UNBELIEVABLE NEWS! I Can't BELIEVE It's HAPPENING... and We're Not READY

july 4th was way more expensive this year belated happy fourth of july guys now you probably noticed like i did any fourth of july celebration was way more expensive this year let's see what's up with today's stimulus package update and daily news report infectious disease experts and public health advocates are also warning americans about monkey pox they say that the us is at risk of losing control i warned you guys some scary stuff and for our finale monopolies and cartels how a handful of companies are basically controlling everything that we see hear and watch plus how they could stand to pay for another stimulus check good morning good afternoon and good evening wherever you happen to be in the u.s for the most important news updates coming out of washington dc president biden the us economy and your money be sure to subscribe to the channel and also hit that notification bell the last fourth of july was way more expensive than normal did you guys notice that just watch this clip right here a new survey finds the cost of a cookout for the fourth of july this year is jumping 17 the american farm bureau federation says the increase is because of supply chain issues inflation and of course the war on ukraine seen as vanessa kevich joins us now with a look at you know what's gonna be on that plate absolutely john so if you're bringing the bee for the ribs you are going to see the highest cost this year so the american farm bureau puts out this survey every fourth of july so from 2020 to 2021 we actually saw a decrease in the amount that a barbecue was costing the american people this is for about 10 people but when we jump from 2021 to 2022 up about 10 that's where you're seeing that 17 increase this is for about 12 items that the american farm bureau tracks that are basically staples in your barbecue and as you mentioned john the costs are going up because there are still those bottlenecks with supply chains americans know inflation is red hot right now and the war in ukraine is really shuffling the global food supply chain so let's break it down let's see what's costing you more this year take a look beef as i mentioned up 36 this year chicken breast 33 potato salad which i love up 19 but you're going to get a little bit of cost savings we're looking at strawberries down 16 chips down 4 and the reason the american farm bureau says that you're saving on these items is because maybe maybe farmers had favorable growing season so the strawberries did a little bit better they could offset some costs there and chips and also cheese is down this year and that's because retailers can maybe shift around prices a little bit more but this is not including alcohol john so when you add the alcohol to the mix that's really going to bring up the price but the american people this year 17 increase from last year fourth of july unfortunately is going to be hopefully fun for people but a lot more expensive the only thing i'll say is i think you're wrong about potato salad i do think it's overrated no way no way top top item on the list this year really the silver lining for me this year beer is still relatively cheap because everything else is way up now in the four weeks ending june 12th the price of a hot dog package jumped 17 compared to last year even ketchup spiked 21 ground beef prices increased 11 and hamburger and hot dog buns jumped nearly 13 other grilling items also got more expensive frozen meat not including poultry went up 16 frozen sausages got nearly 27 percent pricier and lettuce prices rose about 13 mustard also about 13 pricier beer on the other hand spiked only about four percent that's a bargain especially considering that inflation for the most part increased by six point three percent for the year ending in may but really i doubt it really comes as much of a shock anymore since grocery prices have been pretty much soaring over the past year now according to the consumer price index groceries are about 12 more expensive in the year ending in may the largest year-over-year increase since 1979. this is a massive problem i don't have to convince you guys of this though you can blame any number of reasons higher gas prices rising commodity costs due to the war in the ukraine severe weather anything else but at the end of the day prices are just plain up and hopefully we'll see our lawmakers in washington dc do something about it maybe in a form of another similar check perhaps i mean even store discounts aren't what they used to be now before you could see buy one get one free deals in stores this year you usually have to buy at least two to get a freebie now according to experts one reason could be that with higher gas prices fewer people will shop around for the best price with that being said quote that's kind of a bonus for retailers but it's a tough mix for shoppers right now but what about you guys what about your july 4th how did you guys celebrate even with high gas prices are you the type of person that still drives around looking for the best deal let me know how you guys operate but as far as july 4th is concerned i just hope that you guys were with your friends and your loved ones over the weekend but let me know how you celebrate it in the comments down below now while everyone's been celebrating the 4th of july weekend infectious disease experts and public health advocates have been warning that the binding administration has been too slow to respond to the monkey pox outbreak and that the u.s is at risk of losing control of the disease they compared it to the worst parts of the early days of the pandemic that we just pretty much went through quote where we have lagged is streamlining testing making vaccine available streamlining access to the best therapeutics all three areas have