Scott Galloway - notes from today
1/9/2025 Morning Joe
Notes from Scott Galloway Segment
1/9/2025 Morning Joe
I no longer spend much time watching Morning Joe as I used to do or much media since the election as I, like so many others, are disgusted that all that was being reported on did not come to fruition in regards to accountability for trump and his enablers in the republican leadership. It is hard to watch many of the reporters and their guests, who are very knowledgeable in their fields, have their views destroyed by the actions of elected republicans and the non-elected (judges) totally dumped on them no matter how right they are. It is almost as if the norms, ethics, the Constitution, and now laws no longer matter, only what Project 2025 dictates which trump keeps covering up with his boisterous statements of taking over the Panama Canal, Greenland and annexing Canada.
Before Joe and Mika made their “kiss the ring” trip to America’s Kremlin branch, I was a regular and devoted watcher of their show, after that event, daily watching has devolved into getting up later and zipping through the recording and taking in segments of interest. I avoid Joe’s pontificating, but love Pablo’s segments, otherwise, my watching is limited and somewhat distracted. Until today.
Scott Galloway was on today and it was so compelling I had to take notes. Thank goodness I can stop and rewind, because today was over three pages of notes. Great information through out and here is a smattering:
The interview started around the story of Facebook dropping their fact checker division in favor of the community notes checking system like X and we all know how that worked out. Four years ago, the term “moderation” was used as a fact checking reason and has since morphed into “censorship.” Zuck stated “there were too many mistakes and too much censorship that has destroyed trust and credibility.. especially in the U.S. …the recent election is a tipping point to prioritize speech..” Scott mentioned that this move alone would net Zukerberg around a $15 billion wealth increase as the fact check system was costing Meta about $5 billion to operate. Couple that in conjunction with moving of the division from California to Texas would also result in about a 30-40% workforce reduction as people would choose not to move and you have a large increase in share value.
He went on to point out the single greatest trade in this century has been the $250 million plus Musk invested in the trump campaign leading to a wealth increase of 50,000% or $140 billion. This leads America to become more like Russia dosing out public contracts and services to donors and supporters as we see in his cabinet appointments. Galloway stated “We can no longer look down on Russia and Putin as we are becoming more and more like them at this point forward.”
“Where are the men?” Galloway asks in reference to all this money these people have. (If you are a man in the 40-50 range, when is it that you are going to show some fidleity to American values like the rule of law? These men have been so blessed by this country’s economic system and the rule of law, when are they going to stand up for the system that got them their wealth?” He went on to point out how our system of competition and innovation helped them to get where they are and that they now work against that system undermining competition building their monopolies. His stated that Google owns 93% of all searches, 66% of social media is owned by Meta and 50% of e-commerce is owned by Amazon. This results in higher prices for all of us and lower wages for the majority.
The greatest innovation in history is the economy that builds a robust middle class. It is where innovation to build and invent things and where the power to overcome fascism and communism(my take) happened. To be clear, a great society grows their middle class and with it a more prosperous and strong country. Sadly, throughout history a small group of people that seek to aggregate power and weaponize the government to aggregate more and more spoils (public funds and services) into their corner (think postal system and Amazon) create higher levels of income and wealth inequality, but there is a silver lining that is a poison pill. Self-correction can happen through war, famine, or revolution.
Scott then went on to discuss the tax system. While it is a myth that the rich do not pay taxes, it is a fact the skewed system plays to the favor of the rich when one looks at their effective tax rate. The tax code grew from 400 pages to the over 4,000 it now has and all those new pages work in the favor of the wealthy. Corporate tax rates are the lowest since 1939, the top tax bracket pays effective around 6% while there are about 50% of tax payers that pay no federal income tax, they pay enormous user/consumption fees that make cost them much more money overall. The fastest growing demographic in America is the billionaire class. 500 of them 10 years ago to over 2,500 today and more to come. Add to that the number of millionaire in the $100 million plus and the demographic is even larger. These people put in billions into the last election at both the state and federal level dwarfing the $1 billion plus the democrats raised for their candidates.
Why do Americans allow this system? Scott talks about the American super power: optimism. Some how the 99% of us are against taxing these super rich people as we hold out hope that we, too, could become a part of that class. America possesses unprecedented wealth, but our thought of a smaller government has prevented the creation of this super wealthy where many have more wealth than many Fortune 500 companies and nation states.
As a country we have become unbelievably wealthy but the income equality is greater now than any time in our history. This is all a policy choice. Imagine how well off the country would be if we went back to the tax rates before Reagan or even somewhere in between then and now? Essentially, at a certain income level, what more does one really need? (my commentary) If the libertarian idea of charity would fix the poverty and society, then where are they? How many more yachts, houses, fancy cars or land does one need while people down the street in one’s city and state go hungry or unhoused or need medical or dental care? If the wealthy wanted to solve the problems, where are they? It seems that enough is never enough. I am reminded of a quote a golden age of TV once made in reference to a million dollar land deal he was making. He did not need to make the deal and had little interest in the actual deal. “It is how we keep score.” In reference to his groups of friends.
In a country where 40% of households have medical or dental debt and 20%of households with children are food insecure, we are risking a revolution where CEOs’ and others may get shot in the streets. The power brokers get very upset with BLM, Me,too, and other protests movements as those are aimed at the wealthy. These movements have been peaceful with the violence in most cases being fueled by outside groups to discredit them. Look at January 6, 2021 as a great example for the right trying to change the narrative to blame the left. In spite of what we saw and heard with our own eyes and ears, they insist that 1. It was Antifa and when that fizzled, 2. It was the FBI and that has now been proven wrong, 3. Now a republican bogus report. This is directly an afront to the 3 things needed for a strong democracy: 1. Trust in our institutions, 2. Sharde stories, 3. Trusted social networks.
1. We have lost trust in our institutions, because any failures have been amplified over the social media silos. If you live in right wing silo, it is always the government’s fault.
2. Shared stories- we no longer share in the same set of facts. Where we get our information tends enhance our confirmation biases.
3. We only use the networks we trust and tend to do little to stray outside those.
In reference to #3 – Scott talked about why an adversary seek to invest in a social platform like Tic-Tok. When a country cannot compete economically or militarily, then why not invest in a social platform where you could get people to hate each other. There is no regulatory guides and like the libertarians desire, a free-for-all where personal responsibility take precedent over any government oversight.
Just look at where we are in regards to the 2020 election: 1/3 of Americans think it was stolen; ¼ of Americans think that 9/11 was an inside job. These are a result of the implemented algorithms used by these platforms. Even worse- THEY KNOW IT and still do it.
In conclusion I will leave you with this Louis Brandies quote: "We can have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of the few, but we can't have both".