In our latest episode, we dissect the failures of the mental health system in America. With insights from experts and historical context, we explore how we got here and what can be done to make a change. Don't miss it! #MentalHealthReform #DoomedToFail Today we talk about the history of Mental Aslymns in the context of Ezra Klein's new book, Abundance.
In our latest episode, we dissect the failures of the mental health system in America. With insights from experts and historical context, we explore how we got here and what can be done to make a change. Don't miss it! #MentalHealthReform #DoomedToFail
Today we talk about the history of Mental Aslymns in the context of Ezra Klein's new book, Abundance.
Hi Friends! Our transcripts aren't perfect, but I wanted to make sure you had something - if you'd like an edited transcript, I'd be happy to prioritize one for you - please email doomedtofailpod@gmail.com - Thanks! - Taylor
Taylor: You are very stationary on this show
>> Taylor: In the matter of the people of State of California vs. Orenthal James Simpson, case number BA096. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not.
>> Farz: What your country can do for you. And we are back. Taylor Live. Several days have passed. How are you feeling today?
>> Taylor: Good. I haven't moved. I'm. I'm doing this one. Laying on a bed.
>> Farz: You are very stationary. I was wondering if there was something wrong with you. And then I realized that you're just, not. Don't have your camera on and so that's why you're not moving.
>> Taylor: So, yeah, I'm in, I'm in vacation mode.
>> Farz: Love it, love it.
Doomed to Fail brings you history's most notorious disasters and epic failures
why don't you go ahead and introduce us? So I remember to ask you to introduce us.
>> Taylor: Great. Hello everyone. Welcome to Doomed to Fail. We bring you history's most notorious disasters and epic failures twice a week. And I am Taylor, as always, joined by Fars.
>> Farz: I'm Fars. And I have a topic today that I think Taylor's going to have feelings about and I think a lot of people are going to have feelings about it because I'm approaching a subject anecdotally from the perspective of everybody calm down, chill out. Like, let's like cool it cooler jets a little bit and stop trying to identify enemies and start trying to identify solutions. That's, that's my head space that today. Yeah, I move my hands a lot. You won't be able to see it, but my hands are moving a lot.
>> Taylor: I can feel it. I can feel the vibe.
Ezra Klein recently released a book which I have not read
>> Farz: So I mentioned in an earlier episode a book which I have not read, but I will, I am going to get this book. I will buy it because I owe it to the authors to pay them for how much they've informed me. The perennial star of my episodes of this show is consistently Ezra Klein, who I think is probably the smartest person ever. And his perspectives are amazing. Anyways, he, he recently released a book, I think like two weeks ago with his co author. Co author, a guy named Derek Thompson. And the book is called Abundance. He released a book every like couple. Like his last one is why we're Polarized. And I think that was like in 2018 or something. So like he does not publish a lot. When he does, it's always a banger.
My topic today comes from the book Abundance about government inefficiencies
And so my topic today kind of comes a little bit from the book Abundance. And I'll just debrief what the book is essentially about. Basically in it they talk about government inefficiencies and why things are the way they are and why people should Stop making this like a left right thing and think about like, hey, a government that works for, for people is actually a good thing. And he gives all these anecdotal examples. He aims triple barrels at California and New York specifically. And I'm going to actually do the same as release to California in my episode. And I only got to the topic yet, but that's where this is headed. I also love this one YouTube channel. It's, it's really like, it's like an adults only channel. It's called the Soft White Underbelly. Have you ever seen that? So it's this guy, seems Mark la, he is like a retired something and he just like he started doing photography things around downtown la, around skid Row and then he got an office there and he'd bring people in and put them in front of a camera and just tell me your story, like why, why is your life the way that it is? So think about like prostitutes, homeless people, I mean, you name it, like whatever. Like it is, it is the parts of society that we never want to like actually look at. And he shines a glaring light on it and it's incredibly, incredibly informative. It's really hard to listen to a lot of times. Like, it's not like a, it's not like a feel good, I'm going to sit and listen to this. It's more like, okay, I should probably know why this person ended up the way they are. So that's what that is. But one of the most recent interviews with a psych was with a psychiatrist named Dr. Tori Seppa, who is. She works for the LA County Prison System and in it she talks about the state of mental health within the prison system. With the grossest examples that she literally saw in real life was three prisoners ripping out their eyes and ingesting them. Them.
>> Taylor: I was like, there's just. You said, you've said so much so far. What are you talking about? Keep going.
>> Farz: I haven't even started.
>> Taylor: No, I know, I know.
