Billionaires, Baristas & War Crimes: Who Really Has the Power?

Starbucks is forced to pay nearly $39 million in New York City's largest ever worker protection settlement after officials say the company systematically shredded Barista's rights to stable schedules. In Switzerland, voters Crush A proposed 50% inheritance tax on the ultra rich and a landslide rejection that shows just how tightly democracy still hugs billionaires. In New Jersey, former Governor Jim McGreevy, once driven from office in scandal, now asks voters for a second chance as he bids to become mayor of Jersey City. On the racetrack, Michael Jordan's NASCAR team is taking the sport's ruling family to fetch federal courts in an antitrust showdown that could rewrite who controls stock car racing and who gets paid. And at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth faces allegations of possible war crimes, open criticism from fellow veterans and a president who suddenly sounds eager to keep his distance. All that and more today right here on Filtered. It's going to be a fun filled show. Don't go anywhere. Welcome to Filtered with TJ Walker. Hi and welcome. Thanks for joining me today. It is December 2, 2025. Let's start in, dive in with a market recap from yesterday. The s and P 500 closed at 6,812. That's down 0.53%. The NASDAQ Composite closed at 23,275. That's down 0.38%. Always keep in mind the long term. Over the last 25 years, the S&P 500 has gone up on average 8.32% a year. The NASDAQ 100 has gone up on average 9.09% a year. Doesn't mean it'll go up that much every year, but that is what it does on average. Okay, let's dive right in to our top stories of the day and have some fun. By the way, if you're joining me for the first time, my name is TJ Walker. This is Filtered, and this is the show where we look at news, typically the top five business news, technology news stories and culture stories of the day, and then filter them through the lens of communication and personal development skills, dissecting the messages, all with the goal of improving you, making you more effective in your own communication and personal development skills so that you can be more successful in your personal life as well as your professional life. Let's dive right in. Starbucks settlement. According to reporting from the New York Times, New York City has reached a nearly $39 million settlement with Starbucks over what officials say were more than half a million violations of the city's fair work law the law requires predictable, stable schedules for fast food workers. Investigators found that Starbucks repeatedly cut hours and failed to post schedules on time for thousands of employees across more than 300 locations. Mayor Eric Adams said the company had arbitrarily cut schedules and illegally prioritized their own profits over their workers rights. More than 15,000 hourly workers are now expected to receive restitution payments. Under the agreement, Many will receive $50 for each week they work between 2021 and 2024. Mayor elect Zoran Mandani, who joined striking Starbuck workers in Brooklyn alongside Senator Bernie Sanders, praised the settlement and said workers were simply asking to be treated with the respect they deserve. Starbucks responded that the law is notoriously challenging for businesses to navigate and called the issue one of compliance, not wage theft. Okay, so what's the real message here? Workers have seen their rights to control their own income, their own schedule, their own career chipped away at for the last 40 years. This is one little time where they're chipping back a piece for themselves. The courts have said, Starbucks, no, you can't just jerk people around continually and expect them to take it. Let's dig a little deeper here. I do want to be fair to Starbucks. Compared to most small businesses and most gig workers, they're a dream place to work for because they do give health insurance, they do pay more, they have scholarships available. So I don't want to seem like I'm painting a picture of just, wow, Starbucks is the worst possible place ever. But apparently they were very much guilty of not giving people notice, expecting them to work till midnight one night, the late shift, and then the next day open up at 6am by the time you've gone home, come back, what you got, maybe four hours sleep, never really knowing your schedule. So once upon a time, when a lot of the people who consider themselves MAGA today, the Make America Great, they like to talk about, you know, the good old days in 50s, 60s, 70s, when men could be men and a coal miner could have a good steady job, good paycheck, and maybe have a spouse who stayed at home, have a car, have a middle class income. Well, everyone always forgets that the only thing that made a coal mining job worthwhile, or for that matter, manufacturing a car in the United States, was the fact that there were rules protecting workers. Unions stepped in and said, you know what, this idea of working six, six and a half days a week, this idea of children working, this idea of 12 hour shifts, we don't think so. And they used the power of organized labor to write laws to make the 40 hour work week the norm. To put things like coffee breaks in, to put things like vacations in. And this was back when actual manufacturers and laborers, blue collar workers, had things like pensions. Kids, you ought to look up that word if you've never heard it before. So here we have a situation where Starbucks is. There was litigation. They've lost. Because New York is a little different from most places in America, as some of you have no doubt deduced. And they've said, we want to at least give some rights