← Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Declassifying JFK, RFK, MLK Assassination Docs; Trump Deportations; Hegseth Confirmation; New SoCal Fires; Oscar Noms
00:33:11
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- [00:00]
Nicole Lapin
While you're binging the pod, how about a little bonus tip as a starting place for your investment allocation that you can of course tailor depending on your goals. Pros recommend making your bond allocation your age. How about a second bonus tip when you want to invest in bonds? Use Public the modern brokerage for investors looking for a simple yet sophisticated investing experience. Public is truly the only place I buy bonds legit because every other app or site I've tried to use is so complicated. But on Public I can buy a bond on my iPhone in less than five minutes. This is a major upgrade because most investing platforms that offer bonds design their user experience before the iPhone was even invented. I'll let that one sink in and you can use Public for more than your bond investments. Public is the brokerage I use for all my investing needs, whether I'm looking for stocks, ETFs, a high yield, cash account, options and other assets. To build the multi asset portfolio of your dreams, go to public.com moneyrehab one more time because trust you will thank me. Public.com moneyrehab this is a paid endorsement for Public Investing. Full disclosures and conditions can be found in the podcast description.
- [01:00]
Moshe New
Doesn't it feel like every time you step out the door you have to pay a fee? I mean it is nuts. I've been traveling a lot for the holidays and the amount of fees I pay just to get from point A to point B, it is mind boggling and it makes it really hard to stick with my spending plan when we're trying to make progress. Life's curveballs often feel like taking one step forward and two steps back. A Chime checking account makes financial progress easier with features like no maintenance fees, fee free overdraft up to $200, or getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit. Learn chime.com mnn@chime.com mnn you'll learn more about the fee Free overdraft up to $200 and let me tell you, that is such a game changer. Historically, overdraft fees has also been something that's made it hard for me to stick to my spending plan. But the fact that Chime allows you to overdraft up to $200 with no fees makes it so much easier for me to actually stay on budget. Make progress towards a better financial future with Chimes. Open your account in two minutes@chime.com MNN that's chime.com MNN Chime feels like progress Banking services and debit card provided by the Bancorp Bank NA or Stride Bank NA members. Fdic Spot ME eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Boosts are available to eligible CHIME members enrolled in SpotMe and are subject to monthly limits. Timing depends on submission of payment file. Fees apply at out of network ATMs.
- [02:24]
Nicole Lapin
I'm Nicole Lapin, the only financial expert. You don't need a dictionary to understand it' for some Money Rehab.
- [02:39]
Moshe New
Hi, this is Moshwanunu, the MO for MO News. You might be familiar with us from our Instagram account or our daily podcast. I'm a longtime TV news producer who launched an independent news brand just a couple years ago. As you know, Nicole is on maternity leave. So this week my co host Jill and I have been guest hosting Money Rehab and sharing fresh episodes each day of MO News. Today's episode is the last of our week of guest hosting. But if you've liked what you've heard say, subscribe to MO News wherever you get your podcast. Here's Today's episode of Mo News. Hey everybody. It is Thursday, January 23rd. You're listening to the Mo News Podcast. I'm Moshe New.
- [03:16]
Jill Wagner
And I'm Jill Wagner. This is the place where we bring you just the facts and we read.
- [03:20]
Moshe New
All the news and read between the lines so you don't have to Jill, with that hold expression that one man's trash is another man's treasure. Fun story. I was reading about out of Greece where somebody apparently threw away a statue, a headless statue that they thought was just, you know, garbage put in a garbage bag in the city of Saloniki. It turns out a resident was walking by and was like, this might be worth something, this headless statue. It turns out the statue, 31 inch statue, so just a couple feet tall, is 2,000 years old. You gotta watch out there, I guess especially in Greece, if you find something in your backyard or something kind of sitting around, you might be sitting on like ancient treasure. Even if it is a headless statue, apparently police have an open investigation. They talked to the person who threw it away. They have not been charged with anything. Nonetheless, this is from the Roman era in Greece. So just a heads up, don't quickly. Well, I guess in Greece this is especially important, but even here in the US you might be sitting on something valuable as you clean out your garage.
