What's up my name is Trevor Fam coming to you with another episode of Spread Love FM, The Economic Addition. I would say this is Economic Edition number two and um, yeah, a bit of an. Second episode without a guest. Without a guest, uh, bringing up topics that I would love to expound on a little bit more than I can, uh, with another guest.

Uh, we'll have another guest coming up, uh, Miles Smutney, of the Free Store Project. We'll have her here later this week. Uh, but for now, We're gonna continue our topic that we started last week about the responsibility and the accountability of our founders who have, um,  contributed to the wealth gap and whether it's intentional or just a result of being a product of an injust system, something, I don't think that is getting enough attention when it comes to who do we hold responsible for the.

Inequality and the ever expand wealth gap eight to one wealth gap when you talk about black and white people. Um, eight to one wealth gap when you talk about, uh, people of African heritage and five to one Latin. And, uh, with just the middle class in general, there is. Growing wealth gap that continues to divide us, and I try not to focus.

The breakdown in terms of ethnicities and color because it's something that's affecting us all and to focus on the eth ethnicity and the color is to kind of perpetuate this idea that it's us against them. So something, I don't really wanna double down one, um, except to say that if you don't support those who.

The most oppressed, or those of us on the lowest social rung of the la of the um, hierarchy, then you don't support any of us. You have to live from the bottom. Otherwise, inevitably the system will fail. It will not sustain. And, um, it's important to know that, because when we talk about what's happening with the middle class and what's happening with the, you know, increasingly shrinking middle class, how our kids and how you, us present generation, when you compare it to what our previous generations, what the previous generations had, then it's.

Less and less. So we have our parents who were able to get through college, afford a house after they graduated through college, have the cost of that path, something that they can account for after graduation with a middle class job that paid good wages and now the current generation find themselves in a place where, They are unable to pay their student loans.

They're unable to afford housing, and this affects everybody. And what happens is, The people who are being affected from the middle class down, let's call them the 99%, that probably sounds familiar, that they are, instead of holding the people who can actually affect change, which are the people who. Have a disproportionate dividend in terms of wealth.

Let's call them the 1%. If we don't hold them accountable and if they continue to garner power politically and socially, that there's a narrative that goes back for a hundred years and. That word 400 years may be a bit charged because when we hear 400 years, we start to think of slavery. But what I would like to point out is the bigger conversation should lead to wealth inequity.

The fact that there is a small percent of our population, of our citizens, Have a disproportionate amount of power and can affect the rest of us in disproportionate amount of, of ways, is something that perpetuates if we don't recognize where this disproportionate amount of influence is coming from. To recognize that we have to know why it happens, and we have to know why it continues.

And we have to know why is it that nobody, well, a very small minority of people are paying attention. And last week I spoke about our founders and our startups, and when they signed these term sheets from venture capital, that that's a seed. That's where the equity. Starts, it's planted there, and the narrative that has been perpetuated for 400 years, this is where the 400 years comes in, continues.

Because what better way to perpetuate wealth inequity than to not have their real perpetuators of wealth inequality not be held accountable from the people that they are oppressing. Even better if we. This, these groups of people who are on the margins, who are part of the shrinking middle class to point at another faction in that oppressed group, then the small majority of those in power will never take the proportionate share of blame that they have in perpetuating.

This divide, then you have to look and say, Okay, what? What's the result of that? And why isn't that happening? Well, the result of that is those of us who are not able to affect change, become a victim of. Group of laws and legislation that affects us directly. You think about Citizens United, which allowed corporations to, to be a part of the political system in the same way that you and I have.

You and I are a part of this political system, so. I try to influence my community to vote in a way that I find that works best for the community, and my voice does not hold the same weight that that a corporation that's able to contribute to a campaign anonymously. And, and weigh and affect the legislation that will continue to perpetuate the power that they hold.

And we see this happening and we've seen it happen, but it's reach, it's, it's reaching a fever pitch in our culture. Uh, you look at what's happening with Twitter and Elon Musk and the power that he has to kind of push forward his right leaning views on. Society at large. You look at what the Koch brothers have done over the years.

