Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: In this episode, we take a look at some recent research that investigates how having power actually does change a person and how this effect is really deeper in the person than one would imagine.
Hello, welcome to the Call Like I See it podcast. I'm James Keys, and joining me today is a man whose takes can get kind of long if he cares deeply about an issue. Tunde. Ogunlana Tunde. You got any four page letters for us today?
[00:00:42] Speaker B: Yeah, man. You should see how long it is when I don't care.
It's really.
It's really bad. Here we go.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: Touche.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: And I've been criticized for being long winded by everyone I've ever met, so.
So it's really fun when I don't
[00:01:03] Speaker A: care because I think I'm gonna have to cut you off now.
Okay, before we get started, if you enjoy the show, I ask that you subscribe and like the show on YouTube or your podcast app. Doing so really helps the show out. We're recording on September 15, 2026. And Tunde, you recently shared an article with me that challenges the old idiom, power tends to corrupt, and absolute power absolutely corrupts. Now, I say it challenged it. Not to say that the research suggests that this idiom is wrong, but really it investigates what the idiom may actually be observing what does having power do to make it a corrupting force potentially on a person?
And ultimately what the research does and the article that discusses it, it puts a lot more meat on the bones, showing us how power can affect things like a person's hormones and brain chemistry and how certain personality traits and power tend to come together, and even more so how a lack of accountability or, you know, can actually play a role in how power is exercised. So if there's accountability, then power can be exercised in one way, and if there's not, it's another way. So, Tunde, to get us started, what stood out most to you in this article about how power changes a person, potentially even changes their brain and all their surroundings and so forth?
[00:02:21] Speaker B: Yeah, man. What stood out to me was where you are already going with your lead in which is this real. The physiological changes in the human brain that basically for a certain percentage of people, I don't know, we'll get into some of the stats and all that hold power. The scientific research has been able to show that they actually lose empathy as they gain more power in their environment and in their life. And so, you know, that's, that's. That type of thing stuck out to me along with a couple of the very I found some of this study results in one of the articles we referenced for this discussion. Very interesting. Like, I'll just give a couple examples. Rich kids in the USA are more likely to shoplift than poor kids. I thought that was interesting. And it was a show about that imbalance of power that those kids feel, I'm sure just that. That they don't have to follow the rules as much because they are.
[00:03:16] Speaker A: How power kind of makes them feel that whether following the rules is something that's required of them.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: Yep. And then there's two more I'll just get through real quick and then hand it back, which is. One is there was a study actually of taking candy that people were told was meant for children.
So I was laughing in my head. I was thinking, like, literally taking candy from a baby, but maybe not from out of their hand. Right.
[00:03:38] Speaker A: But.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: But then the people who held more power in society that they were studied tended to actually do it more than people that didn't, you know, take the food that was meant for children or candy. And then the last was what they called the BMW study, which I had heard of this before.
And it kind of makes sense. Kind of. It's like the one about the rich kids versus poor kids and shoplifting.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: It's.
[00:03:59] Speaker B: People that have luxury cars statistically tend to break road rules much more.
And they think there's a dynamic with that, that, you know, they think that they're more powerful and have, you know, that they own the road more than others because of their position in society. So that, to me, is what kind of stood out just on the surface here at the beginning.
[00:04:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think the observed changes, like, it was shocking to me to see that people in positions of power, a lot of times that giving people, I should say positions of power, can they observe changes in testosterone. You know, it's like, okay, wow, like, so that's an actual change in your hormonal profile based on your perceived. And what's going on. But what actually was most interesting to me, it wasn't just the biological change. It was also the how this stuff may have an evolutionary basis.
You know, like the changes that happen in a person.