- [04:25]
Jill Wagner
I don't think you're at that risk on Long island as much. But be careful what you throw out, right?
- [04:32]
Moshe New
Be careful what you throw out. I mean, listen, you're not going to have millennia old stuff in the backyard on Long island or anywhere else. But you might have something that's really valuable from 100 or a couple hundred years ago. You know, here, here. In American historical terms, my mom loves.
- [04:47]
Jill Wagner
To throw things out. Okay. So she's like the opposite of a hoarder.
- [04:51]
Moshe New
Mm.
- [04:51]
Jill Wagner
And she still lives in my childhood home. And so I was there over the summer, and I'm looking at the street where all the garbage is, and just like, plain, not even wrapped in anything, were my favorite cups, like in the shape of an ice cream cone. And I'm like, what are you doing? How can you throw those out? And I grabbed them, I brought them back into the house, and now they're my daughter's favorite cups.
- [05:13]
Moshe New
You need to go. Well, I don't know what's left there, but you probably should go do inventory asap, Jill, before mom gets rid of some more stuff.
- [05:20]
Jill Wagner
I was like, please consult me before you clean, clean out the house. All right, to the news here. Let's start as we have all week with politics. We're getting an idea of how Donald Trump plans to end the war in Ukraine, but will it work? Plus, the White House orders government DEI employees to be placed on leave as a major shift in the federal workplace takes effect.
- [05:41]
Moshe New
Making a lot of changes very quickly there as his team has been taking over.
- [05:45]
Jill Wagner
Another day and tragically, another school shooting in America. This time in Nashville, the site of a different school shooting last year. Overseas, the cease fire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas appears to be holding. Negotiations are starting on phase two of the deal ahead of schedule. Prince Harry has settled a lawsuit with Rupert Murdoch's newsgroup newspapers. CNN reportedly laying off hundreds of employees as its post inauguration transformation begins.
- [06:15]
Moshe New
A lot of pain right now at some of the legacy media companies.
- [06:19]
Jill Wagner
And Netflix hiking prices as it adds subscribers and sees wins with its live.
- [06:25]
Moshe New
Sports strategy made it harder to steal someone's password. And raising the price there over at.
- [06:30]
Jill Wagner
Netflix and Moshe's on the stay in history.
- [06:32]
Moshe New
Your clue today. Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.
- [06:40]
Jill Wagner
Okay, let's start with politics. President Trump said during the campaign that he could stop the Russia Ukraine war in just 24 hours. Hours. Well, no one really believed that deadline. Even his own official said they'd probably needed a hundred days to get talks in motion. Nonetheless, on Wednesday, he may have taken the first step toward that goal to end the war. So he called out Vladimir Putin by name, writing on his true social platform that he would impose high levels of sanctions on Russia and tariffs on imports from there if the country did not reach a settlement to end its nearly three year old war against Ukraine. He wrote, quote, if we don't make a deal, and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of taxes, tariffs and sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States and various other participating countries. Let's get this war, which never would have started if I were president, over with. We can do it the easy way or the hard way, and the easy way is always better. He then wrote, it is time to, in all caps, make a deal. No more lives should be lost. Most Trump up until now hadn't said how he would end the war, which started in February of 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine. It is now, though, looking like he'll be trying to use economic pressure, but the question is whether this will actually be effective.