>> Farz: And, and it was, it was the, the, the way she came across in the video was just like, I don't want to say defeated because it was like honorable what she was doing for a living. But it was just like, guys, nothing is working. Like this doesn't work. What we're doing is not working. And like, and she brought the fact that basically prisons are now basically just giant mental health facilities and their inability to provide mental health treatments. And I kind of went back and was like batting around the Ezra Klein abundance concept and was like, Oh, I want to figure out, like, why this happened and if it can be fixed or how it can be fixed.
How did we end up with people with mental disabilities roaming the streets
And so I am going to talk about why we ended up this way. How did we end up with people having mental disabilities roaming the streets, roaming prisons, and not getting the treatment that they deserve?
>> Taylor: Is it Ronald Reagan?
>> Farz: So this is the part where you're gonna, like, not be happy about this because also Ezra Klein says something amazing in his last episode with Jon Stewart where he was like, the villain. We are. We're quicker to ascribe blame when the villain looks the way we think they look, as opposed to digging a layer deeper and figuring out what the root of it was. And so Reagan's going to star in this episode, but it's not going to be like a complete takedown of Reagan. Let me put it that way. Okay, so I'm going to start the story in the 1940s and the end of World War II. So prior to that time, these things, these institutions were referred to as lunatic asylums. And they are not what you would think of today as a psychiatric ward in, like, a mental health hospital. This was where you would take children with mental disabilities, alcoholics would end up here. Obviously people with, like, mental illness, actual mental illness would also end up here. But it was like, it was essentially the seventh circle of h***. Like, it would. That's. That's what it. What it was. But after World War II, many GIs returning home suffered the trauma of war and the mental impact that they suffered also timeline wise, dovetailed into medical advancements and pharmaceutical drugs. And the 1940s was also when the conditions within lunatic asylums, that's what they're called. I'm not being obtuse about it. That's when those places were actually being reported. Like, what is actually going on behind those walls? We haven't seen Johnny playing in the yard for like 20 years. Like, where do you go? What's happening?
>> Taylor: Right. They just dropped him off and like.
>> Farz: A. Yeah, Rosemary Kennedy. That's exactly what Kennedy's done.
>> Taylor: Mm.
>> Farz: So the prevailing theory on mental health back in the day, and I'm using mental health, like, broadly here, like I said, this also applies to people who actually have, like, disabilities. Right. Like, it's not just that, but their perspective of it was that mental health, quote, unquote, was immutable and pretty much, like, untreatable. It was. Was the idea. So mental institutions developed into human warehouses where the worst conditions were starting to get exposed by journalists, Specifically a guy named Albert Deutsch. Wrote the Shame of the States in 1948. And right before that, Life magazine had a photo essay that they published called Bedlam. And when you see pictures, it's like, it's horrible. Like it's. You can't imagine people were treated the way they were being treated. So these things, along with a number of other reports about conditions of these places, along with the advancement of drugs to treat psychosis, they started shifting public perception away from housing people in mental asylums to more community oriented approaches. That was supposed to be the answer to what this was. Asylums during this time were still around as this approach kind of started gaining, Gaining speed. So the idea was that if you create these localized community health centers and now we have pharmaceuticals, things like Thor, Thorazine that people can go in and take, they can get a mental health evaluation, they can talk to us like a psychologist or psychiatrist and then come back and repeat the cycle, then that would probably lead to better outcomes than just housing someone a mental assignment away from their family, their friends, their life and everything else. Right. And things kind of stayed that way, dual track where in some cases where someone's just like unmanageable and there's no hope whatsoever, you just drop them off at a mental institution, you involuntarily committed them. And the idea was just out of sight, out of mind. And the other side of it was, you know, you would treat them through these community health approaches. The, the one point there that's really important to say is involuntary commitment piece. Like that was real. Like that was where women with postpartum depression, their husband just dropped them off at a mental health asylum and say, just keep her. I don't give a.
>> Taylor: Like, yeah, yeah.
>> Farz: I mean, like you have no rights at that point point which dovetails into other parts of American culture that we're going to happen here in a little bit we'll discuss.
California had an especially bad rap with these kinds of asylums
So think about what type of person is the one that ends up in a mental asylum versus the one that has the resources in the community, in the household environment that would nurture them going into a clinic with arguably dramatically better healthcare outcomes. Right. It's, it's very clearly you're dealing with like, I don't want to be rude about, but you're dealing with the dredges of society getting dropped off and shipped off and nobody cares about them versus like it's your kid and you love them and you want to take care of them. So you're going to make sure that they get the treatment they deserve and they want all that Stuff. So that's the kind of the two track approach that the US had. I wrote down that Rosemary Kennedy was the anomaly here because she did come from a really big resource intensive family and they still really just drop her off.