While in the abstract we may look at, oh, that's a negative quality, or, you know, anything like that. It's like, okay, it can make a person more decisive because being. Having less empathy is like, okay, well, I can make this hard decision quickly and not, you know, when we may need to make a decision quickly. And so that's not the excuse any of it. Because I think it ties to power and status. You know, a lot of times like how powerful do you feel relative to the people around you? And it seems like when people feel like subjectively that they are in a, on a level above the people around them, you know, which is kind of that's power, you know, then they can, then they behave a certain way and it almost kicks in a certain way and, or it kicks in and. But the really fascinating thing also to me was how different personality types, how this influences them as well. Which I'm not going to get into that part right now, but it's just like, because we'll talk, I'm going to bring it up later. But the, the idea that certain personality types one seek the benefits of power more, you know, it's aligned with them. And then also even if, but even if you put people who aren't the kind of people who see seek out power and so forth, that they also can be changed in ways to, in these same ways, you know, where power then becomes. It changes them in a way that's okay. Even though I normally am a very empathetic person, maybe on the spectrum they still slide over to less empathetic, you know, like they may not become a narcissist, but they slide in. Their self importance though subjectively how they feel increases, you know, so it's, it's changes that seem like there's something that there seems like there's some kind of hardwiring it that this happens with people and now the kind of person matters because obviously if you're on a spectrum where you start off will affect where you end up. But nonetheless the fact that it's kind of like a slider that can take any person from wherever they are and slide them over a little, you know, slide their personality and you know, as implemented likely through their hormones and their brain chemistry, slide their personality over a couple of notches in a different direction or in a certain direction.
[00:06:54] Speaker B: Yeah, and I think that's a great observation that we should point out, which I think there's a great use of the term spectrum that you use because I think we're learning this more with this brain science as well as the Internet. Just how people.
I think, because we've seen kind of this human experiment in real time for those of us that are old enough. And I think we're right at the edge because we're middle aged. We were in our kind of right around 20 when the Internet really got robust and now we're in our 40s, so we've watched how people who have on the spectrum of all kind of personality traits, not even disorders, but just traits, have responded to the pressures of the Internet, you know, social media, the likes, you know, and this, this could be reflected maybe in the increases in depression and anxiety and all the other kind of things that happen now that we have all of these additional stimuli in our minds and our emotional and our psychologies, psychological states that than we had just two or three generations ago. On top of the regular life, everyone has to live everywhere, anywhere. Sorry. Anyway, like going to work and dealing with your family and all that kind of stuff. So it's interesting and as you're talking it made me think of something that I was thinking of in research and I'll say it here, which is, yeah, I'm wondering if I didn't read any research around this, but it makes me speculate of is there an evolutionary benefit to this? And so I started thinking about the documentaries I've watched about primates like chimpanzee groups and gorilla groups and baboons. And if you think about humans back in hunter gatherer days and all that in these small bands of maybe 10 to 30 people, think about it, if you were the one who became the leader of it, I guess to your point, right, there is a need for certain decisiveness and to make decisions on behalf for the betterment of the group. And in that sense you may not have the time to be able to go talk to everybody to see how they're feeling. Right? You just got to be like, we
[00:08:46] Speaker A: got to do this on this. Just to add to your, like another piece was your level of risk aversion seems to slide towards being more risk tolerant. And so, you know, again, a little more decisive, a little more. And then again where you start will depend on, you know, your self importance slides a little bit, you know, so if you start off as a narcissist, then once you get power, you go off the scale. You know, start off as a regular person, you, you may slide into kind of borderline narcissism type of thing.
[00:09:13] Speaker B: But think about, I mean we have, I think with the Internet and just the transparency we have of people who I would say are famous, I think we can say we've seen that in certain people, especially in the tech world who have become famous. They seem to be much different today in 2026 than they might have been in 2005 or 2010 when they did interviews and they talked about how they wanted to save the world and all that.
Now when you talk to them or when you hear them talk, it's more of a domination type of conversation. Well, here's exactly what the world needs, right? Like I know better than everyone else and not the kind of altruistic way that some of these guys were telling us that they were back, you know, 2010 or 2012 or things like that. And then the other thing.
[00:09:57] Speaker A: Well, hold on, don't, don't leave that real quick because that's a really good point. Because a lot of times I think that people, then we'll look back and like, oh, they were just full of it back in the day. Like they didn't really mean that stuff back in the day. But this kind of article suggests that actually maybe they did mean it then. But then once they became very successful in their, their level of power in society grew that their personality changed along with that. And so then it. So they were genuine then and they're genuine now, but they're not. The way their brains are operating is not the same.
