I always wondered why the Billionaires insist on setting up new charities rather than finding the plethora of existing charitable organisations … thanks for the answer
why do billionaires insist on ____? To make more money and gain political influence. With 1 billion dollars you could spend 35k per day for 80 years. The only reason they do ANYTHING is because money and influence doesn't buy happiness for them, it IS happiness to them.
In many European countries, I don’t know about US law, Familie foundations can spend 1/3 of their income on the personal expenses of the owner and it’s closest relatives basically tax free….. you will not find a better bank
What did Bill Gates get out of it? The only criticism on here appears to pertain to his private life. He’s done amazing things for neglected diseases in developing countries
I don't hate rich people as a collective. But I hate when people applaud them for doing "minimalist" things like driving an old car or using coupons. There was one billionaire that used to brag about taking the bus. Because as you said it's just a distraction from how they used the broken system to make their billions
Distraction for whom? If you have billions, your are not getting past anything because you take the bus. And whatever edge that might give you, is something you can easily buy. Chouinard lived the dirtbag life for real, and probably that is not only the formative, but the best part of his life, when he was pushing global climbing standards, and making a new world of his own. He got so popular he became a billionaire, and that was a disconnect not only for those that followed him a little, but also probably for him. I do think billionaires are a problem.
I do hate billionaires as a collective though. You cannot do the thing necessary to aquire a billion dollars and be a good person. They are contradictory
"Finally, a billionaire willing to smack back at capitalism" is one of the most potent oxymorons I've ever read; mentally flashbanged me when it popped onscreen.
Yeah you can't really "smack back" at something if you're a key player. It's like saying the president of the United States is smacking back at the political system. Like???
The thing most people don’t understand about billionaires is; If it was about money,tens of millions are plenty. Going beyond hundreds of millions in earning is most definitely about POWER. That’s why ol’ Sam drove that actually very nice old truck that wasn’t actually that old back then. He wanted to get that power as soon as possible, it had nothing to do with money or comfort for him.
If it was about having billions in your account I'd agree but that's nonsense if you own your own company. If you built up your company of course you'd want to keep control of it, which you do by retaining equity which then translates to your ner worth... The alternative is selling your shares to some greedy private equity fund that will do whatever they want to squeeze every cent and run you out of what you built. It's so ridiculous to say that just because you want to keep control of what you built over decades, that you're greedy and power hungry. It's just plain common sense
@@The_Duude99 Capitalists lose any moral claim to the project as soon as they involve other people (employees/coworkers). There is no moral or human right that permits you to treat other people as tools.
@@dominicrutherford4498 I don't have a problem with wealthy people. I have a problem with people that are *fabulously* wealthy. There are plenty of fine and upstanding millionaires. Who worked very hard at small businesses and tried to do right by their employees. Paid their taxes and gave back to their communities. There are, however, no good billionaires. To accrue that money in the first place one MUST engage in evil at some level. Whether it's as simple as not paying your employees their share of the fruits of their labor, or as complicated as cheating on all of your taxes and abusing everyone you come into contact with.
@Anon-ir5nt All of that can be done while paying your employees well. If you're a billionaire it means you've extracted wealth from the business to enrich yourself, whether that be by holding shares (which could be sold to raise capital to pay your workers more), pumping up shares to the detriment of the rest of the business, or paying yourself exorbitantly. Paying your employees well and treating them properly increases employee retention which increases the level of experience and skill you can hold in your company, it increases their loyalty and morale which benefits productivity, and it lures the highest levels of talent who are seeking pay commensurate with their abilities. Concentrating the wealth (whether it be in liquid wealth or in shares) in the hands of a few is simply them extracting the value of the company for personal enrichment, and once we get into the BILLIONS, they're doing it at such a rate that it is inherently immoral.
@Anon-ir5nt Shares are typically split into preferred and common stock so the actual "decision making" shares aren't necessarily the same as the "slice of the pie" shares, in fact they rarely are.
@Anon-ir5nt Oh sorry, missed the last one- CEO doesn't technically need any shares, in most corps' cases they are simply the person appointed by the board to oversee executive action for the company. They usually DO have great stock options as part of their compensation, but it's not technically related. If you own a controlling share of preferred stock, you CAN simply name yourself CEO, though.
I have to admit. I was one of the Patagonia Fanboys, who was pissed about your tweet. But after watching this, and hearing you say, "cheering on the abuse of the system just because you agree with the cause doesn't make sense" really made me realize how correct you are. Thanks for this.
This guy has a history of intentionally twisting facts and omitting ones he finds annoying. Maybe he is right, but historically if you have to lie to prove your point, maybe your point need correcting.
@@maxlopolo2415 ok but this is entirely accurate. Idk him but he seems to have a very good grasp on reality based on this. If you're unsure whether this take is a good one, you should definitely do some more research bc there are some critical foundations here that are worth thoroughly understanding
@@maxlopolo2415 Maybe? Dude, if the rich guy wanted to use his money for actual charity, why not form a 501c3 and not a 501c4 or just give the money to a 501c3? Stop defending rich people, they don't care about you.
@@spanio just watch his Joe Rogan debate, or the multiple videos showing his twisting of facts. Like the one episode of Adam Ruins Everything where he talks about racism in sitcoms and says that only Asian Americans were put in interment camps (which he classified as concentration ones), and flat out says German and Italian people weren’t sent into those camps “because they were white”, when Italians and Germans very much were sent into those camps, Italians especially so.
"Why There's No Such Thing as a Good Billionaire" would make a great series with each episode presenting an expose on a particular billionaire and/or family. Especially the lesser-known ones. There are over 800 to pick from just in North America alone. Would love to see something like this about KC Irving (a tax-dodging pioneer) and family.
Can you imagine the amount of money the richie-riches would level at him to try to stop such a thing from happening? I would love to see it, but if Adam made this more than a easily glossed-over TH-cam video piece he would have a target on his back in minutes.
It's sort of mind-blowing how many wealthy people there are. I found out recently that there are nearly 90,000 individuals in my state who make $1 million of more a year. Of course there are far, far more poor people. It was just easier to put up with being poor as shit when I thought there were only a few rich people here and there.
I saw a tweet that Warren Buffet sent a couple years ago that said something about taking a break from stress and it struck me because working for Geico was the most stressful job I’ve ever had. They’re so obsessed with numbers that all they do is constantly pressure employees to be more perfect with regular threats of firing people. I heard sales supervisors yelling at their team because they needed to sell more. I was told to speak in a high voice because customers like that and was criticized for not moving my mouse fast enough during a call. They demoralized employees and had someone crying on the floor daily. I thought “this is why Warren Buffet is so rich.”
He was on the news in Australia last year when an injured lady who was paid compensation for a car accident was sent a letter by Buffet requiring the several million returned because they found her car maintenance schedule was lacking, it was on all the current affair shows but I dont know how that finished up, she didnt have the money. I found it particularly galling and surprising.
What you mean is constant low balling and ripping off customers - Worst claim process ever was geico - constant and blatant ripping off on residual, parts etc.... They should at least attach a cigarette to the claim forms
I’ve watched every single episode of Adam Ruins Everything, and was so ANGRY when the networks did away with it, now that you’re on TH-cam, I’ll be watching every single one of these! Please don’t stop making these!
Oh yeah he’s the best! It’s easy to live in an echo chamber these days but listening to other opinions is essential. I’m a lawyer and I love outdoor activities like hiking, but I can’t afford/choose not to overspend on Patagonia gear.
Doesn't he have something vaguely similar on Netflix? I forget the title, but it was like Adam Ruins Everything, just with an unnecessarily high budget.
@@halburke2947 Buffet is donating the the Bill Gates Foundation. Not to BG. And the criticism here of BG appears to be of his personal life, not his use of money for charity. That part of this was poorly done
@@drrush3421 bill gates is buying up tons of farmland. To the point where pretty soon if you don’t have a generational farm or ranch, you gotta make a deal with BG just to raise animals or grow food. It seems he wants to control a lot of the food supply
That Franklin D. Roosevelt contracted Polio before his political career really took off, might be one reason why he was such an exceptional historical figure. To mitigate the pain that the disease inflicted, FDR regularly visited a rehabilitation center at Warm Springs, Georgia where he would bath alongside normal American citizens who also contracted Polio. In addition, during WW2 his sons fought alongside other Americans and his son Quentin died in the air battle of Europe. I believe that theses hardships made FDR realize that their is no sense in accumulating wealth and power, but instead true meaning lies in serving the people of your country. However, while FDR's politics demonstrated that the poor can prosper alongside the rich, many of the succeeding presidents knowingly dismantled the new gained rights of the working class. So I agree with Adam, a democracy cannot rely on the aptitude of the wealthy. Power must be distributed among men to prevent the chosen few from exploiting the poor and the environment we all live in. Neo-liberalism has failed US.
@@Sonichero151 Exactly. Andrew Carnegie's "Gospel of wealth" and the fairy tale on "trickle-down economics" start to collect dust. While in WWI, companies could exploit the war to cash in absurd profits, during WWII profit margins were strictly regulated and the marginal tax rate was raised to 94%. If I would have been an industrial magnate at the time, I surely would have worried that a) the state shows that it can effectively handle wealth and incentivize economical growth and b) because of that there is a good chance that the firm grip on the wealthy is not being loosened. However, we know the rest of the story... two years after FDR died the "Taft-Hartley Act" severely weakened labor unions and after 1981 Ronald Reagan reduces tax rates below 25%. As Warren Buffet said: "There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning."
Yet when I talk like this people call me a communist. 🙄 Thanks for saying this. As a person who has worked in the nonprofit world, where we are doing a lot of good most of the time, I'm deeply uncomfortable with how we're funded. And these are *real* nonprofits, not just political power grabs like this.
It must feel exactly like eating a rabbit. I recommend you eat more rabbits and try to just suck it up and cope more. But. I think it's still of educational value to also take time to talk to each other about how dead rabbits can make our tummy upset. Off the top of my head I don't think there is getting around the fact that we fundamentally sustain ourselves in so many ways by things we find objectionable if we think about it. I think the codependency on what upsets us is unavoidable. All the more reason to talk about it with each other.
I'm more of a socialist but I consider communist a complement at this point because if caring about the welfare of other people over profits and corporate interests is communism then I guess I'm communist, I'd rather be a communist with a heart than a capitalist sociopath
@@jasonarmstrong5750 communism is where the means of pruduction beling to the workers because they seized them, this system has never been implemented yet, some countries can claim they are communist but they aren't
The number of people annually making what a billionaire makes *per day* who will die on the hill of defending billionaires will never stop surprising me.
Because they have a dream that they will be the next billionaire looking down at the peasants making their money for them one day. A hollow dream for the vast majority of them.
@@rayravernous4376 the average person has a higher chance of getting struck by lightning and winning the lottery on the same day than becoming a billionaire.
You've just described most, if not all, NON rich right wingers that are doing something MUCH easier than ACTUALLY becoming rich. Their ignorance of history is almost as painful as their "defense" efforts!
And then the IRS goes after the little people just a couple grand but won’t go after billionaires who avoid paying millions of dollars in taxes. Seems fair, right?
Americans vote like they are going to be a millionaire sometime in the near future except it will never happen but the dream of being a millionaire makes them the actual millionaires bitches and it hurts to watch.
@@khadeejones1136 I mean, theres still a big difference, adam as a dude just likes providing information, adam as a character thinks hes better than you and is doing you a favor by telling you things
@@Badusername2000 Oh, I didn’t mean to say that they’re literally the same person. I just meant that to say that he actually likes debunking misconceptions outside of his TV persona.
@@SinHurr Well yeah Sunak stole a whole country and I have nothing in common with him, well neither of us drive our self's but I use mass transit instead and he uses private jets instead
Economically, you’re closer to being homeless than you are to being a billionaire. You’re always one accident, one mistake, one con away from being destitute, but you’re never the same “oops” away from being a billionaire. People do not respect the power of the “0.” 1,000 dollars makes a difference. 1,000,000 can set someone up for life with enough knowledge. 1,000,000,000 is 1,000,000 * 100. 1,000,000,000 is enough for one person to try and fail 100 times to succeed over the millionaire. It’s enough to provide for that individual’s life and many other’s over. Billionaires are immoral when people are dying of preventable things.
Most Americans are more economically similar to the average worker in China than they are to the Millionaires and billionaires they just want us to think that one day we could be a millionaire like them in this horrible system we call capitalism
I’m so glad you’re bringing this to light. I recently had a conversation with my partner on what we’d do with that kind of money. I said I wouldn’t be a billionaire for long, because I’d put all of it into conservation efforts and essentially “lose” it for the sake of saving Mother Earth. But that’s probably why I wouldn’t become a billionaire in the first place. Also, why do we see any other kind of ‘hoarder’ as having a mental illness with just about everything else, but not when it comes to money?? 🤔
YES!! Hallelujah! Finally someone else called them exactly what they are and I've been asking that very question for years now. To many cats, to many newspapers = mental illness; to many dollars, cue the line of sycophantic kiss-asses ready to do anything for them. Best part about that is most of these nut jobs are notoriously cheap. How do we suppose they keep their money?
lol. you just dont understand money. generally, people give you money because they like what you give them in return more than the money. you arent saving mother earth. (the environment for our sakes) if you do something to make money, people are actually thankful. they show that with money. Make a new solar company if you want to cut petroleum use.
People love to humanize billionaires because the more human they seem the easier it is to assume that you can be just like them. It's just a form of ego self-sucking, and they'll act like everyone else is wrong
@@themusicman669 You're forgetting a lot that didn't have that wealth at birth rich people had connections to the right people/opportunities most average person didn't/will not have
@@randomtinypotatocried When you say “rich”, what are you suggesting? Millionaire or billionaire? Most MILLIONAIRES in America are self made. Also, who’s stopping any of us from making certain connections? Just because certain people are born with certain advantages doesn’t mean others shouldn’t try. Wealth doesn’t just happen in a vacuum.
@@themusicman669 MOST millionaires are self made, you say? You wouldn't have any data to support that claim would you? Because it sounds completely made up to me. I would guess the vast majority of millionaires inherited their wealth, but please go ahead and prove me wrong. Let's see the numbers.
"Socialism never took root in America because the poor do not see themselves as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." -John Steinbeck.
I work for Patagonia and I completely agree with all of this! We (the bottom rung employees) were left shocked and confused by the “donation”. Upper leadership NEVER spelled it out as eloquently as you just did. Thank you
@@toyotaprius79 Syndicalism gets it from the Left (Socialism) & the Right (Mercantilism) because it results in superior allocation of resources with higher growth potential.
@@toyotaprius79 no entrepreneur would be willing to take the risk to create a new business because he could simply work for another company and co-own it without the risk of loosing his savings and without risking to be in debt. The economy would collapse, take an economy 101 class
@@toyotaprius79 LOL, No they shouldn't. Have you ever worked? Ever? Most workings are fucking stupid. They have no business making decisions on what to eat in the morning let alone important ones.