- [07:57]
Moshe New
This comes, Jill, as the war still extremely deadly. Ukraine claiming that Putin's forces suffered nearly 2,000 casualties in a single day. It would be the worst casualty total in 24 hours since the war began. There's a lot of estimates going around. In fact, Trump sort of, it appears, has talked about some classified numbers. Several hundred thousand Ukrainians and Russians killed in this war. Waiting on confirmation on that. Nonetheless, Trump not surprisingly, taking a very different approach from Biden here. Direct engagement of Vladimir Putin, that's something Biden was not up to. He says he actually wants to meet with Vladimir Putin here. And as you mentioned, he took a harder line there, saying we're going to, you know, we can do this hard. Vlad. He had said earlier in the week that Zelensky appeared to be more open to a deal than Putin. So he's pushing back on Putin here. The significant change, though, is that as far as the Biden administration was concerned, it was about Ukraine winning, even if it was totally unrealistic that they would win. They've been basically along the same battle lines for three years now. But the west and the US Strategy was to basically bleed Russia out. And in talking to NATO officials, they found that to be extremely successful. That this has really been a suck for Putin, that he's reliant on some technologies and weapons from the 1950s on the Iranians, on the North Koreans. Nonetheless, the Trump approach is different. Not to basically have this war go on in perpetuity here, but to end it. He sees himself as a deal maker looking for talks here between Zelensky and Putin. Now, what's unclear is, is what sort of deal he can come to here. Because remember, Putin claims that all of Ukraine is his. He occupies 20% of Ukraine. He's reluctant to walk back on any of that territory. In particular, these regions he's taken over that are very Russian speaking regions of Ukraine. And then you have Zelensky, who doesn't want to give up an inch of territory here, but is probably willing to if he gets security guarantees, like he gets to be part of NATO, which means in the future, if Putin tries to invade Ukraine again and take even more territory, NATO would come to bail him out because he'd be part of the alliance. Now, that's not something Trump is keen to do either, and certainly not something Putin would allow. So what is going to be the, the magic deal here? What's going to be the compromise here as he tries to apply pressure on both the Ukrainians by giving them less in the way of weaponry and aid, but then also put pressure on the Russians by promising tariffs, sanctions and other threats? What is rhetoric here? What's the final deal going to look like in terms of these economic sanctions on Russia, particularly tariffs? In the first 11 months of last year, the US imported less than $3 billion worth of Russian goods. That's 1/10 of 1% of US imports coming from Russia. Now that is down significantly over the last couple of years since Russia first invaded Ukraine. So it's not clear how much of an impact tariffs and these other measures would have on Russia here. Now, remember, Putin and Trump have a unique relationship, interesting relationship. According to Bob Woodward reporting, they spoke a number of times while Trump was out of office here. Putin has congratulated Trump for his victory. He says he wants long term peace, but what are the terms? And so ultimately, we'll see what goes down here. Zelensky spoke with reporters recently. Trump spoke with Zelensky. Trump says again, Zelensky appears to be more open to negotiations here, but it takes two to tango. Hence the message for Putin.
- [11:27]
Jill Wagner
And now to a major change when it comes to the federal workplace. As of 5pm Wednesday, all federal officials overseeing diversity, equity and inclusion DEI efforts were placed on paid administrative leave. Department and agency heads were given the instructions on Tuesday evening, saying that they should prepare for workforce reductions by the end of January. Agencies were also ordered to remove DEI related language and advertisements, shut down DEI offices and question employees about any remaining DEI efforts in disguise through coded language. They went so far as to tell federal employees to report on colleagues who defy orders to a special email account. So Trump's broader stance on ZEI initiatives is that they restrict and divide people by race and actually discriminate against white people rather than promote opportunities, which is different from former President Biden's policies, where he was looking to expand representation. Trying to lift up groups that have faced systemic barriers, Biden expanded DEI protections to include broader groups such as pregnant women, military spouses, rural communities and caregivers. Tuesday's memo from the White House Office of Personnel Management claimed that DEI policies undermine our national unity by discrediting traditional American values like hard work and individual achievement. And it goes beyond just federal agencies and directs the attorney general within 120 days to submit recommendations for enforcing federal civil rights laws and taking other appropriate measures to encourage the private sector to end legal discrimination and preferences, including dei.
