Between the Interviews - Set the Foundation

Stick with me here as I connect the way we use our dollar to how we make our dollar with government and politics. I know politics is a hot topic here in the United States after the transition of presidential power, so take us through an adjacent path exploring how choosing where to spend our money can potentially impact our lives in other ways (ex: implications of government & politics). 

This is meant to be less of an endorsement of a specific candidate or political party, but more of an encouragement to use our dollars, when feasible, to promote what’s important to us. Money is power, but not just in that when we make more money, we have more power. It’s also the power of the control over where we spend our dollar. 

It’s also meant to be an explanation of the way in which I view the world. I am deeply interested in the way our inherent motivations guide our actions as well as how we evolve with additional experiences and information. In my experience, talking about tough topics, especially those that may superficially seem different from my own stance, often gives way to greater understanding, empathy, and respect. I understand that this is not the lens through which everyone else views the world, but in this episode, I present my rather rosy-colored lens of people, politics, power, and players. And I’d love to better understand the lens through which you view the world. 

What I'm watching: Kansas City Chiefs

I'm not telling you what to do, but here's where I'm putting my dollar: Charlie Hustle

Early and bonus shows as well as curated discussions and merch are available on Patreon.

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Transcript

Hey folks, this is the Between the Interview show, where I'll provide some context, background reflections and recommendations associated with the Capitalism for Good philosophy. While the interviews are obviously focused on highlighting businesses and their leaders through talking about their experiences and philosophies, the Between the Interview shows will be mostly me connecting the dots, providing some additional insight, spotlighting the things that I'm listening to, reading and watching in order to learn more, as well as some of the why behind where I am choosing to put my dollar. These Between the Interview shows will be sprinkled in Between the Interviews, and will be posted on the main feed, but will also be posted weekly on the Patreon in video form. So if that's your jam, head there. There's a link in the description.

All right, so in these next few Between the Interviews episodes, I'm going to do one of the things that I do best, which is walk backwards to outline this philosophy of Capitalism for Good through the lens, which I view it through. A couple of notes. I took a lot of notes to try to keep me on track, be a little bit less rambly in trigger warning, if you are sensitive to politics in government, and the word Capitalism in the title hasn't already turned you off. I will touch on some of that, but please bear with me. I promise that although I strongly believe in the importance of talking about government and politics because it touches almost every aspect of my life, this is not and will not be a full on government and politics podcast. Instead, my goal is to focus on how we use our dollar and how we make our dollar to promote good in society.

Again, background on me, through the lens that I view the world through, I studied criminology and political science in college. Shout out Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri. So those things are naturally interwoven to me, but I recognize that this is January 2025, specifically January 26th, 2025 when I'm recording this. And I realize that many people aren't really looking for more political arguments or more political talks. Some people are, but I get that not everyone is. So I'm going to do my best to walk that line carefully, not just but today, but as we kind of go through this, moving forward.

With that being said, while I'm also not trying to be a mini-female Bernie Sanders here, money can give way to power. And I'll kind of walk through a very vague example of that, that hopefully you can parallel to whatever situation might be more applicable to you. Maybe the situation, the example that I gave, that situation is super applicable to you, lucky you. If not, draw your own parallels here. The goal is, I want everyone to think for themselves and like, you know, be intentional through their own experience and their own lens. With that aside, if we think of this through the lens of a company, if you are an employee, the higher you rise in the hierarchy through your promotions, you're in line, you're promoting the company's vision, you guys are, you know, really just working through chugging along this machine. And the more high that you get, the higher position you have through your promotions and whatever, more say typically you have in how business is conducted. So, the higher you get, the more power that you have within the internal, sometimes external, if you're external facing. And also, typically, the more dollars that go in your pocket. So, the higher you go in the hierarchy of that company, you get promoted into a higher position. Typically, you're paid more. Those things kind of go hand in hand.

At the same time, without the people to pay for that company's good or service, there's no money to pay you more as you rise through the hierarchy of that company. So, while the higher-ranking employee that's typically getting more dollars is also getting more power, the customer also has the power over their own dollar. And, when possible, and given the capitalistic competition of today's society in America again in January 2025, the choice of which company gets that dollar is the power of that customer.

