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Dream Life Club
The American Dream: Why Your Personal Dream Can't Exist Without This Conversation
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Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Dream Life Club podcast where we share insights and inspiration for creatives and entrepreneurs chasing a dream. This is Sumi. And if you don't know me, I built a 200 person company in D.C. and then decided to leave all of that behind and follow my dream of being a pop music artist in la. Today I want to talk to you about something that's super close to my heart and it's this idea of the American dream. This is the name of my song that comes out this Friday. I'm so excited about that. And also it ties directly into our conversations of what it actually takes to build your dream, your personal dream. I think that something that is not addressed at all in the sort of personal development or entrepreneurial circles or podcasts or workshops or retreats is how our personal pursuit suits are really affected by the social environment around us, the social and political environment around us. Some of us exist in a super privileged bubble still where we're not feeling the direct effects of the environment yet, but we will be. Once society starts moving in a certain direction, it eventually hits everybody. But right now, people who are being affected by some of these things that are going on right now are the most vulnerable in our society, the most marginalized communities, the people who are discriminated against, the people who are the most economically challenged. So what I want to talk today about is why it's necessary for all of us to at least understand what's going on so that we can be part of the solution, okay? And not be living in some sort of like fairy tale bubble, disconnected from what's actually happening in this country and the world. Okay? Take for example, quick, quick, like things that we are all feeling right now. Gas prices, right? It's so expensive to travel. Filling up a tank of gas here in California. The, the price per gallon is $7 by me, over $7. It's airplane. When I used to go back to the east coast and visit my family quite often now, it's like thousands of dollars for a ticket. It's actually like crazy. The instability in the stock market all around me, all around me, my beautiful community of Los Angeles. I have neighbors and friends and workers at various places who I've known who are literally being kidnapped off their job sites and stuck into prisons for doing nothing illegal. For doing nothing illegal. That's the crazy part, right? They just, right now, the policies of this administration are so wildly anti. Against the Constitution, undemocratic and things that we really have to not stop talking about because our communities are are literally under attack, right? And meanwhile, what has happened to the billionaire class since this new administration took office? The billionaire class has gotten richer and richer. I got a stat right here. I'm gonna pull up. So in a single week after Trump's election victory, America's 800 billionaire oligarchs, okay? And by the way, what makes someone an oligarch versus a billionaire? An oligarch is a term from non democratic countries where the rich people basically control government. The government steals tax money, makes illegal, unethical deals with other countries, and pockets all that money for themselves and the rest of the rich people called oligarchs in the country. We never used to have oligarchs in the United States. The fact that our billionaires are now also oligarchs is disgusting. It's because they're lobbying for tax policy, for literal, just theft of American taxpayer money. And there are a number of examples that I can site for that and government contracts and insider trading and just dealings with government money that are completely unethical. So the fact that I can even say the phrase billionaire oligarchs right now is crazy because having oligarchs is a sign of an unfree, undemocratic country. So it is really, really, really wild and a sign of the times. But the, yeah, in, in, in a single week after Trump's election victory, 815 billionaire oligarchs added $276 billion to their wealth. It is really so incomprehensible because we can't even, we can't even. Like our human minds were not designed to comprehend how much $1 billion is. Like, there's been studies that have shown that like most people think that like, oh, okay, after I make a million dollars, my next goal is to make a billion dollars and like somehow put a million somewhere in the middle between zero and a billion. You guys, that is the furthest thing from the truth. In fact, the joke, the trope goes, oh, what's the difference between a millionaire and a billionaire? About a billion dollars. Because a million is like literally like a, like a drop in the bucket. Like we are not. Our minds don't have the capacity to understand how far that is. So in my opinion, nobody should be a billionaire because you can't actually earn a billion dollars. You become a billionaire by taking advantage of workers by lobbying for a completely obscene tax policy where your workers are paying a higher tax rate than you are. Okay? From monopolizing market share, like creating a monopoly. Right? Like these are. By lobbying. These are the Ways you. By giving, getting non. Like getting government contracts handed to you through completely illegal, unethical means. But that's happening these days. So those