Uh, you look at, uh, the repeal of Glass Eagle that allowed banks to take your savings and more or less gamble with the, with, with your money that's put away. You put it away and they take that money and they gamble with it, and they allow shareholders to speculate with that. These great ideas that our founders, this goes back to last week, our founders, um, who are looking to grow their business because they buy into another narrative, which is that unless you grow fast, unless you become a company that can scale at a rate that's, um, makes it satisfactory for these shareholders to invest in you, that your business will, will have a hard.

Chance of survival, what I hope to do with, with spread love, and, and people ask. Okay. That term spread love. How is it relevant to this conversation? Well, I, I, you know, I started this, this podcast because I wanted to have a platform where, We can help our community amplify the voices of our, of our community, close the wealth gap, make sure that there's justice that's served, but do it in a way that's not preachy, which is something that in the first month or so that we completely stayed away from, but.

How do we get that message across in a way that's not preacher preachy, that's entertaining. Um, that doesn't divide, that doesn't look at one group and say scapegoat one group, but holds everybody accountable in a just way, in a way that maybe you don't understand how you are contributing to the harm that you're doing for your neighbor If you love your neighbor.

Empathize with your neighbor, then you will take the steps or at least be aware of what it is, the harm that you are doing to the community in large and. We look at our corporations and we see that they are not capable of empathy by definition. Uh, they are a entity that's separate from the shareholders in terms of, uh, personal liability and are in it for the bottom line.

And how do we push a narrative? About sustainability in terms of society, in terms of caring for your neighbor, in terms of going back 400 years brought into the same narrative, not knowing the harm or not caring about the harm, and we will never be able to convince everybody that doing the right thing for the community is more important, or as important as doing the right thing for yourself.

There are always gonna be people who look out for themselves first. In this democratic society, which is actually at risk. We have a election happening Tuesday of this week because of this democratic society. If we influence, if we push our agenda across to enough people and put enough pressure on those people who represent us in the political sphere, that we can bend the moral arc of the universe towards justice, and that's.

Spread in love means to me. So the last economic edition of Spread Love, I made an appeal to. The founders who buy into this narrative of grow at all, cost of it's okay to step on your neighbor to get ahead, who buy into this narrative of greed is good. We can do better. And the appeal was that when you have this great idea of intellectual, this intellectual property of yours, that you could stand strong and say you're gonna do the right thing and put in the terms of your contract, your term sheet, that you will pay your workers a fair wage that.

You will pursue sustainability above profitability, that you will do the things that are needed to be done to not widen the wealth gap and what those things are. Exactly. That's another podcast, I imagine. But for now, that first step is something that if you believe in sustainability and you see what you.

And less and less these days is corporations grow become billion dollar corporations, and only after they have achieved the unicorn status do they say, Oh, now I want to, now I want to support my community, or now I want to donate to this charity, or now I want to take care of those on the margins. Well, for.

That it's worth, that's too late. Because if there is a conflict between profitability and sustainability, that term sheet that you signed when you founded that company is what's going to dictate what extent you can align with your. Original values and to not be aware of that when you sign the term sheet is to compromise those values if there is ever a conflict.

Let's dig a little bit deeper into the the ways in which we can. Show the alternative. Um, I'll tell you the story for me. When I launched my, uh, business in 2015, my mobile luggage storage business, I also wanted to go the route of Airbnbs of the world, the unicorns of the world. And, um, my values were. Also about sustainability and my mentors shout out to the folks at SCORE in New York City.

My mentors saw that in me and suggested that I. Grow as a lifestyle brand and it was the choice that I'm happy with to this day. It's been a longer road and a longer path, but as a path that I enjoyed, the business is mine. I can pay my work is what I want. I can make choices that maybe, um, in terms of.

The bottom line may be a less positive and more positive for the community, and, and I can go to sleep at night knowing that I am doing the right thing on a daily basis. So, um, this is expounding on last week's, um, podcast. Digging into that moral compass that you have, holding it up and being more aware that there are other routes you can take.