[00:10:26] Speaker B: Yeah. And think about what you also mentioned the changes in the hormones. So things like testosterone. So it's like, all right, yeah, so. And like you said about things like, we don't know, maybe a guy had a baseline, generally high testosterone already and now he becomes a leader and it's through the roof and he's aggressive and it's just, you know, and I think that to me was also fascinating about those changes in the hormonal levels. Because there was something else I was reading which is, which is in that vein, which is about powerful. Even when the researchers had people just posing is the word I'm looking for in powerful positions. So think about it. Being told to stand erect with your chest out versus slouching. They said about like being on a desk with your hands out flat, like you were powerful, commanding the room, standing with your hands on your hips to widen your space versus shrinking. Right. And they said so they would give people maybe spend, you know, three or four minutes in one of those positions. And they were saying with all the stuff they had on their brain to scan, you know, the reaction, it was true. Like that the people that were in poses of more power, those type of things were, were lighting up. The testosterone levels were growing.
[00:11:38] Speaker A: Cortisol goes down. You know, in a non crisis situation, you get power. Correct. Cortisol goes down, which is like considered the stress hormone. It does other stuff.
[00:11:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:46] Speaker A: You know, so you become, you know, kind of more steeled or you can become more skilled and so forth. It's, it's, it's crazy about the hormonal change. To me, like, it happened. It's observable now because science allows you to absorb, observe things like that.
[00:12:02] Speaker B: Yeah, so that's what I was thinking, just to finish this section off, because it was the exact inverse with the people that were doing the kind of poses of submission or weakness, Right. Their cortisol levels went up, you know, testosterone went down, that kind of thing. So. And that's what I started thinking. Jam. Because it's funny because just for the audience, I know you know this, but, you know, they don't get to see me, my height. I'm taller than average. I'm 6 foot 4, and I've been this height since I was 15. I grew early and then stopped. That didn't help my basketball career. But.
But because I've been tall basically my whole life, you know, since I was in elementary school, taller than everyone else I'm around, I find that I slouch a lot. Not because I don't have confidence, because I'm always looking down to talk to somebody.
Or sometimes I got to put my head down to get into a doorway or something, like, depending on when it was, you know, that the structure was built. So the point is, is I know sometimes I'll walk by something and I'll look at myself, like in the reflection of a window if I'm walking down down or something, and I'll see myself and I'll just, like, fix my posture, you know, and it's amazing, man. I can feel this difference, like. And it's like, just reading this stuff reminded me. I was like, man, when I just do that and I start walking around like a downtown, all of a sudden I do feel a difference. Like, I feel like I'm about to kick somebody's ass in a positive way. Like, I feel powerful in a way that I didn't 30 seconds ago when I was kind of half slouching. So I just share that as my own little anecdotal way that I've noticed this. But that's why.
[00:13:29] Speaker A: Well, no, I mean, I know that you like to get to the spot sometimes where you can tell us how tough you, as a very tall person has it and has had it in your life.
You. You've hit us with those a few times, like, you know, so.
[00:13:41] Speaker B: Hold on, James. I appreciate that because for the audience, you know, this show was going to be about power, but now it's going to be how much of a victim I am.
[00:13:50] Speaker A: Hey, victimhood sells on the Internet, man.
[00:13:53] Speaker B: Hey, man, you Know what it was like as a young guy at 22 starting out in the, you know, to go into corporate America sitting in a cubicle, trying to buy a suit when you're 6 foot 4 and going to Marshall? I mean, come on, man, you know, I'm a big victim.
[00:14:07] Speaker A: Hey man, I'm sure, I'm sure the people in the audience can relate to that, man, and that they feel, you know, your pain that you have, you
[00:14:13] Speaker B: know, but, but comments are welcome.
