Ep. 1863 - California is So Unlivable That Families Making 300K Are Getting Government Assistance

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And they probably assumed recently enough that they had some job security. In fact, employees at Microsoft were so thrilled by their good fortune that like so many other wealthy liberals, they felt a need to apologize for their success and a performative and totally meaningless fashion. To that end, Microsoft employees began opening their company meetings by paying homage to the various primitive tribes that used to exist on the land where Microsoft's campus is currently located. Now, as we all know, these primitive tribes did not create anything on the level of, say, Windows 95. They didn't even have actual windows, as in the kind of windows that you opened to let the light in. That was a level of technological advancement that exceeded their capabilities. They just opened the wood panels in their longhouses when things got too dark inside. Nevertheless, you know, the good men, women and non-binary folks at Microsoft apparently felt deeply indebted to these so-called indigenous tribes. So they put on performances like this one at major company events that were broadcast to millions of people. Hello, and welcome to Microsoft Ignite. We've got a big day ahead and lots in store for you. First, we want to acknowledge that the land where the Microsoft campus is situated was traditionally occupied by the Samamish, the Duwamish, the Snow qualmi, the Suquamish, the Muckleshoot, the Snow Homish, the Tulalip, and other Coast Salish peoples since time immemorial. A people that are still here, continuing to honor and bring to light their ancient heritage. My name is Allison Wines. I'm a senior program manager in our developer tools division. I'm an Asian and white female with dark brown hair wearing a red sleeveless top. She even describes her appearance, you know, just in case any blind members of the Samamish or Duwamish tribes happen to be listening. It's very thoughtful and inclusive, the kind of gesture you make when you have good will to spare. It's the corporate equivalent of throwing an extra 50 bucks in the collection basket because, you know, you've had a good year. For the 220,000 or so people who work at Microsoft, this was the company culture and they had a good thing going in some ways. Well, fast forward just a few years later and things have changed quite a bit. On Monday, Microsoft announced that they're offering buyouts to 60,000 of their 220,000 employees more than a quarter of their global workforce. It's a quarter of Microsoft workforce just received an offer to leave the company. Now, if for some reason you still don't believe that AI is going to have massive and very rapid impact on the economy in a very short period of time, then this is a story you need to pay attention to. Watch. You also have some breaking news crossing the Bloomberg terminal. Microsoft is offering buyouts to 60,000 employees here with us for the story. Bloomberg's ready for glory. What do we need to know? 60,000's a lot of people, right? I mean, we've seen a lot of tech companies try to shed their workforce. The meta is Google's Microsoft or the world are betting that they can do more with less people with AI and their cash flow is strained from all this AI spending. And so this is the latest strategy Microsoft is taking to try to get some cost off his books. Now, when you look at the fine print, the deal gets even worse. Employees who accepted the buyout will receive Microsoft's standard severance package, including at least eight weeks of base pay with more based on tenure. So this is not exactly designed to be attempting offer for most employees. Sometimes you hear about generous buyouts. Well, this is not one of them. If you accept the buyout, you're basically getting control over the precise timing of your layoff. And that's it. Nothing more. And in the process, you might be signing away your potential unemployment benefits, which is something you always need to keep in mind when you take a buyout. Now, admittedly, the timing advantage may end up being quite valuable for these employees. This is all voluntary for the moment, but obviously the company is looking to cut their costs dramatically. They clearly don't believe that these workers are essential and therefore these buyouts will almost certainly become layoffs before long. There are estimates right now that around five to ten percent of Microsoft employees are expected to take this buyout. So it's probably not going to clear enough employees out. And employees at Microsoft seem to recognize that. Let's take this social media post, for example. It's from a Microsoft employee who just received the buyout rather than the offer in their email, which he believes is a sign that he's going to be laid off soon. So it's apparently only a certain number of employees got the email, even if they were eligible for the buyout. And here's what the employee wrote. Quote, I feel like why the hell did I do so much hard work just to end up in this mess of a job market at a bloated company? I