Conservatives have had a housing
market epiphany.
They have realized that the housing
market is rigged
against ordinary working Americans.
And what I love about this
is that they've just discovered it.
And since they've just discovered
it, they think that they're
the geniuses and the left is
completely oblivious about it even
though we've been discussing it for
quite some time now.
I begin with the Twitter thread in
question which embeds an article
that we've talked about on this
show, I think about two months ago.
Anyway, so, thread.
BlackRock is buying every single
family house they can find paying
20 to 50% above asking price and
outbidding normal homebuyers, wire
corporations, pension funds and
property investments groups buying
up all these homes.
>> Yeah, it actually was in April,
we covered a den.
Anna was on this story well before
that, and she was sending
me articles for months about this
story and how outrageous it is.
We've told you before why it's
outrageous, and it involves both
corporations blocking your ability
to buy homes, driving up prices,
locking you in as renters forever.
But it also involves corruption
because they basically
give campaign contributions to
politicians so they could do their
crony capitalism.
>> Right. >> Now they discovered
months later and
wait till you see the twist.
>> So J.D Vance, writes that
Blackrock is pursuing an investment
strategy that will make it harder
for young Americans to own homes.
The left will ignore this because
Blackrock hasn't committed or
has committed to racial audits and
other diversity bias.
So he's arguing that the left is
willing to kind of brush aside or
turn the other cheek when it comes
to corruption or really
bad crony capitalism, as long as
the corporations in question
are engaging in identity politics.
Except, look, here's the thing,
there is this habit of conflating
Corporate Democrats with leftist or
the left, right?
The left has been on it, but
if you're criticizing corporate
Democrats, I actually do agree with
the criticism.
Because, the housing market really
became rigged against
ordinary Americans under the Obama
administration as the Federal
Reserve was using this strategy of
quantitative easing, right?
That's where the Federal Reserve
wants to provide liquidity to banks
and corporations.
And so they offer incredibly cheap
loans to these companies, right?
So that has to do with the interest
rates being insanely low.
Private equity firms can borrow on
the cheap as you know and
then they take that money and
they just buy up all these
residential property knowing that
they can corner the market and
be the top landlords, right?
And you have no option but
to rent from them eventually once
they corner the market,
that's what the whole strategy is
>> In that way they get to build
equity in the house and you don't,
and that actually hurts the wealth
of American families more than any
single thing you can imagine.
So now this is how it breaks down,
on the political spectrum,
where the left who hates this and
who's been pointing it out from
the minute that it began.
And it's a runaway capitalism,
is crony capitalism filled with
corruption because the campaign
contributions etc, is the exact
thing that we stand against.
Then you have the corporate wing of
the Democratic party who loves it,
I agree with Anna there's one thing
J.D Vance is right about, which is
that the corporate Democrats use
identity politics as a shield.
Okay, yeah BlackRock go steal
everybody's houses right?
And then pretend to do a racial
audit, whatever that means.
And when the left criticize
because before this,
the right will never criticize
those corporations, never, right?
So they would use their identity
politics ironically against
the left, so we would say, hey wait
a minute, Janet Yellen is helping
to support this and, the corporate
democrats will scream sexist.
Can you believe there's criticized
Janet Yellen because she's a woman.
>> No, perfect example was when
Politico had published a story
about Janet Yellen collecting
millions and millions of dollars
giving Wall Streets speeches two
years prior to being nominated as
the Treasury Secretary.
That's relevant information for
the American people to know,
especially if she's been tapped
to serve as the head of
the Treasury Department.
But the critique or the criticism
coming from Corporate Democrats was
that it was sexist to ever talk
about the earning power of a woman.
No it's not about her
earning power, it's about how she
made that money and
how that could corrupt her in
the position she has been tapped.
>> And of course it applies to
Larry Summers, it applies to
Tim Geithner, it applies to all
these other men in the Democratic
and Republican parties too.
Now, and by the way,
you know who patient zero on this
is Hillary Clinton.
So, she got tons of campaign
contributions from the banks, and
got direct checks for the banks for
doing the same thing as
Janet Yellen going and
giving speeches there.
And when progressives criticized
her for that,
because she actually changed her
vote on the bankruptcy bill.
And then put tons of bankruptcy
and loans and debts on you that you
can't get rid of, so that she can
please our banker donors.
This is sexist, how could you?
Right?
So there is that identity politics
but it is not played by the left is
played by corporate Democrats okay?
Then you go to
corporate Republicans,
which is 99% of the politicians in
the republican party.
They are 100% in for the banks, and
what they did remember the 2008
bailout situation?
The bank's crashed Academy.
What did the Republican
politicians do?
We got to give them
trillions of dollars, okay?
And then everybody's super mad,
they started Tea Party a grassroots
movement on the right.
And they go my god, I can't believe
you bailed out all the banks.
The politicians on the right,
gather up all those people and
say now go fight against Obamacare.
Make sure you don't get health care
for you or your family.
But wait a minute this talk
about the banks.
If they didn't have a single
protest at the banks.
>> They were also co opted by
the Koch brothers.
>> 100% and
by the financial industry etc.
So Republican politicians have
always been pro bank,
pro corporations,
the worst of the crony capitalists.
