their standard of living didn't get eroded.
59:25
[SPEAKER_04]: That's a simple message.
59:27
[SPEAKER_04]: One that even I can understand.
59:29
[SPEAKER_04]: But I want to hear your thoughts.
59:30
[SPEAKER_04]: Email me, Rick at therixmithshow.com.
59:33
[SPEAKER_04]: Miss any portion of the program, grab the podcast and as always, thanks for watching our band here.
59:38
[SPEAKER_04]: We'll see you back here next time.
59:46
[SPEAKER_03]: email wreck at wreck at the ricksmithshow.com.
59:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Until next time, this has been the ricksmithshow.
59:57
[SPEAKER_03]: We're working people, come to talk.