Shownotes
Karl Smith joins the podcast to discuss the vital work of the Voter Education Project, which aims to empower citizens by ensuring they have access to critical information about voting rights, registration, and upcoming elections. Throughout the conversation, Karl emphasizes the importance of understanding the fundamentals of economics and how they relate to voter education, arguing that the Democratic Party needs to better communicate its policies and values to the public. He critiques the prevailing narrative that equates Democratic policies with socialism, highlighting the essential role of public investments in fostering a thriving economy for all. The discussion also touches on the relationship between worker wages and business success, emphasizing that when individuals thrive, businesses thrive as well. Join us as we delve into how informed voting can strengthen our democracy and how Karl's insights can help shape a more engaged electorate.
- Video: How Bottom-Up Economics Works! – Voter Education Project
- Voter Education Project – Make America Great FOR EVERYONE!
- Matt Vilardebo for SC 26
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Transcripts
This is Bill Kimmler, co host of the Black, white and Blue in the south podcast.
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Zach King:Have language and content that isn't appropriate for some.
Listener:Listener.
Listener:Discretion is advised.
Barry Gruber:Welcome, nothingers, to another episode of the all about Nothing podcast.
Barry Gruber:This is episode number 229.
Barry Gruber:I am Barry Gruber.
Zach King:I'm Zach King.
Barry Gruber:All right, we're gonna introduce our guest this week, Carl Smith here in just a minute.
Barry Gruber:He's with the Voter education project.
Barry Gruber:Please subscribe and share the show.
Barry Gruber:That's how we get new listeners.
Barry Gruber:Also, if you could please consider supporting the show financially by visiting our webpage and clicking on the support link.
Barry Gruber:Can't do that.
Barry Gruber:Please drop a review, get us those five stars, hit the thumbs up or leave a comment.
Barry Gruber:All that helps drive us up higher in all of these podcast ratings shows, things, whatever.
Barry Gruber:I want to thank real quick, Matt Velardobo for being on last week.
Barry Gruber:He, of course, is the democratic nominee for the South Carolina house, District 26 in Fort Mill, South Carolina.
Barry Gruber:If you've election is, we're days away and Matt's campaign is still, we're thriving.
Barry Gruber:I'll just say we're thriving.
Barry Gruber:You can visit Matt Velardobo's campaign page.
Barry Gruber:It is Mattv Four sc.com.
Barry Gruber:in fact, while we're recording this, they are out canvassing across Fort Mill, which is awesome if you haven't ever canvassed before.
Barry Gruber:Honestly, there's really nothing to it.
Barry Gruber:A lot of it is just engaging with the people.
Barry Gruber:You know, the list of the people that you're going to go visit are, it's friendly territory, you know, so a lot of it's just making sure that people have a plan to go vote on the fifth.
Barry Gruber:We are as of, as of the date of this release of this episode, early voting has started in South Carolina.
Barry Gruber:In fact, by this time early voting has started across the country.
Barry Gruber:So my suggestion is if you can early vote, if you have the ability to mail in vote, you're watching this right now and you haven't already mailed it in.
Barry Gruber:Stop the, stop listening, stop playing this video and audio and go ahead and fill out your mail in ballot and send it in.
Barry Gruber:You don't want anything to wreck or slow down the process of your ballot getting counted.
Barry Gruber:You can also make sure to check your voter registration.
Barry Gruber:You can go to theallaboutnothing.com voter and you can check your voter registration.
Barry Gruber:Make sure you know where you're voting as far as your precinct.
Barry Gruber:Also make sure that you, your address on the rolls is correct because that is one the big things that we check for as a, as a poll worker.
Barry Gruber:We make sure that the address matches.
Barry Gruber:We make sure that you look like your picture.
Barry Gruber:Just, you know, do everything you can to make sure that on election day or voting or early, whatever that it is a, the process is, is seamless.
Barry Gruber:You know, it, the system is as we require voter ids and because we require voter ids, let's just make sure that we're doing our part to make sure that that is as simple as possible and, you know, just a PSA for all of the voters or the poll workers that are going to be out there.
Barry Gruber:One, thank you for doing it.
Barry Gruber:I'm not doing it this year because Matt's campaign out in Fort Mill, but all the poll workers, we sincerely appreciate it.
Barry Gruber:It is a thankless job.
Barry Gruber:Even though people come in and they thank you for your time.
Barry Gruber:It is grueling.
Barry Gruber:It's 14, 15 hours of work and then at the end of the day, having to get all that information to the voter offices and everything and all the counting that goes on and the potential that there will be dismay with all of the counting, I have crazy.
Zach King:People telling you you're hiding votes, double counting certain votes.
Zach King:Who knows the interaction, Michael and Dell shows up.
Barry Gruber:Yeah.
Barry Gruber: ast, I guess, six years since: Barry Gruber:And the interactions that I have sometimes is just complete nonsense and it's, it's paranoia and it's such a simple process.
Barry Gruber:Speaking for the state of South Carolina and Lexington in particular, I know what we do is it's a lot of work and we're all very proud of the job that we do.
Barry Gruber:And I think that the fact that Lexington county has had as far as I know, no actual voter fraud.