are the ways that you become a billionaire. You don't actually become billionaire by working for it, right? And how, like imagine, imagine sitting around with that much wealth, more money. Like you can be extremely, extremely wealthy and have more money than you ever know what to do with with just $100 million. Like, like that is. That is the super wealthy and that is still so far away from being a billionaire. Okay? So we have to remember, like imagine sitting around being a billionaire with that exorbitant amount of wealth, okay? And not. And being okay with the fact that we have people who can't afford rent, we have people who can't afford to. To feed their children, to house themselves. Like, imagine how psychotic you have to be to be okay with that, right? And then not only to be okay with it, but to actively lobby the government. Like what Elon Musk did. First of all, I say he pretty much bought the election of 2024 because he spent tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars in his donating directly to the campaign. He donated like some $46 million if I remember correctly. But then more than that, all of the super PAC money, which you don't have to report who knows how much. And then thirdly, he bought Twitter, remember? And turned that into a right wing megaphone of right wing talking points, most of which were complete lies and bullshit. Okay? So he had such a role in getting this current administration into office, okay? And he is now approaching being a trillionaire, which again, that's just a whole nother level of like, like, I have no words, There are no words to describe how grotesque that is. Now with all of that wealth, what did he do? A couple things that he did was he. He dismantled so many valid research programs, public safety programs, things that we have in place in government in the entire usaid, right? Like any, any international aid program that was actually helping people overseas, but also helping the US because our soft power overseas was respected because this American money was coming in to feed people, to give people their medication for hiv, to give people access to medical care. Like, we just, We. He just cut that. He was like, nope. Can you imagine having that much money and being that demented where that is where your priority lies, and then going in and cutting, cutting all these departments from every other agency that works to support the public, to fund education programs, to fund research. How do you think that when Covid happened in 2020 how we had a vaccine for that developed so quickly. Do you think that's because they developed it that quickly? No, it's not. It's because there are all of the grants given to universities. There's so much being done that government actually does that most people don't know. And people are working and projecting and thinking of all of the different what if scenarios and detailed, complex, sophisticated programs, thinking about, okay, if this, then that, and then coming up with doing research from the ground up that leads to solutions to things like, we had that vaccine developed so quickly because it was already in development, because it was predicted that, okay, if something like this happens, we need to be ready. And so that's where people get confused, right? Then conspiracy theories start, and then it's like, oh, well, then they knew this was. No, no, no, no. This is research protocol. And so these are the things that I find, like, unfathomable. That. Okay, going back to the American dream, though, right? Like, what does this have to do with the American dream? That. The American dream, like, okay, I'm a daughter of immigrants, and I remember when I was in middle school, you know, we had to talk about our origin story, and I talked about my parents. They. They came to this country and the phrase always went, quote, for a better life, right? You always hear that with immigrants. They come to this country, quote, for a better life. And what is that better life? That better life is escaping, maybe escaping prosecution in some dictatorship, right? Escaping countries where they have gang violence and, you know, people need to get to safety, coming here for better economic opportunity, right? Like America was painted as, you know, the land of opportunity. The streets are paved with gold. The land of possibilities. Anything can happen here. Like, you can build your dream. And that was true, right? Was true when we had a thriving society without such grotesque wealth inequality. But then when the poor just keep getting poorer, there is hardly any social upward mobility anymore, and the rich just keep getting richer. Imagine, like, it's like downton abbey, right? You have, like, the wealthy ruling class, and then you have everybody else. You have everybody else who lives in complete poverty and has no freedom, right? And that's. That's the trajectory of society that's going in this direction with this extreme wealth inequality. You guys, the wealth inequality in this country is so bad that the top 10% of u. S. Households, in terms of income or wealth, hold almost 90% of the stock market value. The top 10% of households hold 90% of the stock market value. And the top 10%, same top 10%, own roughly 70% of total wealth. But here's the, here's the thing. That stat that always gets me, the top 1% alone. So the ultra wealthy holds 30% of all wealth, which is nearly equal to the entire wealth. All the wealth held by the bottom 90% combined 1%. 