Dr. Jill Stein: How the Two-Party System Is Jeopardizing America’s Future | Finance E304

25:12It can be abusive of its neighbors because it has the empire behind it and all this money and the force of the U.S. military and all the U.S. weapons. But we're basically providing almost$4 billion a year for Israel so that Israel in turn can provide health care for everyone, at least for Jewish Israelis. And now Israel has basically passed policy so that if you are not Jewish, I mean, it's a very explicit ethno-nationalist state. It's a religious state, and you now have to be Jewish to qualify for most benefits in Israel. And it's widely known that Israel is an apartheid state. And people from South Africa will tell you that it's actually a much more vicious apartheid state than even South Africa was.

26:03But part of that is that there are all these benefits that are given to full citizens who must be Jewish. And that includes health care. It also includes housing for a lot of people. It also includes education. So they're living in a sort of democratic socialist society if you happen to be of the correct ethnic and religious background, which is horrible. I mean, that's virtually a fascist state that Israel has become. So our latest package was something like$24 billion for Israel. And most of that was military, not all of it. But we're providing$24 billion, yet we could not extend the most important thing that was done in the last four years, which was the child tax deduction, the child tax credit that cut poverty levels for children in this country by 50%.

27:02our government wouldn't do that because we were too busy basically funding genocide against babies in Palestine and providing a really secure and beneficial way of life for the people of Israel. So this is not okay. We need to ensure that there is peace and security for everybody in the region, and that means for Palestine as well. This brings us back to something that you were saying earlier, that we have a war economy. I don't know what you called it, a war democracy or something like that. Can you talk to us about how politicians supporting war actually helps politicians be corrupt and make money off the war machine?

27:49Let me also include one other really important piece of background here, which is that half of our congressional budget is spent on the war machine. Half of it. So this is like a trillion dollars a year that is spent just on the war machine and subsidies and so on. So this is huge, and that impoverishes us here. So there's a direct connection between this massive war machine and the fact that we don't have adequate health care and housing and education and coping with the climate crisis. We don't have that in this country because we're too busy funding war. And so when we fund war, about half of that money is going to the war corporations, the military industrial complex.

28:41That's about half of our expenditures are going directly into corporations whose profits have just skyrocketed since this era of the war in Ukraine and the war on Gaza. So this is a massive military machine which costs us, benefits the war contractors, and they in turn are donating to the political campaigns of the politicians who do their bidding. Sometimes it's called like a self-licking ice cream cone. The benefits just make the problem worse, and it becomes this vicious cycle. We were warned about this by President Dwight Eisenhower back in the 1950s, that we were basically creating this military-industrial complex that would take on a life of its own, where the corporations that benefit, that profit, are now linked to the politicians and make their campaigns strong because they give them a lot of money.

29:40So the politicians in turn are rewarding the war machine and around it goes. So we have to break this cycle and it's not hard to do that. It's not hard to do that because the American people are outraged about this genocide. Most Americans don't even know that the cost of this war in the last year has actually been$12 ,000 per household. is the average cost, and it's been$55 ,000 since the first 9-11 wars began with the invasion of Afghanistan and then Iraq. It amounts to about$55 ,000 per household that we have spent over the course of the past two decades. So it's absolutely staggering. This is impoverishing us, as well as endangering the whole world by this race towards World War III.

30:35So scary. And I know that we can change this. So I want to take a moment and help people understand what can we do as people who can vote, who can use our voting rights? How do we get the Green Party on the ballot? Do we need to sign up to be a part of the Green Party? What do we actually have to do? What are the steps? For starters, you don't have to think about parties at this point. You can just think about what campaign is speaking for you, because you can vote regardless of party. Parties only matter if you're voting in a primary, but the primary voting is largely over. Now it's about getting a candidate that represents you that can truly contest for power, not just a symbolic campaign, but a campaign that can actually challenge empire and oligarchy and genocide.

31:27Our campaign is the only campaign which is anti-war, pro-working people, pro-small business, pro-climate emergency action. We are the only such campaign that's already on the ballot for a majority of voters. So there are some other campaigns with a very similar agenda. Claudia de la Cruz with the Party of Socialism and Labor, Cornel West, who's running as an independent. We have very similar agendas, but we are the only campaign that is already on the ballot for a majority of voters, has a pathway to be on the ballot for all voters. So we actually are challenging Empire. We've done this before.