Barry Gruber:I think that that speaks volumes specifically to the Elections commission office or the commission, the Elections commission office, as well as all those that volunteer to run these elections.
Barry Gruber:All right, getting on to our show today on the pod, we are honored to have Carl Smith with us.
Barry Gruber:Welcome, Carl.
Barry Gruber:Thank you.
Barry Gruber: d an instrumental role in the: Barry Gruber:The website is votereducationproject.com, as focus is on power empowering citizens by ensuring that they have access to critical information about voting rights, registration and upcoming elections.
Barry Gruber:Carl's efforts help equip communities with the tools to make informed decisions by strengthening our democracy.
Barry Gruber:So welcome, Carl.
Barry Gruber:Thank you for being here on the show.
Zach King:Welcome.
Carl Smith:Well, thank you very much.
Barry Gruber:Carl and I met at the Lexington County September monthly Democratic Party meeting.
Barry Gruber: ie was up for running back in: Barry Gruber:And it's good to go.
Barry Gruber:You get to meet a lot of the people that are also very passionate about making sure that, one, people turn out to vote, but two know that the Democratic Party is likely the party for them, that when it comes to the actual issues that are affecting all of us on a day to day basis, that the Democratic Party is really the one that's more engaged in trying to find solutions and working with Republicans to get those solutions enacted so that the state of South Carolina is no longer at the bottom of the list.
Barry Gruber:But as far as our listeners, Carl, tell us a little bit about the voter education project.
Carl Smith:Well, it's just something I put together a few years ago, and it's after many years of kind of being frustrated about how the Democrats have a great product but they haven't sold it well, whereas the Republicans have a really a crappy product, but they suck the sell the hell out of it.
Carl Smith:It's just that there's so many people that think that the Republicans are better on the economy than Democrats.
Carl Smith:But if you go back to the fundamentals, basic macroeconomics and behavioral, why businesses do what they do, why people do what they do, and all that, which is apolitical, it's obvious that the Democrats are on the right side of the fundamentals and the Republicans are just frankly on the wrong side.
Carl Smith:So basically over the last couple of decades, you know, working with various campaigns and, you know, getting people or doing canvassing and phone banking and all sorts of things, and then trying to get the, the Democratic Party to actually message along the economic lines of, you know, of actually how what we do works.
Carl Smith:You know, they've always talked about, you know, the evidence and so on.
Carl Smith:They've talked about kind of the policies, but they've not talked about the mechanics or, you know, what's behind it, you know, and all of us.
Carl Smith:And, you know, as an engineer, I'm actually an electrical computer engineer.
Carl Smith:So it's about, from an engineer standpoint, it's about, well, you know, what are the necessary conditions?
Carl Smith:What does it take for something to work?
Carl Smith:And, you know, we all understand, like with our car, we don't understand a lot about our car.
Carl Smith:We understand, you know, a few of the basics, but the cars are incredibly complicated, you know, and no one person actually understands every single little thing about all the microelectronics and how to all do all that.
Carl Smith:Nobody understands all, but we understand that you've got to keep gas in the gas tank and you got to have, you know, if it's a gas car, obviously, you know, you've got to have air in the tires and, and a place to sit and place to be warm, comfortable and you got to, you know, you got to be able to have a well windshield and got to be able to see through it.
Carl Smith:And, you know, so there's just some basic necessary conditions.
Carl Smith:And we all, you know, we all get that.
Carl Smith:And so somebody tells you, oh, put sand in your gas tank, you're gonna go, what?
Carl Smith:You know, you're gonna know.
Carl Smith:That's a bunch of b's.
Carl Smith:Yeah, for sure.
Carl Smith:Okay.
Carl Smith:Okay.
Carl Smith:Yeah.
Carl Smith:You know, it's a bunch of bullshit, you know, and so no matter how loud and how many times they say it, you're gonna know it's bullshit, you know, and that's what we need to do with, with people in terms of the economy.
Carl Smith:You know, when the Republicans talk about, you know, tax cuts for the rich or, you know, tax cuts and being able to get businesses to invest or they're supposed to invest, that's supposed to trickle down.
Carl Smith:Right.
Carl Smith:Well, the problem is that businesses, they invest when, when their customers have more money, not when they have more money.
Carl Smith:So you have to look at the basic behavioral principles of what actually makes things work.
Carl Smith:And you have to look at, and you have to ask the right questions here, like, what do people need to thrive?
Carl Smith:That's a basic question that we should all be asking, you know, when, when somebody says, oh, yeah, we're going to make it better for you, we're on, you know, the Republicans who claim they're on the people's side, the workers side and all that stuff.
Carl Smith:But you look at their policies and you look at, you know, what?
Carl Smith:You know, and then you look at the fundamentals and you go, well, that doesn't really work.
Carl Smith:You know, and a lot of Democrats will say, well, trickle down doesn't work, but they never explained why it doesn't work or how it doesn't work.
Carl Smith:And they pointed the evidence and all that.
Barry Gruber:That's a good point.
Carl Smith:So basically, if we're going to have people thrive, and another thing that Democrats, they don't come out as hard on the business side, and so they get labeled as kind of anti business.