- [13:08]
Moshe New
Yeah. In particular, the focus there, Jill, beyond the government is going to be higher education because remember student loan programs. There's a number, there's a lot of funding that comes to education at all levels, but in particular higher education through the federal government. So they're looking to hit institutions that have endowments of over a billion dollars for compliance here. And so they have a couple months to figure it out, identify state and local educational institutions that receive federal funds and grants who participate in the student loan program here. So that's going to be a focus here. This comes all in that aftermath of that 2023 Supreme Court ruling we told you about that overturned affirmative action in college admissions. And that has been interpreted, extrapolated out by a number of organizations to potentially have more far reaching ramifications for any race based program, race based hiring program. And you have seen companies in the last year, Meta, McDonald's, Walmart, all ending their DEI programs here partially due to their legal concerns about that Supreme Court ruling. And as you mentioned, completely different philosophy from the Biden administration. They came in looking to reverse decades of systemic inequity, make the federal government look more like America. Trump says this socially engineers race and gender into public life. We're hearing from people, Jill, who were involved in planning Black History Month events and other events in the coming months here who are canceling those or fear that they have to cancel those because of what it might mean for their jobs. A lot of these DEI programs came out of the Black Lives Matter movement, the killing of George Floyd. And there is acknowledgement both in the the corporate sector and the government sector that some of these DEI programs not as effective as some had hoped, that some had gone too far, that some of the companies that are brought in here to do DEI are not really accomplishing their goals. At the same time, there is a feeling among some that some aspect of this is a necessity. But it really goes down to boils down to the debate that's being had societally in this election in the government about equity inequality, those who advocate for equality, which is equal treatment of everyone, versus those who believe in DEI equity equity as in elevating the needs of minorities to get to equality. So inequity versus equality fight continues here. We did see that Trump signed an executive order that we mentioned declaring there are only two genders. That has its own ramifications here. But when it goes to all the things Trump is up to, this has been key as he looks to remake the workforce here and knock out a lot of the priorities in programming that has been implemented over the course of the past few years under Biden.
- [15:53]
Jill Wagner
And quickly, another change coming to the federal workplace. Donald Trump requiring millions of federal employees to return to the office. He issued an order on Monday instructing all US Government departments and agencies in the executive branch to end remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work on a full time basis. Department heads can give some workers exemptions, but there is likely to be a lot of pushback from federal unions, some of which have remote work written into their contract a lot here.
- [16:23]
Moshe New
Jill, both the DEI stuff that we were talking about, this stuff, there's gonna be a lot of lawsuits here back and forth when it comes to these changes and what they mean. And so look for a variety of those cases. They're probably already being filed as we.
- [16:35]
Jill Wagner
Record this time for the speed read, let's start with a school shooting in Nashville. From cnn, A female student has died and another student was wounded in a shooting Wednesday morning at Antioch High School in Nashv, Nashville. The male shooter then killed himself after killing that female student and wounding the two students. A police spokesperson says a 17 year old that was armed with a pistol fired multiple shots in a school Cafeteria at around 1109am Vanderbilt University Medical center confirms that one of the females had died in the shooting. Another female is in stable condition with what's being described as a graze wound to the arm. And then a male with a facial injury was also wounded but not shot.
- [17:22]
Moshe New
This is a pretty large high school, Antioch High School, home to approximately 2,000 students from grades 9 through 12 there about 10 miles southeast of downtown there in Nashville. It definitely brought back memories of that Covenant School shooting that took place less than two years ago where three nine year old children and three adults were killed at a private Christian elementary school in Nashville, led to a huge debate in regards to guns in the state. Notably one of the most prominent people in that debate, one of the three state reps that became controversial, one of whom was booted, Justin Jones. His district includes parts of Nashville. He says the fear reverberating around the Antioch and Nashville communities today is a chilling reminder of the human cost of inaction and the senseless tragedy of gun violence. Gun violence perpetuated by leaders who have prioritized firearms and the profits of the gun industry over the lives of our students. A reminder that Republicans there in Tennessee have a super majority in the state legislature. So not much has been done when it comes to gun reform efforts in the state, but this certainly will revive the debate there.