>> Taylor: I mean, they lobotomize her.
>> Farz: They lobotomize her to. Yeah, there was a lot going on with that family at that time.
>> Taylor: She did, she did live a long time, but she did live a long time, Lord knows. Yeah.
>> Farz: So we're talking like the 1940s and now we're heading into the 1960s and this is when the. A wave of reforms start coming down the pike as well. So conditions within state run asylums were regularly being reported on. Geraldo Rivera famously did this. Tinnycott Follies notoriously did this. The. It's a documentary. Teddy caught Follies, if anybody wants to check it out. I mean, it's terrifying. It's really, really scary. It's very, very like you don't want to. You want to be there. And California had an especially bad rap with these kinds of asylums. You had Napa State Hospital, which was one of the largest and oldest, that was overcrowded, super chaotic. And it was reports, the reports the mid 20th century describing it as a dumping ground for people with mental illness, developmental disabilities and the elderly. You have Camarillo State Hospital, known for housing both mentally ill and developmentally disabled patients. This was kind of the emblematic, out of sight, out of mind approach to care. And in fact, the Eagle song, Hotel California was apparently based on this mental institution.
>> Taylor: Oh, that is not what I thought that song was about.
>> Farz: Yeah, well, it stands. I mean, I mean that's. This is the involuntary commitment part.
>> Taylor: You can never leave it now.
>> Farz: Yeah, it makes it so much darker. When I read that, I was like, that is so much worse than I thought. That.
>> Taylor: Yeah, that was like a beach resort where you kind of.
>> Farz: I know, I thought it was really a sexy beach resort. Like, hey, I kind of want to see my family, but I kind of want to have margaritas and have a siesta, you know, like. But then they put it in this context. Then you have Agnew State Hospital in San Jose, which was originally named. This is all capitalized as a proper noun here. Proper name. The Great Asylum for the Insane. And that was obviously well known for neglect and warehousing. Over 100 patients died in the 1960s when an earthquake struck nearby and was also well known for its poor safety standards and construction. You had Patton State Hospital, which it was historically a high security psychiatric treatment center that was known for inhumane treatments and it was usually used for people who were deemed criminally insane or unfit to stand trial. One of which I'm going to get to here in a little bit later in the story.
In 1966, the Democratic governor of California was Pat Brown
And this is where everything goes to h*** in a handbasket with why the state of mental health and in our communities is the way that it currently is. And it all starts in California. In 1966, the Democratic governor of California was Pat Brown. Name sound familiar?
>> Taylor: No, no. But I feel like you're telling me I'm going to be like, duh.
>> Farz: Because his son was our governor when we were living in California. Jerry.
>> Taylor: Oh, all right.
>> Farz: Yeah. So he. So yeah, 1966. So he was governor of California and he decided to run for a. This blew my mind when I read this. He explicitly said that he was a two term governor. He just wanted to get in, fix stuff and bounce. Then it comes up to his election in 66. He's like, you know what? I'm going to go for a third term.
>> Taylor: Oh, that's unprecedented.
>> Farz: I know. Later on I wrote down. For anyone wondering why I'm negative on things changing with the Democratic Party, you can draw your own inferences here. Yeah. But we'll leave it at that for the time being. But during his second term in office, towards the end of his second term in office, he worked with a Republican assemblyman named Frank Latterman and Democratic Senators Nicholas Petrus and Alan Short to draft the Latterman Petrus Short Act, LPS for short, which would change how California managed the mentally ill population by forcing judicial reviews of individual commitments and critically here ending indefinite and involuntary commitments for all but the most extreme cases. And the idea was to his intention around this was naturally this would defund these institutions. But the bill itself wasn't a funding bill. It was just a procedural bill of like from now on, like these things can't be run a monthly. You can't just drop off your kid or your wife or whatever, these things and leave them there forever, indefinitely. It was actually done with, well, intentions. And the reason was that Starting in the 40s, the world had kind of seen that, hey, these localized mental health facilities and clinics within communities is probably a better way to be doing this. And in addition to this, this was all done in like the late 60s. This was done during the civil rights era. So this is also like a civil rights protection bill. And that's kind of how Pat Brown saw it. And he also thought that from a funding perspective, the fact that it's not Being like funded directly through the state wasn't a huge deal because JFK had just signed into law the Community Health mental, sorry, the Community Mental Health Centers act. And we're going to talk a lot more about that.