Carl Smith:Well, the reality is that people, we need successful businesses because that's where our products know, services and, or most of our product services and jobs come from.
Carl Smith:Right?
Carl Smith:So we can't have all these failing businesses.
Carl Smith:And for us to thrive, on the other hand, businesses need healthy and educated customers, and they need the people to thrive.
Carl Smith:The more people thrive, the more businesses thrive.
Carl Smith:You know, you can have an economy that works for the few businesses and, you know, kind of a concentration of wealth and, you know, winner take all and all that kind of stuff.
Carl Smith:But for really the most amount of businesses, especially most of the small businesses, for them to thrive, more of them thrive if we're thriving.
Carl Smith:So it's not like you can be on one side or the other.
Carl Smith:We've got to basically do both.
Carl Smith:So then you ask the question, well, what does it take for people to thrive?
Carl Smith:And what does it take for businesses to thrive?
Carl Smith:But then when the Democrats try to do things like educate people or, you know, improve their health or, you know, invest in research and all this stuff, then the Republicans label them as socialists.
Carl Smith:Now, if there were Republicans do it, then it's not socialism.
Zach King:Right.
Carl Smith:But anyway, it's kind of funny.
Carl Smith:So, so basically what I, what I've been working on then is, well, how do we boil this down, you know, for, for people?
Carl Smith:And initially, I constructed the website as kind of a, kind of a research thing or something a little more deeper information for candidates.
Carl Smith:For more higher information people, I'm gonna actually reconstruct or plan to reconstruct and kind of simplify it, get a few basic things up there, and then, you know, have those other resources available for, you know, people that, that nearly want to kind of do a deeper, deeper dive.
Carl Smith:But do you want me go into some of the, some of the messaging?
Barry Gruber:Then I was gonna, I was gonna ask you.
Barry Gruber:So when it, when it comes to obviously, educating voters is.
Barry Gruber:It's a great title.
Barry Gruber:The idea of making sure that voters have either access to all of the information that they could potentially find, because we're inundated with news sources, like between MSNBC and Fox News.
Barry Gruber:I tell my father in law this all the time.
Barry Gruber:I say I listen to Fox News because I want to hear how they are attacking the information that's coming out of the right or the left.
Barry Gruber:I listen to MSNBC because they do a fairly good job of attacking what's coming out of the right.
Barry Gruber:But what I get out of both of them is that it's more about blame games and the Republicans have the benefit of cognitive dissonance.
Barry Gruber:Where, and not all Republicans, I have plenty of republican friends that are even voting for Harris because they've gotten tired of the rhetoric or the whining that comes from this idea that the Republicans are so disenfranchised with everything, completely ignoring that there was eight years of George W.
Barry Gruber:Bush and that there was four years of Donald Trump, and there was twelve years of Reagan and HW Bush.
Barry Gruber: Those policies from even: Barry Gruber:People complain about the fact that the price of things at the supermarket are still as high as they are and how that's a result of inflation.
Barry Gruber:But inflation right now is around the two and a half percent wherever, where a good economy needs for inflation to be, because that means that value is increasing on things the way that it's supposed to.
Barry Gruber:It's a very controlled increase in the cost of things.
Barry Gruber:Pay should be increasing at the same rate.
Barry Gruber:I mean, the cost of living continues to go up and we continue, although in the last four years, I think Zach and I can both speak to our own personal situations.
Barry Gruber:We have benefited from the fact that pay has been increasing, whether it's our jobs.
Barry Gruber:We see more companies, corporately owned franchises across the country that our employees are benefiting from.
Barry Gruber:The fact that places like McDonald's and Chick fil A in a number of locations, these are fast food, first time jobs that are moving to a $12 or $15 minimum.
Barry Gruber:And that is because it's becoming increasingly clear that it's necessary.
Barry Gruber:People can't live off of $7.25 or $7.50, whatever the minimum.
Carl Smith:A lot of corporations understand that if they don't pay people well, their customers don't have, you know, have money, you know, and a poor person, you know, they're, they have lots of needs.
Carl Smith:And so, and I under, you know, a person that's living hand to mouth.
Carl Smith:They have lots of needs and they'll spend the money quickly.
Carl Smith:They just, you know, they're not a good customer.
Carl Smith:You know, they need.
Carl Smith:They, they really need.
Carl Smith:And look at third world countries where they don't value their workers.
Carl Smith:Well, well, then two thirds to three quarters of their population, you know, are in poverty.
Carl Smith:So, you know, anyway, then I can dive into some of the things that I'm trying to get across here.
Barry Gruber:Yeah.
Zach King:Can I point this out, too, real quick, if you don't mind?
Zach King:I, the whole, speaking on the economy is, you know, people who are going to go vote for Trump are like, well, the economy was a lot better when Trump was in office.
Zach King:He had Obama's economy, and then to the end of it, we inherited Trump's economy by the time Biden came in.
Zach King:Right now Biden's fixing it, and we want to continue with the fixing with Kamala Harris.
Zach King:But then if Trump say on some, let's hope it never happens, wins, he's just gonna tank it again and go off of what he was until he tanks it at the end of it again.