feel like I'm going to puke. My thought process is getting the email means you're on the layoff list. I hook a bycrook. You will. We will get rid of you thing is I joined three months ago. I have very low knowledge about the code base. Guys, I feel desperate. What's next? I have three years of experience. That's it. No family business. Six months of spending money. Nothing more. Now, on the one hand, reading this, you've got to envy the guy for getting a buyout after spending three months at the company. Normally, when you have only three months on the job, they just get rid of you without any severance package. And that's it. See you later. But in general, this is a very sobering and common problem that young Americans have. And as they're getting laid off, they're noticing that H1B visa holders, foreigners who Microsoft has brought to this country, aren't being impacted to any significant degree. In fact, Microsoft currently has thousands of listings for H1B employees, which at least in theory are supposed to be jobs that Americans can't fill. I saw this screenshot posted by an account on X supposedly leaking some internal Microsoft communications following the big announcement on Monday. I haven't authenticated it though. I have no reason to doubt that it's real, but it really doesn't matter because the point is a good one. And the message reads, quote, if Microsoft is actively encouraging thousands of employees to leave, how should the public reconcile that with claims that the company needs foreign workers because it cannot find sufficient qualified talent in the United States? How can the company credibly maintain that it's not abuse the labor certification process if it's simultaneously trying to reduce its existing workforce while asserting that it needs immigration sponsorship to fill talent shortages? Then there's a dismissive HR lady reply that reads, I believe you still work with immigrant colleagues in your team. That's very interesting. You posted such comment here. So basically, shut up and don't ask any questions. It'd be very racist to notice that at the precise moment, Microsoft is planning to get rid of a large portion of its workforce is also claiming that it desperately needs to look overseas to find talent. Let's take a step back and pause to consider the implications here. Microsoft has never done a voluntary buyout on this scale before very few other companies have. It's reminiscent of GM's massive buyout in 2006 when around 35,000 workers agreed to an early exit. And as far as I can tell, this is the single largest buyout since then. Overnight, one of the largest companies in the world, a place that many college students would kill the work for just announced that it's happy to get rid of 25% of its workforce. There are exempting a small number of divisions, including cybersecurity, data centers, and marketing, but for the most part, except for the foreigners, everyone is potentially on the chopping block. Even vice presidents are getting these buyout offers and we can only assume that the division in charge of land acknowledgments is maybe vulnerable as well. Although maybe not, they're pretty essential. On some level, it might seem obvious what's going on here. It's the same reason that meta cut 10% of their workforce earlier this year. It's why Oracle got rid of 21,000 jobs or 13% of its workforce. It's why Amazon seems to announce new layoffs like every other day. And that is that AI has made most of these jobs redundant. That's the conclusion that most people are drawing here and it's probably correct to a certain degree. We also have technology and other possibilities, which I haven't seen many people point out with the exception of a tech scene. named Brad Grow. It's very possible that Microsoft, like so many other AI companies, has realized that spending a ton of money on AI without any money, anything to show for it. AI is extremely expensive to maintain. As Grow points out, Microsoft has hundreds of billions of dollars of debt on its books due to data center expansion. All of that new construction, which has caused a lot of backlash, which we've covered, isn't cheap. And it's also not cheap to have millions of people asking AI questions all day long when most of them are paying nothing at all or a relatively low monthly subscription fee. So it's why possible that Microsoft, like other AI companies, including Anthropic, is burning through cash very quickly. And now they're panicking. And it's not just the big players. There's been a lot of investment in AI growth and putting investments in smaller companies called Neo Clouds, which are starting to look dubious right now. And that could mean a much larger market correction is coming. And either way, from the perspective of young employees, the upshot is clear industries that seem to provide job security are now downsizing at a record pace. And even in the best case scenario, you have to wonder at a certain point who's going to have any money to spend on all of these AI products if no one has a job. You know, the reason that corporations like Microsoft are worth trillions of dollars