Several factors converged that prevented the intent of the law from taking place
The monkey in the wrench that happened here was that again, nobody was happy that Brown, after saying he was going to run two terms, ran for a third. And he got completely whipped in six election by Ronald Reagan, who won the governorship of California and was sworn into office in 1967. Reagan signs the LPs into law that was developed under Pat Brown. And then several factors converged that prevented the intent of the law from taking place. So first things first, without involuntary commitments, mental assigned patients dropped. Like, there's less patience, you have less costs. The asylum is huge and needs people to operate to get funding. And the funding dried up. Next, Reagan wanted to cut the state budget anyways. In addition, the plan was always that, like I said, JFK's mental mental health center act would provide federal funding for these community health centers. The part of this that he did not want to get involved in, the part that Reagan did not want to get involved in was direct government oversight into these development of these community health centers. So budget was going to come from the JFK bill and it was going to come from the states. But the state was like, under Reagan was like, hey, we, why don't y'all run it? Like, why, why don't you, the communities actually run your own program? So they issued block grants to counties and had them be in charge of developing their own community centers. Being like, hey, part of the funding will come from these block grants. Part of it will come from the federal government.
>> Taylor: Are you interesting that JFK signed that and like never visited Rosemary?
>> Farz: He did visit Rosemary. He. Yeah, he visited Rosemary right before he's going to, like, before he's going to announce for office. And then he was like, he's like, wait, I'm running for office. Like you are now telling me my sister's been.
>> Taylor: But he, but he didn't know until then.
>> Farz: He didn't know until then. He didn't.
>> Taylor: Yeah, yeah, it's like. Because it wasn't like they knew. It was like, it's an Irish secret.
>> Farz: Yeah, it's an Irish secret. Like, it's like, it's like if your kid, if your kid gets pregnant at like 16, nobody asks questions when she's not seen for like a year. Like, it's just, she's gone. Like, yeah. So the way block grants works is that this is funding Usually it's the way it's kind of talked about these days you hear it mostly from the federal government, but it's like any government can do this. In this case, it's a state government issuing a grant saying, here's a batch of funds that can be used for this purpose. Use it for this purpose, essentially. But shockingly to no one, even back then, government could barely function. So what hope did counties have with their limited resources to in staff and expertise to develop these community centers that are like super detail oriented and intricate and they're resource intensive and mental health is. It's still confusing. How confusing was it back then? Third, JFK's act was supposed to provide funding for 2,000 community health clinics across the country. And then something else happened that kind of blew this into the background. Can you guess what could have happened around this time?
>> Taylor: Is that when he died?
>> Farz: No. Well, you would think they'll be more important than it was, but that actually wasn't the thing. The thing was the Vietnam War. So the Vietnam War grew to become huge, like a huge albatross around the government's neck when it came to social pressures and budgetary issues. Basically domestic spending across the board was reduced to fund the war. I guess like back then we didn't go into like massive debt for everything. And we actually like self funded stuff, which is like a crazy concept. And all political capital that anybody in the federal government had was being used to focus on keeping Americans from mass revolt, from their kids being drafted to be shot in the forest.
>> Taylor: I mean, I've been thinking about that a lot, like giving some credit to my parents and other people of their age group because like, yeah, when they were in college, a bunch of their friends were dropped, everyone. My dad was drafted, but he couldn't, he had a knee injury and couldn't go. But like, yeah, that's, that's a lot. If you're at the, you know, if.
>> Farz: You were to draft me right now, I'd shoot myself in the neck. Just get out of going like, you're too old.
>> Taylor: You're not going.
>> Farz: But hey, I'm not that old. I'm just, I'm still spry.
>> Taylor: Okay, you're too old to be drafted. This isn't like the end of a siege. If it's like the last couple days of a siege and they're like all men over 40 and 8 year olds are gonna be the ones who are fighting at the gates. But I think you're fine.
>> Farz: I'll be the shoe buff boy.
By some accounts, 20% of inmates suffer from severe mental illness
So because of the state of things in the US this time, mental health reform was like an orphan, like nobody gave a s***. It was the last item on the list that anybody cared about. So that funding never came from the federal government. Mental asylums lost funding, which probably they should have because they were run horribly and they horribly, horribly misabuted.
>> Taylor: Right. But then what do you do with the people?
>> Farz: Yeah. And then governments, like I said, they were ill equipped to provide the community focused alternatives themselves.
>> Taylor: Mm.
