The records that were hits at the same time as the British Invasion.

Tune in Saturday March 21st to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz

I was just having lunch with a bunch of buddies, we know each other from Jim Lewi’s Aspen conference. And it’s a free-ranging conversation, concentrating primarily on travel. Peter and Barb just took a five week trip to Asia. Nichol said she had no desire to go to Japan. And as we’re eating our ribs and burgers, it occurs to me, there’s a war going on.

The most impactful article I read in the past month, that I keep telling people about, was in the “New York Times,” how during the Second World War, life went on as normal in Germany. Of course you didn’t want to be a Jew, but assuming you were Aryan…

“Almost until the last stages of the war, when the Soviet Army conquered Berlin in a devastating battle that reduced the city to rubble, the cinemas were full, the dance revues were in full swing, the soccer competition went on, and people visited the zoo and sunbathed on the Wannsee opposite the infamous villa where the logistics of the Holocaust were worked out over glasses of brandy.”

Free link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/22/opinion/history-hope-delusion.html?unlocked_article_code=1.UlA.06Hc.H2MgIqTlyAO6&smid=url-share

This was a wake-up call. I assumed everybody was hunkered down, after all, the Allies were raining bombs down upon them and…

Life went on as normal.

Now if you read the linked piece, which I recommend, you’ll find out it has a lot to do with authoritarianism, how people are complicit, believing things will get better. And that’s interesting, but that was not what I was feeling at lunch.

What I was feeling was we were jocular, without a care in the world, and not quite halfway around the world, people not only were losing their homes, they were losing their lives.

Now when it comes to the Iran war… I’m numb. You could call it overload. From DOGE to ICE to so much more, and now there’s a war?

If you’re a boomer, you consider war anathema. We couldn’t understand it. Yes, World War II happened, before we were born, but that set the record straight. Of course there was the cold war, but that was no reason for people to lose their lives.

Yet that was what was happening, on both sides in Vietnam. We had to stand up against the Domino Theory, which proved to be completely false.

The seventies were about licking our wounds, recovering from the turmoil of the sixties.

The eighties were about an economic run-up, the boomers cashing in.

The nineties were about the fall of communism.

And the twenty first century has been about tech and income inequality.

But, for a while there, we were convinced there would be no more wars.

You’ve got to know, the boomers had nuclear paranoia. We crouched under desks to protect ourself from fallout. The bomb couldn’t be dropped. And then we were convinced it never would be…we even had SALT treaties. We felt that the stalemate would go on forever.

But the wars that did exist… It was all old school, sans nuclear bombs. But North Vietnam did introduce us to guerilla warfare, turns out big bad America could not compete with hearts and minds, that’s how strong belief systems are. And then we got Ukraine… I expected Russia to run over the country in a matter of weeks, if not days, and so did Putin. But it turns out that drones not made in sleek factories, but basements, could keep the Russians at bay.

But we still could not understand the war in Ukraine…in that in a first world country, that had come so far, that such destruction could take place. As for Russia, it has sustained 1.2 million casualties, with somewhere between 190,000 and 480,000 killed.

That’s a lot of people. Losing their lives for exactly what?

This is another thing that bugged us in the sixties, the fat cats and their children did not have to fight, it was the underclass who had no other financial options and the youth of America, that was being drafted in droves.

And the big discussion today is about the perils of social media. Well, when I was a teenager, your biggest fear was being drafted and KILLED! It could happen, to many it did.

So how did we get here, to this era of bellicosity? We truly thought this was behind us, no matter how delusional we were.

Now on 9/11 America was targeted. A good portion of the public wasn’t even alive back then, certainly not aware. But the anger and hysteria in the wake of those attacks… You see, we believed it couldn’t happen here, that we were inviolate. But then it did.

And now you’ve got Newt Gingrich saying to drop atomic bombs in Iran to win the war. And he wasn’t joking.

But this isn’t really about the war. It’s about life. I’m living a normal life.

Sure, my assets have taken a hit. As for gas… My car requires premium, but it’s nearly twenty one years old and paid for, it’s not an F-150 or giant SUV that I’m paying a grand a month for that costs a fortune to fill.

People are dying.

And, of course, when the Jews killed people in Gaza, there were mass protests on college campuses. But when thousands of protesters were killed in Iran? Crickets. Almost as bad as Trump saying “help is on its way,” and then not showing up. Yes, these people were EXECUTED!

But I’m not going to debate Trump with you. I’m not even going to thread the needle with the Israelis, other than to say whatever rationalization Netanyahu has for his actions, the consequence has been increased antisemitism, and it was already high.

But I go skiing. I talk at lunch about my bucket list. Before that we were discussing financial advisors. It’s like the rest of the world doesn’t exist. Then again, what exactly can we do?

I, for one, no longer believe in the system. The useless Democrats and the press tell us it’s all about elections…if only it were.

But, once again, I don’t want to get into the nitty-gritty, but I do want to talk about the cognitive dissonance. People are losing their lives, innocent people, and for most Americans it’s like it doesn’t even matter, if they think about it at all. Sure, it’s happening far away, but the internet has shrunk the world, we’re not as isolated as we once were.

Never mind that we all have our own news sources, and you can’t convince anyone their opinion is wrong.