is because they're supposed to generate a lot of future revenue, but it's not remotely clear right now, who's going to be able to afford whatever, you know, they're going to sell. Between work, errands, and family, we're all pretty busy. And with elections around the corner, it'd be hard to find time to vote. Waiting until election day is a risk, though. A flat tire or a sick child could mean you miss out on making your voice heard. That's why I need you to vote early. Go to GOPvotes.org. Find your polling place and bank your vote today. If you live in the critical Senate battleground states of Alaska, Michigan, Maine, Ohio, Iowa, or Texas, early voting is already underway this week. The radical left has one Democrat primaries across the country, and their turnout machine is ready to swarm the polls this fall. That's why you need a plan to vote too. President Trump is counting on you. 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By the same token, San Francisco is an illustration of where the so-called AI boom could take us as a society. In terms of its GDP, the Bay Area is dominant. More wealth is generated every year in the Bay Area alone than in all of New England or the Deep South. On a per capita basis, the Bay Area is wealthier than almost every petro-state in the world including Qatar. And in recent years, because so many AI companies based the Bay Area, both big and small, have been going public with gigantic IPOs, these people have become wealthier than ever before. San Francisco also has self-driving taxis, grocery stores that automatically charge you for products. You take off the shelf, you have robot coffee bars. So this is the epicenter of the AI revolution by any metric. And with that in mind, how are things going in San Francisco specifically? Well, as it turns out, the left has created such an insane anti-human dystopia in San Francisco that even people making a lot of money, hundreds of thousands of dollars a year or more, apparently need government subsidies to have kids and they still aren't having them. You know, they have more dog daycares than actual daycares in the city. The city is basically billionaires, multimillionaires, and homeless fentanyl addicts at this point. This is for the New York Times. It's an article they published just a few days ago. It says, quote, "San Francisco now offers free childcare to families of four earning up to $235,000 a year, including John Marmon and not Sumi Makiyama. The city pays half the cost of childcare for families making up to $325,000 a year. In eye-popping level, that's more than 3.5 times the country's median household income. Rents are higher in San Francisco than any other large city in the country, according to apartment list. The median rent for a two-bedroom apartment is now $4,640, the site said. The median cost of a single family home in the city tops two million dollars. I figured that these days would most likely buy a small basic house in need of work." So you heard that correctly. The city of San Francisco will pay half the cost of childcare for families making up to $325,000 a year. I mean, that's a household income that in virtually any other state would be pretty comfortable at a minimum, but in San Francisco making 325 grand a year, you're essentially on welfare. So let's break this down and talk about how exactly this happens, and we're still talking about this same couple, John Marmon and the woman. Quote, "Each month, the couple pays $6,400 for their home mortgage and $2,200 for two car payments, car insurance and gas, since they're unable to reach their jobs without their vehicles, sell service and home Wi-Fi as another $300 a month. They put a little each month toward life insurance, their children's college accounts and retirement. They spend more than $150 each week on groceries and have become coupon clippers who try to make cartons of milk last longer than they used to, and who visit different grocery stores on different days scouting for deals. I don't want to say we're rationing, but we're definitely thinking about not using too much," Mr. Marmon said. "Every grain of rice is eaten. We make sure there's no food waste. I'm the designated garbage disposal for the kids leftovers." I like the idea that if you make 235 grand in Alabama or something, then you don't have to worry about all the rice. You just leave rice all over the place. There's just piles and piles of untouched rice containers strewn all about the upper-class suburbs of the deep south, but in San Francisco, every single grain of rice must be consumed or else they'll starve. That'd be clear. This particular couple is not working in the AI industry. One of them is a therapist and the other is a pediatric nurse. You might say, "Well, they're only poor because they're not getting any of the AI money yet." The truth is, even people who have jobs in the industry are complaining about the cost of living in San Francisco. San Francisco is so pricey. Even some people working in the booming AI industry get City Hall help. Emma Hayer, a legislative aid at City Hall and her husband who works at an AI startup related