back to workers. They have the right to have some semblance of knowing what their schedule is going to be. Let me go over a few more facts of the case with you. This is the largest worker protection settlement in New York history of $38.9 million. More than half a million violations of the Fair WorkWeek law since 2021. It affects 15,000 workers. All of them are expected to receive some payments. What the city found is that Starbucks routinely cut hours by more than 50. Again, back in the good old days, you worked making a Ford or a General Motors car or a coal mine. You knew that you had 40 hours of work in front of you. You didn't just show up for work and your boss said, oh, today we only need you 30 hours. This week, plan on a 25% pay cut for your family. That didn't happen. And what New York is trying to do is give people maybe not the same protections of organized labor, but some semblance of stability. So Mandani and Sanders joined a 19 day Starbucks workers strike in Brooklyn. Here's some provisions you need to know about the law. It requires schedules 14 days in advance and bans surprise hour cuts without just calls. Obviously, if there's emergency, you know, 10 of your top employees are all sick with COVID or some disease, and the company says, hey, we know you worked yesterday, but we need you overtime today. No one really begrudges that. But it's the idea of just the norm being jerked around. The norm being you can never ever have a vacation. Because you never know if Friday night you've worked all week that you might get a notice late that night, hey, show up Saturday morning. It's wildly disruptive. And I will tell you, I am out of touch on this. Yes, I've worked in a restaurant before, but we're talking about more than 40 years ago. And I wasn't trying to support a family. For me, it was a little extra cash in college that, I don't know, I spent on a couple of books or a soda pop or something. So I wish I could tell you I have direct experience with working in these conditions. I really don't. I love to hear from you if you do, but it is something that causes massive, massive amounts of stress to workers, even if their overall income, with tips and everything else. And in the case of Starbucks, with health care and other benefits, even if it does add up to a middle class wage. And it's pretty hard to reach a middle class wage in New York City. You don't really feel like you're living a real life, is what I've been told. And I can only imagine if you can never plan a vacation, if you can never plan on taking your kids to Coney island, if you live in New York City, which is a fun place and I've taken my daughter there, if you can never really plan in advance. Okay, I'm working hard, I'm tired, but wow, I know I'm going to have the entire weekend or an entire two day period to relax. It eats away at you. And this is what New York City did when they passed this law of saying, let's try to change the balance of power back a little bit in favor of the workers. Now Starbucks is going to survive. I don't hate Starbucks, but let's not feel sorry for them either because they are a wildly profitable, successful company. Full disclosure. You know, there have been times in my life when I started every single morning at Starbucks Coffee in New York city, right on 7th Avenue, times on Broadway. And I would start my morning eating one of their breakfast, having a coffee. So I'm not someone who automatically says Starbucks is the devil. You must go to the locally owned coffee shop. Because here's the thing that most Democrats and progressives and liberals and those even further to the left don't want to admit about the so called local coffee shop. They often pay people less than what Starbucks does. Yes, the owner of the coffee shop might do better than the manager of the Starbucks, but the average worker is probably paid less than the average worker at Starbucks. So if you're purely trying to align yourself with what helps the most workers, it's simply not a clear cut case to say local coffee shop good, Starbucks bad. It doesn't really break down that way at all. What do you think? You can post your comments here. We are live. We're live on TikTok. We're live on YouTube, every forum. We're also live on podcasting through the Podbean app. So if you are watching this or listening to it, we'd love to hear from you. If you're watching this on Demand, Welcome. Thanks so much for doing that. And you can post comments too. I do read and try to respond to every single comment. We'll be back in just a moment with the next big issue. Filtered is brought to you by the following Want to advertise here? You better be legit. No crypto, no junk food, no supplements. Go to tjwalker.com advertise want to become a better speaker, leader or communicator? Start with the TJ Walker Success Library. If you Five of my most practical books covering everything from public speaking to media interviews and persuasive messaging, all for only $9.95. I've trained presidents and Fortune 500 CEOs, and now you can get the same wisdom in a fast, affordable format. Go to tjwalker.com books and download your copies instantly. Thanks for listening. If you liked today's episode, you'll love my online courses@mediatrainingworldwide.com, check them out now and level up your skills. Switzerland Inheritance Tax According to reporting from the Economist, Swiss voters have overwhelmingly rejected a dramatic new tax on inherited wealth. The proposal, pushed by the young socialists, would have created Switzerland's first federal inheritance tax, a 50% levy on fortunes above 50 million francs, which is a lot of money. With the money earmarked for climate