The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - PREVIEW： Brokenomics ｜ The Wire

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to Brokernomics. Now, in this episode it has occurred to me that I have been

00:00:07.400 neglecting the full breadth of culture within the Western canon and I specifically wanted to

00:00:14.440 do something this week celebrating black culture and give that the time and attention that it

00:00:24.720 deserved and I thought the best way to do that would be to take a look at The Wire which was a TV

00:00:32.220 series back from early in 2000s when they looked at the the drug trade in in Baltimore in American

00:00:40.020 City. It's a good series so I don't know I don't know if you've seen it you should have done

00:00:46.040 if you haven't go and watch it but it's very good and it's like a I think it's like five seasons

00:00:52.460 and it kind of follows you know both the police department a few civilians and the drug traffickers

00:01:00.380 and sort of interplay that goes on between them. It's really good TV quite engaging so if you're

00:01:05.940 just looking for something to watch I think it holds up. There's a lot of economic lessons you

00:01:12.540 can actually draw from it interestingly. The reason I watched it again is because I went on a camping

00:01:16.900 holiday with the kids and the thing with women and kids is they fall asleep really early so I had the 1.00

00:01:21.400 evenings to myself and I sort of took along The Wire and re-watched it. Fascinating watching it again

00:01:29.380 all these years later for a number of reasons. One because it shows how good the 2000s were even

00:01:36.240 in Baltimore. Even crime ridden Baltimore kind of basically worked all the functions and you know

00:01:44.480 the institutions they worked badly but they worked which is an interesting contrast with today even

00:01:53.560 in Baltimore. Also I quite liked it because obviously the 2000s was the early 2000s was it was a great

00:02:00.720 time in human history. Now I wonder if perhaps I'm saying that because it is a tendency of old men to 1.00

00:02:08.320 think back to whenever they were in the 20s was the very height of civilization and they're just

00:02:13.620 confusing the fact that you know they could run around a lot and you know get up to all sorts of

00:02:18.780 stuff that young men do and they kind of miscalculate that with being the you know the high times. I don't

00:02:25.180 think that's the case because I don't think any zoomers will be looking back on now and saying that 0.98

00:02:30.060 that now was a great time. But anyway 2000s was good so it was a bit of a bit of a blast from a past

00:02:35.400 watching people carry around um cd walkman's and you know stuff like that. Um but no 2000s early 2000s

00:02:43.360 was a good time we had mobile phones and we had a we had a bit of internet and um you know stuff was

00:02:49.200 was generally good uh all more or less sensible. Hey yo lesson here bae you come at the king you best

00:02:56.180 not miss. And then we some good tv so I thought let's yes let's dive into that. The Wire has been

00:03:02.360 not just why it wasn't just me who liked it a lot of lefties liked it. Obama really liked it. In fact

00:03:07.900 there was a there was an interview with um uh let's put the phone on silent before somebody

00:03:13.880 interrupted. Yes uh Obama did an interview with um somebody and he was asked what he likes watching

00:03:21.440 and he singled out the Wire as an excellent example of uh tv. So um a lot of people have watched it you

00:03:30.180 know because it was good and because of his recommendation and there's a lot of analysis

00:03:35.580 of the Wire because it's quite gritty it's quite real and so loads of papers have been written on

00:03:41.200 it courses have been done on it. Almost all of those have been done from a left-wing Marxist

00:03:46.600 perspective. So you know you can imagine all these people going through university who are trained in

00:03:51.880 Marxist deconstruction of basically well uh people do bad things if they're not white uh because of

00:03:59.840 capitalism and systemic failures and stuff like that. Not entirely my takeaway I've got to say I

00:04:06.380 think I've come up with something you know a little bit different um but yes worth worth covering um all

00:04:12.220 the same. The other thing that I found quite interesting watching it all these years later is I

00:04:17.440 I have a slightly different lens now 20 years later on should we say group dynamics so I was able to

00:04:26.880 draw a lot more steeper stuff on character motivation than when I watched it the first time around

00:04:32.820 20 odd years ago um so so that was uh yes that that was interesting let's hint at some of that maybe

00:04:39.980 maybe after the YouTube people have gone um but yes rather than the Marxist perspective I actually

