Bands named for a person in the group who is not the lead singer.

Tune in tomorrow, April 19th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863

Twitter: @lefsetz or @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive

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“Freezing Order: A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin’s Wrath”: https://amzn.to/37qxft7

How can I get you to read this book?

I was hanging with a 17 year old yesterday. He spends two hours a day on TikTok, an hour on Snapchat, and almost never watches streaming television. There are so many diversions today, how do you get someone to sit down and read a book?

It’s really hard. Somewhere along the line reading got a bad rep. If you read you’re a nerd. But reading is how you get the most accurate, deepest understanding of the subject matter. The network news, which almost no one watches anymore anyway, wouldn’t even cover the front page of the “New York Times.” There’s not that much there. But in the newspaper, in books, there’s a wealth of information.

Then again, too many have been recommended loser books. This is a problem with music too. People recommend what they like, they don’t think about what the person they’re recommending the record to likes. It’s got to be easy, it’s got to cut like butter, it has to be enticing.

That’s “Red Notice.”

I wrote about it here: https://bit.ly/38O6grF

That was six years ago. But what is discussed in “Red Notice” has only gotten worse.

To make a long story short, Bill Browder ran a hedge fund in Russia and then Russia said it didn’t pay $230 million in taxes when in truth it had and the Russian government operatives stole it. In the process, the hedge fund’s lawyer lost his life and ever since Browder has been traveling the world to try and get the Magnitsky Act passed (Magnitsky is the name of the deceased attorney).

The Magnitsky Act denies entrance into the country of human rights offenders and allows the government to freeze their assets. You might have read the opinion piece in yesterday’s “New York Times”: “Don’t Freeze Russia’s Reserves. Liquidate Them.” Online, the article is entitled: “$100 Billion. Russia’s Treasure in the U.S. Should Be Turned Against Putin”: https://nyti.ms/383w3vu

That’s right, Russian oligarchs have $100 billion parked in the U.S., and a great percentage of that is Putin’s! You think the seizing of assets is a foreign issue, the yachts in the Mediterranean. But right here we’ve got a problem, and almost no one seems to be aware of it.

That’s what “Freezing Order” is about. It’s about Bill Browder’s tracking of the stolen $230 million and his effort to hold the offenders to account. Oh, it’s also about Putin’s mission to extradite Browder and put him in jail.

So “Freezing Order” starts off riveting, your eyes will bug out, but as it wears on it’s mostly a cat and mouse game, along with Browder’s emotions. Meaning it’s not quite as good as “Red Notice,” but the content will blow your mind. It will horrify you. It will have you questioning your beliefs. You’ll wonder whether it can happen here. Even though to a great degree it already has.

Here’s the bottom line. Putin and his buddies have raped Russia financially. And they don’t want anybody questioning their behavior. Putin is in bed with the Russian Mafia. And if you get in the way of their efforts, usually you die. That’s right, one witness after another is killed. They fall off a building or are hit by a car. There is no law when it comes to Putin. Nothing he says is trustworthy. And he’s got a personal vendetta against Browder, he told Trump that he’d exchange twelve Russian offenders for Bill. And what did Trump say? “I think that’s an incredible offer.” That’s a quote. Literally.

So Browder is freaking out. The President of the United States says he’ll trade him to Putin for twelve Russians convicted in the U.S. in absentia.

And this brings up two issues. Why does Putin have such a bug up his rear end about Browder? Mainly, he wants the Magnitsky Act gone, he doesn’t want his overseas assets frozen.

As for Trump? It appears he had no idea who Browder was, never mind throwing him to the wolves without looking at the facts of the case.

That’s right, Browder says one thing and Putin says another. But when you read this book you’ll realize NOTHING Putin says is trustworthy, NOTHING! I mean we’re used to the U.S., where there’s at least some accountability. There is none in Russia. And everybody’s working for Putin, despite what they say. The “independent” lawyer who met with Trump, Jr? She was working for Putin.

But it’s even worse than what I’ve said here. Much worse. It’s all in “Freezing Order,” but a small sliver of Americans will ever read it.