- [18:32]
Jill Wagner
Internationally, A quick update on the ceasefire hostage deal in the Middle east from the Times of Israel. Top officials from the us, Israel and Egypt were reportedly already moving on the second stage of the Gaza hostage cease fire deal on Wednesday, about two weeks ahead of the scheduled date for the discussions to begin. Remember, the discussions were supposed to start 16 days after phase one began. The report comes as the Prime Minister of Qatar said that he was ready to start mediating talks on the second stage of the three phase deal as soon as possible. The US Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff has said he is committed to reaching the second phase. As we've talked about here on this podcast, there's been a lot of concern that the first phase was actually the easy part and that this deal wouldn't make it past that initial six week ceasefire, which would see the release of 33 hostages but would leave more than 60 others still in Gaza. According to the latest numbers, 91 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7th are still in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
- [19:38]
Moshe New
So the deal continues this Saturday. Hamas has confirmed that four Israeli female hostages will be freed in exchange for what is likely to be Based on the numbers, we've seen more than 100 prisoners that we haven't gotten the hard numbers yet from the Israelis on their side. Now we don't have the names of the four women who will be released after more than 470 days in captivity. We'll await those details here. Still, this next stage, as you mentioned Jill, going to be much more challenging as Hamas ratchets up the demands on how many prisoners are going to be looking for for every individual hostage that's left. The hostages that are left are mainly men of fighting age, soldiers. So typically Hamas asked for even more, including senior leaders of the terror group in exchange for them. At least they have in the past. Now how this is all going to go down and continue is super important to Trump here. Though even he's acknowledged that he's not confident that all of this will be upheld. Notably, Jill, there was a conversation in the last 24 hours, the first foreign leader to hold a phone call with Donald Trump, the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Now Trump has expressed a desire here for the Abraham Accords, the deal that was signed between Israel and several Arab countries creating peace there. This is Bahrain, uae, Morocco, several others. He wants to expand that to Saudi Arabia, which is the big prize here, if the home of Islam and the home of Judaism can sign a deal here in the Middle East. Now Salman is looking for certain guarantees for the Palestinians as part of that deal. But still notable that Trump held this conversation. There's a huge military deal probably in the offing here between the US And Saudi Arabia as well. The US Sells the Saudis a lot of equipment. They're part of an alliance against Iran, even though they've sort of softened their stance against Iran of late. So we'll see what happens. Things are still pretty precarious in the region. There was a Moroccan national with a US Green card incidentally who stabbed and wounded four people in a terror attack in Tel Aviv on Tuesday. We also saw in the west bank, this is the other piece of land the Palestinians have some control over that they're looking for a future Palestinian state in a group of Israeli settlers. A group of Israelis who live in the west bank rampage through Palestinian villages targeting homes, businesses and vehicles. There's been a lot of back and forth violence there over the course of the last year and a half. So we'll continue to watch the region here for how this cease fire hostage deal unfolds.
- [22:10]
Jill Wagner
From Reuters. Prince Harry reached a last minute deal on Wednesday with Rupert Murdoch's UK based newsgroup Newspapers after suing them for alleged illegal activities by journalists and private investigators working for the newspapers. Ngn, the publisher of the sun, offered a full and unequivocal apology for the serious intrusion into Harry's private life from 1996 to 2011. Harry's attorney read a statement in court emphasizing the tabloids profound impact on Harry and his family. It is the first time that NGN admitted to any wrongdoing by the son. The statement also acknowledged the son's intrusion on the life of Harry's mother, the late Princess Diana, including for phone hacking, surveillance and misuse of private information that impacted his family. Harry, along with co defendant and former Labor Party member Tom Watson accused NGN of perjury and cover ups including deleting 30 million emails and relevant other records.
- [23:08]
Moshe New
So this is a pretty big deal. And this has been Harry's life's mission here to reform media practices. I heard him speak about this recently. He was being interviewed by Andrew Russ Sorkin over there at the New York Times DealBook conference in New York just last month. And he's, you know, talked about how passionate he was, how important this was. So the fact that he took a settlement here, not insignificant. The settlement reportedly an eight figure sum. They weren't specific here, but you can do the math. Somewhere between $10 million and $100 million. If we're going with an eight figure sum here, probably more significant than they would have been made to pay in court. Ngn, the news group owned by Murdoch here, has previously settled with 1300 other individuals. Payouts have exceeded $1.2 billion for a variety of things that they were accused of doing. Prince William, Harry's brother, actually privately settled just a few years ago for a seven figure sum for a few million dollars with ngn. Now, based on the way the law works in the uk Harry could have been stuck with a big bill if he didn't win the case. In fact, he would have had to pay the legal bills for Murdoch here. So it appears Harry took the safe bet here taking the money. He also got a rare apology from the news group for what they did. And again for Harry, this has been an issue going back to his childhood. What he believes the paparazzi in the media did to his mother leading to her death as well as what they've done to him his entire life. This has been a huge thing. Of course him and Meghan Markle have talked about this as well. So pretty significant day for Harry yesterday.