00:04:47.400 think this series can be summed up quite beautifully in the very first scene of the very first episode

00:04:53.540 so I mean I'll spoil that bit but don't worry it's not much as a spoiler because I say it's the first

00:04:58.580 scene of the first episode there's been a murder and the um kind of not really but kind of our main

00:05:07.820 character um Jimmy McNulty is sat there talking to a witness of this murder to figure out what

00:05:17.240 happened because he's a he's a he's a homicide detective and basically you get this story

00:05:23.300 unfold of this uh character um what was he called it was called snot I think um that was his nickname

00:05:31.040 they all get nicknames the the the hood guys they get well actually the cops get nicknames as well

00:05:35.800 um this this guy you know he he forgets to wear his coat one day and it's a bit cold

00:05:41.320 and uh he gets lumped with a nickname snot for the rest of his life and basically what was happening

00:05:47.300 is these chaps were having a probably wasn't poker they were playing some sort of card game

00:05:53.320 every Friday and the money would build up on this table and when it got to a certain point there'd be

00:06:00.540 a big stack of cash on the table the uh recently deceased snot could not help himself but grab the

00:06:08.880 money and run out the door he just couldn't help himself he just couldn't do it and normally what

00:06:14.040 happens is they would chase him and they'd give him beating and they get the money back and then

00:06:20.240 next week he would do the exact same thing and when the money built up he would he just couldn't

00:06:24.960 help himself he'd steal it run out the door and on this particular occasion somebody new came to the

00:06:30.720 game and when and he was winning and when he saw this money being grabbed and the guy running out

00:06:37.160 the door he shot him which is well it's bad i i happen to think that you know fair enough and um

00:06:45.020 yeah and there's a whole interplay it's quite interesting interesting on that now actually

00:06:50.280 rather than all the sort of marxist deconstruction of capitalism i think that that opening scene of

00:06:56.600 the entire thing basically captures the whole story you know it was certainly season one but

00:07:03.780 but all of it it is the battle between high time preference and low time preference individuals

00:07:10.540 with the majority of the low time preference individuals falling on the drug side but

00:07:16.320 actually it's it's rife within the police department as well you know avon you got to

00:07:20.760 think about what we got in this game for man huh was it the rep was it so our names can ring out 0.97

00:07:26.740 on some ghetto street corners man nah man there's games beyond the fucking game i'm not going to 1.00

00:07:31.820 explain that particularly well at this stage but i will go through it and and you'll see what i'm 0.95

00:07:36.460 thinking but jimmy mcnulty our homicide kind of main character guy um he has a lone tie preference

00:07:44.480 he wants to achieve results and he's willing to forego immediate gratification

00:07:51.280 and this snock chap who's lying dead on the floor in a pool of blood um

00:07:57.040 uh he is a very hind tie preference you know he he just he just he just wants it now 0.59

00:08:03.100 um and he can't help himself when he sees it in front of him and that goes for i mean that goes

00:08:09.020 right up to the um the chief of police this preference for let's just get a quick win now

00:08:15.700 and pass it on and that for me is is is if you if you haven't watched it and you watch it in that lens

00:08:21.200 it kind of explains all of it so uh the wire for those of you who who may not be familiar like i

00:08:27.440 say really good tv um it was made by a guy called um david simon and he had spent 20 years working

00:08:35.160 for the baltimore sun newspaper as their police correspondent and so he's got a really deep

00:08:42.700 understanding of baltimore how the police work how the drug trade works i mean he was reporting on it

00:08:48.640 and they used a lot of real characters in this tv series they brought in a lot of real expertise

00:08:56.660 so one of the detectives that you're introduced to later on and he's not he's not in it much but

00:09:03.540 he pops up now and again um he was a former police chief they actually put him in the show and it

00:09:08.180 turned out he could act a bit um one of the majors that you spend a lot of time with in season three

00:09:13.440 he's got a lieutenant who was also uh a fairly senior uh police officer you can he he's not quite

00:09:20.160 as good at acting he's a bit wooden but that's because he is actually he was a real policeman

00:09:23.620 they've got a um a a christian pasture guy who actually was a drug lord in baltimore i mean he's old