Zach King:And then someone's gonna have to be up to pick up those pieces.
Carl Smith:Well, if we get people a little more informed on the fundamentals, they'll, they'll be able to pick out bullshit when they hear it.
Zach King:Right, right.
Carl Smith:No matter how.
Carl Smith:And Republicans are very good about getting on a message and then staying on that.
Carl Smith:And then if the person really doesn't understand that sand doesn't go in your gas tank, they're going to go, okay, fine, let's try this in.
Carl Smith:Now, the problem is that it's a slow moving disaster.
Carl Smith:So it doesn't have an immediate effect, this long term effect.
Carl Smith:One president will benefit from the previous president.
Carl Smith:So even if they're doing bad things, they're benefiting from the inertia of this good economy and so on.
Carl Smith:And things that we've done even decades, many, many decades ago, think if we had never put the money and the research and coming up with microelectronics, where would we be today?
Zach King:Yeah.
Carl Smith:Every single person, every single business, we've, we've made billions, trillions of times on the money, you know, and it will keep on paying off, you know, for centuries and centuries to, you know, to come.
Carl Smith:So anyway, I get into, and trying to get people kind of bullshit proved, you know, because if we can do that, you or a little more, you know, and stuff, and, and Trump is a phenomenal con artist, you know, the thing that he has in this part of the deal book, the thing that he has against conning people, or at least at that time, you know, you know what it was?
Barry Gruber:What?
Carl Smith:That you couldn't get away with it for very long.
Barry Gruber:Admitted, he admitted it in his book.
Carl Smith:That's what, yeah, that was, that's a grift incentive, you know, and the presidency is, is the ultimate long con if you make, if you're of that disposition and that kind of, that kind of person, unfortunately.
Carl Smith:So he's con in a lot of people and everything.
Carl Smith:But we don't, you know, people just don't, they don't have the right filters to hear that, hear the cons and stuff.
Carl Smith:But anyway, so, you know, if we look at the, you know, what do people need to thrive?
Carl Smith:Well, there's, there's three basic things.
Carl Smith:We need basic public investments.
Carl Smith:Well, there's actually a little bit more.
Carl Smith:Then we need a fair system, you know, and we need to value workers.
Carl Smith:People need to have a fair wage if they don't make much, you know, or the system is not fair.
Carl Smith:So it's benefiting these other people, but not, you know, not very, you know, various groups or if we're not making the basic public investments, then they don't do well and so on.
Carl Smith:So in our basic public investments, that's where, you know, we get called socialists a lot.
Carl Smith:Now let's look at that a little bit.
Carl Smith:Basic public investments.
Carl Smith:What, what is that?
Carl Smith:And that's a term that I came up with.
Carl Smith:It's kind of an umbrella for people to understand these various things.
Carl Smith:Okay, so what does it take for a person to thrive?
Carl Smith:Do they need education?
Carl Smith:Would they thrive more with, with education?
Carl Smith:Well, I think most people would probably say, duh, you know, how about healthcare and being healthy in access to healthcare?
Carl Smith:Yeah.
Carl Smith:What about infrastructure?
Carl Smith:Being able to get places and do things, you know, all the things that we need to do that.
Carl Smith:What about research?
Carl Smith:Do we benefit from research?
Carl Smith:Well, I mean, there's a ton of ways and stuff that we benefit, and they're figuring out, you know, what we're doing that's killing us and what we're doing that helps us and, you know, and all that.
Carl Smith:And then microelectronics and even AI, that's a lot of government basic research that even got now this huge multiplier into the future of our productivity.
Carl Smith:What about safe communities, community development and infrastructure?
Carl Smith:So that's the group of things now.
Carl Smith:Okay, so that would benefit people.
Carl Smith:What about businesses?
Carl Smith:What do they really need to thrive?
Carl Smith:Well, do they need help?
Carl Smith:Do they need healthy employees?
Carl Smith:Is that delivered by whatever healthcare that they're provided, or has that been more of a function of what the healthcare they've had since birth?
Carl Smith:I think most people would get it.
Carl Smith:It's a longer picture than what they're getting.
Barry Gruber:What about education, for sure?
Carl Smith:Do they need an educated employee?
Carl Smith:Do they benefit from that?
Carl Smith:Would they even exist without the right educated people?
Carl Smith:A lot of businesses wouldn't have.
Carl Smith:What about research?
Carl Smith:Do they benefit from research?
Carl Smith:Well, yeah, in fact, a lot of them wouldn't exist without the research investments that we made in the past.
Carl Smith:What about infrastructure?
Carl Smith:Well, I think even the Republicans understand that businesses need infrastructure now.
Carl Smith:They want to make it like a pay as you go kind of thing versus a much more efficient system, less costly system.
Carl Smith:You just build it and then people can access it.
Carl Smith:And you don't stratify or you don't cut out people and businesses.
Carl Smith:Oh, you're just a small business, so therefore you don't have access to this or whatever.
Carl Smith:What about safe communities?
Carl Smith:Do they need a safe community to do business in?
Carl Smith:What about community development?
Carl Smith:Do they benefit from having a place for their people to want to live and their customers to want to be and in the, and all of that?
