Overtime – Episode #391 (Originally aired 06/10/16)

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Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO Late Night Series, Real Time with Bill Ma.

Okay, here we are on YouTube.

Tom, how do you keep ticket prices to your shows affordable?

By insisting.

I mean,

that's it.

Well, also by being popular, because enough people come out.

Enough people do come out.

But I mean, the first three shows of this tour that we've played so far was a $20 ticket we gave all of it away.

It's insisting on

a point of view and the way that you want to do your business, which is different from other acts, you know.

But it's not cheap to put on a rock show.

It's not.

It's not.

You have to absorb some of that cost, and you make that part of the thing that you're doing.

There's good points and bad points between music and comedy, but all my music friends are so jealous that I just show up.

Yeah.

As long as the mic works.

That's true.

That's true.

Sound checking.

That's true.

That's the singers.

When you do do a show for a $20 ticket, you incur a lot of money.

anything without lots of equipment and electricity and people and

but I mean that's for it's it's a a curse in a way like that's how we're gonna do it

hella worth it is it smart of Hillary Clinton to engage with Donald Trump on Twitter good question I say yes that's where the audience is same way reason why Obama goes on well every show but this as we know but like

lots of you know like lots of dumbass shows because you know you got to go where the audience is they're not watching meet the press how long do you think they were holding that delete your account tweet yes Like that was like felt like that had the feel of something they had to sort of dust off the top shelf.

And how many days before that did Hillary just learn what that meant?

Right?

Right, Bernie?

Bernie, would you like to read the next question?

For Andrew, do you think Hillary Clinton will be tough?

Will be tough enough on Wall Street.

This is my new career as a patrilica.

It's not that hard.

Benzel.

Do you think Hillary Clinton will be tough enough on Wall Street?

Tough enough is it's relative.

It's not tough compared to what Bernie would do, and not tough compared to what Elizabeth Warren will do.

She's going to be pushed to some degree, but I don't think she's going to be pushed nearly to the degree that I think probably a lot of people even in this room want her to be.

Do you think it mattered

those speeches she made to Wall Street that Bernie was always railing about?

release the transcripts of those speeches.

I don't think the speeches mattered in that she said something.

I don't either.

Why don't she release them?

No, no, but I will say this.

The relationship that she has to corporate America writ large, forget about just Wall Street.

You know, when people make comments about the foundation and, you know, what Bill Clinton was doing, what she's doing, and the speeches and the money and all of,

that's not good.

That's not good.

And ultimately, that colors the rel, that colors everything.

It just does.

She's a Wall Street candidate.

She's a centrist Democrat.

They're Wall Street candidates.

Yes, that's the gig.

I think the thing about those speeches is probably why she didn't release them is because they're probably so anodyne and boring.

So they were paying her a lot of money to say nothing.

And that's actually kind of a scam.

You know, that shows how much in her, in her, in,

how deep the relationship is.

I think she's saying a lot of really nice things about

people that are reviled

by a lot of people.

Does anyone think she's not a Wall Street?

Of course she is.

Yeah, does anyone think she's not a Wall Wall Wall Street?

And she's not going to walk back from these things.

I anticipate she will release these things.

That's why she's nominated.

Now that it's over.

And again,

not to beat the dead horse about what I was saying at the end of this show and last show, but capitalism is not the enemy, just unchecked capitalism.

Right.

I mean,

capitalism has brought more

wealth and higher standards of living to more people.

If you're working in an Indonesian sweatshop, you might have a different opinion of that.

Hold on, hold on.

Hold on.

You couldn't be charging $20 for those tickets if you had not been as successful as you have been.

We don't live in an anarcho-syndicalist utopia.

When we do, I'll be in a band in that one, too.

This is where, I mean, they sell Noam Chomsky books at Barnes and Noble.

You know what I mean?

Like,

that's where we are.

I'm working hard to change that.

But Hillary Clinton is not.

No.

Wait.

Wait.

I don't know what you said.

I mean, I could pretend I knew.

What does that mean?

They sell bars.

No, no, I mean, I think

the argument's being made that a successful rock and roll musician has benefited from capitalism, therefore I should not criticize it.

No, no, I'm just...

It's not that you shouldn't criticize it, just that you have, that, again, like democracy, the worst system except for all the others.

And that it does bring, my analogy is always, it's a raging river, but it's, you've got to have the river flow in the way it naturally flows, not like the communist Chinese are trying to make the river run backwards.

But you just put dams and locks on the river so that it doesn't kill people.

A river is a natural phenomenon.

Capitalism is a morally bereft system that harms much of the planet.

People don't pay other people.

No, no, no.

Hold on.

Greed is

nothing since there was things to pay for.

What's this?

I mean, people have been paying people for other things that

there was stuff to trade.

Greed and selfishness.

There is nothing more natural than

it is.

Capitalism has taken more people out of poverty around the world than any other system.

It put a lot of people in poverty, too.

That's right.

That's true.

Yes.

I don't know if that's a problem.

That's completely not even a relatively well.

Unless you're making Nike shoes in an Indonesian sweatshop,

which is a crucial part of what capitalism is.

Like,

you cannot have Rodeo Drive without that sweatshop.

You can't run it.

Okay, but

I'm not sure that's the case.

I think that's a good idea.

But doesn't that mean the people outside of the sweatshop are doing way better?

Right, and also.

No, it assumes that there'll be grotesque economic inequality on the planet.

That's right.

It assumes.

And it's predicated on grotesque economic inequality.

By the way, the sweatshop that they work in probably is the better job.

They went to that sweatshop because they had a worse job.

And also, in the last 30 years, we've lifted something like 2 billion people out of

poverty, and the number of people in the extreme poverty level is the lowest ever.

Okay, so you know,

I mean, it's just true.

And that's why I said don't romanticize either system.

You need both.

Every modern economy is a mix of capitalism and socialism.

We've been half quasi-socialist for 100 years.

It's not a bad word.

And Bernie's one of the people who, more than anybody, helped make it not a bad word.

Katie, do you think there's any chance Romney will still be drafted to run as the Republican nominee?

No.

No?

Absolutely.

Come on, you know that.

I mean, I think the reality is that Mitt Romney understands how difficult it is to win a general election.

He's not going to just go out there to be a spoiler.

He'd only go if he thought he could win.

I don't think he believes he can win.

But he wants to be president.

He's going to let

this is going to be.

He would run twice.

He would run again.

I'm not listening to you, baby Bernie.

He's going to let Donald Trump own this loss.

There's no doubt about it.

Okay.

All right.

Well, thank you very much.

You're all very entertaining.

And we gotta go.

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