been bureaucratic and slow and that means we haven't contained this outbreak end quote now the difference really is that monkey pox isn't a new virus and we have the strategies to attempt to reduce the spread president biden administration's officials said that they are confident in their approach now according to the white house pandemic relief response coordinator quote we as a global community have known about it for decades we know how it spreads we have tests that help people identify who are infected we have the vaccines that are highly effective against it end quote but then again the previous administration was also pretty confident when the last pandemic started and we all know how that turned out the cdc numbers show that there are 460 cases in 30 states puerto rico and dc though experts say that the number is almost certainly an undercount since a lot of people who may be infected don't even have access to widespread testing now they're ramping up their response expanding testing capacity and broadening access to vaccinations the health experts are just worried that it may be too late quote we've been sort of screaming for about a month now about how bad the diagnostic situation is for monkey pox and that really was a clear error preventable and it's very clear that this administration has not learned the lessons from the early pandemic and quote testing for monkey pox is a little bit more simple process where they just swab a skin lesion in fact the cdc already had a previously developed text but patients were limited to a narrow number of specific criteria for qualifying for testing one infectious disease specialist said this we already had testing available we already had vaccines available we should have really been more aggressive with testing and i think this speaks to the bureaucracy of both fda food and drug administration and the cec end quote new york city and washington dc began offering the vaccines to men who have sex with other men or may have been exposed to the virus but other cities ran through their supplies less than a day after launching their local immunizations initiatives dc health had to shut down access for about 10 minutes after making shots available one advocate described the situation as this quote here we have an outbreak and my friends are literally being turned away from being vaccinated because the bite administration can't figure out how to get a million doses out of a freezer in denmark into the united states end quote now on the money side of things jeff bezos of amazon elon musk of tesla and other billionaires took a collective financial hit in the first half of 2022 a total of 1.4 trillion dollars according to bloomberg zuckerberg whose total net worth is about 60 billion had begun the year with more than a hundred billion dollars bezos has a current net worth of 133 billion dollars while bloomberg notes that he lost around 63 billion dollars in the first half of the year meanwhile elon musk whose total net worth is around 210 billion dollars lost close to 62 billion dollars during the same period of time but where'd their money go well according to this news site the poor company performance in the last quarter and swings in certain markets like cryptocurrency now of course there are other factors like decades high inflation and the war in ukraine then there's also the fed's announcement to keep raising interest rates at a breakneck pace but really i think they're missing the big headline here these billionaires who lost trillions of dollars they're still billionaires it's kind of hard to feel sorry for them right not to mention there's still a lot of helm of major monopolies that control huge aspects of our everyday lives one commentator described the tech monopoly this way quote our experiences on the internet are now dominated by a small handful of companies who are getting pretty used to throwing their weight around end quote they said that each of the big tech behemoths apple amazon and google act as gatekeeper over a key channel of distribution and end up suppressing their competition so completely that we'd never actually know if someone else could do it better end quote now on apple's app store 95 of searches related to their own specialist apps showed a preference for them while the company also has a quote stranglehold on developers who want to get their apps on their phones and quote they are required to use apple's payment processing tool which takes money from every payment through an app google charges similarly high commissions to developers the search company is still responsible for 90 of the world's internet searches i mean people are calling it googling whenever they search for something almost half at 41 of google's first page search results go to the company's own properties and direct answers meaning other companies are de-prioritized or often d platformed same with amazon amazon's responsible for 65 to 70 of online marketplace sales in the united states which means that it's close to the only game in town and basically it is the marketplace but the buy box is controlled by them and even if there are other sellers at a lower price underneath eighty percent of amazon sales go through that first box and that's even more for mobile we're also seeing similar powerful monopolies in other sectors it's usually the democrats who are more focused on market concentration and a handful of industries but republicans are now increasingly sounding the alarms as well as inflation becomes the number one issue for voters as an example of the rising interest the ocean shipping reform act breezed through congress earlier this month with bipartisan support the new law jacks up regulations on major container shipping companies empowering the federal maritime commission to crack down on the late fees charged by ocean carriers