projects. Voters said no by a lopsided 78 to 22%. Switzerland is already one of the richest countries on earth and a magnet for billionaires, thanks to low, predictable taxes and political stability. The vote signals that most Swiss still see that model as untouchable. The country's ultra rich did not quietly sit this one out. Wim Obiter, founder of Micro Mobility Systems, said he would say, fu, I'm cleaning it up, Switzerland and leave. If the message passed, other tycoons warned they would be forced to sell family businesses. The initiative failed, but exposed a fault line. How how much democracy is willing to ask of inherited wealth before that wealth threatens to walk? Okay, what's the real message here? We live in times of extreme income inequality. Should democracies have an inheritance tax to kind of level the playing field a little? Absolutely. But politically, is it an easy sell even to people who don't have any inheritance coming? No. It doesn't poll well, and voters typically vote it down. Let's dig a little bit deeper here, okay? I have told you before, and I'll tell you again. I see myself as a sane, sensible centrist. Do I have political views or values sure, anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar. But I don't necessarily align 100% with any one ideological positioning. I certainly think a case could be made, as it was in the early part of the 20th century in the United States, that there needs to be some leveling that democracy doesn't really work if you have so much concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. So the United States passed laws with very high income tax and high estate taxes. Those have pretty much all been washed away. Yes, we still have an estate tax in the United States, but anyone rich enough to actually pay between a couple, you'd have to have about $26 million right now. Very few people have that much net worth. Anyone with that much money, unless they're just complete ignoramus, is going to have plenty of money for estate attorneys to rewrite wills and trusts and things. So they essentially never pay any tax. Sorry, but that's really the way it is. So this proposal came up in Switzerland. Switzerland is not the United States, but it is a highly capitalistic country, very successful country, wealthy country, and it was voted down. Now, the billionaires threatened to bolt. Okay, here's the BS part. People love to say they're going to leave and that they typically don't, but it does happen. It certainly happened to the United Kingdom over the years. And a lot of people who were French originally have left the country because of taxes. So it can happen. Here's my feeling about estate taxes. In a perfect world, in an ideal world, yes, we should. Because when someone works really hard and makes a huge amount of wealth, good for them, let them keep most of it. I say the problem is when they give it to their children, their children didn't work hard for it, and their children quite often become derelicts. Drug addicts have all sorts of problems and are not adding anything to society. So simply giving them money gives them power to oftentimes do a lot of damage. Frankly, there's no real good to society for second, third, fourth generations having tons and tons of money. Now, again, you can make the argument, TJ In a free society, I should be able to do whatever I want with my money. Okay, a lot of people do find that effective. Here's my sort of different rationale for opposing most levels of estate taxes. For starters, we live in a world that is simply more mobile than ever before. In the early 1900s, at the beginning of the 20th century, it was really, really difficult to get to other countries, even other cities. You know, 1913, 1917, round about the times of the Income tax in the United States. You couldn't just fly to Europe or have a weekend getaway to Tahiti the way you can now. So wealthy people really were very rooted in one place. It's not true today. Today the super wealthy often have five, 10, sometimes 20 homes. They're constantly traveling around the world and they see themselves, rightly or wrongly, as citizens of the world. They're going to Davos, they are opening up media companies in England or Australia. They're doing deals in South America. They're constantly traveling to vacation homes in different cities and in different countries. They're constantly attending fancy conferences. And not just Davos, but other fancy conferences around the world. They're going to birthday parties at palaces in Dubai. This is the world of the modern rich. I'm not saying it has to be that way or it's a good thing, but it is the modern world. So when you tell them we're going to tax you really heavily here, it's just too easy for them to say, okay, I'm going to move over here, I'll declare my citizenship here. Or I'll say all my revenues are from over here. Or I'll just spend enough money on lawyers to make it look like on paper I'm poor. And that's what I kind of feel about taxing the rich. The way a lot of conservative, let's say Christian ministers or fundamentalists of any religion feel about premarital sex. Yes, they're against premarital sex. Society should not condone premarital sex. But you don't really hear that many of them talking about it anymore. Right? It's because the genie is out of the bag. That issue has been lost. We live in a culture now where mainstream so called normal people of traditional values typically live together before they get married. And it's not a scandal anymore, even though it might not be what a conservative religious preacher finds to be truly sound in their Bible or whatever document they think is religious