- [24:42]
Jill Wagner
Okay, now to some media business news from cnbc. CNN planning to lay off hundreds of employees as it refocuses the business around a global digital audience. The layoff comes as CNN is rearranging its linear TV lineup and building out digital subscription products. The cuts are said to help CNN lower production costs and consolidate teams. Certain shows that are produced in New York or Washington may move to at Atlanta where production can be done more cheaply. According to sources, for the most part, the job cuts won't affect CNN's most recognizable names who are under contract.
- [25:18]
Moshe New
Yeah, though we have seen a number of people not get renewed or take buyouts or leave the Chris Wallaces and some of the other correspondents and anchors. They had CNN trying to figure out its future. Here because they got this boost during Trump won a lot of the media did with a lot of interest, a lot of subscribers. You saw the Washington Post get a boost, the New York Times get a boost, the Atlantic get a boost here. CNN and the cables got a boost. The interest not as high this time around among members of the public. Nonetheless, CNN in the fall launched a paywall. You might have noticed this over on CNN.com you hit a certain number of articles and then you got to pay 399amonth. CNN's hoping that that could bring it up to a billion in revenue annually from its Heavier users of CNN.com a lot of these companies. And I lived and breathed it as I launched the digital streaming channel at cbs, trying to figure out their future here as cord cutting becomes more prevalent. Fun fact, Jill. The median age of a cable news viewer today, 70 years old. Half the viewers of a CNN or MSNBC or Fox News are over the age of 70 and they're not getting replaced significantly by younger folks. And so they're trying to figure out their digital strategies here. CNN not alone. NBC News also planning cuts later this week. Their job losses estimated to be about 50, according to CNBC reporting here. And so people are transitioning, right? We're discovering this at MO News. They're coming to podcasts, they're coming to Instagram. But the revenue isn't quite there for these organizations. So they're all figuring it out. They're all recalibrating Here still at CNN, you have like 3,500 employees worldwide. Significant organization, but they're all being asked to do more and in some cases do more for pay cuts or keeping their pay flat as they figure it out. And they've gone through various iterations. Certainly a storyline we'll be watching here in the new media space how legacy media pivots and adapts to the changing, the ever changing environment.
- [27:18]
Jill Wagner
And finally, from market snacks, Netflix added nearly 19 million new customers at the end of last year. That's more than double expectations. And it's also its biggest quarterly growth ever. So it topped 300 million global subscribers for the first time. Fans are tuning in for Squid Game two, Carry on, and also live sports like wwe. Netflix also hiked its sales forecast for the year as it preps for the return of hits like Wednesday and the final season of Stranger Things. And with that, Netflix hiking prices for both its standard ad free tier and its cheaper ad plan, which has fueled subscription subscriptions and profit growth since it launched in 2022. So the standard account with ads now costs 7.99amonth.
- [28:04]
Moshe New
Let's just pause there. Used to pay 8 bucks a month and you still get ads. Remember when they were charging that for no ads?
- [28:11]
Jill Wagner
Yeah, it's kind of lame.
- [28:14]
Moshe New
Hey, they can get away with it, right? They're charging you for a subscription and they're double dipping, right? And they're getting the ads.
- [28:20]
Jill Wagner
But the ad free subscription is 18 bucks and the premium plan is 25amonth. So those prices include the hikes of A$250 and $2 per month, respectively. Yep, it adds up.
