Scott Galloway · 46:22
Yeah. So we have basically said we have basically said, hey. Your kids and your grandkids, we're gonna max out their fucking credit cards so the riches become insanely rich. Is that what this was supposed to do? The the the the shareholder class here either willingly or again, delay an obfuscation or kind of just ignore the fact, have played this pandemic like a Stradivarius to a hall of rich people such that we could borrow money to explode the wealth. And you know what we do? Sure. We throw some bread and some circus, some circuses at the meatiest, but it is striking how little of this revenue got to the right places.
Kara Swisher · 46:56
Yep. So how does it get there, Scott?
Scott Galloway · 46:59
Well, we had talked about this. Think unemployment insurance. Yep. I personally, we just would have gone, okay, here's a trillion dollars. Here's the third most economically impaired households. There's about 40 of them. That's $25,000 per household. You need a velocity of a multiplier effect. And by the way, if you give $25,000 to the poorest household, it's almost like a one time UBI, they're going to spend $25,000 of it. It didn't help us to give people 12 It's a 20 deal. Four Yeah, and then they don't have to make bad decisions. And then they say, well, maybe we shouldn't have 11 of us in a thousand square foot apartment. Maybe dad shouldn't be riding Uber if he's not, or getting in an Uber if he's not wealthy. Maybe, okay, maybe we don't want to send someone with a comorbidity
Kara Swisher · 47:40
It to work takes the boot off their neck. It takes the pandemic boot off their neck.
Scott Galloway · 47:43
It does.
Kara Swisher · 47:43
It does. It allows them to get up and breathe for a second. I agree with you. Can... The amount of wealth that has been made in this pandemic due to no innovation, none, zero. Like, again, I back... Know, part of me is like, Jeff Bezos did make something that was pretty remarkable. He deserves a lot of money for that. But when you get into the numbers now and why he's getting wealthy now, it's a very different situation. Same thing with Elon Musk. The Tesla is remarkable. Is it this remarkable? Is it... Does he deserve this much? No. Of course not. It just doesn't make any sense. It does... And I don't know what we can do about it except the fact that we have to start moving the money where it deserves to be versus where it's benefiting. And you're right, the stock
Scott Galloway · 48:24
price I'm mourning to this idea. I really don't like the idea. One of the keys to a functioning capitalist democratic society is even when you make bad decisions, there's private property. And maybe the tax rates are low, so okay, fine, then change the tax rates, but you can't go back and go after private property. I don't think you can do that. Don't think you can rob an end No, this
Kara Swisher · 48:39
I'm just saying it's not because of innovation that they got raised.
Scott Galloway · 48:42
Agreed. However, I am warming to the fact, I don't believe wealth taxes work because you end up being Bernard Arnaud and you just relocate to Belgium or the wealthiest people hire the smartest people to hide the money. I am warming to the fact, and I think it could be effective, of a one time wealth tax. So basically say, look, anyone whose net worth is over $10,000,000 had the best year economically ever. And quite frankly, it's a result of an externality. It's a result of borrowing money against future generations. And we do a one time wealth tax because people won't move, people won't leave the country. People have a much more difficult time hiding their assets on a one time tax. And it won't be the motivation. But we're quick to call for bailouts amongst the wealthiest corporations and individuals in these exogenous shocks. We've had the mother of all exogenous shocks called an explosion in wealth across the wealthy, and we need to pay this shit back at some point. When does the adult, when does the person who can do math, when do Republicans actually show up with fiscal responsibility again? Just, we seem
Kara Swisher · 49:40
to Well, have they love totally heard of spending of the money. But how you think that's going get through? Is that a Liz Warren thing? Because she's talking about persistent wealth tax.
Scott Galloway · 49:49
Yeah, I don't think that works. And also I do, if you look at a wealth tax around the world, they have very rarely ever worked. They make sense in theory. They don't work because the wealthiest have the ability to To
Kara Swisher · 50:04
get out of them.
Scott Galloway · 50:05
Get out of them. Or they relocate, they move their tax domain to Brussels from Paris, right?
Kara Swisher · 50:10
Yeah. Or move to Florida, like a lot of
Scott Galloway · 50:12
Well, money is very mobile. Money is very mobile, and so are the wealthy. The wealthy are the most mobile people in the world. Look at how many people are moving to Texas and Florida. It's not anyways, so wealth tax but what could work, what could work is a one time All right. Wealth
Kara Swisher · 50:29
Jody, we've more than answered your question. We have got to start doing things to get our brand USA back and that we're equitable.