1% holds the same wealth as the entire 90% of this country. When you hear that stat, doesn't that just make you think we should be taxing the hell out of that top 1%? What do they like what is happening? How do we not have programs that take care of our elderly, that feed starving children, right. That help to do research and educate people, and instead we have the top 1% hoarding all of the wealth of the bottom 90%. This is why the American dream can't, can't continue to thrive in a society like this, okay? And this is why it's so important and why I'm taking the time to talk about it. Because a lot of people don't understand how are, first of all, like a billion dollars is from a million that you can be so rich, okay, and never be a billionaire. You could be, you can have more money than you know what to do with and never be a billionaire. And I don't think that billionaires should exist because they create this kind of a society back to Downton Abbey, right? Like, you can, you cannot have a free and thriving society, a land of opportunity with this kind of wealth inequality. And did you guys know that in the 70s, the top tax bracket was 93%? That's when this country was doing so well. That's when economically speaking, of course, you know, we had just had the civil rights movement and, and, and you know, we had so many social issues that now I think we, we've actually gone back to that considering what just happened with the Supreme Court decision and the gerrymandering now that's going on in Louisiana, Tennessee, Florida, some of the other states, how Virginia's court throughout the voter elected new maps that were drawn. There's a lot of going on right now that's taking us back into the past. And it's very scary and very upsetting. But just to focus on, economically speaking, there was so much more potential when we had a. What's called a progressive tax rate. Okay? And now we have like, instead of now, you, you're, you're the owner of your company is definitely paying less taxes than you are because of all of the loopholes and all the ways that quote unquote, capital is taxed different than income and all of Those kinds of things. So that, that should be something we all agree on instead of fighting with each other in terms of right versus left and what's. Whose side are you on? And it' like these are things we all agree on at the end of the day, right? These are things we all agree on. Human rights, civil rights, immigrant rights. That they shouldn't be throwing hardworking good people with no criminal record into prison. Like what? That we shouldn't be discriminated against based on the color of your skin. That every human deserves respect and due process before getting kidnapped off the street and thrown into a fucking jail cell. Like it's, it's a scary time right now, right? Not to mention what's happening with our environment, right? The denial of climate change and now the data centers being built all across America. Like in Utah, I just saw a story the other day. They're building, they're building data centers the size of 2,000 Walmarts and the environmental impact that that's going to have in terms of like the destruction of wildlife and endangered species and things like that. Like, it's going to affect all of us. And so that's why we should care because we are chasing our dreams and we are wanting to build, you know, lives for ourselves that we love and have opportunities for our children and our families. And we won't be able to if our society continues to go in this direction. And it's absolutely not about, like one politic over another. It's actually about coming together on these principles that we can all agree on, right? And, and rallying around it and not letting us or not letting ourselves be duped, right, by disinformation or misinformation and really, really working hard to use our critical thinking to find out the truth and to know the truth and to share the truth. And that's what I stand for. And so my song coming out on Friday called American Dream is sort of a sad song about the death of the American dream as I knew it as a kid, as a daughter of immigrants growing up in the 90s. And at the same time, it does offer hope, because I think that there is hope. I think we have to hold on to hope. And I do believe that because these things, there really is no argument about these, these sort of basic issues that we really do all agree on them. The only problem is, and why there's so much fighting and polarization is because of all of the disinformation out there and propaganda campaigns designed to divide us. So, so that is what I had on my heart today that I thought it was really important to share. And I hope you guys, if you've stuck with me this far, I really, really, truly appreciate it and I want to know who you are. I know so many people are listening and reviewing this podcast, which makes me so happy, but I don't know who you are and that's what I hate about not having like an interactive platform to talk to you guys. So come on over to Instagram and follow me there. I'm Xosumix on all platform and I will respond to all DMs so send me a message or leave a comment here. I want to know what you think, who you are and yeah, get a chance to talk with you guys. I will also be putting a link to pre Save the song so that you can be the first to hear it when it drops on Friday and you can tell me your honest opinion. Do you love it? Do you hate it? And yeah, I just, I want to be in community with you guys and I love getting messages. Xo sue me X on all platforms and I'll talk to you real soon. Bye.