What I also want to get into in the future episodes is where do these investments go and what's the paper route? How do we follow the money to show exactly the home that's done when we sign over? Our intellectual property and exchange it for venture capital. And how does that harm, What are the choices?

What are the alternative choices that could have been made if one decided to forego massive exponential growth for sustainability? How fulfilling is that? And we wanna, I wanna dig in deep to that side of it in future episodes. I also wanna talk about in the future, the Jobs Act Jumpstart our Business Startups Act that was signed in 2012 and pushed forward by our ex-President Obama now, but was done when he was in office.

And basically what the Jobs Act did is that it opened up opportunities to invest in lucrative companies. To everyone who may not be wealthy. And was that, how do you define that? People with, uh, 200 k or 1 million in assets, that used to be the cutoff for people to invest on Wall Street or to invest in companies.

Um, but the Jobs Act is something that opened it up to people like you and me to be able to invest in these great ideas. And you may have heard of a company called Kickstarter. Go fund, Go fund me. Uh, these are in a direct result of this jobs act. You think about. That's something that's, you know, something that's happened in the last 10 years.

So before that, these great ideas were only able to find support and to get the funding they needed through that 1%. This job act opened it up to the community and the masses. So, you know, that's alternative that we didn't have. 15 years ago now you see so many people who are launching these great ideas and finding support through the community.

So it's, it's different. The landscape, it's new, it's still in, is it's nascent, uh, existence, but it's something that there's alternative, there's a way in which we as founders, you as the community, can find another path. To closing the wealth gap. That doesn't have to involve going through shareholders and Wall Street.

And, um, we'll get into the jobs act a little bit, um, maybe in the future episode, but it's just one of the things I want to, um, bring up, um, as well as a core model. You know, given shares to workers and artists as well as the, um, B corporations, you know, which build their models around sustainability. So these are all things that we can do together as a community that's.

Concerned about sustainability. I wanna move on quickly to what's happening tomorrow with voting and why we need to vote. There's a couple other things I would like to get into, um, media wise, because they are related to us voting to the, the divide and to sustainability and. It sounds like I'm shifting gears, but not really.

When you talk about what happened recently with hate speech, what's happened recently with, uh, antisemitism? What happened recently with specifically Kanye West, Kyrie Irving, and what is that a result of, and what does that come from, and why is that divide still out there? Why are these narrative. Finding life generation after generation.

And, um, why does one group who has a lot to lose if those in power continue to hold power side with that same group as opposed to holding the oppressors accountable and working together with the community? To shift the wealth, and I think it goes back to the same narrative that I discussed earlier at the top of this show, which is one in which if you don't hold those who are oppressing you accountable, and instead the scapegoat is the one that you blame for your current situation, then those who.

Power to affect change or able to. Continue to perpetuate the oppressive environment, oppressive economy. And um, I think this goes to what, what, you know, let's take the Kyrie example. When you hear Kyrie saying that, basically it goes into the semantics of it all and saying, I cannot be antisemitic because I am the original people and Jews were.

Were black people first, and you know, that should more or less be beside the point because the fact is switch out the name, name it, call it what you want. You are still identifying a group of people and blaming them for. The situation that exists. You have the blacks fighting against the Jewish community, the Jewish community fighting against the Latin community, the Latin from Columbia, fighting against the Latin from Puerto Rico.

You know, they're taking my jobs. They're not citizens, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And part of that has to do with the fact that there's a smaller pie than there should. To sustain a larger group of people. And when you start fighting for the morals and you give the people who are fighting to sustain a reason to fight amongst themselves, human nature will cause these groups to fight amongst each other.

And because they are crabs in the barrel, so to speak, in the same socioeconomic settings. Running into each other in the grocery, at the same school boards, going to the same schools, you could see them then. They're much easier to blame than the, you know, the, the, the billionaire that's on his yacht in some foreign country.

You know, you can't see him. You can't blame him in the same way. He's kind of an abstract idea and they pushed this narrative and with. Folks who are saying that the Jewish people are A, are responsible for my situation. Here's what I do in terms of how I deal with the narratives. Once we dismiss the idea of color, once we dismiss the idea that it's the color of my skin that dictates my thinking or dictates my actions or dictates.