[00:14:17] Speaker A: The next thing I wanted to get into, and we've, we've talked about the, the, the, the discussion, you know, and I'll have this piece of new, I have this piece in the show notes. But you know, and so they lay out the case and so the next thing is, do we buy it? You know, like, do we this not to say that there isn't some truth. See, a lot of times when you're reading something critically, you know, it's like, it's not that, okay, is this 100% true or is this 100% false? It's like, okay, here's a premise, here's the support. Now what about this? Maybe seems well supported. What about this? Could they be missing something or could they be underestimating something about this is, and so that's, to me what I wanted to poke at as well is like, are they underestimating it? But one thing in particular, this seems like there's going to be a feedback loop here because I think people like, if I'm saying there's a, a personality, there are personality spectrums like where you stand on your own level of confidence or self importance, you know, or you know, whatever, you know, the, the, the where you stand on empathy. It seems like that people who already may be on more of an edge, where they have a high sense of confidence or overconfidence or less empathy may be the kind of people that seek power more often as well. And so what they're observing could be shifts. And when they do these tests and control situations and they acknowledge this limitation, they're not doing this with corporate CEOs, they're doing this with people off the street. So they're observing kind of a median, what happens in a median context. But they're not really seeing, just with the extremes that we see in our own society, they're not really able to observe those things. So I wonder, when I read this, I'm wondering, okay, so how much is this actually, okay, let's grant it, that there are some changes, but are they really meaningful changes? Is somebody's personality changing a lot or is it, you know, a lot of times people would say, oh, well, power is the revealer of character more than anything. And so. And that's something that could also could equally apply here or even be something that they're underestimating, that the person who has sought out the power was already somebody who was prone to overconfidence or had a high risk tolerance. And those behaviors allowed them to rise in a hierarchical society because other people saw that and kind of treated them with more deference because of that. You know, So I look at that and I wonder, you know, okay, maybe because the way they set up the study and because of the types of people they could and couldn't test their theories on, they may be missing a big part of it in terms of how much of this is nature versus how much of this is nurture. What did you think as far as, you know, like, what did you buy or what may, what may have you, you know, what did you question, you know, when you, when you read this?
[00:16:55] Speaker B: I think, I think, I don't think the science is settled yet.
I think you're right in terms of there's two different ways that this has been approached.
And you know, the kind of. Like you said, the absolute power corrupts absolutely. Or does. So does that mean anybody going into power is just at risk of being totally corrupted at some point? Or like you said, is, does power just bring out who the person really was? Kind of coax their latent? You know, the, the things that were inside of them get coaxed out.
But, you know, like you said, we're all on a different spectrum of aggressiveness or passiveness. So it's just like, yeah, maybe, maybe for some people it takes them to a place that is not fun, but for other people they can control, even if they're in power, they can still have some empathy and all that.
[00:17:43] Speaker A: So, but that, but that's my point is that are that second group of people that you just said, would they even in real life scenario end up in a powerful position anyway, you know, type of thing, or would they be.
[00:17:53] Speaker B: Maybe or maybe not.
[00:17:53] Speaker A: There could be exceptions, of course, but I'm just saying, by and large, or generally, is that a person we're going to see rising to a very powerful position?
[00:18:00] Speaker B: So I was going to, I'd say this. The, the research, I think shows. Yes, because that I saw was that for things like the, the, the lowering of empathy down to a point where it's like really noticeable that they're different than they were before they had power.
They say that's about 33% of the population of people in power where they said that when they tested everyone else out of power, that was 12%.
So the point is, is that there was a natural amount of people that have low empathy. And it seems to be close to the 10% number. We always hear about all these different kind of personality traits in society. 10% around are sociopaths. You got 10% psychopath. There's these different things I've been hearing. So.
Yeah, of any personality trait. Yeah, exactly. And so, but then it says, okay, so then there's a tripling of that almost right from goes to 33% when they test people in power. So that means two thirds of that
[00:18:56] Speaker A: could be a selection bias, is what I'm saying. That could be because those that 10% is more likely to try to get a lot of power or, and, or succeed. Yeah, maybe getting a lot of power.