Not making up to a million before retirement is unfulfilled retirement.!! I’m 54 and my wife 50 we are both retired with over $7 million in net worth and no debts. Currently living smart and frugal with our money. No longer putting blames on FED for our misfortunes. Saving and investing lifestyle in the stock and forex market made it possible for us this early, even till now we earn weekly.
all you mention are all good but I’ll advise you venture into fx first because it will help you grow your portfolio very fast and it require not so much to start.
Going into crypto doesn't mean you buy that much. You can start with little, invest it and watch it grow to generate profits that's how I have grown my net worth.
There's a guy that lives in my town that made some great investments when he was younger and is now a multi-millionaire. His home is smaller than mine. He never buys new cars, he hardly ever goes on extravagant vacations. He literally donates the vast majority of his wealth back into our community. Most people don't even realize, because he always donates anonymously. I only found out recently when he made a donation that allowed the local fire department (where I am a member) to purchase a new tender. I know there's no such thing as a good billionaire, because if they really were that good, they'd never have amassed that amount of wealth to begin with.
See, I can believe there's good millionaires. There's quite a few ways to become a millionaire. Hard work and connections, family wealth, even the lottery. But there is absolutely no way to become a billionaire without breaking some laws and/or exploiting loopholes and leveraging power. I don't think people realize how much just one billion is. It's impossible to get that much through fair means.
The world doesn't NEED billionaires. There isn't a one of them that hasn't built themselves up without hurting someone in the process. The idea that we glorify that is terrifying. Also Adam uncensored is my new favorite thing.
because frankly everyone in some way wants that life. Not have to worry about money? Ever. A new phone being chump change? Not having to work. Ever. Unless it's a passion project. Being able to live wherever is most comfortable and move with the seasons if you wanted to. It's alluring and most people don't think about what they had to do and say and be to get there. They just glorify the lifestyle that comes with it.
@@DanielKolbin While that is true the larger truth is simply that in order to become billionaires and maintain their inordinate amount of wealth they hurt millions of people rather than the 100's or 1000's that a typical person might in there life time.
@@luckyzacky There is no doubt that some billionaires have made their fortunes through unethical or harmful means, such as exploiting workers or engaging in environmental destruction. However, it is also true that many billionaires have created jobs and made positive contributions to society. It is also important to remember that not all billionaires are created equal. I'm not trying to defend them, I'm just saying they are human and it's more complex than someone saying "RiCh PeOpLe BaD" for the wrong reasons.
A Guardian article called "The lesson from the ruins of Notre Dame: don’t rely on billionaires" really made me think twice about how rich people do "charity".
The rich has never done charity. At best they just white wash their image because one of the underlings they employ said it had to be done for the sake of propaganda. At worst they are waging a bitter class war against the people whose labor they steal for themselves.
The Facts that Marxists can't tell the difference between one million and one billion, treat working a 40 hour week like it's chattel slavery as you whinge on a magic box like the gentry discussing society matters over scones 200 years ago, and seem to genuinely believe that Humanity would provide everything for you for free if you destroyed your own economies with bolshevik revolution, tells me Marxists cannot ever be trusted with the economy. Time for you Tankies to get back in your depots, and let WESTERN Socialists teach you some Facts & Logic so you can learn how to make better arguments, or more simply put, get out of, and stay out of our way. "Russian Communism is the illegitimate child of Karl Marx and Catherine the Great" - Social Democrat Clement Attlee of the British Labour Party. One of a long line of BRITISH Socialists starting with Robert Owen. Did more for humanity than the rancid randy bigot Karl Marx, peasant-murdering Lenin, or any of the 100% failures of Bolshevist revolution have ever achieved. Lenin and Stalin brutalised the Russian people and Eastern Europe so much, objectively fewer would've died of famine and been forced into CANNIBALISM under the Feudalism of Tsar Nicholas. Prove me wrong.
@@StasLevich Not only did nothing happen, but those who actually paid received so much tax cuts they ended up having huge returns on investment, essentially nullifying their donation and impairing the reconstruction's budget.
Dolly Parton is the best illustration, IMO, of why there are no good billionaires, outside of this. She could easily have been a billionaire after her decades of fame and fortune, but she actually donates to real charities and finds things to invest in to help people. I knew about this story, but this popped up in my recommended and had to watch it all the way through to support this kind of content. Citizen's United and trickle down economics have destroyed the US.
And then Taylor Swift donates to charities. She’s been donating to countless amount of food banks. And then she gave $100k to all of her truck drivers employees. I love her for this reason.
@@jeffvalentine9947 100K is 0% of her net worth. Its 0.128205128% of her net worth actually... which when rounded is 0%. Figures like 100k seem a lot to folks like you and me because to us - it is. It can change what food we eat or what apartement we rent (for awhile). But to her that is actually nothing, and donating it is good branding. Imagine knowing you could donate a few dollars and retain the love and relevance of your target audience.. thats's how marketing thinks. 0.1% of me AND my spouse's wealth is $89. We spend that on just groceries every week. Heck... I think we've donated around $50 so far this year - which means we've already proportionally donated half of what Taylor has dropped. And by the end of this year we will likely have given a larger percentage of our wealth than she does hers. Millionaires might not be in the same realm as Billionaires but they are bad for the planet and for society all the same.
She doesn’t just donate to charities. She uses her wealth to directly help people, which is what really matters. I haven’t found any charities that actually help people or animals
@@JohnDoe-og2bt sure, why not? Any system you set up will have a couple kinks in it, but the theme of this video is that quite a number of these charities are a distraction from the wealth and power these billionaires exert for their own selfish gains.
It's really interesting growing up in Arkansas with the presence of Walmart looming over. The hero worship doesn't stop in the town, a lot of Arkansans wear it like a badge of honor because: "That guy made it, and he's from here!" Never mind that you can see exactly what Adam describes by traveling to any of the small towns around the state. You'll find at least one Walmart, but it's basically the only job in town and the pay is shit. It's even worse in underprivileged areas because the only jobs are fast food or Walmart and neither of those pay or treat you well but you can't quit because, like I said, they're the ONLY jobs in town. It's frustrating to watch.
It’s called freedom (freedom for capitalism and capitalists to do whatever they want including start a war or invade another country) and democracy (99.9% elected officials are in Capitalists back pockets). It’s all written in the constitution like the bill of rights only applies to wealthy landowner and business man.
That psychological phenomenon where people take pride for something someone associated with them did but they personally they never did? Its called "basking in self reflected glory". Its the same thing that sports fans do when their team wins, even though they personally didn't have anything to do with how well their team performed. Like anything, I think the good/bad of this whole thing exists on a spectrum, meaning it could have positive, neutral, or negative effects.
And for context, Walmart beats out every small business in the area because they can undercut prices of the competition. It is a deliberate tactic that they use over and over again to maximize profits. The REASON the small towns in Arkansas suffer even though they have a big corporation like Walmart as a presence is BECAUSE it’s killing small businesses. Walmart’s profits do not get reinvested into the local economy like a small mom and pop store would. They go directly back to Walmart to be reinvested into another location to leach off of. So for anyone with the argument that this isn’t the fault of the corporation? It absolutely is.
@@thejinn99 It's destructive if done subconsciously or passively if you will. The thing you described a positive light when active is pride in another. Appreciation of their abilities. But passively it's mindless affiliation that discourages critical review and downgrades decision making.
I stopped shopping at Wal-Mart 15 years ago for this exact reason. I've also never made a purchase at Amazon because i feel it is also bad for our society. These giant corporations, regardless of how convenient, funnel our money straight out of our communities while placing worldwide communities into wage slavery. I buy as locally made as possible.
This was incredible, please do more stuff like this. There is not nearly enough palpable anger in the general conversation and we need intelligent, well-spoken people like you igniting the fire under society's ass.
Heck, you can cover the Walmart museum in a video on its own -- why do you think the family donates their art pieces (that they got to over inflate art prices to begin with, art = money laundering is another topic!), they pass down the art to avoid taxes on passing down the art to their kids. The museum that made you feel good is a god damn tax sham!!!! ha-ha The Waltons donate the art, they can take it out or sell it whenever they want.
@@R9naldo - Thats not true at all. Id wager logically that most technological advancement comes from small projects (colleges) and government funded research. Im sure there are some great examples of a billionaire self funding some wing-ding project -- but usually what i see is that the thing already exists in some form, the developers "shark tank" it, and they just buy it up or buy up all competition. Back when corporations paid a 90% corporation tax - they actually DID self fund research because they would have to pay it in taxes anyway -- but you're talking 60 years ago. And they weren't making billionaires at the same time (still had filthy rich people). The myth that billionaires fund things or create jobs is false. We would have as much, maybe more, technological innovation if funding was more evenly distributed and there was actually way more competition and investment outside of their shareholders pockets.
This is my first time seeing one of Adam's new videos and hearing him swear is so oddly satisfying. I kinda like this version of him better than the squeaky-clean know-it-all from "Adam Ruins Everything."
I do have a place of my heart for squeaky clean Adam? He was a character that comforted me quite a lot through middle school and that content format helped me with my writing in high school, but I agree with you that this version of him is better, it's more honest and his criticism feels more authentic
I followed you for years on your show, Adam Ruins Everything, and even got my son to watch. It became one of our favorite shows. I was sad when it ended. Then my son found you on TH-cam and couldn't wait to show me. I am now subscribed and look forward to your content! Many blessings.
Charity then. They already pay taxes above what you and I pay, even as a proportion of their income. It's really about billionaires not accepting, and finding ways around, the additional taxes we decide to levy upon them to benefit ourselves or punish them. After all, none of those taxes are meant to give benefits to billionaires in proportion to the taxes they pay.
they do. In order to pay the kind of taxes you and Adam want paid, that would have required SELLING STOCK TO COVER TAXES. That much stock sold would have tanked the stock value.
@@timmytimmy105 it’s not in the interest of fairness. It’s to stop the obscenely rich from hoarding wealth and power because that doesn’t really work if you want a democracy
The youtube algorithm actually delivered relevant, high quality content for once. Unbelievable. Hope to see more stuff in this vein from Adam Conover. Cheers.
The algorithm actually predicts what it thinks you've been interested in by your history & conversations I'm a big advocate for socialism so I'm frequently getting videos like this, Second Though, Climate Town, Vice, and other channels that discuss our socioeconomic structure & climate being exploited by capitalism If you liked this video, I recommend you watch basically any video by Second Thought
Adam Conover does have good topics, but his research is often very surface level and draw incomplete long conclusions from that little information. There's some fact checking videos based on his videos. But this video is really good!
I'm reminded of Papa John Schnatter's story about how he sold the car he loved to buy his first Pizza oven and then later as a multi-millionaire he threw a party at the company to announce that had bought the car back and had it restored. The PR piece was all about "look how successful he is, having started from nothing" Meanwhile his staffs reaction was "Why should I give a shit? Look at how successful he is thanks to all my hard work"
@@nobodyknowsforsure Thank you for saying this. The comments section here is just loaded with jealousy. Everyone wants something for nothing. They rail against someone who built a pizza company and have zero ability to do it themselves. As for the downtrodden employees, they don't have to work there and, in fact, would not even be there (by their own choice) had he not started the company. Perhaps they should start one themselves if they think they can do better.
@@ckathemanthe comment section is filled with righteous indignation at the baffling existence of real life vampires that feed on the life force of innocent humans. Even more baffling is the other humans who side with these demons of the night, no doubt in the hope that they will have mercy, giving them the honor of converting them into mindless thralls, forever slaves to their beloved master.
Have you ever got a job in the poor man? Did you know every time billionaires buy things like yachts, limos and jets they create jobs on the people who build and maintain them and sell them.
I seriously love that you addressed the whole issue of “it’s okay when your team does it”. That really can be applied to so many things going on over the last few years.
If I had to pick a political party, I definitely could. I have a "team" so to speak, but I'm never above pointing out the stupid or evil shit they do. I'll still try to act pragmatically and move as best I can towards a better future, but I won't do it with my head stuck up my ass. The amount of people who will demonize everything the other side does and grant blanket forgiveness for it when it's done by their own side is... well it's basically everyone isn't it?
@@anthonybowman3423 Well, except for leftists who viciously criticise each others even over minute misunderstandings let alone over how to run a country.
@@cezarcatalin1406 I think more often than that, some politicians just get kind of "departied". Like McCain did a few years ago. From Republican lead candidate for president to "RINO" in a less than a decade. You have to tow the party line in this quazi two party war or get cast out. I get why the parties would act the way they do, given the political climate they exist in. Though I would like to see more attempts to change that climate instead of just continuing to work in a broken system. But then I understand why that's hard to do too. Even if you were a good man and legitimately wanted to do good things.
Interesting that you said “it’s a new gilded age” of hero billionaires The met gala theme this year was “Gilded Age” and those events are always very symbolic for the oligarchs
Ha! Yes, it was. And the vast bulk of the celebrities couldn't get the theme right in their outlandish costumes. Probably far too ignorant to actually understand what "The Gilded Age" refers to. A few got it right, though.
So people could just show up at the met gala that year in that year's fashions? Being that we're in the second gilded age. 👍 No one probably did but that would've been interesting if they had.
*_It's a beautiful thing that we now have social media, like TH-cam, TikTok and others, through which the voices of the less wealthy can now reach others: These kind of views about the obscenely rich which television, movies and legacy media never brought us because they are owned and controlled by the same obscenely rich people. No wonder the narrative on so many subjects right now are changing for the better! Thank you Adam for being a part of that change!_*
A billionaire donating to a fund or charity is not a donation. It is cashing in their fortune for influence, which I think you highlighted very well. Wealth inequality will always exist, but the current imbalances are just off the charts. Excited for more episodes, Adam!
I don't like the concept itself of Billionaires, but regardless, a few of them have, and are doing, more good for the world than the casually racist anti-semitic homophobe, seriously cheating, womanising misogynist Karl Marx ever achieved, more than peasant-gassing Lenin ever achieved, and certainly more than the grotesque Stalin and other perverters of Socialism. Bill Gates for example, has had a huge positive influence on history that is hard to comprehend "Russian Communism is the illegitimate child of Karl Marx and Catherine the Great" - Sir Clement Attlee, Social Democrat, Labour Party Prime Minister of post WW2 Britain. Helped launch the NHS, Welfare State, and started freeing our former colonies. Tried to meddle with Stalin despite us lacking resources and means. He and other *British* Socialists of the trade unions, guilds, chartists, and Robert Owen, all did more for the poor of country, west, and world than today's TRIGGERED, Virtue-Signalling Marxists ever, ever will.
@@octapusxft While true, as discussed in the video, it's really important to make sure we don't let "at least he's not as bad as ___" become a counter to the main over-arching thesis: Anyone, regardless of the benefactor's professed intentions, shouldn't have the ability to inherit the kind of economic and political power Charnad's children have.
While Adam Ruins Everything was happening, I was stuck in a Florida prison, never saw it. I found it recently post-release, and LOVE it. I'm working thru season 2 right now. Stopped by TH-cam to see some notices found your channel, and I instantly subscribed. Thanks for this. It feels like I've said about half the things you end up telling ppl and it's nice to feel vindicated.