truth. They kind of lost that issue. The times have simply changed to make it too easy for kids, teenagers, college kids, people in their 20s who aren't yet married to have sex outside of marriage. So they don't talk about it that much because they realize it's a lost issue. I kind of feel the same way about inheritance taxes and for that matter wealth taxes and taxes on really super high incomes. I frankly would be happy if we could just get wealthy people to pay the same percentage of taxes that their secretaries do. Warren Buffett famously says his own secretary pays a much higher percentage of her income in federal income taxes than he does. I think we'd all be, A, we'd raise more money, B, we wouldn't have the constant fight pushback from the wealthy. C, you wouldn't have the wealthy constantly making alliances with political extremists saying, okay, just give us our tax cut. You can do anything else you want. Because that is what happens certainly in America. I'm not an expert on, on all the political machinations of Switzerland. I don't purport to be, but historically they had relatively low taxes. That was one of their big benefits. And this kind of goes against their message. It is interesting that the provision got a no vote by 78%. Now my understanding is they would have to have something like an excess of $50 million in an estate before this tax would hit. And even though Switzerland is a wealthy country, certainly 99% of the population is never going to have $50 million, even a country like that. So people were not voting necessarily their own self interest. Presumably they were persuaded by either arguments that it wasn't a good thing to do or they would lose too many wealthy people. I wasn't there to see the whole campaign, but I'm pretty sure that the billionaires got together and said, we got to stop this. Let's put all the money we can, let's do anything we can. Let's hire lobbyists, political activists. I don't even know if they can do advertising there. But it did lose. Now Thomas Piketty, well known economist, is very much in favor of a worldwide wealth tax, which is a great idea. Again, if we had worldwide government. How you actually impose that without worldwide government, that's one of those things in the footnotes that isn't ever really fully explained. Now his point is based on a rational reason is if one country raises a wealth tax or an inheritance tax on extreme wealth, it's just too easy for a wealthy person to move to another country. If it's a worldwide wealth tax, then there would be no incentive for the person to move. They would have to pay up. So we'll see. I am skeptical. I also think for those of you who are centrist and center and center left parties, it's kind of a fool's errand because every time you go for some huge tax, a wealth tax, large inheritance tax, quite often you lose number one. At least since about 1950 in the United States, you lose number one. Number two, you fund far right wing extremist organizations because billionaires say, oh, I don't care if you you want to ban abortion. All other stuff that doesn't affect me, I'm rich. My family and I, we can always fly to another country for anything like that. You can't really affect us. Your laws, your draconian laws, cultural laws won't affect us. We're rich. If you just lower our taxes, we'll give you all the money you want for your campaign. So that's the big political problem I see for centrist political parties around the globe and certainly center left parties or even left parties, is you basically give tremendous funding to your opponents, making it virtually impossible to win the next election. And then everything you wanted or even got is repealed. And then you have more extremists. Here's how I would end this argument. Why here in the United States, why not simply have a flat tax on Social Security? Right now it's a two tiered tax. You only pay taxes on about the first $160,000 of income. So somebody who makes $160,000 a year versus someone who makes $20 million a year pays the same amount of Social Security tax. You could, I think it would be much better political messaging say, hey, let's have a flat rate fair tax for Social Security, maybe even lower it 1% on everyone below 160,000. But if everyone who makes above 160,000 has to pay that on every penny, you would raise a lot more money, create a lot more fairness and you would kind of remove the argument from the wealthy that they're somehow being penalized for being wealthy. They would be paying the exact same amount on a percentage basis as everyone else. So that's my own modest proposal. Back in a moment. Filtered is brought to you by the don't need a new degree. You don't need another expensive coach. You need the right communication habits. And I'll teach them to you in just a few minutes a day. @mediatrainingworldwide.com I've created the most comprehensive library of online communication and personal development courses anywhere. You'll learn public speaking, media training, persuasion, executive presence, and more. These are the same methods I've taught to world leaders, but now they're affordable and accessible to everyone. You can start for free and upgrade anytime. 