00:09:33.300 in the series uh but in his youth he he was a he was a drug kingpin and he's in the series and

00:09:39.360 there's there's a whole bunch of characters in it in tertiary roles um that have actually from that

00:09:45.940 life so that along with the show writer meant that this thing i mean i've never been to baltimore

00:09:52.860 but i've been told that it is um very accurate um gritty real um you know people who are familiar

00:10:03.180 with that life say it is remarkably accurate so it is a useful um representation as you can get in

00:10:12.740 fiction for a deconstruction of a of an issue that you can relate to and see it work and and draw

00:10:18.840 relevant economic lessons so yeah so you've got this diverse range of characters um

00:10:24.900 not just the the the uh the drug runners and the kingpins and the police and so on but you also

00:10:34.200 um dive into other aspects of it so season one is just about the cops and

00:10:38.620 drug guys season two they bring in uh the seaport system so the stevedores the people who unload the

00:10:46.880 ships um and i mean i'll talk more about that later but the way that is basically falling apart

00:10:51.700 because america doesn't make anything more but it is still a route in for drugs and other stuff 0.99

00:10:56.800 we used to make shit in this country build shit 0.99

00:10:59.260 now we just put our hand in the next guy's pocket uh season three that was about um government and 1.00

00:11:08.180 corruption season four was the schools and season five was the media the newspapers

00:11:15.440 influenced by real world events very gritty very real so great yeah i ain't no suit wearing

00:11:20.880 a businessman like you you know i'm just a gangster i suppose

00:11:25.360 and i want my corners where a lot of the left wing analysis of this and you will find hundreds

00:11:32.740 of videos on youtube about an analysis of the wire and as far as i know this is going to be the only

00:11:38.740 one which is from a from a right wing perspective but if you watch any of the other ones they're going

00:11:43.840 to tell you how the drug trade is not just criminal activity but they will say something like it's a

00:11:49.220 complex parallel ecosystem um with its own rules hierarchies economic pressures agree with all of

00:11:56.620 that and then they go on to say and it's a shadow economy which is for those who have been excluded

00:12:03.180 from the mainstream job market um not really no go back to that lens that i talked about at the

00:12:14.500 beginning it is a parallel economy for those who lack the characteristic traits that you would need

00:12:23.840 to be basically functional in any real world economy job one of them does actually make it so one of the

00:12:30.860 secondary characters from the first and second and third season he does eventually get out of the

00:12:36.840 drug trade and he goes and works in a shoe shop or something but for even a basic job like working

00:12:41.960 in a shoe shop there are certain set of skills that you need to have you need to have basic level

00:12:45.780 conscientiousness i mean you need to turn up every day on time for a start and for people with

00:12:55.560 um screwed up time incentives even that is is something that they fail at

00:13:04.280 you see the people involved in this trade um 0.98

00:13:10.020 they're not necessarily some of them are quite dumb some of them actually have a half decent brain on 0.94

00:13:18.020 them but what they lack is that level of conscientiousness that would be a starting requirement 0.97

00:13:24.680 for any normal job

00:13:26.460 and also they are unable to respond to the incentives that a normal job would impose because

00:13:33.900 because a normal job would have fairly basic set of incentives turn up on time do the work