Scott Galloway · 50:35
Go ahead. I'm sorry. But the one thing around branding, if you really wanted, if you thought of this as a company and an organization, the one thing that could bring this brand back more so than anything in addition to accountability is simple, simple vaccinations. Back up. If we led the world I mean, reality is
Kara Swisher · 50:57
We're not. Israel's already passed us.
Scott Galloway · 50:59
Everybody's passed us. Agreed. Everyone looks to America. This is all about the novel coronavirus. It's all about, okay, people remember the end. From a brand standpoint, we could have just really seriously, royally fucked this up, which we have to date. But if we get the rest right, if we figure out distribution, if we figure out supply chain here and we get our most vulnerable vaccinated and we start to crush.
Kara Swisher · 51:24
Oh, think, you know what? I think we think we will because literally we've had idiots running it. Like now, a passively smart person running this will have a quantum level of impact.
Scott Galloway · 51:34
Well, know why I was able to get vaccinated?
Kara Swisher · 51:36
Indiots running it.
Scott Galloway · 51:37
And why they've lowered the age to 65? I actually think they're gonna start adding more and more cohorts because they made a smart decision. They said, you know what? What are we doing stockpiling the vaccinations for the second dose when the first dose gets you to eighty percent? Just release it all. Just start jabbing people's arms. Yep. That's Just the first start jabbing everyone's goddamn arm.
Kara Swisher · 51:56
Yep. And Scott, you have been jabbed, so to speak. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.
Scott Galloway · 52:02
My eyes are bleeding. Is that supposed to happen?
Kara Swisher · 52:05
Stop. Don't say that. I'm kidding. Feel vaxxers will come in.
Scott Galloway · 52:09
You know what I did? You know what I did after I got the vaccine when I came home? I worked out. Alright. Good. That was fine. Okay. That was fine.
Kara Swisher · 52:15
One more quick break.
Scott Galloway · 52:16
Granted, I've grown a third testicle.
Kara Swisher · 52:17
I don't know what that means. Alright. Scott, we'll be back after the break for predictions.
[Ad break]
Kara Swisher · 53:23
Okay, Scott. Tasteless, Scott. Vaccinations are very safe. Let me just reiterate that after Scott's little outbreak there. We have another big news week coming up, the inauguration of Joe Biden. I'm here in DC. I'm... I feel unsafe. I do feel unsafe being here because who knows what's gonna happen, although the troops are everywhere, as I've told you before. But...
Scott Galloway · 53:43
Feel unsafe?
Kara Swisher · 53:44
I do. I do. I'm like, I don't know what they're going to do. On one hand, I'm like, there's such a bunch of imbeciles. I don't know how they organize themselves. At the same time, arbitrary violence is easy. So that's my worry.
Scott Galloway · 54:01
Well, sleep well tonight. Your three bald man lovers coming down there to
Kara Swisher · 54:05
protect No, no, I don't want you to
Scott Galloway · 54:06
protect That's right.
Kara Swisher · 54:07
Listen to me.
Scott Galloway · 54:07
I'm a Belgian Malinois.
— Predictions segment begins —
Kara Swisher · 54:09
No, please don't come down. Will be in much worse trouble if you're here, plus, who knows what else you'll bring down, what other disease you'll bring down besides even though you've been vaccinated, that does give you a leg up. Prediction, prediction, prediction. I'm nervous. I don't think there's going to be violence. I think there's so many troops here. It's really quite astonishing. I'm depressed about that because I really love the inaugural. I've been to several. And it's a really wonderful day. Usually, no matter what side you're on, it's always a really wonderful... You know, transfer of power is always... It's peaceful. Transfer of power is always a good thing. But give us a prediction, please.
Scott Galloway · 54:42
So I was going to make a prediction around the inauguration and politics. And I thought, you know, I was You can
Kara Swisher · 54:48
have two.
Scott Galloway · 54:48
Well, I don't want to make a prediction around that stuff because reality is I don't have any domain expertise and that stuff is so important. And I just don't feel comfortable commenting on something this important when I don't really have any real insight.
Kara Swisher · 55:01
Place Wait, I'm gonna have one. Lady Gaga's gonna be off the charts. She's singing and so is J. Lo.
Scott Galloway · 55:08
Really? Lady Iago and JLo? Poker Face. Prediction is more She's
Kara Swisher · 55:13
not singing Poker Face, but go ahead.