Browder is constantly under the gun, so he uses the media to get his message out. And it takes all day! Because to reach everybody in the U.S., you’ve got to be on numerous TV channels, and in print, and you still don’t reach most of the people. We live in a Tower of Babel society where too often might makes right.

I mean you can believe what Putin says. You can take it at face value. There are commentators and elected officials who do. But if they read these books they’d change their minds instantly. INSTANTLY! Unless they were on the take. Yeah, that’s how you get rich in politics, you take the money. Everybody is about taking the money today. Musicians are some of the worst offenders. No one can say no, no one can stand up for what is right. They’ll associate with a pariah for the perks. Oh, you’ll put me on the private jet and fly me to the island and… Then they own you.

This guy is twenty times worse than you ever imagined.

So your homework tonight is to buy “Red Notice” and “Freezing Order” and read them. I guarantee you the former will rival any streaming drama, and it’s true! And the latter puts the brain dead police procedurals on network TV in their place, i.e. the dumper.

These are not hard reads. If it takes you more than a week to read both…you probably don’t know how to read. Your eyes will bug out, you’ll tell everybody you know about the books and what they contain. You’ll feel educated, in a world where those with no experience, no firsthand knowledge, bloviate, and it’s accepted as the truth.

Sure, it’s pretty horrifying watching the images from Ukraine. But you need to go to the source, the man pulling the levers, and that’s Vladimir Putin. And Bill Browder has more experience with Putin than just about anybody. He’s been talking, but not enough people are listening.

If you read these books you’ll know more about what’s happening in Russia than not only the people in your neighborhood, but many on TV! All you have to do is read them.

You can download them to your electronic device instantly! But too many Luddites insist books must be on paper. No, it’s information and it doesn’t matter how you consume it, as long as you do.

These are the most important books on the market now… READ THEM!

Chris Stein is the co-founder and guitarist and songwriter for the band Blondie. Chris talks about growing up in Brooklyn, school, trips to San Francisco, Andy Warhol and drugs, as well as Blondie’s career. Listen to an intellectual tell the story of the New York scene.

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/14157059-34dc-4de3-a6ac-d5c5028f1f78/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-chris-stein

https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/episode/chris-stein-202365793

People have too much money.

This is what happens when belief in the American Dream runs amok.

The American Dream is dead, statistically your odds of moving up the economic food chain are higher in Europe than they are in the United States. But a disinformation campaign by the rich, those in control of our country, has kept the dream alive so the underclasses won’t revolt. So you hope you can make it, you believe you can make it, and if you work that hard to make it you don’t want to be taxed. But the end result is you don’t make it and those with wealth, often continuing through generations, keep it.

But it gets worse. A lot of the rich are tied to multinational companies, and as a result don’t pay the low taxes they should, i.e. they hide their revenue abroad. Ever hear of the Panama Papers? Read Bill Browder’s new book, the Russian oligarchs moved all their money to “neutral” Switzerland. But it’s not only Switzerland, it’s Cyprus and the Bahamas and… If you’ve got a lot of money you can afford to come up with schemes to avoid taxes, parking your cash in places where it oftentimes can’t be found, and if it is your army of lawyers will keep the government at bay possibly indefinitely. Even U2 takes advantage of tax schemes, parking their money in the Netherlands. You don’t want to give back to Ireland, the country that bred and supported you, made you who you are.

There’s a fiction that the rich make this money independently. This could not be further from the truth. If people stop buying Teslas, Elon Musk’s fortune rapidly decreases. And SpaceX is supported by the government and the companies which employ it to launch satellites.

But it gets even worse. Musk thinks he’s more powerful than the government, that he’s immune. Yes, he was supposed to file with the SEC when he purchased a certain amount of Twitter stock but he didn’t. He has a long history of making deals with the government and then breaking them and/or asking for relief.

As for Twitter… Sure, every company can be improved. But do we really want one guy in charge of an enterprise deciding what to do? it’s one thing if you built the company, it’s quite another if you go around buying and changing companies on a whim, because you’re so damn rich.