[00:19:04] Speaker B: I'm just making a point that it still tells us that 2/3 of the people in power surveyed did not lose empathy. So that's at least good to know that it's not 100% just, just because you go into power, you're guaranteed to lose all this empathy. But I think it is instructive to say, well, one out of three people, that's still a lot of people in our society when you're talking about everything, right. Like you said, could be corporate leadership, could be law enforcement, could be religious, you know, church leader, could be politics. So we have millions of people in this country that are in a form of leadership. So one out of every three of them, it's been scientifically kind of proven to that their empathy will just start diminishing the minute they hit lower.
[00:19:43] Speaker A: I mean, but again, whether it started there or whether it's moved a lot, but it's lower than kind of what would be expected.
[00:19:49] Speaker B: And I think you're right. Obviously, it's hard to know.
Like you're saying, is that 12% bursting out of the seams and becoming that 33 themselves, or is that 33 made up from people that were not part of that 12 originally, but they were moved over? And I think the research does show us though, that that one third, I guess the research shows us that the people they're researching are people generally that they feel got moved.
[00:20:15] Speaker A: So I'm guessing those people, admittedly in the study, they're saying those are people that they're just pulling from society, like some people, like the tonic they even call the power is A powerful tonic. And it's like, well, the people that seek that powerful tonic out that will make more sacrifices to get that. You know, what are we studying that as well? And I mean, again, I'm not saying that what they're saying is wrong. I'm just saying that that's something that is, you have to be careful, you know, accepting everything. It's like, oh yeah, that's, that's just 100% what it is. Because it's like, okay, there are probably other factors involved, you know, So I wanted to bring that out, you know, at minimum, just saying, well, I got
[00:20:50] Speaker B: just to, just to finish in this area we're at. Because it's really, as I wrote down some notes here, it's really something called the power paradox. Is the one thing that's the absolute corruption. Absolutely. And the other one is really accountability versus corruption.
[00:21:02] Speaker A: Well, don't go there, don't go there because I do want to get to the accountability. But just to kind of touch on one other thing, one of the things that stood out to me in this, when they talked about in just interpersonal relationships, a relationship, like a romantic relationship, you know, a guy and a girl, they, you know, in a relationship, whichever partner feels like they have the greater power, the upper hand in the relationship is more likely to go outside from what they're saying, you know, like. And so, but that's something that can change depending on the couple. Like the same person could feel like they, they're the more desirable person in one relationship and then be kind of self conscious in another relationship, you know, like their next relationship. Because it's like, oh yeah, she's out of my league. Or like, oh, you know, whatever. So like that, that would suggest more so that a lot of these things that, that would suggest the opposite of what I'm saying, so to speak. Now if the same person always is only going to be with, with the person that they feel like they're over, then that is like, okay, yeah, that person is the kind of person that does this or does that. So I think anytime you're dealing with these type of human personality type things, you just have to account for the fact that there's so many different things that lead to these outcomes. And then what we're trying to do, and I think admittedly here is trying to oversimplify to find trends, to find, to find the kinds of things that tend to happen more so than trying to create an ironclad rule.
[00:22:20] Speaker B: Yeah, and one other thing, I mean, I wrote it down as a note. For later. But I'll say now because you brought up the family stuff. I was thinking about it, you know, something that I think everybody listening to this and watching us and all that we all share, which is we've all been children at one point and then many of us, not all, but many people out there are parents. So I was thinking about that dynamic with the parent and child relationship is very interesting when you look at now this information we've learned through the scientific research of the dynamic of authority, power and then the losing of empathy because children are different. Right. As parents, me and you know that we love our children and there is a certain level of empathy that we do have with them.
[00:23:01] Speaker A: Yeah, there's. But then there's also like evolutionary things kicking in there.
[00:23:05] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, no, you're right. And then, then for the child, like we can all remember being children. I can remember people, you know, like, and it's not even, let's say your parents, but think about school, teachers.
[00:23:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:17] Speaker B: You walk around the street and there's, you know, you go to the corner store, the person at the cashier is a power imbalance. If you're a 10 year old kid going to, you know, I guess today kids that young aren't allowed to go out by themselves. When I was 10, I had to go buy my mom cigarettes at the corner store.