>> Farz: So by 1981, well after Kennedy signed the act and was shot in the head, the US went through lbj, Nixon, Ford, Carter. In total, across all these presidents, less than half of the community centers that they had said they were going to build were built. About 780 of these centers were built, and they were all poorly built because all the funding was kind of dried up anyways. The term used for transitioning away from mental institutions to these community centers is called deinstitutionalization. And it's been said that Reagan, when he took office in 1981, he didn't start deinstitutionalization, he just inherited it and ensure that it would fail by cutting further federal funding back that had already been declining for 15, 20 years at this point. So the outcome of this has been jails and prisons taking over the mantle of managing the severely mentally ill by society. By some accounts, 20% of inmates suffer from severe mental illness, including things like schizophrenic schizophrenia and psychopathic disorders. By comparison, the general populace is about 6%. So like 3, 3.5% difference in terms of the population impact. And the doctor I mentioned earlier, Dr. Tori Seppa, said that literally everyone on earth is susceptible to severe mental illness. It's just a factor of conditions, which science doesn't actually totally understand right now for sure, as to how they can converge within a single person and eventually find themselves having a psychotic break. One thing she mentioned that was fascinating was if you were chronic marijuana user, you are five times more susceptible to a psychological disorder than if you aren't. And that doesn't mean that that triggers the psychosis. It means that if you have this like innate inherited genetic precondition to it, then you are 5x more likely to have that actually manifest in your mind than if you weren't a habitual user. She also talked about dealing with people who like start doing meth, about how sometimes you can bring them back and sometimes once you push the brain too far, it's just gone. There's no getting point.
>> Taylor: Yikes.
>> Farz: The so so going from having A severe mental episode in prison to being transferred to a treatment facility is like the only hope that folks currently have that are kind of in the, in these positions and in these conditions. But even that is just lined with bureaucratic like red tape to get them across the finish line. I'll give you an example. Go ahead. Sorry.
>> Taylor: Oh, I was gonna say like, remember how Ed Gein loved prison?
>> Farz: Yeah. Because he was.
>> Taylor: Well, because he was finally in meds. He was like, no, he feel he.
>> Farz: Wasn'T in a prison. He was mentally insane. He went to an asylum back when. Asylum.
>> Taylor: Right, right. He loved it.
>> Farz: Yeah, he loved it.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: He was like. He was like, these are my peers.
>> Taylor: Yeah. This is great. I finally don't feel alone and weird.
>> Farz: Yeah. Yeah. I'll give you an example of, of like what this kind of currently looks like. And it's not a sympathetic example. Like it's not something you're like, oh, poor guy. Let's like help like he's a horrible. Whatever. There's a guy named Andre Lee Thomas. At the age of 18 years old, he went into the home of his ex wife in March of 2004, kicked in the door, stabbed her in the chest and then stabbed their four and one year old kids to death.
>> Taylor: Then he was 18 and had a four year old child and an ex wife.
>> Farz: Yes.
>> Taylor: Jesus Christ.
>> Farz: He removed their hearts, put their organs in his pocket and then walked home and then called his former mother in law saying he did a bad thing. Wow. So five days later, while he's under arrest, this is, I think this was in Dallas. It was definitely in Texas. I don't know if it was Dallas, but I'm pretty sure it was five days later while he's under arrest, he ripped out his right eye with his bare hands. Still, he went to trial and was sentenced to death. And while on death row, he removed the other eye and ate it. And he did this, he said, to prevent the government from reading his mind. He's still on death row.
>> Taylor: That's fair. The government would definitely have read his mind.
>> Farz: I mean that's. That this is unique across the board. I looked up example after example of people who are in solitary confinement on death rows across every state across the board, who like are obviously severely mentally ill. But we put this process in place in the system in place. We're like just, just we don't want to know about them. And like, frankly, I don't want to know this guy. Really. I'm not saying like this guy we should like.
>> Taylor: Yeah, I don't have anywhere else I'd rather put him. But, like.
>> Farz: Yeah, exactly. I know where else I'd rather put him. But also from, like, a humanity perspective, the key thing is that there's no voting block for this. Like, who's the. Like, who is a candidate going to, like, lobby for money for this? Like, right. There's nobody that should. I mean, they should, but there's nobody that's going to care about this. And the outcome of that is going to be the people that you see living on the street screaming at themselves. It's going to be the people that are locked up in jail. Like, if you get arrested for something trivial, like a dui, which, like, is, like, usually trivial, you might be in a cell with some guy who just ripped his eyes out five minutes ago. Like, you know, like, it actually does impact even us selfishly in different ways. And so, yeah, I'm gonna go back to Ezra Klein's suggestion on finding ways to make things work. And, yeah, that's.