That leads us here to how can we use capitalism for good? How can we use our dollar that we're spending, we're saving, for good, for the betterment of the greater good? And how can we use the way in which we make that dollar, i.e. being an employee of that company, for good? Again, this is privilege, circumstance, time, availability, etc. It all comes to play, and not all of us have a choice in these situations. That's a whole other conversation for a different time. It's one of those rabbit holes that I will not slide down right now. But put a pin in that for later. We will talk about that later. What I'm getting at here is if and when you have a choice of where to purchase a good or a service, your power to decide can also give way to promote a business and the individuals that make up that business and how they choose to use those dollars as well. 

Again, so many caveats here. We've got human nature, free will, everyone gets to do whatever they want to do. You're never going to have total control and dominance over what someone else does, no matter how hard some people try. So for example, let's say that you want a company to come trim your trees. You have five different choices of companies who work within your area that you live in. You can ask your neighbors for a recommendation. You can Google reviews. And those reviews can be, what's the quality of the service like? How fast do they get things done? Are they trustworthy? Do they do what they say they did? Did they mess up your property while you were there? But you can also read employment reviews. There are websites out there where you can Google a company's like actual internal employee reviews. And Google, you can search what employees think of that company. How much confidence do they have in their CEOs? You can request quotes from these companies. You can evaluate them on the character and how they respond to your questions and those kinds of things. You can find out if any of these employees or leaders in the company are involved in your community. Do they sit on a school board? Do they sit on a non-profit board? Do they hold a city council position? And if so, what decisions have they made that impact your life? Were they, were those decisions for the better? Or do they make your life more difficult? You can check to see if they make any charitable contributions. Put a pin in that, that's another topic that I'll kind of tackle later. Or you can just pick the one that's gonna come out the quickest. You can just close your eyes and choose which one comes up first when you Google, company is in your area. Also, you can just choose the quote is the cheapest, you as the person. Again, caveat that you have multiple places to choose from. You can choose whichever company gets your dollars and gets your business. So let's just game this out. Stick with me.

Say you choose the quickest or the cheapest without asking all of those questions. I recognize not everyone else is a question master who's gonna ask a million questions of everyone that they come across. That is my human nature. I am that person. That's not really feasible. I hear my sister Shannon in the back of my head being like, ain't nobody got time for that. I'm not doing that. I know this too much. You're getting in way too deep. But let's just say that you choose a company. You choose the quickest. You choose the cheapest. You choose whatever, however you got there. Let's say the owner of that company that's profiting from your decision to choose them, has also chosen to pay their workers a little bit less than the competition so that they can keep a higher percentage for themselves. Totally fine. That's their prerogative as the owner of that company. They can do business however they want. Let's say that the owner of that company also chose to run for local public office and uses those profits that he or she made from their company to advertise for their position.

The profits put them in a position to spend, I don't know, five times what their opponents are spending on their campaign. So when voters go to the polls in that local election, this business owner has the most recognition, maybe they have a catchy slogan, something like, I care about kids, I care about education, I care about our city, whatever it is. And that sounds great. And so on that face value, that person gets elected into office. Totally fine so far, right? This business owner, let's say, is also in an area where the position that they were voted into has the ability to vote and approve a budget. And this vote, in this scenario, approves a budget that lowers teacher salaries within their area. And in exchange for that, or, you know, we have to cut teacher salaries so that we can give some higher monetary incentives to local businesses, i.e. the owner.

This also could be done under the understanding that that local business owner says this is going to be so great because our economy is struggling, our city is struggling, if we give some monetary incentives to local businesses, so we're going to kind of inflate that portion of the budget while we're shrinking our school salary budget, we're going to bring more businesses to the community. We're going to have more local businesses. Every other local business is also going to benefit from. Also, they themselves might be benefiting from this. Again, just an example. Stick with me as we walk through this. So they approve this budget with lower salaries in your school. That was a part of it. But they didn't really talk about that, what they were talking about when they were kind of getting other people to approve this budget. You know, it's not just this one person that's making a standalone decision. They also have to get, you know, the majority of people on, say, city council or the school board or whatever it is. Those decisions are made differently depending on where you live.