But that's my point is I can remember being a kid and being treated different from random people in the society because. And now looking back, it's like, well, the power dynamic was they were more powerful than me as adults. So I could see some of them were empathetic. Some of them were worried about, you know, can you get home okay or do you need help crossing the street?
Others, if they ask you if you can get home okay, you could see they didn't have your best interest at heart. You know, you're like, nah, I'm good, I'm going home by myself.
[00:23:58] Speaker A: You might be bringing in a bunch of other stuff here, but the last
[00:24:03] Speaker B: thing I didn't want to get to. I thought you talked about no childhood baggage. We're good.
I wouldn't have brought it up if I had it. Trust me.
[00:24:12] Speaker A: The last thing I did want to get to was the accountability piece and how they were, they, they, they talked about how accountability is something that does influence how this plays out, so to speak. And you know, I wanted to ask in particular, you know, like, or I want to get to eventually like your thoughts on how, whether we're as a society, you know, do we do we need to adjust or reconsider some of our norms in terms of how. Learning how. What power does to people. And I think our society of, you know, the United States is pretty, you know, has a lot of things that are supposed to be in place to account for the fact that power has a corrupting tendency, you know, but do we need to do more, you know, like, in terms of what we're doing? And that could be in the form of accountability or other things, you know. So, like, what do you think as far as where we are now, what we're learning? Should we be changing things? Should we, we. Should we be reevaluating things? You know, what do you think?
[00:25:07] Speaker B: Yeah. So I know you and I had a conversation recently where I shared my experience with my own congressperson and disappointment that in 2026, all their town halls were on zoom, you know, way, way past pandemic time. Right. We didn't, you know, I wanted it in person because I want to get on a microphone and ask them questions. And of course, on the zoom, they're very selective of who's asking questions and who they're picking on. So, you know, it's like, so, so to me, that's one of my concerns is that as we go further into the digital age, leaders in all parts of our society, whether it's politics like the example I gave you, or I'm pretty sure if I try to talk to the CEO of Volkswagen, who, the car I own, or Mercedes, or, you know, the CEO of Coca Cola, because I got a problem with their product, I'm not going to get to that person. Right. I'll get to some, somebody much lower. So I think that somehow creating some sort of institutional friction that doesn't allow them to insulate themselves away from the rest of us so easily.
That's one way. I don't have an answer for that, but I think that's one way because that's a feeling I had when I try to, you know, deal with the power sometimes.
[00:26:14] Speaker A: Well, that would be to counteract the, the loss of empathy. Like, the more you become disconnected from people, then the less empathy you'll have automatically. And that may be a part of what's being observed is that people, once they get in positions of power, become further and further removed. So you're saying maybe to be more proactive in trying to not allow people, whether they're talking to you or whether they're talking to, you know, employees or whether they're talking to whatever, like just not trying to, to, to put some Other counteracting pressure on. On the tendency for people, once they are getting in positions of power, to be able to remove themselves from the commoner.
[00:26:49] Speaker B: So let's say, yeah, that's a great point from the commoner.
[00:26:53] Speaker A: So your answer is yes, though you do think we need to reevaluate, reconsider some of our norms in light of research like this.
[00:27:00] Speaker B: Because another one, James, would be term limits. But not just. We're used to hearing that just in politics. Again, I don't have the answer how to do this, but I mean, is it healthy that Jamie Dimon has been the CEO of JP Morgan for 25 years? Right.
That's a lot of power that's been accumulated. And then when we look at other things that have played out, like some files that were released on the Justice Department, it seems like a lot of shenanigans happened through JP Morgan. And there were emails talking about, hey, we need to see Jamie about this one. When the legal and compliance people were flagging fraudulent transactions. So it's another example of a person in power for so long that he's, he's been able to somehow game the regulatory system or something where he had one customer with hundreds of millions of dollars going in and out and that were being flagged as fraudulent and legal compliance problems, but he was able to make it go away, so.
[00:27:57] Speaker A: And that in fact ended up being. Being tied to a lot of illegal stuff.