Scott Galloway · 55:15
My prediction is gonna be around the economy. I think that consumer stocks and the consumer economy is gonna roar for the next twelve to twenty four months. I think you essentially have so much pent up demand emotionally and also economically. Consumers have saved $500,000,000,000 since the beginning of the pandemic. Whether it's a trip to Disney, whether it's going out and buying those new Apple headphones which aren't available till April. By the way, Apple's about to put Bose out of business. But you're going to see the consumer economy just absolutely I don't know where it It's heads in two going to be the roaring 20s again for I don't know how long it lasts. Well, that's the correct question, what happens after it. But you're gonna see an explosion in consumer spending. I think probably once we get to once what a quote unquote herd immunity is in sight and once consumers feel safe again, you're going to see people are just going to go ape shit with their spending. Just ape shit. And consumer stocks, discretionary consumer stocks are gonna absolutely rip. And it's been kind of tech has ripped, but we're gonna see some of the more old line, mainline consumer cyclical stocks jump. And the economy, we're gonna see GDP
Kara Swisher · 56:36
What's gonna happen to tech stocks then, lays out that particular?
Scott Galloway · 56:40
I just don't see how they
Kara Swisher · 56:43
They've had such a run up.
Scott Galloway · 56:45
Yeah, but they just keep going. They just keep, the market here has gotten so crazy. And yet when you think it's crazy, gets even crazier. So don't see in the short term, I don't see any catalyst for why they would come down. And that's about the moment that they crash. But I don't see them coming down in the short term.
Kara Swisher · 57:07
So everything up into the right, stock market, consumer stock.
Scott Galloway · 57:10
It's weird to say.
Kara Swisher · 57:11
Who's going to do badly?
Scott Galloway · 57:13
Gosh, that's the correct question. I don't know. I've always said, and this isn't stocks, but I've always said that all the companies that receive PPP that were going out of business and were prepared for a new world are think we're going find a lot of those businesses that got PPP loans. We were just building peers, not bridges, to tomorrow.
Kara Swisher · 57:30
Fair point. You're right.
Scott Galloway · 57:31
So I think we're going to see a lot of unfortunately, we're going to see a lot of small businesses, lot of small retail. A third of restaurants could go away. So unfortunately, small and medium sized businesses. But what people fail to realize is that in all the carnage, this is what we've done. We've said, oh, we need to save existing businesses. When you save existing businesses on the credit card of future generations, you're not only robbing against future generations, you're robbing against a younger generation. Because this is what happened. If that cute little restaurant goes out of business, then the real estate prices go down, the cost of capital goes down, the cost of plates goes down. And then some 27 year old who's a recent graduate of a culinary institute opens her dream restaurant. And it's a better restaurant that's better prepared for the new economy and the new consumer behavior of the new economy. There is opportunity when young people can buy Brooklyn real estate at $1,000 a foot instead of 1,500 a foot. There's opportunity when people get to buy Amazon at 30 times earnings instead of 300 times earnings. So we've collectively decided, let's use the future generations credit card, and let's not have opportunity for younger people because we've got to preserve the wealth of the existing wealthy. Well, guess what? The reason I'm economically secure is I got to buy Apple at whatever it was, 15 a share in 2009 because of the economic prices. I got to buy Amazon at $160 because we let the economic crisis and the damage done, it's like a fire. It it spawns certain saplings from crisis. And instead, we're like, whatever we do, don't let rich people not be as rich. Well, guess what? There's opportunity in crisis for the new generation to come in and have have some opportunity to buy stocks and real estate at a lower price.
Kara Swisher · 59:12
Let's be clear, let's keep that only with the stock market, not with burning down the capital.
Scott Galloway · 59:17
Oh, sorry. Yes. Yes, you're absolutely To clarify, To clarify. And my eyes are not bleeding. That was a joke.
Kara Swisher · 59:24
Yes. Okay. Good. Okay. Scott, I think that's a really good prediction. I really do. I like that. I like that. I like that. I think it's good. All right, Scott, that's the show. Next week, we'll have senator Mark Warner, one of... Someone both Scott and I know very well, to talk about what he expects from the senate for the impeachment and more because Scott knows... Excuse because senator Warner knows a lot about tech and etcetera, etcetera. So there's lots to talk to him about. Let's make an extra long discussion with him because he's a sharp cookie. Go to nymag.com/pivot to submit your question for the podcast. The link is also in our show notes. Scott, please read us out.
— Predictions segment ends —
Scott Galloway · 59:59
Today's show was produced by Rebecca Sinanis. Ernie Entratot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Hannah Rosen and Drew Burrows. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts. Or if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify or, frankly, wherever you listen to podcasts. If you liked our show, please recommend it to a friend. Thank you to taxpayers. Thank you to scientists. Thank you to society. Thank you to humanity. Vaccines are a wonderful thing. Thank you so much.
[Ad break]