Carl Smith:So guess what?
Carl Smith:Our businesses need our basic public investments, many of them, to even exist and especially to thrive.
Carl Smith:So is that really social?
Carl Smith:I mean, so you think about pure capitalism.
Carl Smith:You know, if everybody, you know, were responsible for their own safety, for their own, you know, infrastructure, for their own, you know, health and, I mean, it's be like a person being out in the desert with nothing, right?
Carl Smith:Well, how well would they do?
Carl Smith:Well, they might survive.
Carl Smith:Maybe not.
Barry Gruber:No.
Barry Gruber:It's like, you look at that like the, the wild, wild west when, when you had, you had individuals out mining or panning for gold, they'd literally come back with potentially, you know, crumbs and that that was their only source of income.
Barry Gruber:You know, the likelihood is they were fending for themselves.
Barry Gruber:They were living in squalors, attempting to live and perform this function that would eventually net some sort of a profit.
Barry Gruber:They'd have to travel by trails that were unregulated and unmaintained.
Barry Gruber:And the likelihood, you know, of being hurt on, you know, living in towns.
Zach King:That had no governmental influence outside of your local charity.
Carl Smith:And they didn't even have, like, public education in the earlier part of the 18 hundreds.
Carl Smith: got going a lot better in the: Carl Smith:But do you know about how many people.
Carl Smith:What percentage of Americans were in poverty back in their 18 hundreds?
Zach King:Like 70%, I would figure.
Barry Gruber:It's pretty high.
Carl Smith:It was very high.
Carl Smith:It's like a third world country.
Carl Smith:Okay.
Carl Smith:Now we can.
Carl Smith:Now, with enough republican policy, we might be able to get back there if that's what they really want to do.
Zach King:Is that the America you want to make great again?
Zach King:Yeah.
Zach King:Is that what we're doing?
Barry Gruber:Yeah.
Barry Gruber:There's this mentality that people should be able to fend for themselves, but completely ignoring the fact that fending for themselves nowadays includes the fact that we have social services, not socialism, but it's social services that are provided because.
Barry Gruber:Because people are paying the majority of that being paid for by the taxes that come from the lower class and the middle class.
Barry Gruber:These are things that keep you safe.
Barry Gruber:The fact that you can walk into a hospital and the hospital has to treat you regardless of whether or not you have insurance, whether you have some way of financially paying for those services.
Barry Gruber:Yeah.
Barry Gruber:The state will come after you as a collection agency in South Carolina afterwards, but it.
Barry Gruber:You still will have those services provided to try and save your life.
Barry Gruber:These are.
Barry Gruber:These are all.
Barry Gruber:And I think you're building towards it, but these are things that people don't seem to recognize.
Barry Gruber:These are all democratic value.
Barry Gruber:These are.
Barry Gruber:These are values of the Democratic Party that started, really, a hundred years ago.
Barry Gruber:Yeah.
Carl Smith:And Republicans voted for a lot of this.
Barry Gruber:Yeah.
Carl Smith:You know, you know, way back, we wouldn't, you know, if we didn't have both parties supporting it, we wouldn't have had all the great programs and really the investments in education and, you know, health.
Carl Smith:You know, we created this healthcare system and.
Carl Smith:And, I mean, we've had just a lot of the money and the research and so on.
Carl Smith:So we've benefited upon the shoulders or on the shoulders of all of our, you know, of all these past investments and everything.
Carl Smith:And it's not.
Carl Smith:And so pure capitalism would be very anemic.
Carl Smith:It would be very.
Carl Smith:I mean, because businesses really wouldn't be able to get started because they couldn't create their own necessary.
Carl Smith:They can't create their own necessary conditions.
Carl Smith:They can't, you know, to thrive, to even exist.
Carl Smith:You know, they can't, for most part, okay, you can sell some vegetables.
Carl Smith:You can do, you know, there's, you know, really simple businesses, but the kind of complex businesses that we have today would not exist.
Carl Smith:So really, it's not, you know, democratic.
Carl Smith:I think democratic socialism is, you know, it's kind of a misnomer in that it's because if you look at those countries that do that, most products and services, and there's another fundamental thing that you understand.
Carl Smith:Most products and services in those countries are coming from where businesses.
Carl Smith:Yeah, they're, they're not coming from government.
Carl Smith:Okay.
Carl Smith:And these are what we're calling socialism.
Carl Smith:Why would we call something social like one thing when it's mostly something else?
Carl Smith:So it's really, it's really a sustainable capitalism that's working for their whole population versus, you know, a rig capitalism that's working for the few, you know, so, you know, it's, these are all capitalistic systems and, you know, they're, you know, business people want to create their own businesses.
Carl Smith:Democrats, now Republicans, they're implying that Democrats want to take your property.
Carl Smith:They want like hardcore socialism and take your property and, you know, and control your life and everything.
Carl Smith:And what basic public investments.
Carl Smith:Go ahead.
Zach King:That's propaganda, right?
Carl Smith:It's propaganda.
Carl Smith:So what you're being told, our basic public investments, if we can get that term into, and the goal of all of this is really to change and add to the national discussion this whole concept of basic public investments and how that works.