[00:28:01] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess. And for the audience, his name starts with a J, ends with an E, and somewhere in there is, is a sign and all that stuff. And there were files released by the DOJ over the last two years, so.
[00:28:12] Speaker A: Well, yeah, I mean, I think you'll figure it out. And for something like that, I mean, it could be like if you're a publicly traded company, you know, remember, publicly traded companies are creations of the state. You know, they are not. They don't exist in nature. And so it's, it's. If the state can create them, they can also.
[00:28:26] Speaker B: Some people would disagree with you in this country, James.
God created publicly traded companies and they grow out of the ear.
[00:28:33] Speaker A: That's, that's the direction I know people want to go.
[00:28:35] Speaker B: They need a certain amount of water. They're like Hydranius. You know, they're very, they're very finicky.
[00:28:41] Speaker A: But so, I mean, that's the kind of thing that you could, I mean, you wouldn't do that necessarily with private, privately held, you know, but, but with publicly held, you know, it's, you know, or if you're, if you're taking, you know, public money for things like that. So there are ways you can regulate.
I am one. When it comes to political leadership, I think that we should be careful with that. I do think that term limits are good. I think we've seen enough to know now. I generally would lean away from it, but we've seen enough now with there we did, the United States did put it on for the chief executive, for the President. They me know once FDR stayed for four terms and he, he did great, but it's like, hey, we just, we don't want somebody there that long.
And so then that's the most powerful position. So it's like, hey, this most powerful position, we think we do need limits. But these other positions that are still powerful but they're, they're not the most powerful, we don't have term limits on. And I think that we've seen enough as far as how once people get in power long enough, their objectives become just about staying in power, that we the people should probably do something about that at this point. Even though again, it may not be something that I look at in the abstract and it's like that's just necessary, you know, because ultimately it is on the voters and it should be on the voters. And if the voters are voting for a 90 year old, you know, like while that may seem crazy to me, you know, like if that's what they're gonna do, you know, like it's like, well, you know, like that's, you kind of get the democracy or you know, the, the representation that you deserv that sense.
But again, we can as a society try to avoid walking into ditches. And that seems to be one again, people become insiders and then their names are all in all this, you know, kind of shady stuff or they become just about trying to, to use the stock market for gain. And you go in, you know, and you're a regular person and two years later you're a multi millionaire. And it's like, okay, yeah, I think we, I think we need to get a handle on that even just to, to create different incentives for the people in there. As far as corporate leadership. I mean, I think that what you said is a good point because again, it's the same kind of thing once, once the power, once you're in power for so long, if these effects, if this is sliding you along some, you know, some spectrum toward more antisocial behaviors, then yes, then society would say, okay, well maybe we need to do something about that. But the answer may Be or may include also not allowing things to like we have something called antitrust. So maybe we shouldn't allow companies to grow to such behemoths to where, you know, they're too big to fail and stuff like that. So we, maybe we got to look at it like that as well. Because if you are one of, you know, a hundred major banks instead of one of four or five, then your relative power, there may be more accountability for you and stuff like that. Because it's like you, you don't just sit on top of some empire that, you know, may. Nobody has, nobody could come say anything to you because of the, the, the, the level of power you control by sitting on the top of this behemoth. So I do think that. So my answer is yes as well.
I would think we want to. You're always worried about unintended consequences though. So you may not want to go in and just smash everything. But we've seen these risk factors play out and now we have research that says, yeah, this is kind of how this stuff is happening. I mean, I think law enforcement is another great example. You mentioned that before. Those are positions of power. That's not chief executive, you know, but that is power over people in your community. You ride around and you have power. And so we want accountability there too. You know, like accountability to help people not slide down the spectrum of, of more anti social and you know, like from where they were before.