It seems ironic that Fern Lovebond is the moniker of an ex-con lol. I don't expect you to say why you were in there but I have to admit I am curious. Not trying to be judgy though. It can be easier than people think to get in there. Anyways I hope you stay free, safe and happy.
Having worked for extremely wealthy people myself, this is all 100% true. I saw the charity angle get played like a Stradivarius. It's like that line from the beginning of Fellowship of the Ring where the race of men "...above all else, desire power." These same people forced my mother-in-law into retirement _assuming_ she had been able to afford to do so. Our system is f*cked, right now.
And from the flip side of this, my sis ended up quitting after a decade of trying to work for non-profits despite having a masters in non-profit management, because it is exhausting and feels futile when people are constantly exploiting them and undermining their missions with greed. You wouldn't believe the number of well-intentioned non-profits that are ruined by the cycle of: this person gives us all our funding > we have to do what they ask to keep our funding even if they have no clue what the ramifications are, or what's required to implement it > so rich person can brag about 'their' non-profit. It's almost like... we should just tax these assholes appropriately and do our best to provide public services through a system that has ANY sort of oversight!?! --Cue people shrieking about how the government has issues so obviously we should leave these things to sociopathic billionaires instead.
They basically dig a hole where a lot of people die and the non profit is the bread and water they give out of the "godness" of their heart for the volunteers that try to fix the hole.Meanwhile they still make the hole deeper without anyone noticing.
I don't think it's fair to spin the behaviors of a handful of self-selected psychopaths into a commentary about the nature of all people. It seems that way because the people who have mind-boggling amounts of money and power are the ones who at some point in their lives had enough money and power and didn't stop there.
Wow! This is easily the best presentation of this subject I have ever seen. Thank you so much for your incredibly well produced, fast paced, information rich, historically accurate approach. Far too few people understand the changes that have occurred in our economy that have brought us to our current condition. I think you may be a voice that could help change that. Thank you again for your work. Bravo!
@@NJerseyBoy Though I don't really fact check him (because I don't use any of the information I learn from him, otherwise I would fact check), I've heard he does tend to get a bit wrong. At the very least, I'm glad he cites his sources which is a step A LOT of people skip over (granted, I haven't watched this video yet... for all I know, he might not cite the sources like his show's research team did).
By “progressive activists” who created the conditions for the new deal, he means democratic socialists and unions. Roosevelt took 90% of his program from the platform of socialist candidate Norman Thomas. When you think of weekends, 8 hour workdays, social security and the rest of it, thank a socialist and join a union.
@@osama4318 this is actually a possibility. If we taxed the billionaires, capital gains, and corporations, at the exact same rate as the middle class, the government could give us Healthcare, free education, and enough to buy quite a few ponies.
@@osama4318 So in NV this year Ranked Choice Voting is on the ballot for our State Elections. I have been "reaching across the aisle" with all my conservative family and telling them I dont care who they vote for, for GOP all the way down, but to Vote Yes on 3 (the RCV Question). When I explain RCV to them they think its a good idea. I dont spin it to them as a Dem Idea or a socialist idea. So am I excited about who we are putting in office this year? Not really. Either Shitty Party A or Shitty Party B will win and nothing will fundamentally change for us, but all the future elections?! Now those I am excited for! I think Voting will change dramatically when people can start voting for who they want instead of against who they dont want. Voting matters when we have a system in place that makes votes matter. I hope that RCV will make enough of a movement that eventually it will be nation wide.
@@gilgamesh310 a democratic socialist is a socialist, but a socialist isn't necessarily a democratic socialist. A socialist could be green, authoritian, national, Christian, and democratic among others.
I said to myself "I wonder how he made money off that?" When I heard the news. Figured it was for taxes, but it's so much worse. Thank you for getting the facts out. Love the new delivery.
Also, even if he does, that doesn’t change a single thing about his wealth, status, how he got it, and the we won’t get to his place by just doing those small things.
We had shares in the same company, I didn't own that much, while he owned a lot more. Every advantage counts, I mean everything, nothing is left to chance.
In the book "Pitch Anything" the author recounts what it's like to be a Walmart vendor (the product maker who supplies Walmart their goods). You go in for a meeting and look up at a massive reception desk elevated high above you. You sit in tiny plastic chairs and drink lukewarm water from plastic cups. You are made to wait for a long time after your booked appointment. The narrow corridors have no natural light - resembling a prison walkway. Everything in the building is calculated to make you feel small weak and pathetic. The reason for this is to soften you up for the negotiation where they bully you into under-selling your stock to them at a tiny margin. Just enough for your business to survive but not enough for you to live comfortably.
Oh no, alleged psychological manipulation, how scary. If your stock is actually worth what you feel like you deserve, then you will have no trouble finding someone to sell it to. If you can't sell it at the price you imagine its worth, then perhaps it isn't actually worth what you think it is.
@@screamingintothevoid7257 More like abusing laws of a 200 yo democracy that weren't changed so they're easily abusable and profit the rich people who hold the political power.
@@screamingintothevoid7257 As in the video: the company Patagonia created a non-profit that they control, gave a bunch of money in "charity" to it, but also had a smaller one that they gave the controlling shares to that is controlled by the owning family. Essentially: they made a bunch of PR for themselves, gave money to their own family, and didn't actually have to have wealth and control change hands through the entire thing.
Our downtown started suffering "urban decay" long before we got a Walmart. It was the mall that killed it back in the 80s. We didn't get our first Walmart here until the mid 1990s.
I’ve had to fight this arg way too many times, and it still baffles how the opinions you shared here in this video, aren’t mainstream. So refreshing to see someone speaking the truth! The amount of people who will die defending billionaires and the broken system we are under now are truly baffling!
it's not mainstream because... you know how much pressure, confusion, sadness, anger, RESPONSIBILITY and every kind of psychological weight it puts on people's mind? it's Exhausting seyed, believe you me
The system itself isn't broken. it's run by broken people. No system made by humans can be perfect and there are always those who will work to game the system than close the loop hole so no one else can follow unless they obay.
Warren Buffett said it best: Never lose money. He made that happen. All these powerful wealthy people know a good sales pitch. They rely on it. Thanks for sharing the video!
“‘…Warren Buffett clips coupons.’ No he f*cking doesn’t!” absolutely killed me. 😂 Seriously though, this is such a wonderfully crafted argument explaining why you can’t succumb to the impulse of supporting a bad thing just because it’s helping your cause this time. I know it’s only been a day since this was posted but I can’t believe this has less than 150k views. I’m showing this to everyone.
The amount of irrational obsession with retaining money a person needs to gather and retain a billion USD actually does lend itself to weird habits like clipping coupons when the accountants he hires are probably off by more money in mistakes on an average work day during tax season then clipping coupons could save.
@@garethbaus5471 Dude. Basically nobody reaches billionaire status by gathering and retaining. They invest their way to that level of wealth. Either by starting/buying businesses, buying real estate, or - in Warren’s case - investing in the market. If you don’t understand the power of investing and compounding interest, you shouldn’t be judging others about their level of financial knowledge or growth. The median American income is around $40k. The average US car payment is $550/a month. The average US family has more the 2 cars. We’ll round down to 2. If the average American family chose to drive crappier cars that only cost $250/month… they’d save $300 per car… $600/month. If they changed nothing else about their lifestyle and didn’t bother clipping coupons but invested that into the market (which is NOT the same thing as burying it in some hidden vault somewhere… you’re literally putting that money back out into the economy by giving it to someone else in exchange for ownership of an investment asset which you can later turn around and sell). If they invested into the market that $600/month for 45 years they would retire with roughly $6million in your portfolio. If they were able to save $100 in coupon clipping and invest that as well, $7million. The fact that you think of coupon clipping as just a silly waste of time is arguably why you will never be able to take advantage of compounding interest. It’s not a $100 savings. It’s a $100 monthly down payment on $1 million dollars. Just like the interest on credit card payments and student loan debt balloons when not paid down, investment interest balloons exponentially over time the longer you keep your money in the market. What that means is there are TWO ways to get wealthy in the market. One is by investing more money each month (coupon clipping, side hustle, drive a crappier car, etc). The other way is to invest for a longer period of time. For example. Instead of investing $600 a month for 45 years to get $6million… you could also invest only $200 a month (1/3rd as much per month) and will still have the same $6m after 56 years. Want to be a greedy billionaire family like Adam is complaining about with money that you can NEVER lose? Drive the crappy car, clip the coupons for that extra $100 a month, invest the $700 a month, raise your children to do the same, and in about 96 years, your family will be billionaires. That’s literally how easy it is to do. It costs so little that the average American family, earning the average income could do it simply by driving a crappier car within 2-3 generations without making any other significant sacrifices. That’s how powerful “silly clipping coupons” is when you get your mind right. It’s why Einstein said that compounding interest is the eighth wonder of the world. That is… unless you and Adam got your way where the government could tax you on your income, then when you die force you to sell everything, tax your capital gains, and then tax any amount you want to hand down to your children. That 100 years wouldn’t cut it. You’d likely never be able to get there. So quit your whining, stop trying to hold everyone else from growing their wealth, and start taking some responsible, intelligent action. Either way… if you don’t know the importance of coupon clipping and aren’t using the tools you have at your disposal to retire a multimillionaire… stop pretending like that makes you a more moral person who can look down at and judge everyone else trying to do good for themselves, their family, and the world.
And this wasn’t a wonderfully crafter argument AlyKat. As a former fan of Adam’s… this was filled with all kinds of hypocrisy, illogical “jump to conclusions,” and all kinds of weird and glossed over rationalizations that made no sense if you poked at them even the slightest.
@@joeschneider3894 by the time it turn into a billion, how much that billion actually worth now factoring in Inflation, rising housing and education cost ? I teach compound interest and even I do not have that illusion where clipping coupon is going to take you to be a billionaire. It may helps when you're in the lower bracket sure (until a medical bill wipe all that out) but as you move higher in the bracket, it's about figuring out better way to make money rather than saving 1 penny here and there. Only way to become a billionaire is to have enough money invest in "correct" assets that multiply in value in a reasonably short amount of time, not for generations. These assets can include something you put labor into like your own company of course.
The rant at the beginning about Chouinard is exactly how I feel about all the rich mountain people I've met in my life. They're all "I'm not rich, I don't buy designer clothes" "I'm not rich, I drive a Subaru". Nah, buddy, you're dropping 200 bucks on a vest and your house is worth a million dollars, you're rich.
@lordbalthosadinferni4384tomorrow is not guaranteed fam. ❤️ But our chances of dying by natural causes have never been higher in human history. Don't forget that! 😁👍 Moving out on your own is great. Sure those bills with your name on them are real, there is always another bill. 😳 But you have that freedom. Of course it's about impossible you'll always be in debt. Yep, great advice! 😂
@lordbalthosadinferni4384 If you think Fascism is bad then you are an enemy of Fascism, which means you are an Egoist Liberal, not different from Neonazis except your supersociality is on the other end of the spectrum, yet none of you do anything to help people. If you do think I'm speaking nonsense, go look up Zoltanous. Fascists are actually helping people.
If you bought a house anywhere near Seattle in the mid 80s it's probably now worth a couple million. Even with sky high interest the mortgage on such a home would have been less than a 1bdr apartment is now
PLEASE DO MORE VIDEOS LIKE THIS ONE! It was epic! There are far too many bad things disguised as good things that need to be ruined. The world needs Adam Conover!
I worked for a billionaire who fell along these same lines. He was just a “humble immigrant farmer.” But if you look through the layers, he was actually greedy and gross.
The use of "charities" by billionaires convinced me a long time ago that we should straight up do away with charitable donations as a tax deduction or at the very least cap it (heck cap it at 25 million - a truly ridiculous number).
I do charitable work through my company in maybe the amount of $2k a year. Maybe more idk because I never write it off. I struggle so much and I still never want to be a billionaire!
Nah, the cap should be median household income. That way, if these rich bastards want to further reduce their tax burden, they'd have to start paying themselves less to begin with.
I care more about restricting which charities count for the deduction. I think too many of the organizations don't use enough of the money to help others, like churches and PETA. If an organization spends 80% of their donations on things other than helping the people/animals they claim to be working for, they shouldn't qualify for tax deductible donations.
I'm glad you mentioned Walmart's affect on small towns and how they destroy so much. My grandfather used to have a small shop where he lived in Texas but when they built a walmart across the street they sold the same goods as him for less money and he had to close down his shop.
And that was probably a shop where memories were made and good times were remembered. There's a convenience store near my campground I've visited for my entire life, it recently got new management and they took all the country charm right out. It's a shame, it used to be a little famous for ghost hunter shows visiting but not anymore 😢
Well done dude. I wasnt always onboard for "ruins everything" because sometimes it felt over simplified or skewed, but this long formJohn Oliver esque format suits you and you should definitely do more.
I'm no tax layer, but when I heard about a famous athlete or entertainer giving millions to charity, I always knew it was a tax dodge. Now the pieces even make more sense and the motivations grow darker. You are truly one of the most important people on mass media today. I want to thank you for all that you do to draw a cogent, linear line between the issue at hand and the absolute truth about it. You are truly a credit to your education, as well as you dogged determination to pull the curtain back and expose the wizards of deceit. Thank you for giving us hope that intelligence and research still matters.
The tone shift from snarky pot shots at billionaires to "Fuck you! How gullible do you think we are?" Has me absolutely wheezing. The whole video has a comedic tone to it until Adam Conover is yelling fuck you straight into the camera. I love it and can't explain why.
Honestly, watching Adam Ruins Everything as an early teenager was my first introduction to questioning the system we base our lives around today. His presentation style and presentation of the facts of a story are super enticing and informative. It’s amazing to see Adam on a platform where he can really give it his all - no holds barred! I would love to see you make more content like this!!
Adam Ruins Everything was heavily influenced by Penn and Teller's Bullshit. If you haven't seen that yet, I implore you to check it out, a lot of it still holds up.
If you wanna see how good Adam is in what he “knows” look at his podcast with Rogan. Adam is the worst at cherry picking and screwing with data. Look at his illegal immigration episode. He openly admits more come across the southern border but words it to trick you. He’s a shady liberal lying turd, that’s why he doesn’t have a show anymore LOL
Cathedrals for example could take 300 years to build. It's a multi-generational deal. There is no societal will to even dream of such commitments anymore. 300 years was enough for the constitution to be irrelevant within gov't structures, so we could argue that we're not even capable of simple maintenance anymore.
"A monument to his humility..." I lost it, I loved it. It is so amazing that people wear rose colored glasses today more than ever. We used to be (or perhaps just seemed to be, and should be) critical of those we agreed with more than those we disagreed with. But now everyone just lives their lives in their echo chambers and question less and less.