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I've trained presidents and Fortune 500 CEOs and now you can get the same wisdom in a fast, affordable format. Go to tjwalker.com books and download your copies instant According to the Associated Press, former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey is trying to complete a full political comeback. It all comes down to a runoff for mayor of Jersey City, across the Hudson from Manhattan. McGreevey faces City Council member James Solomon in a one on one race after neither candidate cleared 50% in last month's multi candidate primary. The campaign has centered on affordability, not surprisingly, soaring housing costs, budget shortfalls and the risk of big property taxes in New Jersey's second largest city. This is McGreevey's first bid for office since his 2004 resignation as governor, remembered for his nationally televised declaration. I am a gay American. That's what he said when resigning. Since then he's reinvented himself in a non profit work leading a Jersey City based reentry group that helps formerly incarcerated people and veterans find work and housing. Solomon says McGreevey's past is experience we don't want calling his tenure scandal after scandal. McGreevey frames this race around second chances both for himself and for the city. Okay, what's the real Message here? Jim McGreevey has been off the political stage for two decades now and now he wants back on. The question is, should he be permanently banned from public service because of his violation of trust with voters? He put his own lover on the payroll to protect people during a crisis time terrorist times and the person didn't have a single shred of experience. In my mind that's probably enough to say, Jim, just spend the rest of your days in the private sector. Let's go a little deeper here. Should people be forgiven for certain sin? Yes. Do people deserve second chances? Okay, McGreevy, this is a bizarre case. Now most of you probably don't remember it. I remember it well, I remember it the day it happened like it was yesterday. And it was one of the most bizarre crisis communication issues I'd ever seen. Because at the moment the controversy was about to break that he had put his lover on the payroll. And this was a situation, this was a time when people were panicked. This was after 9 11. A lot of people in New Jersey died during 911 because that's right next door to Manhattan. It's a quick little train ride, the PATH train ride to the Twin Towers. So there were a lot of people in northern New Jersey who died and a lot of other people who family members died. So this was a source of major, major tension and anxiety. So he had a New Jersey Homeland Security advisor, that's what the position was called. It was a six figure salary, which back then was even today. A lot of people would love to have that, but back then that was a pretty significant salary. And it turned out the guy he hired, zero credentials, zero experience, zero credentials on homeland security. It was a pure sort of patronage kind of doing a favor, things you typically associate with mob run rule. And he did it and he got caught. Now the fascinating thing is that's a typical issue where every single person left, right and center would condemn you. No one really is in favor of putting your lover on the payroll. Whether you're married or not and you happen to be married, no one's in favor of that. For a high national security issue or a statewide security issue. At a times when people are really tense about terrorism, there's simply not a constituency for that. So if the issue had been framed that way, he wouldn't be running today. He wouldn't have been able to sell books, he wouldn't have been able to reinvent himself. What he did, you can argue is quite clever. He changed the whole narrative. So when he was resigning, he didn't say I'm resigning because I got caught doing something insanely unethical that put people's lives at risk. He didn't say that. He said I'm resigning today because I am a gay American. And people could connect the dots that he put his lover on. So it changed the whole narrative. It changed the story. And this was back in the time when even higher percentage of Americans thought homosexuality was awful, evil and immoral. But it was also a time when a significant portion of the country was even more passionate about protecting gay rights, protecting people against homophobia, protecting homosexuals from bigotry. So when he did that, he kind of instantly cast himself as a victim in the sense that he was saying, I've been conflicted my whole life. I led this double life. I was married to this beautiful woman, and she was beautiful and. And children. And yet I've had this whole secret life. And now I'm being honest with you. Coming clean. So he was able to position this as a coming out story and being honest. That made a lot of people forget what the underlying crime was, the underlying ethical issue. Now, he still resigned, but it did reposition things in an interesting way. Some feel he kind of got off easy because what he did, there's simply no support whether has nothing to do with being a gay relationship. Nothing really to do with the fact that he was married and it was an adulterous relationship. That wasn't the issue. It was picking someone patently unqualified for a position related to defending human lives. Now you can argue, hey, T.J. look at the news. Have you seen Pete Hegseth lately? Okay, fair enough. But for the Democratic voters in this city, and it's a largely Democratic city, I've never lived in Jersey City, but I did live next door in Hoboken, and I once owned rental property in Jersey City. So it is a town I'm very familiar with who's going to win. I'm not going to make a prediction here. I will say this about Jim McGreevy. Unlike a lot of tainted politicians who had to resign from office, he seems to have been very sincere about his change of beliefs about wanting to help the world. He has spent a tremendous amount of time helping poor people, helping homeless, helping prisoners, and he seems very sincere about that. Today he runs something