At least it's only 50
to 80% of the Democratic Party,
it's 99% of the Republican Party.
And obviously as you can tell here,
we're calling out both sides.
Now, when you get to the end of
the political spectrum and you have
the right wing grassroots well,
that's a mess.
>> Yeah. >> So
there's one upside which is,
they hate corruption okay?
So I give them credit for
that all the time.
But the rest of it is
just a hodgepodge of nonsense.
They're like,
Joe Banks are terrible,
they're awesome.
If to give them the libs, don't
like the banks, then I'm going to
own the libs by giving all my money
to the banks and make sure I don't
have any wealth in my family.
Because it's primarily driven by
owning the libs,
it's driven by fear and hatred and
loathing etc, right?
But if you stick with your
co principle of hating corruption,
hating crony capitalism we can
actually stick together to fight
the corporate goons
in both parties.
>> Yeah, now when you talk about
goons, you should think about
people like Marjorie Taylor Greene
because not only is she a goon,
she also has no idea what's going
on or how anything works,
how the system works.
Doesn't even know how various
economic systems work, so
her response to this was socialism.
All the people excited over the
fantasies of socialism that they
consume from social media experts
and members of Congress don't
understand that there will be very
few that own and control everything
and the rest of the population will
be poor and under control.
Except that's not how this works.
If you decommodify the housing
market which by the way would never
happen in this country ever, ever.
But if you treat housing as a human
right as opposed to a capitalistic
commodity, then people would
have homes to live under because
it's not thought of as a method of
earning profit or
making revenue right?
That's what the housing
market is right now.
That's the reason why you have
private equity firms snatching up
all of these single family homes,
apartments, whatever they can.
You even have by the way,
Blackstone, I just did a story on
this for Jacobin show weekends.
Blackstone is even buying up
extended stay hotel chains, because
people have been priced out of the
housing market both when it comes
to buying homes and also renting.
And so they have no choice, but to
pay week to week In these extended
stay hotels, and Blackstone's like,
we want to corner that market too,
we want to be their landlords too,
there they're buying up those hotel
chains.
They're also buying up
literal trailer parks.
They want to be this country's top
landlord, they want to control that
market wholeheartedly,
they want a monopoly and
they're doing it right now,
right before our very eyes.
>> And by the way there not just
landlords, slumlords because once
they buy the house and you renting
it and you need something fixed,
they're in New York, they're not
going to come and fix your house.
[INAUDIBLE] They're leaving people
for months and
years with a faulty houses, and
what are you going to do?
They got an army of lawyers, and
they own most of the politicians,
there's nothing you could do.
I mean, this is remember all those
fake phony politicians,
both Republicans and Democrats had
told you homeownership
is the most important thing.
That's what builds wealth in this
country, that's true.
And now they turn around and
go, no we let Black Rock and
Blackstone buy all the houses and
then you don't get to build any
wealth for your family ever.
And it doesn't matter if you're
white black, it doesn't matter,
we're screwing all Americans for
our corporate event agenda.
But, even though it's
super obvious,
I just want to say one last thing
about the her claim of socialism.
I drove someone left crazy, but
I still call myself
a capitalist right?
But I know what Socialism and
Capitalism is, and
this ain't Socialism.
You'd have to be nuts to think that
this is Socialism,
where you help the top banks and
financial companies in the world
rip everybody off.
That's the exact opposite
of Socialism,
that doesn't make any sense at all.
It's not even trying to make sense,
and she might literally be
the dumbest person not in Congress,
in America.
Or she's a useful idiot for
the banks so she's like, yeah,
just slip me some money, I like it,
It's all grift anyway, right?
>> She just ,yeah I mean, if she
knows what's going on I do think
that money influences her, but
I think in this particular case,
she's just regurgitating what she's
heard on Fox News, right?
Fox News slaps the socialism label
onto everything they dislike, and
so she sees something she thinks is
bad and she's like,
this must be socialism.
That's the extent of her thought
process on analyzing different
systems of government, different
economic systems and what have you.
>> No, no, it's just profoundly
unintelligent, she probably thinks
Hugo Chavez fix the system.
>> Totally, yeah.
>> So, but lastly,
if you're in the right wing, okay,
well then I got good news for you,
we work together.
Now, if you want to prove how non
Socialist you are,
let's regulate those companies so
they're not allowed to rip you off.
By the way, you agree
with regulation when it
comes to cops, right?
What is all crime?
Is regulation.
You're not allowed to rob a bank.
You're not allowed to hit that guy
in the face.
That is a regulation.
You could also do that
with the banks.
You're not allowed to hit my family
in the face.
By buying older homes and
making me a permanent renter,
that's who I need the government to
protect me when it comes to police
and safety, Fire Department, etc,
but also this.
So let's go and
limit these financial institutions
to protect American citizens.
You want to work on that together?
Now, a lot of you in the right wing
might go, maybe I'll look into that
because I hate the corruption.
But people like
Marjorie Taylor Greene who are not
at all honest will go, No.
I will make sure there's
no regulation of the top banks that
are doing this.
Okay, well then shut up about
socialism because you're the heart
of the problem.
You're the one letting them get
away with it in the first place.