"The bourgeoisie is charitable out of self-interest; it gives nothing outright, but makes a bargain with the poor, saying: 'If I spend this much upon benevolent institutions, I thereby purchase the right not to be troubled any further, and you are bound thereby to stay in your dusky holes and not to irritate my tender nerves by exposing your misery.’" - Friedrich Engels
@@beefsupreme694 but why would a follower of marx want to live in the sick decadent west? It must be torture to live here when glorious socialist paradises like cuba and north korea exist
@@low_vibration Again, childish non-sequitur. Only now with additional unfounded assumptions. I won't waste my time expanding on this debate as you are either a child or someone who's grown up in an echo chamber of American exceptionalism, and never been allowed to deviate (a grown up child) in the slightest, as this would involve reflecting on and questioning the very foundation of your consciousness/identity. And that would take balls..
@@beefsupreme694 no thinking socialism is viable at all is childish. Just because i know socialism is retarded it doesnt mean im all in on what we have now. That zero sum mentality has rotted your mind but that's to be expected from a child who thinks marx had anything intelligent to say
I love that this is Adam Conover Ruins Everything (without a cable channel's limitations). I loved the show and instantly subbed after I watched this! Happy to see you again Adam!
@@jfh2112 "The Moon Landing was obviously faked. Duh! No sane free thinker could miss all of the clues that Kubrick left in it to clue us into the truth!" Really, I imagine that the commentator just took umbrage at some mistake or other Adam made in the past.
“We are living in a new gilded age.” You got that right…I truly hope we learn from the lessons of history. Thank you for your Netflix special and this video Adam!
Double lmao to learn from history. I just watched a four point five hour long documentary on how big oil swept climate change under the rug, and the most disturbing fact I’ve realized from the doc is that IT WAS ACTUALLY COMMON KNOWLEDGE IN THE 80’S THAT CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL and they paid big bucks to people to muddy that, and make us forget, and sadly it worked. That’s why we have new people who forgot the 80’s or weren’t alive back then screaming that the climate isn’t changing, or is a hoax, when in fact for at least 40 years everybody knew. It was on the news, in newspapers, discussed around the dinner table. Only now is it a “debate”, because politics have obfuscated the truth. Sad to think we knew about this and were about to act on something this big 40 years ago, then decided to say screw it, let’s go for profit, let’s make everyone forget about it, so now we argue like it’s all new to us when we just don’t remember history 🤪
If you have food and housing (and a car and internet and gaming and all kinds of legalized drugs) you’re a lot less likely to be giving that up to initiate change then what the average citizen in the Gilded Age had. But the boiling frog syndrome is real, it’s just that most people are still at the ‘hot tub’ stage.
Please please please do more content like this. These 15-20 minute deep dives rebutting all the garbage narratives we have been force fed are vital to actually saving the human species. Keep it up!
And in case it's not 100% clear, this comment is not only correct, but literal. Not hyperbolic. This particular issue Adam addressed is one of the main reasons why climate change is rampant
Adam, I’ve lived in Arkansas my whole life and have lived in the NWA area since college. I was so excited to hear what you’ve said here about the Walton family. I’ve been saying the same thing ever since I moved up here. Between Crystal Bridges, the Walmart arkansas music pavilion in Rogers, and the Walton arts center in Fayetteville the Walton family has made art and culture accessible to a state that, like you said, so often gets left out or thought of as a lost cause. During my time in college I was able to see hundreds of dollars worth of professional national theatre for free because I volunteered at the WAC. It’s nice, because we are so often thought of as a state of little cultural and economic value, and god knows our state government leaders will never value funding arts and community so long as we continue to vote conservative. They also spend a lot of money on the university of Arkansas in Fayetteville, my alma mater and an increasingly respectable research university in a state notorious for its terrible public education. But, Walmart’s practices as a company have disgusted me. As you’ve said, they’ve destroyed small town america, and their business practices are greedy. It’s a miserable place to work under the corporate level. They even show training videos which discourage associates from unionizing. All the while promoting Sam Walton as someone who was truly interested in improving the customer experience in small towns, which as you’ve said is blatantly false. It’s a complex dissonance to navigate. I hate when my state is written off as a lost cause, which even left-wingers in blue states are bad about doing. There are still people who live here, and there are so many who do want to make things better. And as a person who likes the arts and live music it is fantastic to have access to those things here. But I don’t want to have those things off the backs of small towns. It feels like taking blood money. Tldr, I was very happy to hear you address something I’ve been thinking about for a while. I love learning new things from you- stay awesome!
As a fellow U of A grad I also hate that we have to grapple with this. The state of Arkansas is so much better off because of the influence of Bentonville and new-money. It has a flourishing culture of young people and open-mindedness that breathes fresh air into the rural southern state. But then again that new money is basically a bribe from the Waltons to say "don't hate us" for the horrible way they've treated America. Pretty shitty situation to deal with ethically.
Very very well said. Also a NWA local. Adam hit the nail on the head. While they’ve built amazing things for our local economy/culture/standard of living with their attention to urbanism and bike commuting/recreation, it’s deeply ironic that they amassed all their wealth through parasitic car-centric retail that drained and destroyed so many small towns in America. Like Adam said, it’s easy to support your billionaire overlords when they’re on your side and propping your hometown up. But that doesn’t make it ok for our country at large, particularly the lack of tax revenue so we can check their power. Because just as the Waltons giveth, the Waltons taketh away.
It really baffles me how so many people buy this fictional idea of "ethical capitalism". Reminds me of the time when doctors were prescribing smoking for its health benefits lol
@@lydiaornot I used to have this religious theory when I was a child, that Satan killed God ages ago, and that everything in the bible, and all we know of god, was all actually engineered by Satan, merely masquerading as God. I'm 42 now, and no longer believe in any religious stuff, but how ironically accurate that theory seems when applying it to modern capitalism..
Oh man, I really missed you. Had a customer in at my restaurant tonight who told me you had a youtube channel! I ran to the kitchen and subscribed, came home, watched and have shared this episode many times already. You give me hope in a hopeless world. Thank you so much for everything, it is not unappreciated.
Bless you sir. Not sure what prompted the sudden return to your channel and a more honest unhinged format, but I love it! You never needed those TV overlords! I hope you keep going, because I know it will keep growing if you do.
I'd like to say, I prefer you as a youtuber, the lack of censorship, and the ability to curate a small team really helps you get your message across. I'm not sure what contracts your under, or if it's worth it financially, but I really enjoy this content from you.
Oh he’ll get censored if he goes down the rabbit holes he points out in this video. I wanted so badly to see him get into the Gates Foundation…lol they’ve been busy the past 2 years. Anyone who criticizes what they’ve been up to gets labeled anti-science and misinformation, and then banned from platforms like this. He’s more free as an independent, but he wont be truly free on TH-cam.
I want more of Adam talking about how our society is slowly being taken over by monopolies and oligopolies but the government won’t enact our anti trust laws
well unfortunately it's because the people don't want it. do you think someone who ran with a platform of "I'm going to split up google, microsoft, walmart, disney etc." would ever get elected? even if they had the most effective messaging and most popular overall policies they would absolutely lose. if people didn't love elites so much we wouldn't be stuck in heavily hierarchical societies for the entirety of known human history. people love idols and people love being lazy, the only time people start to rebel is when elites make our lives so shit it's unbearable, which is expected given the public gives a massive amount of power to a few hands. It's the responsibility of the people to source their products in a healthy way and that means heavy premiums and potentially lower quality which people do not want to pay nor suffer ATM. It's easy to say walmart isn't evil when it saves you 20-30% on groceries and common goods. This problem will form as long as people are refusing to fund competition. Anti-trust laws are great but as long as the public funnels money into the few, corruption will always form and it doesn't matter what laws we have in place, under the table deals happen. We should push for laws and policies which protect the people but ultimately the only way to uphold these laws is through personal responsibility which get's increasingly difficult the farther removed we are from the last period of serious public upset and responsibility.
I've discovered you late. I love the way you talk about thing that "normaly" people should see by themself. Society, put more money on education please....
@@orycroft2020 Because TH-cam receives half of the money you donate to the creator. Its better just to use Patreon, or better yet, just dont block the ads.
I always wondered why the Billionaires insist on setting up new charities rather than finding the plethora of existing charitable organisations … thanks for the answer
Now you know. It's the new Capitalism!
why do billionaires insist on ____? To make more money and gain political influence. With 1 billion dollars you could spend 35k per day for 80 years. The only reason they do ANYTHING is because money and influence doesn't buy happiness for them, it IS happiness to them.
In many European countries, I don’t know about US law, Familie foundations can spend 1/3 of their income on the personal expenses of the owner and it’s closest relatives basically tax free….. you will not find a better bank
@@p.j.c.l.6178 ...Part 2 to this here: "Dark Money in the Sheets" by 'Some More News'.
What did Bill Gates get out of it? The only criticism on here appears to pertain to his private life. He’s done amazing things for neglected diseases in developing countries
I don't hate rich people as a collective. But I hate when people applaud them for doing "minimalist" things like driving an old car or using coupons. There was one billionaire that used to brag about taking the bus. Because as you said it's just a distraction from how they used the broken system to make their billions
Distraction for whom? If you have billions, your are not getting past anything because you take the bus. And whatever edge that might give you, is something you can easily buy. Chouinard lived the dirtbag life for real, and probably that is not only the formative, but the best part of his life, when he was pushing global climbing standards, and making a new world of his own. He got so popular he became a billionaire, and that was a disconnect not only for those that followed him a little, but also probably for him. I do think billionaires are a problem.
I hate the people that applaud them
I hate rich people as a collective.
Make their billions? You mean take, right?
I do hate billionaires as a collective though. You cannot do the thing necessary to aquire a billion dollars and be a good person. They are contradictory
"Finally, a billionaire willing to smack back at capitalism" is one of the most potent oxymorons I've ever read; mentally flashbanged me when it popped onscreen.
*I"M GOING TO DO IT I'M GOING TO SAY THE N WORD!*
Yeah you can't really "smack back" at something if you're a key player. It's like saying the president of the United States is smacking back at the political system. Like???
Yeah, that's like claiming Voldemort is opposed to wizarding supremacy? Hope that ref isn't too nerdy... 😂
@@saxyrep1 there's nothing weirder and nerdier than harry potter, very niche and obscure
nice pfp omori?
The thing most people don’t understand about billionaires is;
If it was about money,tens of millions are plenty. Going beyond hundreds of millions in earning is most definitely about POWER. That’s why ol’ Sam drove that actually very nice old truck that wasn’t actually that old back then. He wanted to get that power as soon as possible, it had nothing to do with money or comfort for him.
Yes!! They don't even live off of the principle they live off the interest. Meanwhile I can't save any money because we are too poor.
If it was about having billions in your account I'd agree but that's nonsense if you own your own company. If you built up your company of course you'd want to keep control of it, which you do by retaining equity which then translates to your ner worth...
The alternative is selling your shares to some greedy private equity fund that will do whatever they want to squeeze every cent and run you out of what you built.
It's so ridiculous to say that just because you want to keep control of what you built over decades, that you're greedy and power hungry. It's just plain common sense
@@The_Duude99
Capitalists lose any moral claim to the project as soon as they involve other people (employees/coworkers). There is no moral or human right that permits you to treat other people as tools.
“No amount of charity in spending such fortunes can compensate in any way for the misconduct in acquiring them.” -Theodore Roosevelt
theodore roosevelt was perfectly fine and supported lots of trusts ( he only busted some), and was a very rich man himself
@@dominicrutherford4498 I don't have a problem with wealthy people. I have a problem with people that are *fabulously* wealthy. There are plenty of fine and upstanding millionaires. Who worked very hard at small businesses and tried to do right by their employees. Paid their taxes and gave back to their communities. There are, however, no good billionaires. To accrue that money in the first place one MUST engage in evil at some level. Whether it's as simple as not paying your employees their share of the fruits of their labor, or as complicated as cheating on all of your taxes and abusing everyone you come into contact with.
@Anon-ir5nt All of that can be done while paying your employees well. If you're a billionaire it means you've extracted wealth from the business to enrich yourself, whether that be by holding shares (which could be sold to raise capital to pay your workers more), pumping up shares to the detriment of the rest of the business, or paying yourself exorbitantly.
Paying your employees well and treating them properly increases employee retention which increases the level of experience and skill you can hold in your company, it increases their loyalty and morale which benefits productivity, and it lures the highest levels of talent who are seeking pay commensurate with their abilities.
Concentrating the wealth (whether it be in liquid wealth or in shares) in the hands of a few is simply them extracting the value of the company for personal enrichment, and once we get into the BILLIONS, they're doing it at such a rate that it is inherently immoral.
@Anon-ir5nt Shares are typically split into preferred and common stock so the actual "decision making" shares aren't necessarily the same as the "slice of the pie" shares, in fact they rarely are.
@Anon-ir5nt Oh sorry, missed the last one- CEO doesn't technically need any shares, in most corps' cases they are simply the person appointed by the board to oversee executive action for the company. They usually DO have great stock options as part of their compensation, but it's not technically related. If you own a controlling share of preferred stock, you CAN simply name yourself CEO, though.
I have to admit. I was one of the Patagonia Fanboys, who was pissed about your tweet. But after watching this, and hearing you say, "cheering on the abuse of the system just because you agree with the cause doesn't make sense" really made me realize how correct you are. Thanks for this.
This guy has a history of intentionally twisting facts and omitting ones he finds annoying.
Maybe he is right, but historically if you have to lie to prove your point, maybe your point need correcting.
@@maxlopolo2415 ok but this is entirely accurate. Idk him but he seems to have a very good grasp on reality based on this. If you're unsure whether this take is a good one, you should definitely do some more research bc there are some critical foundations here that are worth thoroughly understanding
@@maxlopolo2415 Maybe? Dude, if the rich guy wanted to use his money for actual charity, why not form a 501c3 and not a 501c4 or just give the money to a 501c3? Stop defending rich people, they don't care about you.
@@maxlopolo2415 Examples or you're just a troll.
@@spanio just watch his Joe Rogan debate, or the multiple videos showing his twisting of facts. Like the one episode of Adam Ruins Everything where he talks about racism in sitcoms and says that only Asian Americans were put in interment camps (which he classified as concentration ones), and flat out says German and Italian people weren’t sent into those camps “because they were white”, when Italians and Germans very much were sent into those camps, Italians especially so.
"Why There's No Such Thing as a Good Billionaire" would make a great series with each episode presenting an expose on a particular billionaire and/or family. Especially the lesser-known ones. There are over 800 to pick from just in North America alone. Would love to see something like this about KC Irving (a tax-dodging pioneer) and family.
You're not wrong. The format is great and would allow for repeatability.
Yes!
Can you imagine the amount of money the richie-riches would level at him to try to stop such a thing from happening? I would love to see it, but if Adam made this more than a easily glossed-over TH-cam video piece he would have a target on his back in minutes.
It's sort of mind-blowing how many wealthy people there are. I found out recently that there are nearly 90,000 individuals in my state who make $1 million of more a year. Of course there are far, far more poor people. It was just easier to put up with being poor as shit when I thought there were only a few rich people here and there.
Don't look now but... Y'all are talking like the Bible.
Thanks for pulling back the covers on Patagonia. If it sounds too good to be true it probably isn't.