to robotics bring in just over $300,000 per year and qualify for 50% off their son's childcare. Ms. Hayer's policy, policy brain thinks about whether a city's role is to help the median resident or have a really strong social safety net for the poor, she said. Her mom brain thinks about the opportunities her son will have growing up in San Francisco, the parks, the museums, the culture, the beauty, and as decided the daily stress is worth it. Reminds me of that me, my love New York, where else in the world can you get a sandwich? People living in these extremely overpriced cities truly believe that no other place has parks or museums or culture or beauty. By the way, when they talk about culture in San Francisco, what are they talking about? They're talking about gay pride parades featuring children and weird dudes walking around full-frontal nudity. They're talking about purchasing wounds, defrauding investors, giving free needles to drug addicts. To the extent San Francisco has a unique culture, that's kind of what it is. It's not a very desirable culture, I would say. But there's an amusing element in that paragraph where Emma Hare, the legislative aide, wonders whether it's appropriate for her to receive welfare when so many people are homeless and unemployed in her city. Her policy brain has to really ponder that question. But in the end, shockingly enough, she's happy to take the money. All of the left wing idealism and all the concerns about wealth inequality and racial equity or whatever, suddenly go out the window when the government offers to reduce your child care bill by 50%. Even if you're making $300,000 a year, you'll take it. The fentanyl addicts can fend for themselves, I guess. How many of those addicts have children, by the way? Is there any universe in which Emma Hare needs this money more than the children of homeless fentanyl addicts? Well, maybe there is. The San Francisco, despite all of its wealth, is apparently the kind of place where high net worth individuals need welfare, and that's yet another clear sign as if we needed it that the blue state model has totally failed. And this is without even talking about the rest of California, which is somehow in even a worse shape, Los Angeles in particular, even the former communist country is behind the iron curtain. By some metrics are doing a lot better. Now, yeah, they don't have anywhere near as much money, but on the bright side, the former Eastern block countries have a home ownership rate that sits above 85%, Poland is around 87% Romania is around 95%, Hungary and Slovakia are over 90%, and the vast majority of these homeowners have zero mortgage debt. Meanwhile, San Francisco, the home ownership rate is below 40%, and most of those homeowners have massive debt, and they need welfare, apparently. In terms of crime and violence, it's not even really a contest. Warsaw and Prague are much safer than San Francisco, and they're dramatically safer than some of the worst neighborhoods in San Francisco, like the tenderloin. The public schools are safer too. It's actually kind of remarkable when you think about it. Whether they have money or not, leftists inevitably turn everything they touch into a dystopia. I mean, France is poor, talked about that last week. It's a dystopia where everybody's on welfare. San Francisco is rich, and it's still a dystopia where everybody's on welfare. This is an ideology that's incapable of producing an ideal outcome no matter how many resources you give them. We're seeing the same level of dysfunction in every major American city, all of which are run by the same political party. As the Wall Street Journal reported recently, quote, "The number of children under 18 living in big US cities is down 6% in the past decade compared with a 1% decline nationwide. The drop is especially stark among families with little kids. The number of children under age 5 in big cities fell 15%, compared with a drop of 7% nationwide, even cities that are gaining population are losing children. And all the number of children declined in about two thirds of the 38 US cities with more than 500,000 residents." Now the main self-reported reason that this is happening, as you expect, is that people think it's too expensive to have kids. In just the past decade, the percentage of Americans who say that raising children is unaffordable has increased by 20%. When the Times did another story on this crisis recently, they found that adults in their 30s all had the same complaints, quote, "nearly 2,000 people in their early 30s said in interviews that the image of adult life that they had been promised turned out to be a sham. Many work full-time and earn enough to cover the cost of basic groceries, even if it means trips to three stores, but their salaries are losing ground to inflation and their health care costs are skyrocket. They're cutting back on salon visits, social activities, and fresh fruit runs, and they feel priced out of adulthood. On Thursday, the long-running Harvard youth poll found for the first time in its history that more young Americans expect to fall behind, rather than surpass