Do you consider your coverage of labor issues to be balanced?
Over my time of watching -admittedly not every single episode- of Breaking Points I get the impression that labor news coverage is mostly tilted towards labor unions. In many cases the coverage approaches a level of fawning. Can you explain your approach to labor news and counter my characterization?
Segment on informants
I enjoyed your segment on the fed informants. With the report being 2011-2014 this would diver the Boston marathon bombing. Bejng from Boston this is of interest and seems from people I know in law enforcement and media, plus some great reporting from Michelle McPhee it seems like the older brother was an informant and may have been involved in a murder prior to bombing. Have you ever seen this or was it referenced in the report?
Debt Ownership
Since mutual funds own roughly 1/3 of the US Public debt (the funds own half of what is owned internationally); how does our never ending debt increasing not contribute to income inequality? Due to the size those funds are going to be owned by billionaires already; so they are just making more money by doing nothing more than riding on government inefficiencies. It seems that every major tax scheme i.e. Trump Tax Break, SALT allowance, etc just allow the people to double dip. Once from the debt installment payments and once from the tax break on that income. Aside from reduction in the debt; what can be done to break up this loop?
My Fantasy -- What do you think?
As we wait wondering what big news Breaking Points has for us this week, here's my fantasy: The Show sets up a second channel -- say, "Breaking Points LT." The content for the channel is exclusively subscriber-produced. It is understood that any revenue, etc.. generated by the "LT" channel is deposited to Breaking Points' main account. Your audience basically "works" gratis for the Show. Imagine a hundred people producing content for the Breaking Points brand. You'd be sub-platforming, but not really since uploaders would be giving you the content. It'll break the Algorithm! There's no profit motive! But being on the right side of history is its own reward, and I think many, probably most Breaking Points enthusiasts, would take that deal. These would be people who wanted to be heard more than to make a buck. Your audience wants to see you succeed, because you're an honest voice for the politically abandoned and abused. Don't underestimate the returns that providing a unified space where progressives and populists can group their own voices and perspectives with others who share this common and unique interest that is Breaking Points. These would not be influencers, or rather they'd be influencers for you .. people in the main who wish to share their own perspectives on their own particular lives. How is the system failing here or working there for this person or that demographic? You'd want to avoid content moderation, while maximizing the synergistic quality of video submissions. This is why I suggest the "LT" label. It would designate loosely the "Lite" satellite adjunct of the premium channel. But I also think you should consider restricting upload permission to current lifetime members and current subscribers who upgrade to lifetime before the end of 2021. Aside from incentivizing a revenue spike, lifetimers are the base of your base and highly unlikely to go rogue or submit something slavishly Trumpist or Establishment-friendly. It seems appropriate to reward those whose foresight, or gut instinct, led them to your program early. They -- we -- are the canaries. We likely have an incredibly rich and varied base of experience that would only inform, not threaten or detract from, Breaking Points. The first video for any would-be uploader outght to be a brief bio, after that, whatever the uploader finds germane. And maybe a per-month upload cap would be appropriate. Regardless, I think your more-invested audience is looking for a more concentrated communal space. I for one would like to know more about my "extended family" of Breaking Point lifetimers. In the end, think of the cost of a lifetime membership as an insurance premium against those who might seek to discredit you from within. Admittedly, the arrangement is a bit regressive. But to whomever says the price of admission is too high, I offer myself in rebuttal. Because I guarantee you, I am the POOREST Breaking Points lifetime member you have. Probably the poorest subscriber. I'd even bet I'm the poorest member of the Show's audience, period. I'm in my 50's, and I've never had over $10,000 income in any year of my life. I have no running water. No electricity to speak of. I crap in the ground or in a bucket. I live 10 miles off the highway, on an Appalachian mountain ridge, in a 16 x 16 shack. It's a two-hour round trip to trundle down to town to download my Breaking Points video from public wifi. I make the effort .. the sacrifice .. because that's what you do when you are genuinely, viscerally, invested. What's two months of my total SSI income and a year's worth of debt against the calamity that is the Future? The NEAR future? When you're desperate and you feel the urgency of change, you throw in with all you've got and cross your fingers. Sorry for the length! .. this is the only Breaking Points pipeline I have, since I don't use Twitter, etc... -- Stoneskipper And hey .. fwiw .. even if an uploader somehow passed YT's filters but still somehow violated the spirit of Breaking Points .. that could become an incubator for novel methods of self-correcting or self-policing strategies. Like, if an upload is flagged by another subscriber (non-subscribers have no vote, because they have no skin in the game), it's easy enough to send that link to a >>random<< sample of, say 50 other lifetime members, or 500 regular subscribers, whatever. Those people would be a sort of "jury," upvoting or downvoting the video. The jury would have a few days to respond; the video would be delisted temporarily. Whatever the up-minus-down vote of responding jury members was before the vote cut-off time, that's your keep-or-delist answer, and it would only affect that one upload, not future posts by that person.