*It probably is
Another American butchering of a long said quote? First being "I could care less"
I saw a tweet that Warren Buffet sent a couple years ago that said something about taking a break from stress and it struck me because working for Geico was the most stressful job I’ve ever had. They’re so obsessed with numbers that all they do is constantly pressure employees to be more perfect with regular threats of firing people. I heard sales supervisors yelling at their team because they needed to sell more. I was told to speak in a high voice because customers like that and was criticized for not moving my mouse fast enough during a call. They demoralized employees and had someone crying on the floor daily. I thought “this is why Warren Buffet is so rich.”
Wow. Will never buy insurance from Geico.
He was on the news in Australia last year when an injured lady who was paid compensation for a car accident was sent a letter by Buffet requiring the several million returned because they found her car maintenance schedule was lacking, it was on all the current affair shows but I dont know how that finished up, she didnt have the money. I found it particularly galling and surprising.
Warrren buffet doesn’t have a computer? How he lives ? He told us in bush w years this is class warfare ? Idk. …
Geico would send the letter not a Warren tho? So … mm?
What you mean is constant low balling and ripping off customers - Worst claim process ever was geico - constant and blatant ripping off on residual, parts etc.... They should at least attach a cigarette to the claim forms
"How gullible do you think we are?!" Unfortunately, most humans are very very gullible.
Thanks for your comment. Reach out, I've got something to introduce you to!!!👆.
Literally: even "expert human lie detectors" can only tell truth from lies about 50% of the time. That's a coin flip!
@@XxThunderflamexX your mom's a coin flip
Not gullible. Indoctrinated. It's tough to acknowledge the problems with a system when that system is all you know.
Don't ruin this feeling I got rn 🤫
I’ve watched every single episode of Adam Ruins Everything, and was so ANGRY when the networks did away with it, now that you’re on TH-cam, I’ll be watching every single one of these! Please don’t stop making these!
Oh yeah he’s the best! It’s easy to live in an echo chamber these days but listening to other opinions is essential. I’m a lawyer and I love outdoor activities like hiking, but I can’t afford/choose not to overspend on Patagonia gear.
Doesn't he have something vaguely similar on Netflix? I forget the title, but it was like Adam Ruins Everything, just with an unnecessarily high budget.
Billionaires donating to billionaires really does bring a tear to my eye 🥲
@@halburke2947 Buffet is donating the the Bill Gates Foundation. Not to BG. And the criticism here of BG appears to be of his personal life, not his use of money for charity. That part of this was poorly done
@@drrush3421 bill gates is buying up tons of farmland. To the point where pretty soon if you don’t have a generational farm or ranch, you gotta make a deal with BG just to raise animals or grow food. It seems he wants to control a lot of the food supply
That Franklin D. Roosevelt contracted Polio before his political career really took off, might be one reason why he was such an exceptional historical figure. To mitigate the pain that the disease inflicted, FDR regularly visited a rehabilitation center at Warm Springs, Georgia where he would bath alongside normal American citizens who also contracted Polio. In addition, during WW2 his sons fought alongside other Americans and his son Quentin died in the air battle of Europe. I believe that theses hardships made FDR realize that their is no sense in accumulating wealth and power, but instead true meaning lies in serving the people of your country. However, while FDR's politics demonstrated that the poor can prosper alongside the rich, many of the succeeding presidents knowingly dismantled the new gained rights of the working class. So I agree with Adam, a democracy cannot rely on the aptitude of the wealthy. Power must be distributed among men to prevent the chosen few from exploiting the poor and the environment we all live in. Neo-liberalism has failed US.
Agreed with everything you said until you said neoliberalism ruined this country. Nothing you said earlier supports that assertion.
@@Great_PatBingsoo By neo-liberalism he's referring to the dismantling/undermining of the pro-worker regulations set up during FDR's presidency.
He means classic liberalism, not the Left@@Great_PatBingsoo
So the current tally is, Teddy made the oil companies shit their teeth, and Franky did his damndest to help the middle class.
@@Sonichero151 Exactly. Andrew Carnegie's "Gospel of wealth" and the fairy tale on "trickle-down economics" start to collect dust. While in WWI, companies could exploit the war to cash in absurd profits, during WWII profit margins were strictly regulated and the marginal tax rate was raised to 94%. If I would have been an industrial magnate at the time, I surely would have worried that a) the state shows that it can effectively handle wealth and incentivize economical growth and b) because of that there is a good chance that the firm grip on the wealthy is not being loosened. However, we know the rest of the story... two years after FDR died the "Taft-Hartley Act" severely weakened labor unions and after 1981 Ronald Reagan reduces tax rates below 25%. As Warren Buffet said: "There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning."
Yet when I talk like this people call me a communist. 🙄 Thanks for saying this.
As a person who has worked in the nonprofit world, where we are doing a lot of good most of the time, I'm deeply uncomfortable with how we're funded. And these are *real* nonprofits, not just political power grabs like this.
I'd take the compliments :D
the idea of a corporation being run democratically by the workers instead of a rich owner is exactly what socialism
(this be good thing)
It must feel exactly like eating a rabbit.
I recommend you eat more rabbits and try to just suck it up and cope more.
But. I think it's still of educational value to also take time to talk to each other about how dead rabbits can make our tummy upset.
Off the top of my head I don't think there is getting around the fact that we fundamentally sustain ourselves in so many ways by things we find objectionable if we think about it.
I think the codependency on what upsets us is unavoidable. All the more reason to talk about it with each other.
I'm more of a socialist but I consider communist a complement at this point because if caring about the welfare of other people over profits and corporate interests is communism then I guess I'm communist, I'd rather be a communist with a heart than a capitalist sociopath
@@jasonarmstrong5750 communism is where the means of pruduction beling to the workers because they seized them, this system has never been implemented yet, some countries can claim they are communist but they aren't
“Finally, a billionaire willing to smack back at capitalism” almost gave me a GD aneurysm
im just numb to it at this point KEKW
Right? Kind of like a mad president ending democracy, or insider traders ending companies or wait, this happens a lot.
seriously, I think one of my grey cells died on the spot
Washington Post is a media owned by Jeff Bezos, another billionaire.
I legit almost got a six pack purely of laughter
The number of people annually making what a billionaire makes *per day* who will die on the hill of defending billionaires will never stop surprising me.
Because they have a dream that they will be the next billionaire looking down at the peasants making their money for them one day. A hollow dream for the vast majority of them.
@@rayravernous4376 the average person has a higher chance of getting struck by lightning and winning the lottery on the same day than becoming a billionaire.
@@scottgrindrod Something I say a lot to those bootlickers is that they are closer to being homeless than they are to ever being a billionaire.
You've just described most, if not all, NON rich right wingers that are doing something MUCH easier than ACTUALLY becoming rich. Their ignorance of history is almost as painful as their "defense" efforts!
Like don't you wanna be rich yourself first 😭😭😭
This was more exhilarating than any other media I’ve watched. Used to watch your work religiously, and safe to say I will continue to do so now!
"It's called the American dream, cause you have to be asleep to believe it." - George Carlin
He's on of the best!
George Carlin was smart and only swore to keep speaking his real message out
"Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things" - Also George
America It's one big club and you ain't in it- George Carlin
You can say the same thing about MLK's dream also .. 👍
"I donated billions in charity...to my own company and relatives. And it cost me nothing, and everyone else everything! I'm a hero!"
For real 😑
Definitely use to believe that billionaires could be good people. Then I started paying more taxes than them and changed my mind 😅
But who wrote the tax code?
@bobvox2832 all those people who have billionaires' hands up their bums?
And then the IRS goes after the little people just a couple grand but won’t go after billionaires who avoid paying millions of dollars in taxes. Seems fair, right?
@@bobvox2832Barbra from accounting
@@bobvox2832 The billionaires wrote the tax code, or at least their hired goons in congress did it for them.
I used to love your show but this is infinitely more important work. Glad to see someone I used to watch on TV actually stand for something for once.
Adam: "You know the system is rigged, right?"
Americans: "Yeah, that's why it's gonna be SO SWEET when I'm super rich!!"
When you think about it and combine this with Newton's law about energy only being transferrable...
Americans vote like they are going to be a millionaire sometime in the near future except it will never happen but the dream of being a millionaire makes them the actual millionaires bitches and it hurts to watch.
@@newhorizonsforfifty2833 Eat the rich.
As Fry would say in Futurama: th-cam.com/video/K_LvRPX0rGY/w-d-xo.html
@Janette Brown Nah fam, I don't want food poisoning
God I would love more content like this, I miss you ruining everything
Here I was thinking that thinking that the Adam on TV was just a character. Turns out he's actually like this lol
Here I was thinking that thinking that the Adam on TV was just a character. Turns out he's actually like this lol
@@khadeejones1136 I mean, theres still a big difference, adam as a dude just likes providing information, adam as a character thinks hes better than you and is doing you a favor by telling you things
@@Badusername2000 Oh, I didn’t mean to say that they’re literally the same person. I just meant that to say that he actually likes debunking misconceptions outside of his TV persona.
If this video is successful I'm definitely planning on making more, so this is good to hear!
I will never forget the very wise words "you have more in common with the average thief then you do with a billionaire"
I usually hear it as vagrant/homeless person rather than thief, but true either way.
@@SinHurr Well yeah Sunak stole a whole country and I have nothing in common with him, well neither of us drive our self's but I use mass transit instead and he uses private jets instead
Economically, you’re closer to being homeless than you are to being a billionaire. You’re always one accident, one mistake, one con away from being destitute, but you’re never the same “oops” away from being a billionaire.
People do not respect the power of the “0.”
1,000 dollars makes a difference. 1,000,000 can set someone up for life with enough knowledge. 1,000,000,000 is 1,000,000 * 100. 1,000,000,000 is enough for one person to try and fail 100 times to succeed over the millionaire. It’s enough to provide for that individual’s life and many other’s over.
Billionaires are immoral when people are dying of preventable things.
And the overwhelming majority of us are more likely to be a thief than a billionaire.
Most Americans are more economically similar to the average worker in China than they are to the Millionaires and billionaires they just want us to think that one day we could be a millionaire like them in this horrible system we call capitalism
This video is like every rant I’ve ever gone on chained together seamlessly. Hope your blood pressure is OK after getting all that out, man! 👏
It could be several segments glued together. See how gullible you are.
I’m so glad you’re bringing this to light. I recently had a conversation with my partner on what we’d do with that kind of money. I said I wouldn’t be a billionaire for long, because I’d put all of it into conservation efforts and essentially “lose” it for the sake of saving Mother Earth. But that’s probably why I wouldn’t become a billionaire in the first place. Also, why do we see any other kind of ‘hoarder’ as having a mental illness with just about everything else, but not when it comes to money?? 🤔
YES!! Hallelujah! Finally someone else called them exactly what they are and I've been asking that very question for years now.
To many cats, to many newspapers = mental illness; to many dollars, cue the line of sycophantic kiss-asses ready to do anything for them. Best part about that is most of these nut jobs are notoriously cheap. How do we suppose they keep their money?
i mean its right there in the name capitalism... capital as in get as much of that shit as possible and leave none for others
lol. you just dont understand money. generally, people give you money because they like what you give them in return more than the money. you arent saving mother earth. (the environment for our sakes) if you do something to make money, people are actually thankful. they show that with money. Make a new solar company if you want to cut petroleum use.
I would rather they just admit they want to keep and spend the money over acting like a saint a honest arsehole is at least honest
@@snorttroll4379 Wait till he learns what monopolies are
People love to humanize billionaires because the more human they seem the easier it is to assume that you can be just like them. It's just a form of ego self-sucking, and they'll act like everyone else is wrong
Do you assume that they’re just born billionaires? Some people are born into wealth, yes, but you can’t deny that there are many who aren’t.
@@themusicman669 You're forgetting a lot that didn't have that wealth at birth rich people had connections to the right people/opportunities most average person didn't/will not have
@@randomtinypotatocried When you say “rich”, what are you suggesting? Millionaire or billionaire? Most MILLIONAIRES in America are self made. Also, who’s stopping any of us from making certain connections? Just because certain people are born with certain advantages doesn’t mean others shouldn’t try. Wealth doesn’t just happen in a vacuum.
@@themusicman669 MOST millionaires are self made, you say? You wouldn't have any data to support that claim would you? Because it sounds completely made up to me.
I would guess the vast majority of millionaires inherited their wealth, but please go ahead and prove me wrong. Let's see the numbers.
"Socialism never took root in America because the poor do not see themselves as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."
-John Steinbeck.
I work for Patagonia and I completely agree with all of this!
We (the bottom rung employees) were left shocked and confused by the “donation”. Upper leadership NEVER spelled it out as eloquently as you just did.
Thank you
All workers should co-own and make the decisions in their workplace.
Something that's censored in public dialogue
@@toyotaprius79 Syndicalism gets it from the Left (Socialism) & the Right (Mercantilism) because it results in superior allocation of resources with higher growth potential.
@@toyotaprius79 no entrepreneur would be willing to take the risk to create a new business because he could simply work for another company and co-own it without the risk of loosing his savings and without risking to be in debt. The economy would collapse, take an economy 101 class
@@toyotaprius79 LOL, No they shouldn't. Have you ever worked? Ever? Most workings are fucking stupid. They have no business making decisions on what to eat in the morning let alone important ones.
@@toyotaprius79 Man, if only there was a name for that...
Not making up to a million before retirement is unfulfilled retirement.!! I’m 54 and my wife 50 we are both retired with over $7 million in net worth and no debts. Currently living smart and frugal with our money. No longer putting blames on FED for our misfortunes. Saving and investing lifestyle in the stock and forex market made it possible for us this early, even till now we earn weekly.
Investment should on every wise individuals bucket list. You will be ecstatic of the decision you made today.
I really need a nice investment to venture into I'm thinking of Crypto assets, stock or Real estate.
all you mention are all good but I’ll advise you venture into fx first because it will help you grow your portfolio very fast and it require not so much to start.
Will it require up to $200k for startup ?
Going into crypto doesn't mean you buy that much. You can start with little, invest it and watch it grow to generate profits that's how I have grown my net worth.
There's a guy that lives in my town that made some great investments when he was younger and is now a multi-millionaire. His home is smaller than mine. He never buys new cars, he hardly ever goes on extravagant vacations. He literally donates the vast majority of his wealth back into our community. Most people don't even realize, because he always donates anonymously. I only found out recently when he made a donation that allowed the local fire department (where I am a member) to purchase a new tender. I know there's no such thing as a good billionaire, because if they really were that good, they'd never have amassed that amount of wealth to begin with.
Exactly, the level of hoarding you have to do to have more money than you could ever hope to spend in your lifetime!
See, I can believe there's good millionaires. There's quite a few ways to become a millionaire. Hard work and connections, family wealth, even the lottery.
But there is absolutely no way to become a billionaire without breaking some laws and/or exploiting loopholes and leveraging power. I don't think people realize how much just one billion is. It's impossible to get that much through fair means.
Thanks that guy for all of us!!
