Yesterday, Sean Hannity gave some great advice to workers who have been crushed
by stagnant wages, the failure to increase the federal minimum wage and all of that.
People who have been victimized by the ever growing income and
wealth gap in this country.
Be thankful that rich people need you to build their yachts.
That's the advice, from a guy who probably collects millions in his FOX News salary.
>> Yap. >> Now,
Hannity was referencing what Joe Biden had to say about yachts recently.
So, just to give you the context,
let's watch what Biden had to say then we'll get to Hannity.
>> We also can move in the direction that we can provide for
tax increasing tax taxes on those on in the corporate area.
As well as individuals as it relates to Trump's
going out by the yacht, better health and economy.
>> He has no interest in raising the corporate tax rate.
Can we just be honest about that?
Because his own build back better agenda, which was crushed with his own health by
the way, wasn't even gonna reverse the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy, okay?
So corporate tax rate prior to Trump's tax cuts for the rich was 35%.
He lowered it to 21% and Biden proposed lifting it up to 25% by the way,
that didn't even happen.
>> But that's a smaller number than it was.
>> It's weird, right?
It's weird. But when you're talking like,
when you're engaging in rhetoric, it's easy to say anything, right?
It's easy to say anything.
It's something completely different to actually do what you're saying you wanna
do and he hasn't done that, okay?
No rich person in this country saw their taxes increased under Biden's
leadership and under democratic control of Congress.
Let's just be real about that.
So I guess I have some salt for Biden on this as well.
But it triggered Sean Hannity for a different reason.
So let's watch that.
>> Biden goes out and says, well, if you're going out and
you're buying a yacht.
It doesn't help the economy a whole lot.
And I'm like, yes, it does.
You wanna know why?
Because it takes a lot of people to build those multimillion
dollar yachts that the rich and famous hang out in all the time.
You know what that means for them.
That's food on their table.
That's their mortgage or rent being paid.
That is their vacations being paid for.
Maybe the kids schools being paid for.
And so, it does a hell of a lot for the economy,
except if you buy into this mindset that you're supposed to hate people with money.
When I washed dishes, when I was a bus boy, when I was a waiter, when I was
a bartender, when I was a house painter, when I painted ships in a shipyard.
when I did general contracting and roofing and framing and
remodeling and reconstruction, I never got hired one time by a poor person.
I got hired by people that could afford to pay me because that's all hard
backbreaking work and I was grateful to make the money, so I could pay my rent.
>> America looks like a third world country because of how
many poor people we have.
I mean,, it's just more of the same BS trickle down economics talking points.
>> Yeah.
>> How's that trickle working out for the american people?
We see it every single day in a country that increasingly looks like
an undeveloped country and
it's because that massive wealth gap between the rich and the poor.
So like the fact that he just said you should be grateful, okay?
You're scraping the barnacles off of a rich person's yacht.
Yeah, seriously?
>> Yeah, at some point, you might be in a city street and
a Lord's wagon might roll up.
And the Lord might stick his head out of the curtain and throw coins at
the peasants and you should pick one up and you should say thank you to the Lord.
>> You should be, >> So
happy that the Lord has deigned to look upon your grubby peasant face.
>> Please can I have some more.
>> I love the show.
Like, can you feel the populism tonight?
I love that. Like,
they're supposed to be the ones that are like, seriously.
They're the ones that are worried about the people who've been left out
of the economy.
And they're telling you that you should like, bow down on your knees like,
be thankful that they're buying yachts.
So, first of all, many yachts are not even built in the United States.
So that undercuts his argument a little bit.
Not every bit of money spent in any like,
particular segment of the economy benefits people in the exact same way.
Maybe he knows that maybe he doesn't, he's both stupid and a liar, so
it's impossible to say.
But also the reason that someone like Biden or
maybe someone who means it a bit more would point out the thing with the yachts,
isn't just that it doesn't benefit the economy that much.
It's to point out that our economy while failing poor people is
generating massive amounts of wealth for the rich.
Where they individually put the wealth, is that the fundamental problem,
the fact that the economy produces so much inequity.
That is the problem.
>> Yeah. >> That is what Sean Hannity by the way,
is trying and and largely, I think failing to disguise for his viewers,
he's supposed to be like FOX is trying to rebrand itself as someone who can speak
out against the elites and Sean Hannity has been around too long.
He can't keep up and that's why you get a segment like that.
>> Yeah, I mean, we've financialized our economy
meaning we stopped producing things and
just allowed the rich to manipulate money for their own purposes.
The other thing that's happened is, wages have been incredibly
stagnant have not kept up with inflation since the 1970's.
But we should be grateful because if we're lucky again, to work for
some wealthy person, some executives and business owner,
whatever, they might trickle down on us, maybe if we're lucky.
And the trickle isn't enough to have a sustainable life with housing and
the food you need and the gas, you need to power your car and get from point.
It might not be enough, but who cares?
We should be grateful.
Let's take a look at wages actually.
So as you guys know, minimum wage has not been increased,
the federal minimum wage is still $7.25.
You should be grateful for that.
But if you had adjusted that for inflation,
minimum wage would actually be $24 an hour, okay?
So, that's a graph showing you exactly how wages have not kept up with inflation.
Americans are doing far worse today than they were in the 1960's.
Money wise, not enough.
>> [INAUDIBLE] >> Maybe that's the problem.
We need more rich people to have more yachts.
So again, barnacle scraping like that's, we should be grateful.
Until 1968, the minimum wage not only kept pace with inflation,
it rose in step with productivity growth.
In the more than five decades since then the minimum wage has not even
kept pace with inflation.
However, if the minimum wage did rise in step with productivity growth since 1968,
it would be over $24 an hour today.
>> Yeah. >> And that's according to Dean Baker who
does great work, that's a peace and common dreams.
And look, we can go on and on and on.
I mean it's infuriating when rich people tell us that we should be grateful.
Like, [LAUGH] when people who, by the way, I mean think about how many people
at the top don't even need to work or produce anything, right?
They literally just live off their investments.
>> They just host the Tucker Carlson show.
>> Yeah. >> Hey just don't have to
produce anything.
>> Yeah, and the richest 5% of Americans by the way own two
thirds of the wealth in this country.
Just 5% own two thirds of the wealth in this country, but
you should be grateful according to Tucker Carlson.
>> Yeah, 100%.
I'm glad that you pointed out the fact that productivity has been so
divorced from wage gains.
It made sense for it to be tied because as you produce more,
more wealth is generated, you should get a portion of that you used to.
You don't need more, that money is still being generated, someone is getting it.
Who do you think it is?
And look, we argue that you should be making more money,
virtually everyone out there agrees that they should be making more money.
That does not mean that they prioritize it in their politics.
If they can be convinced for
instance that the more important thing to focus on is drag queen story hour.
>> [LAUGH] >> Then maybe they'll, except for
a few decades, the fact that they lose more and more money every single year.
But maybe it's just a coincidence that the right keeps talking about stuff like that.
>> I always appreciate when conservatives do weigh in on economic issues and
specifically what they genuinely think about workers in
America because they actually use those culture war issues
to avoid having to talk about their unpopular views.
So Sean Hannity, I wanna hank you for
letting the American people know what you really think about them.