So again, I'm going to be a little vague about those positions there. But you, as the person who also in this scenario, you know, chose to get your trees trimmed, and you also have children. That's why you needed your trees trimmed. You want to make sure that your backyard and front yard are safe. You don't have dead tree limbs falling while your kids are out there playing around. So everything's totally fine and totally cool here. Your kids are attending the public school that's funded by that approved budget with the lower average salaries. So now, the salaries of your school district are a little bit lower than that area or the state. And so the effects of that means that you're starting to get less qualified teachers that are going out for those open positions in your child school. So the quality of their education starts to go down as they get older, their test scores suffer in comparison to other school districts that are paying higher, higher salaries, have more qualified teachers, might be a little more focused, have some advantages to be able to help give those kids some extra help to get their test scores higher. There's all these things that go into it. So your kid, their test scores suffer, their options for higher education start to narrow, and as does their opportunities in the future, again, in this scenario.

On the flip side, what does it look like if you and your neighbors all together who are also looking to pay someone to trim their trees, choose a different company instead of the one in the previous example. So the owner in this scenario I outline doesn't have such a competitive edge in their campaign spending and the person campaigning on higher teacher wages, wins that office instead. Or maybe it is that they don't run at all, or maybe it is that you chose a company, you did do all of that research, your highest priority was teacher salaries, you found out that that person was on the school board, and in fact has a history of voting for increased wages for teachers in your area, you see the positive impact that that's having on your kids, so therefore you choose that company, because your beliefs and that owner's beliefs are in lines there. If I'm losing you with all of that campaign talk, don't worry, that example is over. But it does show that our decisions have impacts on the other areas of our lives, and this is also why I choose to highlight the inherent motivations of business leaders with the vision of what the greater good looks like.

Human nature is complicated. People are complex. It's near impossible to predict what other people will do.

Even if you choose a company doesn't mean they're going to use those dollars that they got from their profits in order to directly lead to the bettering of your life. Or it doesn't mean that because you chose the person who owns the company who sits on your school board is also going to pay their employees fair wages, or is going to be able to come out to your house the soonest. Maybe you're going to have to wait longer. Maybe you're going to have to pay more. I understand that things aren't black and white or either. Or what I am saying is there are consequences to our actions and to our choices. And should we choose to view things through this lens of hey, what decisions that I could do that might hedge my bets? That it might promote some more extra good, it might promote our community, it might promote my kid's future. Who knows, but they do have impacts.

I also think that it's totally impossible to predict what people are gonna do. Even if you say, hey, this person has a history of voting for things that are in line with my beliefs in approving city council or school board budgets that I agree with, that doesn't mean that they always will, because, again, human nature, people are complicated. So just hear me out here that I'm not trying to be preachy and be like, you have to do it this way. But what I am getting at is that we can all just try to do a little bit better. So going back to my philosophy of trying to leave a place better than I found it, what better looks like will be different from everyone. I just want to encourage people to remember they have the power to create their own better future and whatever that looks like.

So here I'm presenting some of the how options through the lens of the power of our dollar and how we make our dollars as employees in a capitalist society. Speaking of the lens through which I view things, things that I'm watching, Kansas City Chiefs. I grew up in a sports family. We connect over the Chiefs, the Royals, University of Michigan. I played sports growing up. If anyone knows me personally and has seen me physically walk throughout the world, you'll know that I did not play professional sports. I did not play sports all the way through college or anything like that. I can hardly walk in a straight line without tripping on something. But, I do think that sports have a huge value in our society. So one of the things I'm watching is Kansas City Chiefs. It's just another lens through which I view the world.

I love the idea of a collective of people cheering on the players, striving to be their best at something. We can parallel all that to Capitalism for Good. I love cheering on companies and business leaders that are doing the best that they can, that are trying really hard, that are innovative, that are working to be better versions of themselves, that are looking to evolve, that are lifting people up. I like a collective team mentality. I love healthy competition. Obviously, there are parallels to Capitalism there.