If he donates his money anonymously, how do you know about it?
So much non sense!! The amount to envy in this video is incredible, and the comments are filled with it. Why do people hate billionaires?
The world doesn't NEED billionaires. There isn't a one of them that hasn't built themselves up without hurting someone in the process. The idea that we glorify that is terrifying.
Also Adam uncensored is my new favorite thing.
I agree the quote was right the love of money is the root of all evil
because frankly everyone in some way wants that life. Not have to worry about money? Ever. A new phone being chump change? Not having to work. Ever. Unless it's a passion project. Being able to live wherever is most comfortable and move with the seasons if you wanted to.
It's alluring and most people don't think about what they had to do and say and be to get there. They just glorify the lifestyle that comes with it.
Every human has hurt someone in their life. Honestly, a lot of this hate on rich people is plain jealousy.
@@DanielKolbin While that is true the larger truth is simply that in order to become billionaires and maintain their inordinate amount of wealth they hurt millions of people rather than the 100's or 1000's that a typical person might in there life time.
@@luckyzacky There is no doubt that some billionaires have made their fortunes through unethical or harmful means, such as exploiting workers or engaging in environmental destruction. However, it is also true that many billionaires have created jobs and made positive contributions to society. It is also important to remember that not all billionaires are created equal. I'm not trying to defend them, I'm just saying they are human and it's more complex than someone saying "RiCh PeOpLe BaD" for the wrong reasons.
A Guardian article called "The lesson from the ruins of Notre Dame: don’t rely on billionaires" really made me think twice about how rich people do "charity".
Hold up; I've been seriously out of touch with these stuff: what is the relation with Notre Dome and billionaires?
@@kirodragon12 When the fire happened multiple billionaires pledged to pay to fix it. Nothing happened.
The rich has never done charity.
At best they just white wash their image because one of the underlings they employ said it had to be done for the sake of propaganda.
At worst they are waging a bitter class war against the people whose labor they steal for themselves.
The Facts that Marxists can't tell the difference between one million and one billion, treat working a 40 hour week like it's chattel slavery as you whinge on a magic box like the gentry discussing society matters over scones 200 years ago, and seem to genuinely believe that Humanity would provide everything for you for free if you destroyed your own economies with bolshevik revolution, tells me Marxists cannot ever be trusted with the economy.
Time for you Tankies to get back in your depots, and let WESTERN Socialists teach you some Facts & Logic so you can learn how to make better arguments, or more simply put, get out of, and stay out of our way.
"Russian Communism is the illegitimate child of Karl Marx and Catherine the Great" - Social Democrat Clement Attlee of the British Labour Party. One of a long line of BRITISH Socialists starting with Robert Owen.
Did more for humanity than the rancid randy bigot Karl Marx, peasant-murdering Lenin, or any of the 100% failures of Bolshevist revolution have ever achieved.
Lenin and Stalin brutalised the Russian people and Eastern Europe so much, objectively fewer would've died of famine and been forced into CANNIBALISM under the Feudalism of Tsar Nicholas.
Prove me wrong.
@@StasLevich Not only did nothing happen, but those who actually paid received so much tax cuts they ended up having huge returns on investment, essentially nullifying their donation and impairing the reconstruction's budget.
Wow. Your eloquence is so brilliant❤ I also swallowed Patagonia`s " charitable" acts hook, line and sinker 😡
Dolly Parton is the best illustration, IMO, of why there are no good billionaires, outside of this. She could easily have been a billionaire after her decades of fame and fortune, but she actually donates to real charities and finds things to invest in to help people. I knew about this story, but this popped up in my recommended and had to watch it all the way through to support this kind of content. Citizen's United and trickle down economics have destroyed the US.
What does it mean to be a “real charity”? Is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation not a real charity?
And then Taylor Swift donates to charities. She’s been donating to countless amount of food banks. And then she gave $100k to all of her truck drivers employees. I love her for this reason.
@@jeffvalentine9947 Taylor swift is literally one of the worst, you can't be a public activists and then actively destroy the planet.
@@jeffvalentine9947 100K is 0% of her net worth.
Its 0.128205128% of her net worth actually... which when rounded is 0%.
Figures like 100k seem a lot to folks like you and me because to us - it is. It can change what food we eat or what apartement we rent (for awhile).
But to her that is actually nothing, and donating it is good branding. Imagine knowing you could donate a few dollars and retain the love and relevance of your target audience.. thats's how marketing thinks.
0.1% of me AND my spouse's wealth is
$89. We spend that on just groceries every week.
Heck... I think we've donated around $50 so far this year - which means we've already proportionally donated half of what Taylor has dropped. And by the end of this year we will likely have given a larger percentage of our wealth than she does hers.
Millionaires might not be in the same realm as Billionaires but they are bad for the planet and for society all the same.
She doesn’t just donate to charities. She uses her wealth to directly help people, which is what really matters. I haven’t found any charities that actually help people or animals
Can we please start requiring taxes on donations made to a charity that you yourself own 😭
no fr bcs thats so stupid😭😭😭
Technically non-profits are not owned… but when they are controlled by said people via money or voting power, it’s hard to really tell the difference
Like the Kennedy arts center?
@@JohnDoe-og2bt sure, why not? Any system you set up will have a couple kinks in it, but the theme of this video is that quite a number of these charities are a distraction from the wealth and power these billionaires exert for their own selfish gains.
Or ban the practice of donating to charities you own. That makes a lot more sense, given that it's a practice that shouldn't happen.
It's really interesting growing up in Arkansas with the presence of Walmart looming over. The hero worship doesn't stop in the town, a lot of Arkansans wear it like a badge of honor because: "That guy made it, and he's from here!" Never mind that you can see exactly what Adam describes by traveling to any of the small towns around the state. You'll find at least one Walmart, but it's basically the only job in town and the pay is shit. It's even worse in underprivileged areas because the only jobs are fast food or Walmart and neither of those pay or treat you well but you can't quit because, like I said, they're the ONLY jobs in town. It's frustrating to watch.
It’s called freedom (freedom for capitalism and capitalists to do whatever they want including start a war or invade another country) and democracy (99.9% elected officials are in Capitalists back pockets). It’s all written in the constitution like the bill of rights only applies to wealthy landowner and business man.
That psychological phenomenon where people take pride for something someone associated with them did but they personally they never did? Its called "basking in self reflected glory". Its the same thing that sports fans do when their team wins, even though they personally didn't have anything to do with how well their team performed. Like anything, I think the good/bad of this whole thing exists on a spectrum, meaning it could have positive, neutral, or negative effects.
And for context, Walmart beats out every small business in the area because they can undercut prices of the competition. It is a deliberate tactic that they use over and over again to maximize profits. The REASON the small towns in Arkansas suffer even though they have a big corporation like Walmart as a presence is BECAUSE it’s killing small businesses. Walmart’s profits do not get reinvested into the local economy like a small mom and pop store would. They go directly back to Walmart to be reinvested into another location to leach off of. So for anyone with the argument that this isn’t the fault of the corporation? It absolutely is.
@@thejinn99 It's destructive if done subconsciously or passively if you will. The thing you described a positive light when active is pride in another. Appreciation of their abilities. But passively it's mindless affiliation that discourages critical review and downgrades decision making.
I stopped shopping at Wal-Mart 15 years ago for this exact reason. I've also never made a purchase at Amazon because i feel it is also bad for our society. These giant corporations, regardless of how convenient, funnel our money straight out of our communities while placing worldwide communities into wage slavery. I buy as locally made as possible.
Imagine simping for billionaires when they're so cheap they wont even pay workers a living wage.
This was incredible, please do more stuff like this. There is not nearly enough palpable anger in the general conversation and we need intelligent, well-spoken people like you igniting the fire under society's ass.
"igniting the fire under society's ass" using that one more often
Heck, you can cover the Walmart museum in a video on its own -- why do you think the family donates their art pieces (that they got to over inflate art prices to begin with, art = money laundering is another topic!), they pass down the art to avoid taxes on passing down the art to their kids. The museum that made you feel good is a god damn tax sham!!!! ha-ha
The Waltons donate the art, they can take it out or sell it whenever they want.
@@squidracerX You are so right!
We wouldn't live in this technologically advanced world without 'greedy capitalist' billionaires.
@@R9naldo - Thats not true at all. Id wager logically that most technological advancement comes from small projects (colleges) and government funded research. Im sure there are some great examples of a billionaire self funding some wing-ding project -- but usually what i see is that the thing already exists in some form, the developers "shark tank" it, and they just buy it up or buy up all competition.
Back when corporations paid a 90% corporation tax - they actually DID self fund research because they would have to pay it in taxes anyway -- but you're talking 60 years ago. And they weren't making billionaires at the same time (still had filthy rich people).
The myth that billionaires fund things or create jobs is false. We would have as much, maybe more, technological innovation if funding was more evenly distributed and there was actually way more competition and investment outside of their shareholders pockets.
I’m glad you made this. So many people I know were upset when I said isn’t it a little sketchy he’s donating the money to his own charity.
There are no good ones because they are all children of...he who shall not be named.
This is my first time seeing one of Adam's new videos and hearing him swear is so oddly satisfying. I kinda like this version of him better than the squeaky-clean know-it-all from "Adam Ruins Everything."
This version is way better imo
I do have a place of my heart for squeaky clean Adam? He was a character that comforted me quite a lot through middle school and that content format helped me with my writing in high school, but I agree with you that this version of him is better, it's more honest and his criticism feels more authentic
Agree. Also, somehow he's hot now
I followed you for years on your show, Adam Ruins Everything, and even got my son to watch. It became one of our favorite shows. I was sad when it ended. Then my son found you on TH-cam and couldn't wait to show me. I am now subscribed and look forward to your content! Many blessings.
I don't want their charity. I just want these billionaires to pay their goddamn taxes.
Charity then. They already pay taxes above what you and I pay, even as a proportion of their income. It's really about billionaires not accepting, and finding ways around, the additional taxes we decide to levy upon them to benefit ourselves or punish them. After all, none of those taxes are meant to give benefits to billionaires in proportion to the taxes they pay.
they do.
In order to pay the kind of taxes you and Adam want paid, that would have required SELLING STOCK TO COVER TAXES.
That much stock sold would have tanked the stock value.
@@timmytimmy105 it’s not in the interest of fairness. It’s to stop the obscenely rich from hoarding wealth and power because that doesn’t really work if you want a democracy
"even as a proportion of their income" lol, could you simp any harder dude so cringe.
@@timmytimmy105 you didn’t even watch the video lmao
The youtube algorithm actually delivered relevant, high quality content for once. Unbelievable. Hope to see more stuff in this vein from Adam Conover. Cheers.
I’m shocked, this came out like a day or so ago, usually the algo gives me a great video tears too late 😭
The algorithm actually predicts what it thinks you've been interested in by your history & conversations
I'm a big advocate for socialism so I'm frequently getting videos like this, Second Though, Climate Town, Vice, and other channels that discuss our socioeconomic structure & climate being exploited by capitalism
If you liked this video, I recommend you watch basically any video by Second Thought
Adam Conover does have good topics, but his research is often very surface level and draw incomplete long conclusions from that little information. There's some fact checking videos based on his videos. But this video is really good!
@@ranewanders8147 i second Second Thought, fantastic stuff
@@ranewanders8147 watch shark3ozero too really good
I'm reminded of Papa John Schnatter's story about how he sold the car he loved to buy his first Pizza oven and then later as a multi-millionaire he threw a party at the company to announce that had bought the car back and had it restored.
The PR piece was all about "look how successful he is, having started from nothing"
Meanwhile his staffs reaction was "Why should I give a shit? Look at how successful he is thanks to all my hard work"
People who talk like you don't understand the concept of getting rewarded according to what you've put in.
@@nobodyknowsforsure How does that boot taste?
@@deusexmachina101 I wouldn't know, since I have my own business
@@nobodyknowsforsure Thank you for saying this. The comments section here is just loaded with jealousy. Everyone wants something for nothing. They rail against someone who built a pizza company and have zero ability to do it themselves. As for the downtrodden employees, they don't have to work there and, in fact, would not even be there (by their own choice) had he not started the company. Perhaps they should start one themselves if they think they can do better.
@@ckathemanthe comment section is filled with righteous indignation at the baffling existence of real life vampires that feed on the life force of innocent humans.
Even more baffling is the other humans who side with these demons of the night, no doubt in the hope that they will have mercy, giving them the honor of converting them into mindless thralls, forever slaves to their beloved master.
The rich don't care about you.
Have you ever got a job in the poor man? Did you know every time billionaires buy things like yachts, limos and jets they create jobs on the people who build and maintain them and sell them.
@@Laughwithmelol glaze harder loser lmao
I seriously love that you addressed the whole issue of “it’s okay when your team does it”. That really can be applied to so many things going on over the last few years.
If I had to pick a political party, I definitely could. I have a "team" so to speak, but I'm never above pointing out the stupid or evil shit they do. I'll still try to act pragmatically and move as best I can towards a better future, but I won't do it with my head stuck up my ass. The amount of people who will demonize everything the other side does and grant blanket forgiveness for it when it's done by their own side is... well it's basically everyone isn't it?
@@anthonybowman3423
Well, except for leftists who viciously criticise each others even over minute misunderstandings let alone over how to run a country.
@@cezarcatalin1406 I think more often than that, some politicians just get kind of "departied". Like McCain did a few years ago. From Republican lead candidate for president to "RINO" in a less than a decade.
You have to tow the party line in this quazi two party war or get cast out. I get why the parties would act the way they do, given the political climate they exist in. Though I would like to see more attempts to change that climate instead of just continuing to work in a broken system. But then I understand why that's hard to do too. Even if you were a good man and legitimately wanted to do good things.
I've definitely had to call myself out a couple of times for that behavior 😂
Interesting that you said “it’s a new gilded age” of hero billionaires
The met gala theme this year was “Gilded Age” and those events are always very symbolic for the oligarchs
Ha! Yes, it was. And the vast bulk of the celebrities couldn't get the theme right in their outlandish costumes.
Probably far too ignorant to actually understand what "The Gilded Age" refers to. A few got it right, though.
So people could just show up at the met gala that year in that year's fashions? Being that we're in the second gilded age. 👍 No one probably did but that would've been interesting if they had.
*_It's a beautiful thing that we now have social media, like TH-cam, TikTok and others, through which the voices of the less wealthy can now reach others: These kind of views about the obscenely rich which television, movies and legacy media never brought us because they are owned and controlled by the same obscenely rich people. No wonder the narrative on so many subjects right now are changing for the better! Thank you Adam for being a part of that change!_*
TH-cam and TikTok both are highly censored when it comes to freedom of speech. The reality is worse than you seem to imagine
A billionaire donating to a fund or charity is not a donation. It is cashing in their fortune for influence, which I think you highlighted very well. Wealth inequality will always exist, but the current imbalances are just off the charts. Excited for more episodes, Adam!