32:10We know how to do it. We've been ahead of the curve, and the curve has caught up to us on militarism, on the climate, on health care, you name it. So we encourage you to go to our website, and you can do everything you need to do from there. The website is jillstein2024.com. Go to the website. You can sign up to get the newsletter, for one thing. You can make a contribution if you're able to throw something into the hat. and contributions of any size are just absolutely a game changer. And then you can go to the ballot access dropdown up on the right at the top. Click on ballot access and you'll see a map.

32:50You can go to your state and find out, do you already have a choice? Are we already on the ballot in your state? Or do you have a ballot drive that's going on right now? And you'll see. And if you have a ballot drive going on now, then you just get the contact person from that little box that pops up and let them know that you'd like to help. And it may be carrying a petition, which is simple to do. It's basically like talking to your friends and neighbors and saying, do you want a sign to get another choice on the ballot? Do you want a sign to get an anti-genocide choice on the ballot? Do you want a sign to get affordable housing on the ballot?

33:28Or health care as a human right? You know, whatever resonates in your community, ask people if they want that, and overwhelmingly people will sign. And we also provide support about how to do it. Most of the petitions are right there on the website, so you can just download them as well as instructions and a video. It's pretty straightforward common sense. They put their full name, they put their address, and they may or may not need to say what town they're in and so on. And so there are a few rules like that for collecting signatures, but it's very common sense. It's not rocket science, and there's a lot of help to get it done.

34:07That and making a contribution, if you can't collect or you could do both, they're both just totally game changers. And that's how we get on the ballot and force the issue because if the American people have a voice in this, we overwhelmingly want to cut the military budget. People want to have healthcare and housing and quality schools and all that. So we are the agenda of everyday people who are being thrown under the bus. We are about bailing out students and canceling student debt. We are about free public higher education. It should be free. Back in my day, it was free and it should continue to be free.

34:48So we're about all the things that people are really screaming for, we're actually doing it. We have a program to get it done. And it's all about our forcing our way into this conversation because the political elites want to shut down this conversation. They do not want to have people who are actually meeting the needs that people are screaming about out there. The Democrats are really quaking in their boots that people should find out that they actually have an option like us that will meet their needs. It's so true. I feel like they try to like hide the Green Party from everyone. And they try to guilt everyone saying that if you vote for Green Party, you're voting for Trump.

35:29But that's not true at all. I'm going to do everything in my power to get the word out. We'll put all these links in the show notes. I'm one of the biggest influencers on LinkedIn. I'm going to post about it all the time and try to get people to help get you on the ballot in their state. If you're not, to vote for you, to spread the message. And I'm just going to help any way that I can. I'm Palestinian and 100 % Palestinian. And so for me, the fact that you are anti-genocide, you're the only anti-genocide choice. And then on top of that, you care about things like climate change and a livable wage and protecting small business even.

36:06And I'd love to go into some of your other issues. And maybe we can circle back to Israel if we have time, because I do think it's a huge issue that people need to know about. So this is an entrepreneurship show. I've got a lot of people in their 20s and 30s listening. What do they need to know about the economy and where it's headed right now? And some of the things that you hope to do if you were to be president to help change our economy and make it better for young people, especially millennials, Gen Z. We have an economy that's working for the economic elites. It's working for big investors.

36:40The stock market is still off the charts. It may be precarious, but for now, you know, everybody's living it up. and there are many long-term threats to the U.S. economy, including the national debt, but also including the status of the dollar as international currency. So there are all these threats that need to be dealt with on many levels and we don't do ourselves any favor by being at war with the rest of the world, suffice it to say. You know, we need to repair our international relations if we want to have an economy in the future as well. But looking at stuff closer to home, we need to have an economy that works for everyday people And we need to have small businesses, which are really the backbone of our economy.

37:20And small businesses have been crushed over the last one to two decades. Small businesses are a smaller and smaller piece of our economy. Yet this is where the creativity and the energy and the dynamism of the economy is. So we have to bring back small businesses. We have to make loans and support available to small businesses. And we have to get the burden of health care off the back of small businesses. People need health care, but that shouldn't be on the backs of small businesses at the outrageous cost that health care costs us nowadays. So we will take health care entirely out of the picture here.