Carl Smith:Because once people understand that, they're going to say kind of like when Republicans call it like socialism, like, oh, taking our opportunities.
Carl Smith:No, these create opportunities.
Carl Smith:And these are investments that pay back.
Carl Smith:You know, we pull a person, we make the investments that pull a person out of poverty.
Carl Smith:They pay far more taxes over their lifetime.
Carl Smith:They have far more money to be better customers for businesses.
Carl Smith:How is that a bad thing?
Carl Smith:You know, and they, and they actually do pay back.
Carl Smith:They know, they, they create a profit for us.
Carl Smith:When we make these, these investments, we not only get paid back as taxpayers, we make a profit on it over time.
Carl Smith:So you need something to kickstart these things.
Carl Smith:But anyway, so we have our basic public investments and that these are things that are needed by everybody, both businesses.
Carl Smith:Think if we did another thing in there was safety nets.
Carl Smith:Think if we didn't have our safety net, you know, the fact the more, the faster we pull somebody out or a business out or community out or whatever, then they're back contributing to this through the economy again.
Carl Smith:If we just let them, you know, flounder and, you know, and everything, they're not only not helping themselves, they're not helping the rest of us, you know, so it's in our best, it's in our financial, it's not only morally right, it's financially smart.
Carl Smith:And this whole thing about conservatism, you know, like, why wouldn't we borrow I mean, would a conservative not borrow money to build a house or something that's going to actually pay, you know, pay back over, you know, provide benefits over a long period of time or do investments that actually pay back?
Carl Smith:You know, this is actually a fairly conservative thing, you know, to invest in things that actually do pay back.
Carl Smith:But to put money in, like cutting taxes on the wealthy and I, bigger businesses and so on, you know, doesn't pay back because they don't invest quickly.
Carl Smith:They don't, they don't put the money back.
Carl Smith:They don't hire people.
Carl Smith:They don't, they don't invest unless they have more customers with more money.
Carl Smith:And that's what our basic public investment says.
Carl Smith:It not only creates these long term multiplier effects, has an initial stimulation in our economy, you know, it's putting money in the economy.
Carl Smith:People spend it.
Carl Smith:A poor person that gets more money, how long do they have it in their pocket?
Carl Smith:Almost zero time.
Carl Smith:And so another kind of little fundamental thing that everybody in the industry understand is speed of money.
Carl Smith:And you've heard this from other politicians.
Carl Smith:So we need to kind of double down and explain that to people that, you know, if you have zero, if you have like a trillion dollars in the economy and you have, and nobody spends it, how big is your economy?
Barry Gruber:Zero.
Zach King:Zero.
Carl Smith:7 hours, 57 minutes and 58 seconds.
Carl Smith:If they spend it, if it cycles one time, how big is it?
Carl Smith:A trillion dollars.
Carl Smith:If it cycles ten times, it's $10 trillion.
Carl Smith:Wow, that is really cool.
Carl Smith:You know, because that means, and this is a big counter to republicans because they want to always picture, well, if somebody else is going to do.
Carl Smith:If somebody's going to do well or better, somebody else has to do worse.
Barry Gruber:No, no.
Carl Smith:You know, when we basically, you know, when that poor person has a better job or has a job, you know, they actually create jobs by just having that job.
Barry Gruber:Yeah.
Barry Gruber:Yeah.
Barry Gruber:Because they're spending money in places that then have to create jobs for that money to be spent.
Barry Gruber:You know, and to expand on that idea, one of the things that Republicans right now are running on is this idea.
Barry Gruber:Springfield, Ohio.
Barry Gruber:Not necessarily the dog eating, but the fact that there are, uh, migrants that are here from, uh, from Haiti, not Haitia, which I think I have heard multiple times now, even from some of the talking heads on Haitia.
Barry Gruber:Yeah.
Barry Gruber:That, uh, JD Vance, uh, recently, uh, in a speech, acknowledged that, uh, the people of Haitia, uh, had, had invaded Springfield, Ohio.
Zach King:Don't fact check them.
Barry Gruber:That, uh.
Barry Gruber:Yeah, please don't fact check me.
Barry Gruber:Um, but, but the point of that is in, in rich in respect to the economy is there were 20 to 35,000 haitian people that came to the United States after their government fell, after the haitian government basically collapsed.
Barry Gruber:Their prime minister is in exile.
Barry Gruber:The president was assassinated.
Barry Gruber:It's being run, and this is true that it's being run literally by somebody whose name is barbecue, who is a cannibalization.
Barry Gruber:And people live in fear of their lives.
Barry Gruber:So the United States granted legal documentation to allow for these migrants to come to the United States.
Carl Smith:And that's been policy that's been, goes way back.
Carl Smith:That's not something that Biden implemented or anything like that.
Barry Gruber:But these are people that now have jobs and they're working jobs and they're paying taxes and they are accountable to the economy and they are providing for their families.
Barry Gruber:They're spending their money, they're earning income, they're making investments into the communities that they live.
Barry Gruber:And they don't get to vote.
Barry Gruber:They don't, they don't, they are not allowed to be a part of the system unless they become naturalized by becoming citizens.