It requires somebody to address this at a state or federal level
That's kind of my ethos. Go by abundance. I haven't read it yet, but. And he does not talk about any of this. It was just like a segue from his conversations about some other things. But that's. That's my story for today.
>> Taylor: What is. Like, what. What are we supposed to do?
>> Farz: I mean, it requires somebody to say, we're going to address this at a state or federal level. And you don't want to go back to mental asylums. Like, that was f****** horrible.
>> Taylor: No, absolutely. Yeah.
>> Farz: It's like, there needs to be some other model. Like, I forgot what it's called. It's. I want to say Kirkland. And I'm wondering if I'm thinking about Costco too much. I think it's called Kirkland McBride. But there's a model of mental asylums that was developed in, like, the 18, like, 17. 1800s. And that's what all mental asylums across the world have been. And it never shifted from that.
>> Taylor: And so it needs, like, an update.
>> Farz: Yeah, it needs, like, a refresh. Needs somebody to go and, hey, we got to find a different way to deal with these people. And so, like. But then you got to commit the resources doing it. And again, you have a voting block of people that, like, don't. Can't vote and they're nuts.
>> Taylor: Exactly. Like, they're not going to advocate for themselves. And everybody else is, like, terrified of not being.
>> Farz: Yeah, dude, I see it all the time. I'll walk down. I'll walk down downtown Austin. You'll see someone screaming to themselves.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: My inclination is not to go over there and hold their hand and say, hey, how can we help you? My inclination. Get the out of there.
>> Taylor: Like, no, it's.
>> Farz: I don't blame us for being the way we are, but also, it's like. It's not good.
>> Taylor: No, no. It sounds really bad.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: Yeah. It's interesting. I feel like in the Thalidomide episode, we talked about how, like, the kids who had it and were, like, disfigured. You hadn't seen disfigured people for so long because they had hid them all away.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: You know, which is so wild that there's, like, this is. Take this entire population of people and hide them from you so you can, like, pretend everything is fine. So, like, your wife is being a little hysterical. Just send her away, and you can pretend that everything's fine. Get a new one, you know?
>> Farz: Dude, it's crazy. Yeah. I mean, I like. Like I was saying earlier with the mental sound, like, if. If you had, like, a kid with, like, down syndrome, you just drop them off and, like, nobody would know there were people in society that had that. And now.
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Farz: You know, those people, like, live. I'm a huge fan of Shane Gillis, who, like, he's a comedian, and he has family members who have down syndrome. And pretty much anytime he's on a podcast, he's talking about how happy they are and how much they love their lives and what a joy they are to be around. It's like, yeah, yeah. Like, society is kind of depriving itself when we do things the way we do things.
>> Taylor: Yeah. So totally. That's lovely that he has that in his family also.
>> Farz: He does. He does make a lot of jokes about people with Downstrom. And then he also prefaces that with, like, also, like, I love them, and they're my family. So, like.
>> Taylor: Yeah. But that's humanizing them. Yeah. I think, also, in a way. Yeah.
>> Farz: So. So, yeah, we'll. We'll see what happens. It was interesting because all this kind of dovetails with, like, Doge and everything else.
Ezra Klein: There's a difference between wanting government to fail
Like, Ezra, when he was on the Jon Stewart episode, he was talking about how, like, he's getting beaten up, being like, you're taking their sign. He's like, I'm not taking that side. There's a difference between a party that wants government to fail and a party that doesn't care if it works. And there's something in the middle there, which is, like, we should all want it to work.
>> Taylor: Exactly.
>> Farz: That shouldn't be a left. Right issue and people are making it such. And it's like, I don't know, I don't know what to tell you. but you know, it's, it's.
>> Taylor: I find it, it's frustrating because I feel like the money, it's like it's all, a lot of, it's, it's all money related. Right. But like, is it, I mean, I read headlines and is it true that if the billionaires just paid their owed taxes, we could fix a lot of these problems?