called the Jersey City Reentry Corporation, where he helps prisoners sort of re enter society. So he's done a lot of good things in his time off. He's not simply trying to enrich himself. And these days, for a politician who's famous not to spend every second raking in bucks, that alone is sort of a breath of fresh air. So is there a chance if I lived there, I might vote for him? Maybe. I don't want to appear overly dogmatic. I do think that even with the Pete Hegseths of the world with massive power who are patently unqualified, I still think it's fair game for most voters who are not a part of any political cult to disqualify a politician who has essentially betrayed the public good by hiring a lover for a position that really, really relates to the public safety. So if I had to vote today, I would not vote for them just for that reason. What about you? What do you think? You can post your comments right here and I'll share them live with our audience. And if you're watching this on demand, you can post your comments or questions. I will read and respond as I typically do within about 48 hours. There's more to come in this next story about nascar, believe it or not. More in a moment. Want a shortcut to powerful communication skills? Download the TJ Walker Success Library, five of my best selling books for only 9.95. Go to tjwalker.com books instant access big impact. I've had entire YouTube channels wiped out overnight. So if you enjoy this show, don't lose track of me. The safest way is my newsletter. Substack.com success Sign up for free and you'll get exclusive commentary, live session alerts, and first access to new tools. Again, that's substack.com just search for TJ Walker or go to substack.com J WalkerStack Success. Your direct line to everything I do. Welcome back to Filtered Michael Jordan vs NASCAR According to reporting from the Athletic, Michael Jordan's NASCAR Team 23XI Racing is in a federal antitrust trial that could blow up the way stock car racing is run. Jordan's team and Front Row Motorsports say NASCAR is a monopoly in top level stock car racing and abuses that power. The key fight is over NASCAR's charter system, a franchise like setup that gives certain teams guaranteed race spots and more money while everyone else is basically locked out. Think of it like this. Imagine one company owns every big arena, controls the only major league and tells teams, you can only play for us, only in our buildings and only under our contract. Oh, and if you don't buy our special ticket to exist, you're done. That's essentially how the teams say NASCAR operates. If the team loses, they likely can't survive without charters. If NASCAR loses, a jury could force major changes, even breaking up parts of the France family's grip on the sport. Okay, so what's the real message here? Every single day we hear screams from conservatives that hey, socialism is taking over. The radical left is destroying and not respecting free market enterprise. And yet the most egregious violators of competition, of free market enterprise are things like NASCAR and the NFL. These are cartels. They're essentially unions, but only for rich guys. Good work if you can get it. Let's dig a little bit deeper here because Michael Jordan's very rich too. Let's not forget he's basically a billionaire. So it's not about the rich versus the poor. Poor people are not starting NASCAR teams and leagues. But this is just another example of how in America we're very comfortable with big government structures sort of helping things. We're very comfortable turning a blind eye to antitrust problems in the last 40 years or so. Because if richer people get even richer, well, that's the way things are supposed to be, right? So let's look at some more facts here. NASCAR has built essentially a union for billionaires and owners that shields them from real competition, shields them from other people with athletic skill at driving. The fans get fewer choices. Now, I should know more about nascar. I grew up in NASCAR country. I grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, home of the World 600. I think they call it a Coca Cola 600. I've been to the racetrack, never actually been to the race. But growing up, every little boy in my neighborhood idolized Richard Petty, one of the most successful NASCAR drivers of all time. So I should know more about nascar. I've just never been a fan. There's one family, the France family controls almost everything. The NASCAR sanctioning body, many of the key tracks, the rule book, and the charter system that decides who gets guaranteed money. It all comes from this France family. Financial records show NASCAR makes healthy profits, while the France family trust quietly collects over $100 million a year in member distributions. That's a polite way of saying a whole bunch of ne' er do well, do nothing. Second and third generation kids who do nothing worthwhile of their life. They just wake up on January 1st and they see a giant pile of cash has been wired into their account. That's typically how it works. And forgive me if any of the France family members are doing wonderful things, but that's typically how these things work. So by owning tracks and signing deals that block rival series, NASCAR effectively controls the only stage in town, making it nearly impossible for competition. Again, if you say you believe in capitalism, you have to believe in competition. That's the nature of capitalism. Now, the strongest antitrust argument against nascar. The judges already found that NASCAR is a monopoly in a premier stock car racing league. And that teams can show NASCAR used the monopoly to shut down competitors and