Still some of them are worse than others. Like Bobby Kottick
I don't like the concept itself of Billionaires, but regardless, a few of them have, and are doing, more good for the world than the casually racist anti-semitic homophobe, seriously cheating, womanising misogynist Karl Marx ever achieved, more than peasant-gassing Lenin ever achieved, and certainly more than the grotesque Stalin and other perverters of Socialism.
Bill Gates for example, has had a huge positive influence on history that is hard to comprehend
"Russian Communism is the illegitimate child of Karl Marx and Catherine the Great" - Sir Clement Attlee, Social Democrat, Labour Party Prime Minister of post WW2 Britain.
Helped launch the NHS, Welfare State, and started freeing our former colonies. Tried to meddle with Stalin despite us lacking resources and means. He and other *British* Socialists of the trade unions, guilds, chartists, and Robert Owen, all did more for the poor of country, west, and world than today's TRIGGERED, Virtue-Signalling Marxists ever, ever will.
@@octapusxft While true, as discussed in the video, it's really important to make sure we don't let "at least he's not as bad as ___" become a counter to the main over-arching thesis:
Anyone, regardless of the benefactor's professed intentions, shouldn't have the ability to inherit the kind of economic and political power Charnad's children have.
@@FlyingDwarfman Yeah I agree.
@@FlyingDwarfman who are you to decide what another's child should not inherit? have you given up your inheritance? how much money do you donate?
While Adam Ruins Everything was happening, I was stuck in a Florida prison, never saw it. I found it recently post-release, and LOVE it. I'm working thru season 2 right now. Stopped by TH-cam to see some notices found your channel, and I instantly subscribed. Thanks for this. It feels like I've said about half the things you end up telling ppl and it's nice to feel vindicated.
Cool.
I'm glad you finally got out, that's pretty rough
It seems ironic that Fern Lovebond is the moniker of an ex-con lol. I don't expect you to say why you were in there but I have to admit I am curious. Not trying to be judgy though. It can be easier than people think to get in there. Anyways I hope you stay free, safe and happy.
Having worked for extremely wealthy people myself, this is all 100% true. I saw the charity angle get played like a Stradivarius. It's like that line from the beginning of Fellowship of the Ring where the race of men "...above all else, desire power." These same people forced my mother-in-law into retirement _assuming_ she had been able to afford to do so. Our system is f*cked, right now.
And from the flip side of this, my sis ended up quitting after a decade of trying to work for non-profits despite having a masters in non-profit management, because it is exhausting and feels futile when people are constantly exploiting them and undermining their missions with greed. You wouldn't believe the number of well-intentioned non-profits that are ruined by the cycle of: this person gives us all our funding > we have to do what they ask to keep our funding even if they have no clue what the ramifications are, or what's required to implement it > so rich person can brag about 'their' non-profit.
It's almost like... we should just tax these assholes appropriately and do our best to provide public services through a system that has ANY sort of oversight!?! --Cue people shrieking about how the government has issues so obviously we should leave these things to sociopathic billionaires instead.
@Lelei & Yuzu & Tsuyu please repost this many people need to understatnd this fact before we can truly have progress in the world....
They basically dig a hole where a lot of people die and the non profit is the bread and water they give out of the "godness" of their heart for the volunteers that try to fix the hole.Meanwhile they still make the hole deeper without anyone noticing.
Lol @ u picking the most expensive violin ever 🤣
I don't think it's fair to spin the behaviors of a handful of self-selected psychopaths into a commentary about the nature of all people. It seems that way because the people who have mind-boggling amounts of money and power are the ones who at some point in their lives had enough money and power and didn't stop there.
Wow! This is easily the best presentation of this subject I have ever seen. Thank you so much for your incredibly well produced, fast paced, information rich, historically accurate approach. Far too few people understand the changes that have occurred in our economy that have brought us to our current condition. I think you may be a voice that could help change that. Thank you again for your work. Bravo!
I love this genre of adam where he's openly furious and has murder in his eyes
And throws around F-bombs where needed.
Lol
A lot of that fury is misplaced due to factual errors. Right sentiment, wrong targets.
@@NJerseyBoy Though I don't really fact check him (because I don't use any of the information I learn from him, otherwise I would fact check), I've heard he does tend to get a bit wrong. At the very least, I'm glad he cites his sources which is a step A LOT of people skip over (granted, I haven't watched this video yet... for all I know, he might not cite the sources like his show's research team did).
@@NJerseyBoy please correct the record, would love to hear it.
By “progressive activists” who created the conditions for the new deal, he means democratic socialists and unions. Roosevelt took 90% of his program from the platform of socialist candidate Norman Thomas. When you think of weekends, 8 hour workdays, social security and the rest of it, thank a socialist and join a union.
Oh but you don't understand, we just need to vote in the next election and soon everyone will have healthcare, minimum wage and a sparkly fuckin pony!
@@osama4318 this is actually a possibility. If we taxed the billionaires, capital gains, and corporations, at the exact same rate as the middle class, the government could give us Healthcare, free education, and enough to buy quite a few ponies.
@@osama4318 So in NV this year Ranked Choice Voting is on the ballot for our State Elections. I have been "reaching across the aisle" with all my conservative family and telling them I dont care who they vote for, for GOP all the way down, but to Vote Yes on 3 (the RCV Question). When I explain RCV to them they think its a good idea. I dont spin it to them as a Dem Idea or a socialist idea. So am I excited about who we are putting in office this year? Not really. Either Shitty Party A or Shitty Party B will win and nothing will fundamentally change for us, but all the future elections?! Now those I am excited for! I think Voting will change dramatically when people can start voting for who they want instead of against who they dont want. Voting matters when we have a system in place that makes votes matter. I hope that RCV will make enough of a movement that eventually it will be nation wide.
Except a democratic socialist isn’t the same thing as a socialist.
@@gilgamesh310 a democratic socialist is a socialist, but a socialist isn't necessarily a democratic socialist. A socialist could be green, authoritian, national, Christian, and democratic among others.
I said to myself "I wonder how he made money off that?" When I heard the news. Figured it was for taxes, but it's so much worse.
Thank you for getting the facts out.
Love the new delivery.
Yeah, same reaction. I expected it just to be a tax thing, but I also didn't know the brand he was building for himself so I was less alert.
Please keep doing this, Adam Conover. People need to see this.
The delivery of "Warren Buffet clips coupons? No he f*cking doesn't!!" was absolute gold
Also, even if he does, that doesn’t change a single thing about his wealth, status, how he got it, and the we won’t get to his place by just doing those small things.
We had shares in the same company, I didn't own that much, while he owned a lot more. Every advantage counts, I mean everything, nothing is left to chance.
@@Tethloach1: As long as you each honestly EARNED the shares you have (re the money that paid for them), what's the problem?
love your content soup!
It's funny because at first hearing you're like "Yea maybe he does..." But just thinking about it for a sec and you're WTF of course he doesn't!
In the book "Pitch Anything" the author recounts what it's like to be a Walmart vendor (the product maker who supplies Walmart their goods). You go in for a meeting and look up at a massive reception desk elevated high above you. You sit in tiny plastic chairs and drink lukewarm water from plastic cups. You are made to wait for a long time after your booked appointment. The narrow corridors have no natural light - resembling a prison walkway. Everything in the building is calculated to make you feel small weak and pathetic. The reason for this is to soften you up for the negotiation where they bully you into under-selling your stock to them at a tiny margin. Just enough for your business to survive but not enough for you to live comfortably.
Oh no, alleged psychological manipulation, how scary. If your stock is actually worth what you feel like you deserve, then you will have no trouble finding someone to sell it to. If you can't sell it at the price you imagine its worth, then perhaps it isn't actually worth what you think it is.
Had to do a double take. You are the last person id expect in the comments of an adam conover video.
This is evil.
@@calebverdu3091Found the boot licker!
@@calebverdu3091yeah I know, so scary that It worked on you to the point of having you write this comment.
I never understood how that charity donation tax savings scam worked but now I do! Thank you!!
@@screamingintothevoid7257 More like abusing laws of a 200 yo democracy that weren't changed so they're easily abusable and profit the rich people who hold the political power.
It isn't a scam per se but a huge loop hole. It was to initially encourage donations and acknowledge their good deed. Now it's getting abused.
@@msk-qp6fn Na its a scam. The scam is that they don't pay tax. It was explained in the video.
@@screamingintothevoid7257 As in the video: the company Patagonia created a non-profit that they control, gave a bunch of money in "charity" to it, but also had a smaller one that they gave the controlling shares to that is controlled by the owning family. Essentially: they made a bunch of PR for themselves, gave money to their own family, and didn't actually have to have wealth and control change hands through the entire thing.
Our downtown started suffering "urban decay" long before we got a Walmart. It was the mall that killed it back in the 80s. We didn't get our first Walmart here until the mid 1990s.
How Adam talks this fast and is still easily understood is really crazy
solid editing
*Shabibo enters the room*
He enunciates pretty well
Agree. As non native English speaker, I feel like Adam has solid accent.
Isn’t that pretty much every Yankee?
I’ve had to fight this arg way too many times, and it still baffles how the opinions you shared here in this video, aren’t mainstream. So refreshing to see someone speaking the truth! The amount of people who will die defending billionaires and the broken system we are under now are truly baffling!
it's not mainstream because... you know how much pressure, confusion, sadness, anger, RESPONSIBILITY and every kind of psychological weight it puts on people's mind? it's Exhausting seyed, believe you me
The system itself isn't broken. it's run by broken people. No system made by humans can be perfect and there are always those who will work to game the system than close the loop hole so no one else can follow unless they obay.
Thank you for using the word "plutocrats" because that's what it's been for a while now and no one seems to call it what it is.
America is a plutonomy
Warren Buffett said it best: Never lose money. He made that happen. All these powerful wealthy people know a good sales pitch. They rely on it. Thanks for sharing the video!
“‘…Warren Buffett clips coupons.’ No he f*cking doesn’t!” absolutely killed me. 😂
Seriously though, this is such a wonderfully crafted argument explaining why you can’t succumb to the impulse of supporting a bad thing just because it’s helping your cause this time. I know it’s only been a day since this was posted but I can’t believe this has less than 150k views. I’m showing this to everyone.
The amount of irrational obsession with retaining money a person needs to gather and retain a billion USD actually does lend itself to weird habits like clipping coupons when the accountants he hires are probably off by more money in mistakes on an average work day during tax season then clipping coupons could save.
Three days and we have over 235,000 views now
@@garethbaus5471 Dude. Basically nobody reaches billionaire status by gathering and retaining. They invest their way to that level of wealth. Either by starting/buying businesses, buying real estate, or - in Warren’s case - investing in the market. If you don’t understand the power of investing and compounding interest, you shouldn’t be judging others about their level of financial knowledge or growth.
The median American income is around $40k. The average US car payment is $550/a month. The average US family has more the 2 cars. We’ll round down to 2.
If the average American family chose to drive crappier cars that only cost $250/month… they’d save $300 per car… $600/month. If they changed nothing else about their lifestyle and didn’t bother clipping coupons but invested that into the market (which is NOT the same thing as burying it in some hidden vault somewhere… you’re literally putting that money back out into the economy by giving it to someone else in exchange for ownership of an investment asset which you can later turn around and sell). If they invested into the market that $600/month for 45 years they would retire with roughly $6million in your portfolio. If they were able to save $100 in coupon clipping and invest that as well, $7million. The fact that you think of coupon clipping as just a silly waste of time is arguably why you will never be able to take advantage of compounding interest. It’s not a $100 savings. It’s a $100 monthly down payment on $1 million dollars. Just like the interest on credit card payments and student loan debt balloons when not paid down, investment interest balloons exponentially over time the longer you keep your money in the market.
What that means is there are TWO ways to get wealthy in the market. One is by investing more money each month (coupon clipping, side hustle, drive a crappier car, etc). The other way is to invest for a longer period of time.
For example. Instead of investing $600 a month for 45 years to get $6million… you could also invest only $200 a month (1/3rd as much per month) and will still have the same $6m after 56 years.
Want to be a greedy billionaire family like Adam is complaining about with money that you can NEVER lose? Drive the crappy car, clip the coupons for that extra $100 a month, invest the $700 a month, raise your children to do the same, and in about 96 years, your family will be billionaires. That’s literally how easy it is to do. It costs so little that the average American family, earning the average income could do it simply by driving a crappier car within 2-3 generations without making any other significant sacrifices. That’s how powerful “silly clipping coupons” is when you get your mind right. It’s why Einstein said that compounding interest is the eighth wonder of the world.
That is… unless you and Adam got your way where the government could tax you on your income, then when you die force you to sell everything, tax your capital gains, and then tax any amount you want to hand down to your children. That 100 years wouldn’t cut it. You’d likely never be able to get there. So quit your whining, stop trying to hold everyone else from growing their wealth, and start taking some responsible, intelligent action.
Either way… if you don’t know the importance of coupon clipping and aren’t using the tools you have at your disposal to retire a multimillionaire… stop pretending like that makes you a more moral person who can look down at and judge everyone else trying to do good for themselves, their family, and the world.
And this wasn’t a wonderfully crafter argument AlyKat. As a former fan of Adam’s… this was filled with all kinds of hypocrisy, illogical “jump to conclusions,” and all kinds of weird and glossed over rationalizations that made no sense if you poked at them even the slightest.
@@joeschneider3894 by the time it turn into a billion, how much that billion actually worth now factoring in Inflation, rising housing and education cost ? I teach compound interest and even I do not have that illusion where clipping coupon is going to take you to be a billionaire. It may helps when you're in the lower bracket sure (until a medical bill wipe all that out) but as you move higher in the bracket, it's about figuring out better way to make money rather than saving 1 penny here and there.
Only way to become a billionaire is to have enough money invest in "correct" assets that multiply in value in a reasonably short amount of time, not for generations. These assets can include something you put labor into like your own company of course.
The rant at the beginning about Chouinard is exactly how I feel about all the rich mountain people I've met in my life. They're all "I'm not rich, I don't buy designer clothes" "I'm not rich, I drive a Subaru". Nah, buddy, you're dropping 200 bucks on a vest and your house is worth a million dollars, you're rich.
@lordbalthosadinferni4384tomorrow is not guaranteed fam. ❤️
But our chances of dying by natural causes have never been higher in human history. Don't forget that! 😁👍
Moving out on your own is great. Sure those bills with your name on them are real, there is always another bill. 😳
But you have that freedom. Of course it's about impossible you'll always be in debt.
Yep, great advice! 😂
@lordbalthosadinferni4384 If you think Fascism is bad then you are an enemy of Fascism, which means you are an Egoist Liberal, not different from Neonazis except your supersociality is on the other end of the spectrum, yet none of you do anything to help people. If you do think I'm speaking nonsense, go look up Zoltanous. Fascists are actually helping people.
If you bought a house anywhere near Seattle in the mid 80s it's probably now worth a couple million.
Even with sky high interest the mortgage on such a home would have been less than a 1bdr apartment is now
This type of TH-cam video essay is really a perfect fit for Adam's writing and delivery style. I would love more like this!
Damn, how did I just discover this a year after it's inception? Thoroughly enjoyed this.