when they can't offload their cargo in time senator john thune said that the bill would help address unreasonable practices by ocean carriers holding them accountable for their bad faith efforts that disenfranchise american producers including those throughout south dakota who feed the world end quote republicans have also been pushing to regulate blocks in the domestic meat packing industry which of course is actually controlled by only four companies got tyson foods cargill jbs usa and national beef packing company just like the shipping industry is in the middle of a lot of consumer goods pipelines the packing industry is located in the middle of the beef industry's supply chain representative randy feenstra recently pointed out how this impacts inflation he said in my eyes here is this fundamental problem you have the big four packers that control a large capacity up to maybe 80 to 85 percent you are able to determine how many animals are harvested and how much meat is offered the market share lets you control the prices of the contracts and so that's why senator elizabeth warren of massachusetts cory booker of new jersey john tester of montana and jeff merkley of oregon introduced legislation that would place an indefinite moratorium on mergers and acquisitions in the food and agriculture sector senator warren said in this recent statement quote the agriculture and food industries are highly concentrated with only a few dominant players controlling a majority of the market it is time to stop mergers that hurt workers and that enable the corporate price gouging that's leading to higher costs for american families this bill would help us do just that for tech companies the two bills before congress are called the open app markets act the american choice and innovation online act they would quote address some of the problems we mentioned earlier so tech companies are fighting these bills hard can't blame them either tech companies want to continue to just take advantage certainly not saying it's okay but honestly if this bill does pass through i would expect that the tech companies would make less money now the jury is still out when it comes to agriculture and economics according to the professor from colorado state university quote the spreading of fixed costs associated with the feeding operation across as many animals as possible given capacity creates substantial economies of size these economies benefit not just from the feeding and packing industries but also consumers in terms of increasing the volume of product offered and lowering the price without size economies beef prices for consumers would be substantially higher end quote and the last thing that we need right now are even higher prices in the next holidays senator bernie sanders said that we should instead stick to hiking taxes on companies just take a look here taxing business including corporations discourages economic activity congress is debating an increase in the corporate tax rate rich people and corporations is it true they don't pay their fair share this has brought out all the tired old mantras about how corporate tax hikes are bad for workers and the economy this will lead to slowing down on the economy it's going to be discouraging economic activity nationwide these people hope that americans have forgotten what corporations did with their tax win falls after the republican tax law in 2017. that law slashed the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 a huge giveaway that's cost us hundreds of billions of dollars in lost revenue when corporate leaders were lobbying for those tax cuts they promised to use the savings for big worker bonuses and new hiring att ceo randall stevenson for example promised to create thousands of new high-paying u.s jobs lower taxes drives more investment drives more hiring drives greater wages so what really happened after the tax cuts at t got a 42 billion dollar tax windfall paid their ceo 30 million dollars and then laid off tens of thousands of workers and att wasn't alone average ceo paid jumped 25 between 2016 and 2019 while overall u.s employment grew more slowly than during obama's last term companies also blew more than a trillion dollars on stock buybacks that further enriched ceos and wealthy shareholders now they're concerned about people getting you know too rich or something i don't i don't get this i don't get any of this tax scammers shouldn't even try to fool us twice a fair tax agenda that raises revenue from the wealthy and big corporations would be good for workers and the economy all of their life savings is going to be damaged by biden's tax increases on the corporate income tax instead of lining the pockets of ceos let's invest in clean energy jobs and health and education programs that will make us all stronger that was from senator bernie sanders channel they definitely make a good point there why not raise the corporate tax rate pretty sure that's going to backfire anyway but that way they could potentially see another stimulus check in the works but what do you guys think let me know if you're curious about any of the topics that we covered in today's video we can definitely talk about it some more in my future videos just drop a comment down below and uh i'll research it and get back to you i'll wait for your request guys but for now this was today's stimulus package update and daily news report higher prices for the fourth of july experts warning about monkey pox how it's the beginning of the pandemic all over again and for our finale monopolies and cartels and how this could potentially give us another stimulus check lots more exciting news from washington dc president biden and the u.s economy i'll be sure to see you guys there if you haven't already definitely subscribe to the channel and i will see you guys on the next one