Barry Gruber:And this is just aside, but I'm one of those type of people that says, I am appreciative of the fact that they have committed themselves to being a part of the system without being allowed to be a part of the decision part of the system.
Barry Gruber:And I don't understand, and maybe you've had interactions with people on subjects like that, but where is that mental block?
Barry Gruber:Where is that dissonance, that cognitive dissonance that says that can't recognize that people here in the United States that are here and participating in the grand scheme of things, but they still shouldn't be here.
Barry Gruber:They shouldn't be allowed to participate.
Barry Gruber:They shouldn't be allowed to be here, that the government's funding their lives and all these other things.
Barry Gruber:What sort of interaction do you have or how would you combat that sort of.
Carl Smith:Well, I think by understanding that in a, encountering this, this fallacy that somebody to do better, somebody else has to do worse.
Carl Smith:So if somebody's coming in and they're doing better, then must be some of our citizens are doing worse.
Carl Smith:No, these people are actually creating, you know, now they're, they're, you know, they're employees.
Carl Smith: ople that are here illegally,: Carl Smith:And then there's so many and then the housing market would collapse.
Carl Smith:I mean, there's all sorts of horrible economic impacts and stuff if we actually did that.
Carl Smith:So this, again, going back to the fundamentals.
Carl Smith:When we pay, when people do better, and we really need morally and also economically, you know, that everybody makes a livable wage or better.
Carl Smith:That's valuing all workers.
Carl Smith:What, you know, that's another umbrella.
Carl Smith:So we have, you know, we have basic public investments and we have valuing all workers, which is basically a livable minimum wage, equal pay for equal work and workers rights.
Carl Smith:So all of those things drive up, you know, wages.
Carl Smith:Now, individual companies can't raise their wages because of competitions.
Carl Smith:But basically, if you set a level playing field between all these companies, then, then basically they can rate, you know, that.
Carl Smith:So an outside entity, government needs to basically, you know, set that minimum.
Carl Smith:And then the businesses have more customers, more money.
Carl Smith:But then they'll say, well, that's just, you know, if we double the wage to dollar 15 an hour, won't that double the price?
Carl Smith:No, because products and service costs or wages are typically a very small part of the product and service cost and whether or not those products and services should be higher.
Carl Smith:Okay.
Carl Smith:But for most things, our system can create far more products and services, except for periods like Covid, where your whole supply chain is interrupted and all that kind of stuff.
Carl Smith:But in normal times, our system can create far more products and services than we can consume.
Carl Smith:So there's not a supply problem.
Carl Smith:There's a demand and problem.
Carl Smith:And, you know, we need to, you know, you know, and that's, that's really what this is about is, is how you create that healthy environment that people can thrive and business, more businesses can thrive and all of that.
Carl Smith:So the value in all workers, you know, we need to, you know, we need to pay people better.
Carl Smith:It would cause some inflation, but then it basically, like, I think a hamburger was supposed to be like $0.50 more if you actually paid minimum wage.
Carl Smith:So one of the things I want to talk about is this whole idea about the inflation.
Carl Smith:And now Republicans are trying to blame Biden and all that on that.
Carl Smith:And, you know, the Republican or the Democrats are saying, okay, this is a worldwide problem.
Carl Smith:They don't say, well, Trump would have the same problems.
Carl Smith:I mean, I think we literally need to say that for people to connect the dots or more people connect the dots, Trump would have had the same problem.
Carl Smith:In fact, he probably would have done worse.
Carl Smith:We've done better than any other country in terms of getting our inflation down.
Carl Smith:Now there's that period where it was very high.
Carl Smith:And so some of those prices haven't come down.
Carl Smith:But a lot of that is not because of increasing employee pay and that kind of thing.
Carl Smith:It's because so many industries have been allowed to consolidate and then reduce the competition, reduce or eliminate competition.
Carl Smith:So when that happens, then in these sectors and parts of the food sectors and so on, those prices are way high.
Carl Smith:You know, so then you say, well, who is actually to blame for this?
Carl Smith:Is it really the Democrats or is it the Republicans?
Carl Smith:And if you look at the policies, you know, Republicans say a lot of really nice sounding things, but if you look at their policies, you know, it's not really on the same thing.
Carl Smith:If you look at their policies, what they've done is they've allowed for, you know, for companies to, in industries to combine and contract and so on.
Carl Smith:They solar policies eliminate competition.
Carl Smith:They go against antitrust laws.
Carl Smith:And then, like, you know, so people are, you know, the economy is actually doing very well for at least a lot of people, but then there's far too many people now that are still hurting.
Carl Smith:You know, who is responsible?
Carl Smith:Think about, let's get people to think about how much better off would they have been.
Carl Smith:But for the Republicans, not the Democrats, the Republicans blocking the expansion and the continuation of child tax credits, how much better would off they be with, with an extra $3,000 per child and, and so on through this, this period is going to be turbulent economically.
Carl Smith:Coming back from COVID it's going to be turbulent no matter who is.
Carl Smith:It's a worldwide problem.
Carl Smith:Trump wouldn't be immune.
Carl Smith:So.
Carl Smith:Okay, so there's that.