00:13:39.120 don't screw up get paid

00:13:41.240 because these guys are so low in

00:13:44.940 conscientiousness

00:13:46.900 industriousness

00:13:48.340 those basic tasks they struggle with

00:13:51.260 even though they are demanded in the drug trade

00:13:54.820 if you don't turn up

00:13:57.560 you don't get paid

00:13:59.500 at all

00:14:00.340 and you might get a beating 0.87

00:14:01.620 if you 0.97

00:14:03.900 um

00:14:05.180 miscount the stash

00:14:06.840 as as one of the younger characters talks about

00:14:09.260 halfway through the first season

00:14:10.600 you get a beating because you know one of them is

00:14:13.020 he's one of the older ones

00:14:14.280 he's he's trying to teach because

00:14:15.980 these young kids they're also going to school

00:14:18.600 and getting involved in the drug trade

00:14:20.740 and he was trying to show him a basic algebra calculation

00:14:25.240 and and the guy wasn't getting it

00:14:27.560 the kid wasn't getting it

00:14:28.500 and so he expressed it in drug terms

00:14:30.140 and the guy got it straight away

00:14:31.760 and he asked well how come

00:14:33.560 you couldn't understand this example

00:14:36.780 but i just gave you a harder example

00:14:38.260 about counting heroin caps

00:14:40.660 and you got it right straight away

00:14:42.840 and the kid said

00:14:44.320 yeah because if you

00:14:45.400 if you screw up the count

00:14:46.440 you get a beating

00:14:47.120 and

00:14:49.820 for certain types of individuals

00:14:53.040 that is the only incentive structure

00:14:56.320 that they are actually going to effectively respond to

00:15:01.860 unless they end up in this

00:15:04.700 this this parallel economy

00:15:06.260 um

00:15:07.400 if you follow some of the higher up individuals in this series

00:15:10.240 you see them

00:15:11.460 facing the same kind of

00:15:14.360 product pricing

00:15:17.920 strategy

00:15:18.940 supply chain issues

00:15:21.820 human resources issues

00:15:23.220 competition issues

00:15:24.280 that you would see in any big corporation

00:15:26.720 it's just a bit more entertaining

00:15:28.640 because

00:15:29.320 it's about drugs

00:15:30.760 and every so often somebody gets shot

00:15:32.220 which is

00:15:32.740 well that's not funny

00:15:33.980 but

00:15:34.280 you get my point

00:15:35.180 um

00:15:36.380 you've got

00:15:37.520 the main kingpins

00:15:38.900 certainly for season one

00:15:40.740 characters like

00:15:41.680 avon barksdale

00:15:42.680 stringer bell

00:15:43.400 who are the upper echelons

00:15:45.780 of this drug economy

00:15:47.280 and they've got this whole different dynamic

00:15:49.660 which again you see

00:15:50.860 they're very different characters

00:15:52.280 you've got the

00:15:53.740 mid-level managers

00:15:54.860 which in season one

00:15:56.240 is all about this

00:15:56.960 d'angelo barksdale

00:15:58.280 the

00:15:59.000 nephew

00:15:59.880 of the main

00:16:01.080 guy

00:16:01.580 um

00:16:02.560 doing the

00:16:03.040 doing basically the front end operations

00:16:05.180 the day-to-day trading

00:16:06.540 um

00:16:07.940 facing pressures from above

00:16:09.760 and below

00:16:10.640 you've got the street level dealers

00:16:13.220 we introduced to

00:16:14.480 you know

00:16:14.800 a guy called

00:16:15.880 bode

00:16:16.280 and a wallace guy

00:16:18.020 and a poot guy 1.00

00:16:19.140 um

00:16:20.520 who are

00:16:21.740 basically at the

00:16:24.260 at the maximum inflection point

00:16:26.160 between

00:16:26.560 risk

00:16:27.360 and

00:16:29.280 reward

00:16:30.160 basically

00:16:30.760 they get a lot of risk

00:16:32.120 because they could be

00:16:33.400 uh

00:16:34.540 beaten by their own higher-ups

00:16:36.320 and certainly by

00:16:37.780 rival gangs

00:16:38.720 and then you've got the low-levels

00:16:41.160 what do they call them

00:16:42.300 the runners

00:16:42.740 or the

00:16:43.600 um

00:16:44.020 yeah the

00:16:45.620 i forget what they call them