their parents economically. Never trust anybody over 30 was a rallying cry of the 60s, the lead character of 13 going on 30 awoke to a thriving career in a posh apartment, a pop star even used 30 as a meditation on marriage and motherhood. But so much about the lives of Americans has changed during the last three decades. In 1990, a wedding at 26, a baby shower, two by 28, or a first home around 30, was ordinary. But it's not ordinary anymore. And the point here isn't to go into a digression about birth rates. That's a topic for its own monologue. Suffice it to say the trends are very bad and paying people to have kids or giving them financial assistance when they do so isn't really working. It doesn't work in California or Hungary or anywhere else it's been tried. You know, I've worked on enough shows and books and films and other projects to know that a good idea only gets you so far. 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Call today American Financing 866-569-4711 that's 866-569-4711 or visit AmericanFinancing.net/walsh. We have to be honest about the fact that as bad as these trends are, AI is likely to make them substantially worse. We're already well below replacement level and if these layoffs continue, we'll be close to an extinction level event within a century. As even the New York Times has acknowledged with Earth rates this low, the only way Democrats can remain in power is to import foreign voters, and that's, of course, exactly what they're doing. Again, this is a quote from the New York Times, which would call you racist for talking about demographic replacement even as they acknowledge that that's exactly what's happening. Well, the only three of these large states to have lost population since 2020 are the three reliably blue states. The two biggest red states, Texas and Florida, have experienced population surges. There's almost entirely about domestic migration, about two and a half million people in total left California, New York, and Illinois, and nearly as many arrive from other states in Texas, Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina. To provide more context, California and New York, over the past decade, have both drawn people from other countries and lost some of their residents to other states. California and New York are the embodiment of the melting pot. Younger people come from around the world, and older people leave for the rest of the country. Yes, younger people come from around the world, and older people leave for the rest of the country. That is the, that's the model that Democrat run states are running with. As you can see from this chart, now it's exactly what's happening. The Republican states like Georgia and Texas and Florida are the safe havens for liberals, fleeing states like New York and California. They're deliberately driving out as many Americans as possible and replacing them with foreigners who will vote Democrat in every election. Everyone who remains, including both the foreigners and the diehard leftists who are in love with San Francisco's culture or whatever, is dependent on welfare to survive. And when people are dependent on welfare, they're going to vote for the party that keeps the welfare checks coming. Even leftists making $300,000 a year are happy to take a welfare check. And indeed, it seems like the entire point of the AI economy in the hands of leftists is to make everyone as dependent on the government, as these. people are. That's what they've done to their most loyal supporters in San Francisco. That's what they're planning for every major city in the country. In one week, there's a very real chance that Democrats are going to get much closer to realizing that goal. Now, it's not a foregone conclusion, and the polls aren't always accurate. But at the moment, we got to be honest, they're all trending in the same direction. And regardless, we just saw in Brazil. The left has no problem stealing elections anyway. We know that. Given that we're on the verge of a major economic disruption caused by AI, there's a real potential for Democrats to use any political victory as an opportunity to remake this country in ways most people can't even comprehend. And on that note, next week, I'll be joining the other daily wire hosts for election coverage. On the daily wire midterm hub, you can see maps, polls, forecasts, make predictions all in one place. And you can join us for a live election coverage next Tuesday, starting at 7 p.m. Central. And I hope we'll see you there. And that'll do for the show today. Talk to you tomorrow. Have a great day. Godspeed. [Music] Professor. Let me out! You will remember your duty. This isn't heroin! You're useless. You sit there and shake because you're dependent on drink. Your sick is all over you. Have you ever seen a child start a death professor? No. I am. [Music] Now, we've all heard the radio ads about owing the IRS money. If you owe the IRS 5,000, 50,000 or 500,000, TRA has a solution to resolve your tax problem. Don't lose hope. So don't wait. Go to TRA.com. Again, it's 800-575-1753 tax relief advocates. Real solutions for real people.