>> Farz: He, he doesn't address that. What he actually does is, is he does this through a Democratic lens and that's why he focuses on California and New York. Because his whole point was if I pointed to why things don't work in like Texas for example, or whatever else, then then the people that I'm trying to address this book to are going to look at it and say, well, Republicans are running that state and they're staying in the way. So he points to those states and he's like. Or he actually went, he did one about, I think it was the CHIPS act where he was like, it was under Biden, under his administration. He was like, if you want a bid to, to start running, getting funding for chip manufacturing in the US you have to prove that you're minority owned, that you have daycare facilities for women or children. You have to prove this. You have to prove this. And he said that like, started with, I think, like it was like in the hundreds of companies that submitted applications and then by the end it was like five and none of them got funding yet because it's still kind of in the pending phase and it's like four years now. His whole point was like, that was all done on their own volition. Like nobody forced them to put all these provisions in there that made it absolutely impossible for any one organization to be able to take advantage of this and, and achieve the outcomes. So I mean, I thought that was a really interesting. He has so many of those examples that he talks about that are just absolutely fascinating. But like, again, it can all be addressed if people would just stop being like, yeah, I don't know, I don't know what they're being, but they need to stop it.
>> Taylor: Yeah, I think it's like it's. If you don't, if you do nothing, then it's just going to be the same things over and over again, you know, but it has to be incremental change. It just has to be because people are not able to handle it and.
>> Farz: They'Re going to End up, like, to your question, like, if billionaires pay their fair share or whatever. Like, it's like, I think what you end up with is more money going into a government that has more interests that are projecting onto those things that prevent stuff like we're talking about here from happening. Like, I don't think it's a more money thing. I think it's a less process thing.
>> Taylor: Well, I think everyone could always use more money. You could use more money. Like, I wouldn't say no to money.
>> Farz: You wouldn't?
>> Taylor: No. But do you think that the process is a disaster?
>> Farz: Yeah. Yeah.
>> Taylor: I don't know how to ever make it not a disaster. It just seems like it's always a disaster, you know?
>> Farz: Yeah. I mean, I think that's kind of. He refers to it as an everything bagel, which is like, if you want to do anything in certain states, then you have to check this box. This box, this box. And then by the time you're done checking the box, like, site doesn't care about that thing anymore, and it's already overrun in budget and.
>> Taylor: Yeah, and that's. That's all kinds of regulations, too. You know, that's what.
>> Farz: Yeah, that's what he's saying. He's saying that Democrats need to, like, stop running from the word deregulation because they think it only applies to corporations, but it can also apply to governments. Like, you regulate the government, so it can actually become efficient and do things. Like, I was doing the math, like, how many California specific data privacy restrictions would there be for somebody to kind of show up and try to reform mental health care in the state? It would take trillions of dollars in, like, decades to do it under current conditions. Like, it's just not even, like, who has the political capital and appetite to even try?
>> Taylor: Right. No one.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: So it's just gonna get worse.
>> Farz: Yeah. Until there's an embrace of this, which I think. I think 2028 is the year that embrace there. Somebody asked what the Democrats 2025 Project 2025 book would look like for 2029, and I forgot what congressman or senator it was, but they just, like, retweeted the Abundance book. I was like, yeah, that is it. That is a strong approach to things that I think most people would get behind.
>> Taylor: So, yeah, I want to read it. I put it on my list. I can read it in 17 weeks. So the library will give it to me.
>> Farz: If you. If you want to do the easiest way possible. Literally, like, it's like maybe like three days old at this point. Just Go on your favorite podcast app and find the Jon Stewart Ezra Klein interview.
>> Taylor: No, I know, and it was.
>> Farz: It was amazing because. Because Jon Stewart's involved in this stuff, right? Like, he's involved in, like, Veteran affairs and veteran 911 funding and all that kind of stuff.
>> Taylor: God, when he talks about 911 funding.
>> Farz: You'Re like, yeah, he really is in it. And, like, he talks about attending all these puny boards, and he's like, no, I see it, dude. I see. I've been to these boards, and we want to do a thing, and then this person raises their hand and says, but we got to make sure we look up for this. And that person raises their hand, and all of a sudden, by the end of you, like, what are we talking about?
>> Taylor: Yeah. And they can't agree on anything, which is a huge problem of the left, I feel comfortable saying.
>> Farz: I mean, it will only be fixed when the call is coming from inside the house. That's it.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
Taylor: Ezra Klein abundance concept is directly connected to this episode
>> Farz: Anyways, we went on a little side tangent, but that tangent's directly tied to this since, like, this Ezra Klein abundance concept is exactly what informed this episode. So we're still on point. I'm not gonna hear otherwise.
>> Taylor: What should I. What should I write in my image for this episode?
>> Farz: I don't know if you. If you really. I mean, if you want the episode to blow up, you could put, like, abundance, like, right. Then ride Ezra Klein's wave.
>> Taylor: Let's ride that. I'm actually at the Airbnb, and then we have several surfboards, so I feel like that's fine. That makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
>> Farz: Any who. That's all I got for you, Taylor.