Carl Smith: wages up with inflation from: Carl Smith:It would already have been $17 an hour.
Carl Smith:But for the Republicans, how much, how better if you're struggling today, how much better off would you have been if you had a livable wage to make it through this?
Carl Smith:Tough time.
Barry Gruber:Yeah.
Carl Smith:It's a tough time.
Barry Gruber:Yeah.
Carl Smith:Or who is responsible for that?
Carl Smith:It's the Republicans they're blocking.
Carl Smith:Go ahead.
Barry Gruber:No, I was just gonna say, or if, and even if, even if it weren't just about the wages, what if it was about the healthcare portion of it?
Barry Gruber:What if it was, what if, what if healthcare was not something that you needed to worry about the cost?
Barry Gruber:What if you could be able to, what if you could go see your doctor or you could go to the hospital or be treated for something very simple like, you know, let's say you're having headaches or you, you've injured your hand and you need your hands to do your job.
Barry Gruber:What if there was a system in place where you could go and be treated for something simple like that ultimately is more designed to keep you healthy rather than just treat the symptoms of what is ailing you.
Barry Gruber:If that were in place, if you had a system of healthcare and you were able to take out the requirement that you have to go and work for a company, that, that you have to pay for the premium for that health care like we all do, what if that system were in place?
Barry Gruber: been pushing for really since: Barry Gruber:Well, life covered health is covered by life and we all have the right to good health.
Barry Gruber:So, you know, even if, even if we couldn't get national wages up to a living wage, then having a healthcare system that would potentially make sure that people are living healthy rather than just treating symptoms and having to pay a premium on those symptoms and then it's.
Carl Smith:Not a one or the other.
Carl Smith:Yeah, you know, like we can, you know, get good wages.
Carl Smith:You know, our current system, about a third of the money or close to a third of the money.
Carl Smith:It's just a freaking overhead of the insurance program.
Carl Smith:What if we took that money and actually had healthcare providers, you know, instead?
Carl Smith:Then we could all have, you know, hearing and vision and, you know, all these other services and actually ensure every single person and diseases are spread by other people.
Carl Smith:We don't want sick people coming to work because they can't go, you know, can't afford to go to the doctor and all that.
Carl Smith:This is something that, you know, there's a physicians for national health program.
Carl Smith:They got a lot of really good information out there, but we really need to get to single payer, you know, it, you know, how many businesses don't exist because the entrepreneur, you know, doesn't, doesn't know that he'll have actually healthcare if he starts his own business or be able to afford it.
Carl Smith:And right now we have the most stupid system.
Carl Smith:You know, like if you have to do get individual health care, but you're basically, or at least, you know, before the Obamacare and all that and stuff.
Carl Smith:But basically what Republicans want is this system.
Carl Smith:So as you're young, okay, it doesn't cost much to insure you.
Carl Smith:The probabilities are pretty low, but in that kind of system.
Carl Smith:And the Republicans will say, well, if you have your, like your doctor, you like your program, you should be able to keep it well, we need to get people to understand that's a game of chance.
Carl Smith:Are they, you know, that employer that's providing, are they going to be providing that plan that you like next year, in five years, when you start needing, as you get older, you need more and more healthcare.
Carl Smith:So, you know, it's, it's, are you gonna be working for that same employer so you can't use it?
Carl Smith:So in the current system, you're not guaranteed to keep your, your, you know, your thing anyway.
Carl Smith:So we need to have a system.
Barry Gruber:Sorry, we have Cobra, but it's not affordable.
Barry Gruber:All right, real quick, going to interrupt this episode as we recorded a lot of content with Carl Smith and just wanted to interrupt here because we're going to continue this in an upcoming episode.
Barry Gruber:Actually, it's just going to drop in a couple days, so stick around.
Barry Gruber:So this is going to wrap up this episode.
Barry Gruber:We're going to.
Barry Gruber:Let me finish out the credits, but just stay tuned.
Barry Gruber:The next episode is coming out very soon, just in a couple days.
Barry Gruber:And you'll get to finish this conversation with Carl Smith.
Barry Gruber:We are only days away from, from this election, so make sure you've checked your voter registration.
Barry Gruber:You can do that at the allaboutnothing.com voter as well.
Barry Gruber:Check your voter registration.
Barry Gruber:You want to make sure you also have a plan for your voting.
Barry Gruber:If that means that you need to download and look at your sample ballots, just do a Google search, check out your social, just search on Google for sample ballot with your zip code and I guarantee it'll have all the information out there, research that.
Barry Gruber:Look at all the questions they're asking.
Barry Gruber:If you, when it comes down to who is running as far as board of education, that sort of thing, the League of Women Voters has done an outstanding job in putting together the, and grabbing the resources necessary to know who these candidates are.
Barry Gruber:They're running for boards of education and trustees of education across the state and across the country.
Barry Gruber:So I'll put, I'll put links to the show notes for the, with league of women voters as well.
Barry Gruber:So definitely go check that out.
Barry Gruber:So again, Carl, thank you very much for being here.
Barry Gruber:That is going to do it for episode number 229.
Barry Gruber:Thanks for Zach being here as well.
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