00:16:46.920 now

00:16:47.020 but run

00:16:47.580 the runners and

00:16:48.400 and something else

00:16:49.100 the the low-level kids

00:16:50.440 who actually

00:16:51.240 take the money

00:16:52.660 and hand off the drugs

00:16:54.160 and run to the stash

00:16:55.780 and run to the client

00:16:56.720 and you know

00:16:57.620 take the money back

00:16:58.800 to the boss guys

00:16:59.600 um

00:17:01.360 who as we talk about later

00:17:02.860 are on

00:17:03.420 basically less than

00:17:04.640 less than minimum wage

00:17:06.280 um

00:17:07.060 but they're in an incentive structure

00:17:08.640 that

00:17:08.940 works for their

00:17:10.380 works for their character

00:17:11.760 hey yo

00:17:12.340 what's up playboy

00:17:13.000 how come you wearing that suit b

00:17:14.220 for real 0.98

00:17:14.640 it's 85 fucking degrees out here 0.98

00:17:16.300 and you trying to be like pat riley 0.99

00:17:17.640 man look the part 1.00

00:17:18.540 be the part motherfucker 1.00

00:17:19.460 so you get those stark inequalities 1.00

00:17:21.000 between the drug levels

00:17:22.060 in fact let's talk about the characters

00:17:24.160 let's

00:17:24.440 let's let's give you a quick run through

00:17:26.420 of the main characters

00:17:27.560 before we get into

00:17:28.500 some of the deeper levels

00:17:29.400 i've learned from this

00:17:30.360 so

00:17:30.680 jimmy mcnulty

00:17:33.580 uh

00:17:34.660 jimmy mcnulty

00:17:35.420 is a

00:17:36.800 um

00:17:37.540 irish-american

00:17:39.120 um

00:17:40.380 police

00:17:41.060 homicide detective

00:17:42.660 and his personality

00:17:45.100 is all about being rebellious

00:17:46.520 he

00:17:46.880 he doesn't like

00:17:48.140 chain of command

00:17:49.020 um

00:17:50.240 but he's got something to prove

00:17:51.320 he's got that northern european

00:17:53.380 i'm gonna

00:17:56.040 i'm gonna innovate

00:17:57.160 i'm gonna improve something

00:17:58.960 i'm gonna deliver a result

00:18:00.300 and you're kind of left

00:18:02.700 to root for him

00:18:03.860 because he wants to get stuff done

00:18:06.120 he's woefully

00:18:10.400 woefully

00:18:11.760 unsuitable for his environment

00:18:15.480 because what he does

00:18:18.360 is he does that northern european thing

00:18:20.360 of internalizing

00:18:21.760 what the system is

00:18:24.080 trying to achieve

00:18:25.760 and he understands

00:18:28.100 okay

00:18:28.500 we've got this drug trade

00:18:29.980 and we can take

00:18:31.740 oh hoppers

00:18:32.380 that's what they call them

00:18:33.100 hoppers

00:18:33.500 hoppers and runners

00:18:34.460 and and he realizes

00:18:36.080 okay

00:18:36.440 we can be taking out

00:18:37.660 the hoppers and runners

00:18:38.900 all day long

00:18:39.820 it doesn't make a damn bit of difference

00:18:42.060 because every kid we take off the street

00:18:43.660 and we

00:18:44.120 we charge

00:18:44.840 and we bang up

00:18:45.660 there's another 10 of them

00:18:47.600 waiting to go

00:18:48.480 so all we're doing

00:18:49.740 is churning the low level

00:18:51.060 and he gets this idea

00:18:52.640 into his head

00:18:53.180 that he wants to start

00:18:54.020 moving up the value chain

00:18:55.160 and in order to do that

00:18:56.620 you need to put a wire

00:18:57.600 on their phones

00:18:58.400 and their pages

00:18:59.280 thus

00:18:59.900 thus the name of the show

00:19:00.960 so he engineers

00:19:02.500 a situation

00:19:03.180 where he can go after this

00:19:04.380 his bosses however

00:19:06.820 are

00:19:08.620 many generations in

00:19:12.020 to a dysfunctional system

00:19:14.560 that has attempted

00:19:16.020 to solve

00:19:16.700 all of these problems

00:19:17.980 through the media

00:19:20.200 of setting

00:19:21.520 targets

00:19:23.560 so that the politicians

00:19:25.140 can then claim

00:19:26.080 well we've set a target

00:19:27.420 to reduce the drug trade

00:19:28.580 or to do this

00:19:29.120 or to make this number