Um, my beliefs, once you buy into that, then it's easier to buy into hate. If you buy into, let's take the Jewish people for example, and for the sake of argument, let's say that there is a chunk, a sector of Jewish people who are, are able to dictate the economic environment of the music industry, for example.

And what about the Jewish people who are living in my neighborhood? In my neighborhood where I used to live in, in South Williamsburg, who are part of the poorest group demographic in the country. Are they responsible for what's happening to you for the oppression, your perceived oppression in the record industry or anywhere else?

No, but because they share the same religion or the same ethnicity that we label an entire group. As our oppressors, it is more accurate to say, and even this is not a hundred percent accurate to say, it's a class distinction that needs to be made that the people who have the power to affect the contracts that are given to you or to affect the political system that you have to navigate or.

The education that your children receive have a common bond that has to do with wealth are tied by the common bond of wealth. So why is it that we choose to identify them by a color or an ethnicity? Something that for most, for that, more or less, cannot be changed as opposed. The more dynamic factor attribute that is wealth and class, and you ask yourself, why does that happen and why is that narrative being recycled generation after generation?

There's an argument that you cannot become a billionaire, justly, and at the very least that you cannot become a billionaire and not be a part of a system that oppresses at the very least, and knowing that is unjust. Like if that's true, then why does it attach to race? Even if one group of people have has a sect of people who are disproportionate members of this class, to extrapolate that and to say that every member of this class.

Is also accountable for their actions is not something that I will be a part of because then that does not allow for change. That does not allow for, for accountability because you will say they will easily be able, the people who are actually the oppressors and the people who perpetuate these narratives and who will perpetuate the actual injustice and um, influence.

People who perpetuate that, then they will always be able to pitch another, Another narrative that diverts attention away from class for the people who are supporting the narrative of what Trump is pushing, which is to divide as opposed to bring together because they are using it. They're breaking these arguments down.

Along racial lines, and we need to be holding them accountable. Accountable along class lines. I mean, it's strange that the people who are complaining the loudest are the people. The Elon Musk is talking about free speech. The Peter Theos talking about free speech, but the peoples whose voices you hear the most are bonded by wealth and class.

If you went into the streets and you went into the communities and you talk to those people, many times, they're echoing the arguments of those. Disproportionate amounts of wealth because they have the power to amplify these messages. And that will continue for as long as we allow billionaires and we allow people who have money to be a part of our political discourse.

So how do I tie it back? I always wanna tie this back to where I think the original. Happens economically, which is our founders and the people with the intellectual property to launch these enterprises that become billion dollar wealth shifters to the 1%. And this is where the fight needs to happen. It needs to happen with our founders who are right now sitting.

Their bedroom in their basement at a coffee shop coming up with an idea, this great idea that you think can change the world. You need to propel that idea in a responsible way with an awareness that when the moment comes for you to partner with someone who can take your idea to the next level, to be responsible and know that an irresponsible decision.

Of allowing somebody who does not align with your values to contract you in a way that allows them to shift the intellectual property and the value that that has upward to the 1% as opposed to the community through. We talk about the jobs Act again through platforms like Kickstarter, GoFundMe, there's.

Many, many more that you can research. That decision that you make when you align with a partner who's going to help you grow your idea leads directly to. A situation in which this narrative that continues to divide us can be perpetuated. I will leave it at that for this week and we'll come back next week with more on this topic of closing the wealth gap.

So thank you for listening in. Again, my name is Trevor Fem coming to you, Spread Love at fem and I'm gonna be out there. We're gonna be out. Uh, hanging out with the folks, something we did in New York where we, uh, set up a table and we talked to the people, and we offer some black and brown owned products for you.

To support us, we'll be having a market at least a couple times a month. And I think the first one's gonna be this Saturday. Check our website, the Freedom market.shop, or spread love fm.com for information on. Upcoming events. So once again, thank you for follow. Thank you for listening and um, we'll talk soon.