38:00This should be provided, and we're saving half a trillion dollars while we provide quality health care for everyone. So that's a win-win. We also need to provide affordable housing because right now up to half of all Americans are really precarious in their housing right now and are paying up to 50 % of their monthly income to keep a roof over their heads for their rent or their mortgage. You know, and young people can't afford mortgages now. And the housing stock has been bought up, basically, by the private equity firms, by the big investors who are now gobbling up all the housing. So you get inflation, especially in housing, which has been off the charts.

38:44You get inflation when you have more money and fewer things to buy. That's the general recipe. Yes, that is the recipe. Thank you. That's the recipe for inflation. So there are many ways to work with that, but you don't want to work with that by cutting jobs and forcing unemployment. We need our small businesses to be employing people. We need for workers, especially in larger companies, to be getting good, solid living wages so they can afford to be the pump. The pump for our economy is consumer expenditures, so consumers need to have enough money, which is why we need a true living wage as the minimum wage.

39:25Now, there may be some requirements for the size of the businesses there to have that applied, but working people need not only health care, working people need good wages. And to survive throughout most of the country, you need at least a$20 an hour minimum wage. So by doing all those things, we help revive the economy. Our Green New Deal will also help revive the economy because the Green New Deal means we basically declare that there is a climate emergency, which is one of the major reasons for hopelessness among young people. Half of young people describe themselves as hopeless in polls, and a lot of that is because people really feel like they've been abandoned on student debt and all the rest, but also on the climate and the climate future.

40:09So the Green New Deal gets rid of that hopelessness because we jump in full bore. Number one, we say this is an emergency and the core driver of the climate crisis is fossil fuels. So while the Democrats, they give lip service to our plans, they don't actually do what it takes. So they do not have a plan for phasing out fossil fuels. They just want to create more renewables. And that's great, but nature doesn't care about that and the climate doesn't care about that. That doesn't do squat for addressing the problem. We're still going to have rapidly escalating heat waves, drought, rising sea levels, storms, you name it.

40:45All the things that people are taking on the chin right now are going to keep happening under the Democrats' plan, just like the Republicans' plan. Because the Democrats, under both Obama and under Biden, the U.S. fossil fuels have skyrocketed, and we've become the major producer of fossil fuels. So let's be the major producer of renewables. and we can do that at a community level as well. There are all sorts of small businesses that are badly needed to create this transition at the community level. So that's things like renovating our housing and making it energy efficient and very low energy and have all the principles of conservation.

41:24So there's lots of housing rehab as well as housing to be built. There's also a lot of transportation work to be done. We need local sustainable transportation. We need muscle-powered transit, and we need communities that are really built around preserving open space. And if we're building housing, which is linked with public transportation, and it's built in an environmentally sound way, we're not gobbling up our open space. We're protecting our open space because green space is actually really important to our health, let alone to the health of our water system and all the rest. Part of the Green New Deal is also farming and bringing back small farming and the farming economy and the community farming economy and all that, which happens at a small scale, which is coordinated, but it needs lots of small producers and providers and distributors and all that.

42:17So the Green New Deal is also a boon for small businesses and for reviving our economy. And then the housing piece, I think we've addressed as part of that. But those are really the fundamentals here of creating an economy, which again becomes a productive economy. Right now it's a financialized economy, so it's all in the hands of Wall Street and big real estate and industries like that, which are not small businesses. They're very oppressive to small businesses. We'll be right back after a quick break from our sponsors.

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45:38Young and profiterers. I know there's so many people tuning in right now that end their workday wondering why certain tasks take forever, why they're procrastinating certain things, why they don't feel confident in their work, why they feel drained and frustrated and unfulfilled. But here's the thing you need to know. It's not a character flaw that you're feeling this way. It's actually your natural wiring. And here's the thing. When it comes to burnout, it's really about the type of work that you're doing. Some work gives you energy and some work simply drains you. So it's key to understand your six types of working genius.