coerce teams through track control, charter rules and retaliation. Exactly the kind of monopoly maintenance that the Sherman act is supposed to ban. The Sherman act is the great Antitrust act that used to be used all the time in America before billionaires were writing 250 million dollar checks to political candidates and getting their way. Now, if a jury agrees, the court could order structural fixes, forcing NASCAR to sell tracks, rewrite the charter system, or limit the France family's power so that teams and new series can actually compete without the charters. Most cup teams bleed money. The 23 Xi team says it would lose about $24 million in revenue if they don't get into the cartel. So this is a clear cut example of, I think of how you and I are constantly fed misinformation about the political debates of our time. We so often hear about, well, the big threat in the world is a socialist like Mandani in New York City. That's the real threat to capitalism. But meanwhile, we have things like NASCAR where they get to be above normal Sherman antitrust provisions, where NFL gets to do whatever it wants, where football coaches who are public employees are paid $50 million to do nothing for years at a time. That's all okay according to most people who claim to love capitalism and beat their chest the loudest. So I actually am someone who is a capitalist. I believe in free market capitalism and I believe in competition. That's the key. You cannot have competition without rules. Imagine going to a boxing competition. You've paid a lot of money, it's your favorite boxer, Their suited comes out and the opponent comes out grossly overweight, unfit, but just pulls a gun out and shoots your opponent. Hey, I won. The guy's down for the ten count. You'd say, well, wait a minute, that's crazy. That's not a real boxing match. That wasn't competition. Well, that's essentially what happens again and again in our economy where there are cartels who form their own unions. But it's not a union where everyone gets to join. It's a union where only people who typically, if they're not billionaires, they're typically worth 100 million. They get to buy in and they get protection and customers. Other competitors get pushed out. And that is not capitalism or it's not free market capitalism. It is crony capitalism. It is really a type of feudalism and it is creeping into our economy every single day. I'm T.J. walker. This is filtered back with issue five in a moment. Like what you heard. Don't let the algorithm bury us. Subscribe now@substack.com jwalkersuccess want direct access to me live? Want to unlock bonus episodes behind the scenes takes and full access to my premium courses? Then become a member today. Just go to tjwalker.com members and choose your preferred platform YouTube, patreon whatever works for you. This isn't just another subscription, it's a full access pass to the tools, coaching and content that can transform your communication and career. TJ walker.com I'll see you inside. Before we dive in, quick question. Are your communication skills helping or hurting your career? Fix that in 20 minutes a day. Visit mediatrainingworldwide.com Real skills, real results Hegseth War Crimes Allegations According to detailed reporting in the Times, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is now at the center of of a possible war crime scandal and even some Republicans are backing away from Hagsett. Here's the core A US Missile strike blows up a suspected drug boat in the Caribbean. Surveillance shows survivors clinging to burning debris. A second strike kills them. Pentagon law of war rules state that orders to fire upon the shipwrecked are clearly illegal. It is in fact a violation of international law. If a jury ever finds that Hegseth ordered or condoned that second strike on men out of the fight that fits the textbook definition of a war crime under US Law and international law, I should point out. Meanwhile, Hegseth is posting cartoon memes, including a children's turtle gleefully firing rockets at drug boats and joking about the killings online. Senator Mark Kelly, a former Navy combat pilot, says Hegseth runs around on a stage like he's a 12 year old playing army and should have been fired after Signalgate and every single day after that. Even Donald Trump now insists he wouldn't have wanted the second strike, a classic sign a president is getting ready to toss a loyalist overboard. Okay, so what's the real message here? Pete Hegseth, if not an out and out war criminal, has clearly demonstrated he is an out and out incompetent. To quote Senator Mark Kelly, Pete Hegseth, you are not a serious person. Let's dig a little bit deeper here. Now, there have been a number of people in the last few weeks who said Senator Mark Kelly, whom Hegseth is now attempting to investigate and possibly court martial, he should be the real Secretary of Defense. And I think if and when a Democrat ever becomes president again, there's certainly a good chance that Mark Kelly will be on the short list to be the next Secretary of Defense. But he's not going to be one anytime soon. And in fact, he could, because of the retribution tendencies of the administration, find himself court martialed for simply stating the law. So to give you a little backstory, again, Pete Hegseth is very angry at Mark Kelly for putting out a video reminding people the law, which is if you're an officer or you're in the military and you're given an illegal order, you have the right and the obligation to refuse to carry out an illegal order, something that basic recruits are taught in basic training for stating a fact. Pete Hegseth is saying that's a crime. And.