So I think in all these places the accountability piece is a big part. And then if you can make structural changes that just makes sense to try to avoid the worst outcomes, then at least you're thinking about it the right way. And I think we have to do that again. We've seen abuse of power to the point. Abuse of power and corruption now are just regular, you know, you don't stop and you know, like, oh yeah, we had some oligarch pay for the president's son's wedding. It's like, what? And people don't blink an eye. It's like, oh yeah, this is what's happening now. And so yeah, it's probably time that we the people interject ourselves a bit, you know, to make sure that it's not just all self dealing and you know, like power to having power just to amass more power.
[00:32:55] Speaker B: I was gonna say a joke, but now I get serious.
Cause my concern is like, it's weird. I want to say this because I don't want to beat up all of us in the public too much because we're all dealing with the same kind of, you know, pressures of the Internet and algorithms hitting us and all this. But I just feel like, James, when I hear you talking, and I was going to, my joke was going to be, man, you can't be proposing all that stuff about, you know, companies can't get too big and antitrust because then they're going to call you a communist socialist. Right. Because you're trying to control capital. And all this stuff is pretty American, bro.
No, I know, but that's my concern is that, but my concern is that hearing you talk is Americans have been conditioned to hate the things that made this country so great. Right. Like. Like meaning the problems that happened that led to the 1930s, Great Depression.
[00:33:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:47] Speaker B: As they were. And starting with Teddy Roosevelt maybe a generation before. But this idea of, and I've said this before on other shows, things like a 40 hour work week and children not being forced to work like 10 year old kids going into coal mines out of necessity is not embedded in the US Constitution.
And I think that the American people, from a cultural level for the last 45 years, probably since the beginning of the Reagan era, have been conditioned that government is bad, that everything, basically anything coming out of the government is bad. And the only good things are the private sector stuff. And if we let these rich guys get really rich, it's going to trickle down on the rest of us. Right now I think there's a lot of Americans 45 years later that recognize that was basically a problem, right? Yeah, it was a way for guys like me who make good money and are entrepreneurial to not pay taxes and for the country to keep spending the same and put it all on a credit card. And we got a $40 trillion credit card invoice basically because of that. And guys like me have done a great job not paying taxes along the way and we'll continue to do so as long as we have things like the OBBA last year that gave me now the opportunity of bonus depreciation two times on two different types of assets. So that's the reality to my point, James, is that at some point the American people need to decide that they're no longer going to be marks for people in the elite class.
[00:35:20] Speaker A: But I mean, you can't say that broadly because there's many American people who aren't the marks. We have a certain group of American people that are the marks that worship the wealthy and the powerful and want to let them do whatever they want. And maybe we need to do a better outreach to them, you know, and Calling them Marx probably isn't the best way to outreach to them.
[00:35:38] Speaker B: But, you know, I didn't say who they were. They have, they don't know what I'm talking about.
[00:35:42] Speaker A: Well, but they have been targeted by their weaknesses. You know, like their weaknesses, whether it be, you know, bigotry and of any type of form, you know, like those are weaknesses that are being taken advantage of. And so somehow, some way, I would think we need to get through to them if we want to be able to hold people in power accountable. Because ultimately that's what it is. People in power look around and say, okay, who can be? Can, can be. Can we get to get off the idea of holding us accountable?
They find the people and there you go. If you look at what I want to tie this up because we got it, we got to end this. But you were talking about, you know, like things like 40 hour workweek or 10 year olds in coal mines. The reason that stuff, the 10 year olds in coal mines and the 80 hour workweek or 100 hour work week. The reason that stuff was going on is because you had people with lots of power and you didn't have entities standing up, people and entities standing up to that power. Once they did, then those people in power got knocked down a couple of pegs and the people, generally speaking, got to seek a better life and more balanced life, got to keep kids out of coal mines. We got to have a 40 hour workweek or something thereabouts where people could have off time, you know, so it requires power, concedes nothing without demand, you know, so it requires people to get together and work together to, to, to push back against the demands of power. Powerful people that appear from this stuff to be shifting more and more antisocial by virtue of the power that they, that they have attained. But we appreciate everybody for joining us on this episode of Call Like I see it. Subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it, tell us what you think, send it to a friend. Till next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:37:13] Speaker B: I'm Tunde one lineup.
[00:37:14] Speaker A: All right, we'll talk soon.