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46:44I don't like it when people slow me down. I don't like hand-holding. I like to move fast, invent, rally people, inspire. But what I do need to do is ensure that somebody else can fill the enablement role, which I do have, Kate, on my team. So Working Genius helps you uncover these genius gaps, helps you work better with your team, helps you reduce friction, helps you collaborate better, understand why people are the way that they are, It's helped me restructure my team, put people in the spots that they're going to really excel. And it's also helped me in hiring. Working Genius is absolutely amazing.

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47:29Yeah, it's so important what you're saying because you mentioned you have a quote where you say that climate change is even a bigger threat to us than World War III. A lot of us are worried about war, but we've got this whole other thing that's going on that basically our politicians are doing nothing about. And in fact, they're funding war, which creates so much pollution, which makes the climate issue even worse. So it's just so ridiculous. We just live in a country where it seems like their priority is just war and staying in power and getting the money back from the war machine. And then all the regular citizens, our lives are sort of deteriorating here in America.

48:09In a big way, really fast. And I don't know if I mentioned this before, but as part of that same poll that shows half of people under 25 are hopeless about the future, one quarter of young people have contemplated harming themselves within two weeks of the poll. Things are that dire for young people. And they certainly are because young people have been exploited at every turn in this predatory economy that's serving the very rich and making billionaires and large corporations richer all the time, while for everyday people it's such a struggle just to get through a day. And it doesn't have to be that way.

48:48We have the resources. What we don't have is the economy and the democracy that will create the economy and all the other critical pieces of an infrastructure for a world that's actually working for us. And just to emphasize how much this really is within our reach, I want to share one other little factoid with you, and that is that we have three candidates who are pro-genocide, pro-war, anti-everyday people, anti-working people in small businesses. That's RFK and formerly Biden, but now Kamala Harris, it looks like, and Donald Trump. So they will effectively be splitting the pro-war, pro-genocide vote.

49:29They're all pretty substantial campaigns. They are going to split that vote. If we can break into the public dialogue, which is starting to happen, especially through social media, through commentators like yourself, drivers like yourself, which are basically liberating a right to a free press, are creating the free press that we otherwise don't have. By getting the word out, we can break into this conversation. And also by getting on the ballot, we force the mainstream media to pay attention to us because they use the fact that we're not on everywhere to sideline us and to marginalize us. But once we're on in just about all states, they can't do that.

50:06So by pushing our ballot access, we then force our way into this conversation. So where you have three campaigns splitting the pro-war, pro-genocide vote, we become the one and only anti-war, anti-genocide, pro-working people, pro-small business, pro-climate action. We become the one unifying campaign. So when you have four choices in a race, four people, four campaigns who are dividing the vote, you can win that race with as little as 26%. 26 can dominate and the others have either 25 or 24 % or some variation on that. But one campaign can win with as little as 26%. According to a poll released just yesterday, it said we were at 4%.

50:54Now, this is before we've had any coverage whatsoever. we've had polls like in Wisconsin, for example, where we've had a little bit of coverage, where we were running 22 percent, you know, and it's a range. It may be from 8 percent up to 22 percent among people age 35 and under. So where word starts to get out, and that's mostly among young people who are always leading the charge, who are always setting the trend, that's where the change begins. And by alerting young people that there is a campaign that is about you, that you can take this election by storm, 44 million people who are in student debt right now, knowing that your student debt will be canceled, that alone, that 44 million alone is enough to win this race, a four-way race.

51:45So we really encourage people to reject this propaganda of powerlessness, this propaganda that tells you there is no alternative, that you're going down with the ship here. No, that's absolutely false. We can be masters of our own fate here. As Frederick Douglass said, the famous abolitionist, slavery abolitionist, what he said, This famous quote you'll hear all the time, power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has and it never will. And he said this back in the days of fighting slavery, which was a very big institution to fight. He was really encouraging people that we have to be political.

52:26We have to really challenge power. You can't do this by being the lesser evil, by allowing yourself to be veiled in what you think might be the least worst. No, we have to stand up for what it is that we actually want, need, and deserve. The other quote is from the amazing author and poet Alice Walker, also famous Palestinian human rights advocate for a long time. And what she said, this is paraphrasing her a little bit, but this is basically what she said. The biggest way people give up power is by not knowing we have it to start with. And I just want to drive that home. We have the power. the minute we flick the switch in our own minds from being powerless to being powerful, the minute we decide that we are going to act on the courage of our convictions and on this moral imperative that we have in this day and age of genocide on our computer screens and our iPhones, the minute we decide to act, we have the numbers that we need.