- [28:35]
Moshe New
It adds up. You're getting the, the ad tier for 8 bucks a month, the ad free for 18 bucks a month, and the premium plan where you can do multiple streams at the same time for 25 bucks a month there. And yet they feel what they're offering there at Netflix is valuable. All these new live events, right? You might have seen the recent NFL games there, the Paul Tyson fight. And they're seeing huge numbers as they add in more live events here. Disney trying to stay competitive here with Disney. They acquired the sports streamer FuboTV and sports is going to be key here. These streamers as they look to charge more and more. Last month, Netflix, back to Netflix here. They got exclusive US Rights for the next two FIFA Women's World cup tournaments. But certainly, Jill, as these numbers go up, it's going to be harder and harder for people as they look at their numbers to subscribe to multiple streamers, Right? So it's going to lead to some hard decisions of like, do I keep the Disney Plus, Do I keep the Netflix? Do I keep the Paramount plus or the Peacock? But all of them, when you add them all up, going to get pretty pricey. All right, now, time for on this day in History, we begin. In 1849, Geneva Medical College bestowed a medical degree on Elizabeth Blackwell. She was the first woman in the US to receive a medical degree. At the time, she was facing, and women were facing near uniform opposition from male students and medical professionals about women in medicine. Blackwell would go on to set up a clinic for the poor in New York City. And she was determined to treat as many patients as possible despite all of the pushback she was getting. Notable years later, 2017 is the year for the first time that a majority of medical students in the US Were women.
- [30:19]
Jill Wagner
And studies have actually found that women surgeons get better results than men.
- [30:24]
Moshe New
Yes, because it turns out that women don't go in there thinking they know everything. They ask more questions. And that's turned out to be effective, especially when surgery is happening. So keep that in mind if you have to go in for surgery at some point. No insult to the great male surgeons out there. Just passing along the data that we saw recently. On this day in 1941, Charles Lindbergh testifies before Congress and suggests that the US negotiate a neutrality pact with Hitler. Charles Lindbergh, despite being a national hero for flying non stop a solo across the Atlantic, was very into Hitler, was very friendly with Hitler. They had lots of conversations where they shared their mutual hatred of Jews and other issues. In fact, Henry Ford, the founder of Ford, was in those conversations. And there was actually a scenario, Jill, where Charles Lindbergh was considering running for president against FDR and might have won to keep the country isolationist. So a moment there in American history again before Pearl harbor when the US was having a serious conversation and there were advocates like Lindbergh saying, you know what, just make a deal with with Hitler. Let's not plan to go to war with him.
- [31:32]
Jill Wagner
I highly recommend for anyone who is interested and has not read yet Philip Roth's the Plot Against America. It's an alternative history where FDR loses the presidential election in 1940 to Charles Lindbergh and how that just alters life for one Jewish boy in New Jersey in particular.
- [31:53]
Moshe New
Yeah, scary, scary alternate history there. Fast forward to 1957. On this day, the Wham O toy company introduced these new aerodynamic plastic discs they called Frisbees. Now to a bit of pop culture history, to the clue from the beginning of the podcast. Here's looking at you, kid. Of all the gin joints in the world, you walk into mine. Casablanca premiered on this day 82 years ago. Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, a classic Hollywood film turning 41 years old today. Another classic, but in this case, music. Michael Jackson released Thriller on this day in history. And turning 40 years old today. Material Girl, Not Madonna herself. Her song Material Girl released on this day in 1985.
- [32:47]
Jill Wagner
And would you believe that my daughter actually knows every word to it because it was one of the songs that was in her Barbie show a couple of weeks ago.
- [32:55]
Moshe New
Material Girl. Living in a material world makes sense.
- [32:58]
Jill Wagner
Like oh no, we are in trouble.
- [33:00]
Moshe New
Listen. Another generation memorizing Madonna lyrics.
- [33:03]
Jill Wagner
All right, that is it for today. Thank you guys for listening to the MO News podcast. If you like what you hear, share this with your friends. It will help us grow. Follow us and subscribe so you don't miss an episode and review us in the app Store.
- [33:15]
Moshe New
Yeah, leave us those five star reviews. They matter. They help. They help us grow. They help expand reach here. So appreciate all of you who can leave us those reviews over in the Apple Podcast Store, but thanks for listening. We are getting through the week here. Happy Friday Eve and we'll see you tomorrow.
- [33:34]
Nicole Lapin
Thanks for listening to the MO News Podcast.