I like that although it's really serious for players, ultimately, it's just a game. And so there are these arbitrary bragging rights when you win and just healthy competition. I also like healthy competition in my economic and capitalist world. And I like healthy competition in politics. I like healthy competition in government. I also like healthy competition within the workplace. I think that there are ways in which that can get toxic. I think that there are ways in which that can be used to promote some things that maybe aren't in line with my vision for the future. But I like when it's done in a good way that makes people feel really good about themselves, that makes people really proud, that maybe highlights certain cities or certain areas.

I like that you, you know, again, we'll stick with the Kansas City Chiefs here. The Kansas City Chiefs have won the Super Bowl. And then there's a big Super Bowl parade.

The mayor of our city, Mayor Q I say our city. I live in Louisville, Kentucky now, and I didn't even, I was born outside of Toledo, Ohio, and I still am like the mayor of my city, Mayor Q. But they, he often makes bets with other mayors of like our competitor cities to be like, hey, send me, we'll send you, the loser will send barbecue to the winner, or versus your whatever their local cuisine, that's like the popular thing in their city, whatever you're known for. You know, there are all these different things that if you view it through a certain lens, can have all these ramifications, these trickle down effects that are just promoting goodwill, and really on the basis of these players and these cultures that are just trying to do their best. So, you'll hear me make a lot of sports analogies going forward.

I often equate business leaders to coaches, to team captains, to managers. I believe really strongly that one of the things that makes strong coaches and strong team captains is an individualistic approach to things. And so like, if you are a coach, if you are Andy Reid, and you are coaching Patrick Mahomes, and you know that one of the things that is driving Patrick Mahomes is his family and that he is, let's just say, potentially going to have another child born around your playoff season, you can use that to encourage Patrick Mahomes and encourage the rest of his team to play and to win a certain set number of games, to where maybe you can set out a week, maybe it aligns for when your new child is born and you can spend some time, some downtime hanging out with your brand new baby, and your wife, and your children, and that can be some inherent motivations. Now, let's be honest, I'm not personal friends with Andy Reid or Patrick Mahomes. If you would like to be my friend, let me know. I'm available. I have some spots for some new friends. Would love to. But let's just say that that were real life. That's a great way as a coach to tap into your players' inherent kind of motivations and use that to encourage them to better themselves and to want to beat their competition so that you can have that time off. But also, you can translate that into being a manager or supervisor in a company. If you know what the motivations of your employees are, you can use that to be able to encourage them to be better versions of themselves, increase productivity, better quality. And also, if there's increased productivity and better quality, likely they're going to be bringing in more revenue for you. Put a pin in that. We'll talk that through in a later episode. But it's got all these trickle-down effects that can really impact people's lives, which impacts potentially society at large. So again, that's just the lens that I view things through. Again, personally, today is, again, January 26, 2025.

So I today, as a Kansas City Chiefs sports fan, in getting together with my family and my friends, I'm going to cheer on the Chiefs for the AFC Championship tonight, and hopefully just spread some goodwill within my local little circle here. So, in the spirit of sports, I'm not trying to tell you what to do, but here's where I'm putting my dollar. Recommendation here is Charlie Hustle. I'm wearing it right now, if you're watching this on video. They are a company that is local to Kansas City Missouri. They sell these high quality, locally based designs of high quality clothes. They also often partner with local nonprofits and do these give back efforts where they donate a portion of some of their select specialty shirts for a need going on in the community. And that's something that I feel really good about. I'll post a link in the show notes to Charlie Hustle.

And then also, if the teacher salary example will strike a chord to you in a positive way or negative way, but something that you want to kind of dig into more. Currently, teacher salary determinations vary by state, so some local school districts are the ones that choose. Some states have minimum wage and other requirements, so I encourage you to check out ed.gov and or your state department or local department of education or local school websites.

Depending on where you live, for more information, it'll be specific to your area, how that works. So I encourage you to, if that's something that touches your life and you would like to know more, kind of dig in, figure that, figure out what are those impacts and how you might be able to make some strategic decisions. Just put that in your brain as a tool in your toolbox or a book on your bookshelf for whenever you might need it, whenever you are making those types of decisions. All about trying to give ourselves the information, the tools, the experience, the resources in order to make the best decisions that we can. 

All right. That is it for today. Let's go out and leave this place better than we found out.