53:27Just from students fighting debt from people who already oppose the genocide, just from people who need housing to keep a roof over their heads. You start putting us together, and we are absolutely unstoppable. And there are more to our plans in particular about how we get from here to there. But just that as the general notion that it is our power that can take us to an actual victory in this election. So, Jill, I want to be respectful of your time. I know that you don't have that much more time with us. I usually ask two questions at the end of my show, but I'm going to customize one of the questions for today's episode.

54:04So I usually say, what is one actionable thing that our younger profitors can do to become more profitable tomorrow? Today, I'm going to say, what is one action our young and profitors can do to help put you in power this upcoming year? Oh, man, thank you for asking that, because that really is the answer to being more profitable, is having a democracy that's actually working for you. Young people are the drivers of our economy and our society. So we really do need to put you front and center. And that's what our campaign has always been about. So for you to help us help you and empower you, go to jillstein2024.com.

54:46If you can make a contribution, throw something into the hat of any size whatsoever, sign up to volunteer or to just be on our email list and join this team. This team is of, by, and for the people, and that means you. And by joining this team, we become unstoppable together. Jill, what is your Instagram? How can people follow you on Instagram? At drjillstein, at drjillstein. Okay, we're going to put all those links in the show notes. Guys, follow her on social media, share all her content to your stories. Are you on TikTok, Jill? Yes. I'll make sure my team puts all the correct social links on there.

55:27Guys, follow Jill on social media, share her content, tell your coworkers about her, post about it at school. If you guys are still in college, just tell your whole networks about Jill and the Green Party and help educate people. Join me along this journey. I'm going to be talking a lot about it on social media and so on. Jill, thank you so much for your time and for joining us on Young and Profiting Podcast. Really great to be with you, Hala. And I look forward to the next installment. Thank you so very much. Thank you.

56:02Well, Young and Profiters, like I said, we don't really tend to talk about politics on the show, but politics can play a big part in our lives as entrepreneurs and small business owners. And it's sometimes unavoidable to avoid talking about politics. And what better way to reflect on some of the issues in an election year than hearing from an actual presidential candidate? Whether you agree with Dr. Stein or not, I hope you found her views on the economy, young people, world issues, and democracy thought-provoking. Like she said, we have an economy that often doesn't work well for small business owners or entrepreneurs, regardless of the political party that's in charge.

56:44Money buys influence. And money is largely concentrated at the top in large corporations and extremely wealthy individuals. And these people have a lot more control over our nation than we think. There's often very little connection from what the American public wants and the bills that Congress actually passes. Just look at how much we spend as a nation on war, including funding the ongoing genocide in Gaza. We could be using that money for so many other things, including better healthcare, better schooling, and investing in small businesses. In our conversation, Dr. Stein also touched on the challenges faced by third-party candidates.

57:27Despite these changes, she remains optimistic about the potential for change. And her campaign is not just about winning an election, but about creating a movement that can bring about systematic change. She believes that young people are key to driving that change. Whatever your political outlook, I hope this episode has inspired you to engage more deeply with the issues that Dr. Stein has raised. If you'd like to support Dr. Stein's campaign or learn more about her platform, I'll put some links in the show notes. Until next time, stay informed, stay engaged, and let's do what we can to build a better future for everyone.

58:02Thanks for listening to this episode of Young and Profiting Podcast. If you listened, learned, and profited from this conversation with Dr. Jill Stein, please share this episode with your friends and family. And if you did enjoy this show and you learned something, then why not drop us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts? Nothing helps us reach more people than a good review from you. And if you prefer to watch your podcast as videos, you can find us on YouTube. Just look up Young and Profiting. And if you're looking for me, you can find me on Instagram or LinkedIn, by searching my name. It's Halataha.

58:34I also want to shout my amazing team. Thank you for all your hard work. I love every single person at Yap Media and I appreciate you all every day. Thanks so much for your hard work. This is your host, Halataha, aka the Podcast Princess, signing off.

59:02Amen.