>> Taylor: Thank you. That was super interesting lot to think about. You know, I'm like, I just. Like yesterday, I did not read the news, and I was like, ah. And I was like, oh, right. Didn't read the news today.
>> Farz: Oh. One thing I wanted real quick to. The reason I framed it the way I also framed it, factually, I might add, is that you said something. That star was like, it's all Reagan's fault. Right? I was like, it's so much more complicated.
>> Taylor: No, of course it is. Of course it is.
>> Farz: It's never the. It's so much easier to look at the boogeyman and say, the boogeyman did it versus, like, the nuances of what happened that resulted in it, which I think people should also keep in mind.
>> Taylor: Yeah, absolutely. But then, in the meantime, people's lives are, like, affected, you know?
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah, of course. And they could be affected for good. If people would stop trying to argue for dumb things that prevent good things from happening.
Okay, last story, the one that he did on the toilet
Okay, last story, the one that he did on the toilet. So Ezra Klein's been on this mission for like years. He's from San Francisco. He's from Berkeley, I think, but he lives in San Francisco. Anyways, he's on this mission for forever. This is like a four year old podcast I listened to where he talked about a $1.7 million toilet at a park in San Francisco through every. Everything that had to be accomplished before they could build it. And then the media picked up, the national media, this up and goes, attacks the assemblyman or congressman, whoever allocated this budget for this one toilet in this one park. It's like, it has to be 1.7 million. It might be more than that. We got to do like six years of environmental reviews. It has to be. Every union has to get. It's like this insane process. And anyways, there's so many of those nuanced stories that are really fun, but again, that goes back to if you try to appease and try to create the best possible outcome, then you'll achieve no outcome. That doesn't help anybody.
>> Taylor: I agree.
>> Farz: Anywho, I'm done. Done. Rant.
>> Taylor: Cool. Thank you.
>> Farz: Yeah. Do we have anything to sign folks off with?
>> Taylor: Not today, but please follow us on social media. We're also on YouTube. We got a mean comment the other day. And then I also keep getting all these things that are like, YouTube is the biggest space for podcasters. And I'm like, I don't see that. Do you have to videotape ourselves then? We're just videotaping a conversation and I guess that's what people want. I don't even know why I said videotape. I'm like 100 years old.
>> Farz: Yeah, you're definitely not getting drafted, dude.
>> Taylor: I was never gonna. I'm a lady. Me and my lady things are not gonna get drafted. But I do remember being in College at 911 and some lady was like, they're gonna start the draft. And I was like, all my friends are gonna go to war.
>> Farz: You know, I mean, that was when I. Yeah, like right around 911 is when I had to. Every boy has to. When they turn 18 has to do the selective service thing. And so, yeah, we all had to do that at school.
>> Taylor: Yeah, that's crazy.
>> Farz: But I believe in equality, so I think that you should be in the trench next to me.
>> Taylor: I don't. I believe in equality unless it's women and children first. When I say yes, we should do that. And also, no, I'm not going to war. So other than that, though, quality. Yes, I appreciate the most. Other than those two things.
>> Farz: Fine. I'll take the bullet.
Taylor: Maybe women should go first. Maybe they should guide everybody very calmly
>> Taylor: What was it? I forget what episode it was up. You're like, women and children for us is. And I was like. Excuse me. It's not you.
>> Farz: You.
>> Taylor: You were like, you.
>> Farz: You actually, like, let go of that for a second. You're like. You know what? You're right. That's not equal. And also, I still want it.
>> Taylor: Yeah. No, like, no children. At least first. And then women. And then men.
>> Farz: Yes.
>> Taylor: And then people we don't like.
>> Farz: Fair.
>> Taylor: Fair. Yeah. And then mimes.
>> Farz: Poor mimes. We love you, mimes. Please keep listening.
>> Taylor: Maybe they should go first. Then they can guide everybody very calmly.
>> Farz: Yeah. The world needs more art.
>> Taylor: We saved mime from this disaster so that they could mime me. What happened?
>> Farz: It's all coming together.
>> Taylor: Anyway, I'm happy to be on vacation. I hope you have an okay week.
>> Farz: Yeah, thanks. And yeah. Anything to read out before we sign off?
>> Taylor: Nope. Please follow us on social media. Oomtofailpod, all of the places. And we have a Patreon. If you want to help us spread the word, you can sign up right now. And then in the future, you will always have ad free episodes. If we ever get ads.
>> Farz: Yeah, please. That'll be great. Awesome. We'll go ahead and cut that off then. Thanks, Taylor.
>> Taylor: Cool, thanks.