Grubstakers

This week we talk about DIY asshole Bernie Marcus, the man who says he built his $6.6 billion Home Depot fortune from scratch. We discuss the weird lies behind his origin story, his abuse of his workers, his illegal union busting, and the fact that he's profited off of keeping Home Depot stores open during the covid-19 pandemic. Home Depot refuses to say how many of their employees they have murdered through the decision to stay open but we know that there has been at least one. Rest in peace Johnathan Ferreira, you deserved better. Some of the sources used in this episode: https://www.courant.com/coronavirus/hc-news-coronavirus-retail-workers-20200508-l6ahgqo6mndf3ijnjtexhhp4a4-story.html https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/foundation-defense-democracies-iran/

Part 2 of our profile on Sanford I Weill and his role at Citigroup we will take a longer look at Citi group in our last part of this trilogy. This episode covers Sandy Weill’s children and their misdeeds into falling upward in a no consequence system. The tarnished relationship between sandy and his former protégé Jamie Dimon and we close out the episode with the end of Glass-Steagall Act. The primary source for this episode was the biography "Tearing down the Walls" by Monica Langley: www.barnesandnoble.com/w/tearing-dow…ey/1023673999

The first part of our 3 part series exploring the saga of Citigroup, the first American bank to become too big to fail. We follow the career of its billionaire CEO Sandy Weill: a rich kid from Brooklyn who had a dream to climb the corporate ladder by smashing up a million people's pensions, health benefits, salaries, and then to make a corporate monstrosity that would cook up fake documents to steal their house as well. When we talk about too big to fail banks we are talking about government sponsored entities. These are "private" banks run by private boards of directors that pay the profits to private individuals but are almost entirely funded with public (taxpayer) money. This series will study how this strange system came to be and hopefully motivate enough people to demand it end. The primary source for this episode was the biography "Tearing down the Walls" by Monica Langley: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/tearing-down-the-walls-monica-langley/1023673999

Enter Joe Lewis: reclusive restaurateur-turned super villain currency speculator. Joe Lewis (the businessman; not the boxer) made billions betting against sovereign currencies, and nearly lost a billion betting on Bear Stearns. Now he wants to setup his own State in Argentina. In order to stop Joe, first get to know him and the empire he has built up, right here on Grubstakers.

In our 2 part series on one of the richest families to ever exist, the basis for the Orson Wells classic Citizen Kane and a man who was kicked out of Harvard for shenanigans involving mailing his poop we discuss the illustrious Hearst Family. Covering George Hearst, the father of the megalomaniac William Rutherford Hearst the man of the hour. We cover in this our his involvement in the Spanish American war, how his father made his riches from grubstaking and the legacy his life leads. In our second part we discuss Patricia Hearst, the corporate maneuvers to maintain their wealth and of course Chris Hardwick. We are joined the hilarious Elie Sairs! He hosts the podcast of Roast Ghost and has an inside look at a Hearst owned corporation. Links to follow his work below. @elisairs https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/eli-sairs-the-roast-ghost/id1455875406?mt=2

Due to (thankfully mild) illness, we had to delay this week's regularly scheduled episode. In it's stead, here's the most recent Patreon episode, the Grubstakers' reactions to the end of the Bernie campaign. Stay safe stay healthy.

Re release so people have better access to the episode. We use Google Hangouts to explain the rise of Eric Yuan and Zoom video conferencing -- all from the quarantine underground. Eric wants you to socially distance yourselves from his personal history and source of wealth, but we've got the details: burning down his neighbor's chicken coup, secretly recording your conference calls, not adhering to buffet protocol, and more

We discuss the continuing and worsening covid-19 emergency in New York City and take an in depth look at the $6 trillion wall street relief bill that just passed congress. It's getting money directly to the people who need it most in this crisis: too big to fail banks who just had their junk bond portfolios blow up.

We freebased DayQuil and recorded a podcast episode about Vice billionaire Shane Smith. This one delves into Smith's murky backstory, Vice's humble beginnings as a media property pump and dump, Vice union busting, and Smith's racist friend Gavin McGinnes. About ten minutes before the episode ends there were some technical difficulties (somebody forgetting to charge his recorder), so Sean's feed switches to Skype audio.

On this episode we discuss founder of the Unification Church, the Washington Times, North Korea’s Pyonghwa Motors, and Humanity’s Savior/first parent/successor of Christ Himself Sun Myung Moon. We delve into his teenage experience of being visited by Jesus, his time in a North Korean prison camp, building a fortune investing his followers’ candle sales, and his work spreading love through mass marriages as well as spreading hate through the Washington Times. To help anyone who needs their Grubstakers fix we have chosen to make all the episodes on our paywall free for a month. It's not a April Fools joke, but it is 4/20 all month.

David Greene wants to affect the world for 10 billion years find out why that makes your life suck. Full episode here https://www.patreon.com/posts/35280505

In another grab-bag episode on the Coronavirus response, we discuss the senate insider trading scandal, Rashida Talib's trillion dollar coin proposal, and how the wealthy are taking themselves and their COVID-19 up the Long Island Railroad to party it up in the Hamptons.

Full episode here. https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-150-eric-35033817 Stay safe.

Note: Some of what we discuss at the top of this episode is already out of date - so Steven and Andy recorded a tag at the end with the updates as of Monday night. In Grubstakers first completely remote episode we discuss the stock market response to COVID-19 and the response from the Federal Reserve.

Thanks for joining us on our International Woman’s day special! We chose to discuss the tenacious Meg Whitman. She grew up in the area of NY, that F. Scott Fitzgerald based the book The Great Gatsby on. Her parents came from families tied to Boston's elite, known as the "Boston Brahmins. She would make her billions using her ties to Goldman Sachs with her new business she works at eBay. Her kids have assaulted people and used racial slurs at college. They support Joe Biden to ask America why why why why why why why why why why why…Enjoy

This week we are sad to end our run of billionaires endorsing Pete Buttigieg. We cover the billionaire Mimi Haas who married Peter E. Haas a heir to the Levi Strauss estate. Find out how your boomer relatives’ favorite garment is directly connected to 30 years of labor abuse, slavery and sex trafficking. We spend a few minutes up front discussing SF social elite Nellie Bowles, and a bio on how Levi Strauss bought his empire. Lastly this episode does deal with people being sexually abused so Steven mentioned there should be a TW.

Find out all this and more on Reed Hastings on our newest episode streaming now at Patreon.com/grubstakers

This week we profile Mexican Jew Daniel Lubetzky who’s fathers experience in the holocaust informed his views on making money the “Kind” way. The kindest way to make the world a better place by profiting from the slave labor of chocolate, the palm oil farmers burning their trees to maintain their deadlines and the horrendous amount of water utilized to produce this many nuts. Daniel Lubetzky was able to build trail mix in a bar with his gumption, his intelligence and the measly 200,000 loaned to him from his Friends and Family LLC. Kind bars taste delicious and the FDA flip flopped on them being called healthy, because the check finally cleared all that and more right here on Grubstakers.

From the Patreon episode on fracking billionaires Dan and Farris Wilkes. For the full episode visit: https://www.patreon.com/grubstakers

This week we're joined by Adam Sokol to talk student loan billionaire, media mogul, and poker jackass Cary Katz. Adam talks about his experiences moderating for Katz's media property The Blaze and we find absolutely no connections between Katz and a different successful businessman, gun rights advocate, and poker enthusiast from Las Vegas. Follow Adam Sokol on twitter at @SokolAdam and check out his blog Good Trek/Bad Trek at https://adamsokol.wordpress.com/