00:19:29.860 of arrests

00:19:30.340 or whatever

00:19:30.780 and then have basically

00:19:33.060 stopped caring

00:19:37.100 about what actually happens

00:19:39.040 after that

00:19:39.580 but they've aligned

00:19:41.580 all these governmental

00:19:42.400 and police level

00:19:43.540 incentive structures

00:19:44.860 to go and achieve

00:19:45.520 these targets

00:19:46.140 so the optimised

00:19:48.760 individual

00:19:49.360 basically just does

00:19:50.720 the job in front of them

00:19:51.680 and a lot of the police

00:19:53.740 that you meet

00:19:54.200 in season one

00:19:55.140 and so on

00:19:55.680 they're quite happy

00:19:57.200 just to do the

00:19:57.940 turn up

00:19:58.740 treat it like a job

00:19:59.640 treat it like a conveyor belt

00:20:00.980 arrest a hopper 0.55

00:20:02.840 or a runner

00:20:03.260 carry on

00:20:04.600 do it

00:20:04.920 do it the next day

00:20:05.920 do the job

00:20:06.680 it's baltimore gentlemen

00:20:08.140 the gods

00:20:09.400 will not save you

00:20:11.040 jimmy mcnulty

00:20:11.820 is

00:20:13.320 is trying to

00:20:14.760 actually fix

00:20:15.840 the problem

00:20:16.420 at the root

00:20:17.000 so he's an innovator

00:20:18.980 and he's a problem solver

00:20:21.780 and as a result

00:20:24.260 it doesn't really work for him

00:20:27.040 well it kind of does

00:20:27.820 a bit

00:20:28.300 but

00:20:28.680 the system

00:20:31.660 basically treats him

00:20:34.000 as almost more of an enemy

00:20:35.920 than the drug dealers

00:20:38.060 because he's trying to

00:20:39.680 to rock the boat

00:20:40.760 of an established system

00:20:41.960 where everybody's comfortable

00:20:43.680 doing their

00:20:44.360 their

00:20:45.240 tick tock

00:20:46.780 turn up

00:20:47.960 do this

00:20:48.480 do that

00:20:48.800 go home

00:20:49.220 so yeah

00:20:50.780 main character

00:20:51.520 if you watch the series

00:20:52.700 after this

00:20:53.500 or if you remember it

00:20:54.400 yeah

00:20:54.860 main guy

00:20:55.980 Lester Fremont

00:20:57.700 is interesting

00:20:58.580 he is an African-American

00:21:00.820 formerly homicide detective

00:21:03.400 who basically did a

00:21:05.120 jimmy mcnulty

00:21:05.860 and tried to do an end run

00:21:07.320 around his bosses

00:21:08.020 to in order

00:21:08.520 to actually get something done

00:21:10.100 or as he described it

00:21:12.080 he tried to do good

00:21:13.340 police work

00:21:14.540 they always say

00:21:15.760 police

00:21:16.480 anyway

00:21:17.520 so he tried to do good police work

00:21:20.400 and he got shunted

00:21:21.340 into like the records room

00:21:23.780 for 14 years and 4 months

00:21:25.200 until

00:21:27.080 they forgot about him

00:21:28.620 and he got

00:21:29.840 bummed off

00:21:31.180 on this special unit

00:21:32.160 and he actually turned out

00:21:32.980 to be a good policeman

00:21:33.780 so he's an example

00:21:36.380 of a jimmy mcnulty

00:21:37.400 14 years and 4 months

00:21:40.040 down the line

00:21:40.600 but he

00:21:43.160 he has some of the same

00:21:45.240 motivations as jimmy mcnulty

00:21:46.640 it's just

00:21:47.020 it's just been beaten out

00:21:48.160 of him at this point

00:21:48.720 so he's good police

00:21:49.980 but less passionate

00:21:53.500 about it

00:21:54.080 than mcnulty

00:21:55.380 who's trying to prove

00:21:56.200 how clever he is

00:21:56.940 you follow drugs

00:21:58.380 you get drug addicts

00:22:00.580 and drug dealers

00:22:01.560 but you start

00:22:03.060 to follow the money

00:22:04.200 and you don't know 0.99

00:22:05.660 where the fuck 0.99

00:22:06.320 it's gonna take you 0.97

00:22:07.180 to watch the full video

00:22:08.340 please become a premium member

00:22:09.740 at lotusedus.com

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The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - October 15, 2024

PREVIEW： Brokenomics ｜ The Wire

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