Best/worst example being Peter Thiel and Gawker. He put the company out of business because it outed him as gay. Thiel did it by funding Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit. When you’re a billionaire there’s more than one way to skin a cat.

And when it comes to the government… It’s controlled by the rich. Because they are the ones with money. There was a big exposé of this in the paper recently but people don’t know it, they’re too busy worrying about hip-hop beefs and enjoying rooting for the team on Fox News. They don’t want you to know the truth, you might get angry, you might revolt.

Rupert Murdoch, an Australian citizen, comes to the U.S. becomes an American citizen and lobbies for the rule limiting TV station ownership to be changed. You don’t even have any change in your pocket!

They keep saying it can’t happen here. But Trump evidences that authoritarianism is at our doorstep. It can happen here, and it seems to be happening, look at the changes in voting laws, never mind the evisceration of abortion rights.

It all comes down to money. Fat cats. Not only the Kochs, but hedge fund money too. The names are out there, but they rarely get traction. The biggest scapegoat is George Soros while Elon Musk takes action in plain sight and gets away with it.

I don’t want to live in a country where billionaires can change the course of history on a whim.

I don’t want to live in a country where you can work for an established company and make fifty or a hundred million a year or more. It’s one thing if you start it, but why should you get paid this kind of cash if you’re just managing it? There are a zillion offenders, even Tim Apple. Cook is running what Jobs built, the true innovation is in the rearview mirror, but when his tenure at Apple is done he’ll be a billionaire. And Cook’s name is one you know, there are many more which you don’t.

And it’s an insiders club. They sit on each others boards and grant these paydays and they lobby the government to approve their behavior. As for the government, the financial industry crashes the government and they don’t get penalized, they get rewarded! They’re given money to keep the country afloat. No one goes to jail, no one pays a price, which has these wankers believing they’re immune. Which to a great degree they are, unlike you.

And you are whipsawed by their whims.

And then there’s the b.s. that the poor don’t pay taxes. They may not pay income taxes, but they’re paying a slew of taxes every day, and they have to spend all of their income to stay alive, whereas the rich do not.

So Putin is waging a war against Ukraine nearly with impunity. It’s on the front page of every newspaper, it’s on cable TV, but it’s remote, you’re focused on what’s in front of your face and there’s nothing you, or to a great deal anybody, can do about it. Everybody’s afraid of causing a nuclear conflagration. So Putin’s troops commit war crimes, what happened in Bucha is horrifying, but the experts believe he will skate.

And they cracked down on the Russian oligarchs. Who might have stolen their assets, Putin being complicit, but somehow the rest of the world’s oligarchs are immune. They’re buying big yachts, they’re flaunting their wealth, they’re nearly untouchable.

Musk is a madman. Intelligent, yes. Responsible for successes, yes. But look at the actions in his personal life. The multiple marriages, the multiple kids. The statements on Twitter. Is this who we want in charge?

OF COURSE NOT!

And his goal is free speech on Twitter… I.e. no penalties for himself and the allowance of disinformation on the site, like allowing Trump back on. We need guardrails in society. We need limits. We need laws. We can’t have free-for-alls.

This has got to stop.

But it won’t. Because these same people are in control and don’t want to give up power. Talk to anybody with a buck and they’ll say they need to pay fewer taxes, that they earned the money and they deserve to keep it and the government wastes it. Well, once again, they didn’t earn it in a vacuum. And if you think you want to live in a country without laws…,you don’t. You like the laws, you like to be protected, you like having the police.

But they can’t even nail Trump, Congress is afraid of the backlash and in New York City the new DA whittled down the case and those responsible for the prosecution left their jobs. It’s always the same, the people invading the Capitol on 1/6…they’re going to jail, thank god, but the big people, those in charge, they’re getting away scot-free. Just like Wall Street in 2008.

People will wake up. When it’s too late. When their freedom is compromised. It’s like boiling a lobster, you don’t realize you’re being cooked until it’s too late.