PLEASE DO MORE VIDEOS LIKE THIS ONE! It was epic! There are far too many bad things disguised as good things that need to be ruined. The world needs Adam Conover!
I worked for a billionaire who fell along these same lines. He was just a “humble immigrant farmer.” But if you look through the layers, he was actually greedy and gross.
Being greedy is a key part of being a billionaire. That's why there aren't any that aren't greedy. It's simple if you think about it.
There children are not greedy by the same nature they are. At that point it becomes “taught”
@@Aznprada yeah, because they're taught not to be poor. Wish I drew that card at birth. But that's life. Not everyone can be a winner.
The use of "charities" by billionaires convinced me a long time ago that we should straight up do away with charitable donations as a tax deduction or at the very least cap it (heck cap it at 25 million - a truly ridiculous number).
I do charitable work through my company in maybe the amount of $2k a year. Maybe more idk because I never write it off. I struggle so much and I still never want to be a billionaire!
Nah, the cap should be median household income. That way, if these rich bastards want to further reduce their tax burden, they'd have to start paying themselves less to begin with.
I care more about restricting which charities count for the deduction. I think too many of the organizations don't use enough of the money to help others, like churches and PETA. If an organization spends 80% of their donations on things other than helping the people/animals they claim to be working for, they shouldn't qualify for tax deductible donations.
@@__thelastpoet Even if you claimed that small amount, it would have a negligible impact on your tax liability, anyway.
So you are upset that billionaires donate millions of dollars to get a tax break? That's very selfish of you
this is so tightly written. not a single line is wasted. i was learning and paying attention the whole time
I'm glad you mentioned Walmart's affect on small towns and how they destroy so much. My grandfather used to have a small shop where he lived in Texas but when they built a walmart across the street they sold the same goods as him for less money and he had to close down his shop.
And that was probably a shop where memories were made and good times were remembered. There's a convenience store near my campground I've visited for my entire life, it recently got new management and they took all the country charm right out. It's a shame, it used to be a little famous for ghost hunter shows visiting but not anymore 😢
Now we can’t find the shit at that price even if it’s the “cheapest” store
Do you shop at walmart, amazon, or the like?
Sympathy for genuine local businesses. But there is pros and cons to this so I also am not sure to be genuinely sorry for not, pardon me.
and then the locals cry that their cute little store shut down
Well done dude. I wasnt always onboard for "ruins everything" because sometimes it felt over simplified or skewed, but this long formJohn Oliver esque format suits you and you should definitely do more.
I'm no tax layer, but when I heard about a famous athlete or entertainer giving millions to charity, I always knew it was a tax dodge. Now the pieces even make more sense and the motivations grow darker.
You are truly one of the most important people on mass media today. I want to thank you for all that you do to draw a cogent, linear line between the issue at hand and the absolute truth about it. You are truly a credit to your education, as well as you dogged determination to pull the curtain back and expose the wizards of deceit. Thank you for giving us hope that intelligence and research still matters.
The tone shift from snarky pot shots at billionaires to "Fuck you! How gullible do you think we are?" Has me absolutely wheezing. The whole video has a comedic tone to it until Adam Conover is yelling fuck you straight into the camera. I love it and can't explain why.
Honestly, watching Adam Ruins Everything as an early teenager was my first introduction to questioning the system we base our lives around today. His presentation style and presentation of the facts of a story are super enticing and informative. It’s amazing to see Adam on a platform where he can really give it his all - no holds barred! I would love to see you make more content like this!!
I was more a fan of him when he was at CollegeHumor and they uploaded actual comedy skits to youtube on a regular basis.
Adam Ruins Everything was heavily influenced by Penn and Teller's Bullshit. If you haven't seen that yet, I implore you to check it out, a lot of it still holds up.
If you wanna see how good Adam is in what he “knows” look at his podcast with Rogan. Adam is the worst at cherry picking and screwing with data. Look at his illegal immigration episode. He openly admits more come across the southern border but words it to trick you. He’s a shady liberal lying turd, that’s why he doesn’t have a show anymore LOL
Adam is wrong about so many things
@@xy-inventor1885 Receipts/examples ...?
A friend of mine worked for the Walton Foundation in the bike park. Based on what he told me, those people LOVE their money.
Walmart moved into my small Texas town in 96. By 2000 every mom and pop shop was closed, and those previous owners now worked there for minimum wage.
I experienced this too in southern Illinois.
amazing video and not a single ad??? you have my vote
And in this gilded age we aren't even getting good architecture just ikea minimalist gulags and dystopian desert cities. Great videos
Cathedrals for example could take 300 years to build.
It's a multi-generational deal.
There is no societal will to even dream of such commitments anymore.
300 years was enough for the constitution to be irrelevant within gov't structures, so we could argue that we're not even capable of simple maintenance anymore.
"A monument to his humility..." I lost it, I loved it.
It is so amazing that people wear rose colored glasses today more than ever. We used to be (or perhaps just seemed to be, and should be) critical of those we agreed with more than those we disagreed with. But now everyone just lives their lives in their echo chambers and question less and less.
Part 2 to this here: "Dark Money in the Sheets" by 'Some More News'.
!!
"The bourgeoisie is charitable out of self-interest; it gives nothing outright, but makes a bargain with the poor, saying: 'If I spend this much upon benevolent institutions, I thereby purchase the right not to be troubled any further, and you are bound thereby to stay in your dusky holes and not to irritate my tender nerves by exposing your misery.’" - Friedrich Engels
The people's paradise awaits you in north korea comrade!
@@low_vibration childish non-sequitur
@@beefsupreme694 but why would a follower of marx want to live in the sick decadent west? It must be torture to live here when glorious socialist paradises like cuba and north korea exist
@@low_vibration Again, childish non-sequitur. Only now with additional unfounded assumptions. I won't waste my time expanding on this debate as you are either a child or someone who's grown up in an echo chamber of American exceptionalism, and never been allowed to deviate (a grown up child) in the slightest, as this would involve reflecting on and questioning the very foundation of your consciousness/identity. And that would take balls..
@@beefsupreme694 no thinking socialism is viable at all is childish. Just because i know socialism is retarded it doesnt mean im all in on what we have now. That zero sum mentality has rotted your mind but that's to be expected from a child who thinks marx had anything intelligent to say
I loved "Adam Ruins Everything". Unleashed, you are even better. Go f..king go.
I love that this is Adam Conover Ruins Everything (without a cable channel's limitations). I loved the show and instantly subbed after I watched this! Happy to see you again Adam!
I did the same thing.
@@TheConcertCruizer Cite the misinformation.
@@jfh2112 "The Moon Landing was obviously faked. Duh! No sane free thinker could miss all of the clues that Kubrick left in it to clue us into the truth!"
Really, I imagine that the commentator just took umbrage at some mistake or other Adam made in the past.
At least until that "Adam Ruins TH-cam" episode 😏
This scratches that itch that "Adam Ruins Everything" once scratched! I would LOVE to see more of these! Love your content and Keep up the great work!
“We are living in a new gilded age.” You got that right…I truly hope we learn from the lessons of history. Thank you for your Netflix special and this video Adam!
Double lmao to learn from history. I just watched a four point five hour long documentary on how big oil swept climate change under the rug, and the most disturbing fact I’ve realized from the doc is that IT WAS ACTUALLY COMMON KNOWLEDGE IN THE 80’S THAT CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL and they paid big bucks to people to muddy that, and make us forget, and sadly it worked. That’s why we have new people who forgot the 80’s or weren’t alive back then screaming that the climate isn’t changing, or is a hoax, when in fact for at least 40 years everybody knew. It was on the news, in newspapers, discussed around the dinner table. Only now is it a “debate”, because politics have obfuscated the truth. Sad to think we knew about this and were about to act on something this big 40 years ago, then decided to say screw it, let’s go for profit, let’s make everyone forget about it, so now we argue like it’s all new to us when we just don’t remember history 🤪
You spelled cage wrong.
This gilded age is worse than the last
Idk man, The Gilded Age was much much worse than what we're dealing if only due to the lifestyle we have now.
If you have food and housing (and a car and internet and gaming and all kinds of legalized drugs) you’re a lot less likely to be giving that up to initiate change then what the average citizen in the Gilded Age had. But the boiling frog syndrome is real, it’s just that most people are still at the ‘hot tub’ stage.
I love Adam's roasting rage with full honesty!
He'd hate millionaires too if he wasn't one.
@@Dennis-nc3vw 😱
Please please please do more content like this. These 15-20 minute deep dives rebutting all the garbage narratives we have been force fed are vital to actually saving the human species. Keep it up!
And in case it's not 100% clear, this comment is not only correct, but literal. Not hyperbolic. This particular issue Adam addressed is one of the main reasons why climate change is rampant
What they said. 👆
Second.
Adam, I’ve lived in Arkansas my whole life and have lived in the NWA area since college. I was so excited to hear what you’ve said here about the Walton family. I’ve been saying the same thing ever since I moved up here. Between Crystal Bridges, the Walmart arkansas music pavilion in Rogers, and the Walton arts center in Fayetteville the Walton family has made art and culture accessible to a state that, like you said, so often gets left out or thought of as a lost cause. During my time in college I was able to see hundreds of dollars worth of professional national theatre for free because I volunteered at the WAC. It’s nice, because we are so often thought of as a state of little cultural and economic value, and god knows our state government leaders will never value funding arts and community so long as we continue to vote conservative. They also spend a lot of money on the university of Arkansas in Fayetteville, my alma mater and an increasingly respectable research university in a state notorious for its terrible public education.
But, Walmart’s practices as a company have disgusted me. As you’ve said, they’ve destroyed small town america, and their business practices are greedy. It’s a miserable place to work under the corporate level. They even show training videos which discourage associates from unionizing. All the while promoting Sam Walton as someone who was truly interested in improving the customer experience in small towns, which as you’ve said is blatantly false.
It’s a complex dissonance to navigate. I hate when my state is written off as a lost cause, which even left-wingers in blue states are bad about doing. There are still people who live here, and there are so many who do want to make things better. And as a person who likes the arts and live music it is fantastic to have access to those things here. But I don’t want to have those things off the backs of small towns. It feels like taking blood money.
Tldr, I was very happy to hear you address something I’ve been thinking about for a while. I love learning new things from you- stay awesome!
As a fellow U of A grad I also hate that we have to grapple with this. The state of Arkansas is so much better off because of the influence of Bentonville and new-money. It has a flourishing culture of young people and open-mindedness that breathes fresh air into the rural southern state. But then again that new money is basically a bribe from the Waltons to say "don't hate us" for the horrible way they've treated America.
Pretty shitty situation to deal with ethically.
Very very well said. Also a NWA local. Adam hit the nail on the head. While they’ve built amazing things for our local economy/culture/standard of living with their attention to urbanism and bike commuting/recreation, it’s deeply ironic that they amassed all their wealth through parasitic car-centric retail that drained and destroyed so many small towns in America. Like Adam said, it’s easy to support your billionaire overlords when they’re on your side and propping your hometown up. But that doesn’t make it ok for our country at large, particularly the lack of tax revenue so we can check their power. Because just as the Waltons giveth, the Waltons taketh away.
Holy shit Adam is ruining everything, like my love for billionaires!
Love the passion brother, thank you for spreading the good word
17:00 The system isn’t broken; It’s breaking system designed to break the rest of us. #powertothepeople
Excellent break down of the under current of "ethical capitalism ". Love to see more videos like this!
It really baffles me how so many people buy this fictional idea of "ethical capitalism". Reminds me of the time when doctors were prescribing smoking for its health benefits lol
@@lydiaornot I used to have this religious theory when I was a child, that Satan killed God ages ago, and that everything in the bible, and all we know of god, was all actually engineered by Satan, merely masquerading as God. I'm 42 now, and no longer believe in any religious stuff, but how ironically accurate that theory seems when applying it to modern capitalism..
Oh man, I really missed you. Had a customer in at my restaurant tonight who told me you had a youtube channel! I ran to the kitchen and subscribed, came home, watched and have shared this episode many times already. You give me hope in a hopeless world. Thank you so much for everything, it is not unappreciated.
Bless you sir. Not sure what prompted the sudden return to your channel and a more honest unhinged format, but I love it! You never needed those TV overlords! I hope you keep going, because I know it will keep growing if you do.
I've been waiting for an episode like this. Keep up the good fight and soap box that knowledge
I'd like to say, I prefer you as a youtuber, the lack of censorship, and the ability to curate a small team really helps you get your message across. I'm not sure what contracts your under, or if it's worth it financially, but I really enjoy this content from you.
Oh he’ll get censored if he goes down the rabbit holes he points out in this video. I wanted so badly to see him get into the Gates Foundation…lol they’ve been busy the past 2 years. Anyone who criticizes what they’ve been up to gets labeled anti-science and misinformation, and then banned from platforms like this. He’s more free as an independent, but he wont be truly free on TH-cam.
Completely agree. Hope we get more of this.
Adam is in his villain era and it's GLORIOUS
Villain to the rich, hero of the people
Antihero, if anything.
Nah, he’s straight hero status.
I love that Adam is just allowed to do whatever he wants now
Nah, he's an aggressive hero
I want more of Adam talking about how our society is slowly being taken over by monopolies and oligopolies but the government won’t enact our anti trust laws
I kinda do too, but also it's super depressing.
Me too, even though it makes me feel ill to listen.
well unfortunately it's because the people don't want it. do you think someone who ran with a platform of "I'm going to split up google, microsoft, walmart, disney etc." would ever get elected? even if they had the most effective messaging and most popular overall policies they would absolutely lose.
if people didn't love elites so much we wouldn't be stuck in heavily hierarchical societies for the entirety of known human history. people love idols and people love being lazy, the only time people start to rebel is when elites make our lives so shit it's unbearable, which is expected given the public gives a massive amount of power to a few hands.
It's the responsibility of the people to source their products in a healthy way and that means heavy premiums and potentially lower quality which people do not want to pay nor suffer ATM. It's easy to say walmart isn't evil when it saves you 20-30% on groceries and common goods. This problem will form as long as people are refusing to fund competition. Anti-trust laws are great but as long as the public funnels money into the few, corruption will always form and it doesn't matter what laws we have in place, under the table deals happen.
We should push for laws and policies which protect the people but ultimately the only way to uphold these laws is through personal responsibility which get's increasingly difficult the farther removed we are from the last period of serious public upset and responsibility.
Didn't he though? Didn't he?
This
I've discovered you late. I love the way you talk about thing that "normaly" people should see by themself. Society, put more money on education please....
TH-cam needs a love button. This was great. The world needs more people like you.
such button exists. called super thanks. but for some reason the content creator chose to not to put it...🤷
This video was quite inspiring. I didn't even know about Leonard Leo or the Gilded Age information. Clears a lot of things up.
I have a "Favorites" playlist for this exact purpose
Remember you can always hit the subscribe button with notifications on
@@orycroft2020 Because TH-cam receives half of the money you donate to the creator. Its better just to use Patreon, or better yet, just dont block the ads.