Meanwhile, the goal is to create your own personal brand…

Like I said, I can’t wrap my head around the war. It’s far from static, the morning’s newspaper is already out of date. And the apps online…there’s information there, but there’s also a lot else. Like the Oscars, baseball…life is going on like normal.

Like it did in Germany in the thirties and forties.

I could ask how that turned out, but that’s not even my point.

I guess my point is that everybody’s going along with their everyday business. Planning for tomorrow like we’re still living in the nineties.

And will that continue?

Will the AI bubble burst?

There are big issues in the world, and you’ll see them being addressed, but we’re all so overwhelmed…we can’t keep tabs on everything.

So we continue to live our lives, oblivious.

It’s very weird.

Julio Santo Domingo is the founder of the Okeechobee Music & Arts Festival, which starts today, Thursday March 19th.

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/julio-santo-domingo/id1316200737?i=1000756119481

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/9d5a48a8-4b32-41c2-be73-26053a82184b/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-julio-santo-domingo

The only question left is the remedy.

Of course the jury is going to hold for the states against Live Nation. Because of the TRIFECTA!

Yup, the testimony re Barclays and the arena in Minneapolis. The Slack conversation between Live Nation employees gleefully deriding the consumer, talking about how people are so dumb they can be easily ripped-off. And today’s testimony by Michael Rapino that they didn’t allow chairs on the lawn because it affected the view and experience of other patrons and then bragging to investors about the millions made renting chairs at these same amphitheatres.

Doesn’t matter that Rapino said the number was different. It’s a bad look. If you hear all this are you really going to find for Live Nation? OF COURSE NOT!

Then again, juries are legendarily unpredictable. You truly never know what the verdict will be. But one thing is for sure, despite trials being about facts, juries run on emotion, and how can you side with Live Nation in this case? If this were a murder trial, it would be a slam dunk, Live Nation was found to have its hand in the cookie jar, making sure that cookies were expensive and no one else could provide access to the jar.

So…

The federal government and Live Nation mistreated the judge. Coming to a settlement agreement and not only not informing the magistrate but letting the trial CONTINUE! Talk about heinous. But Subramanian is fair, he agreed with Live Nation’s counsel that Rapino’s compensation should not be introduced at trial, that it was not material.

So we don’t have a rogue judge here.

But we do have a rogue government and a corporation playing into its hands.

Trump pardons people willy-nilly. One thing is for sure, you have to kiss the ring, treat him nicely. So Live Nation puts Trump crony Richard Grenell on its board, you know, the guy who ran the Kennedy Center up until just now. Grenell has never crossed Trump. Furthermore, Live Nation hired Ms. Alternative Facts, Kellyanne Conway, to lobby on its behalf. Talk about a Trump loyalist… This is all a bad look, then again, so much of what Trump has done has been a bad look. But Ticketmaster is the most hated company in America. And even MAGA people go to concerts. So will Live Nation be hurt in the long run if for some insane reason the jury sides with the company?

That’s what we want to know, we’re waiting for the other shoe to drop regarding Trump. One judge just kicked RFK, Jr.’s non-scientific vaccine policy to the curb and another brought back the VOA. Not that I’m holding my breath that the legal system will rein Trump in, but no one skates free forever. Unless they’re a dictator, maybe.

So the head person at the government’s antitrust division is excised and then a deal is made. Now let’s be clear, that’s been Live Nation’s goal all along, to make a deal, to settle. But the Biden administration wouldn’t and until very recently, neither would the Trump. Why? Because the government thought its case was just that damn good.

But having been kept out of the loop, f*cked in the ass, many of the states decided to continue the fight. A week went by, two jurors retired, but the states got it together with a new lawyer to continue the trial. Will the jurors forget the earlier testimony? I doubt it, it’s black and white.

And this new lawyer, Kessler, is more savvy than the ones he replaced. First and foremost, he knows it’s about winning the case, in court, not playing to the public. This is what was done wrong in the O.J. case… The government was so busy proving its case, ad infinitum, that everybody got bored and checked out. No, Kessler believes there’s enough evidence to deliver victory, so he’s closing it all down next week. Smart, because the  more witnesses you call, not only do you risk boring the jury, you open yourself up to contradictory opinions. Now that the jury is convinced Live Nation is guilty, don’t grandstand, don’t play to the public, be strategic, close it down while you’re winning.

So after the jury holds against Live Nation, Subramanian has to come up with a remedy. And what will that be…

Well, could be some mumbo-jumbo akin to the federal settlement, but stiffer, then again, does Live Nation have clean hands here? It broke previous consent decrees, the only way to seemingly keep the company in line is to have a trial, which is what we’re now getting. So is Subramanian going to risk this behavior and these shenanigans once again? If that happens, it reflects badly upon him.

Can there be a remedy that has no nuance, shy of a breakup, that is cut and dried, that will satisfy the states? That’s possible. But right now, it’s looking like dismemberment, detaching Ticketmaster from Live Nation.

Now all the “experts,” the inside baseball people, think this won’t happen. Because the way it normally works is… You hire attorneys who charge thousands per hour, who are not only know the government attorneys, but are much better than them. And they argue your case on the facts and you get most of what you want. The government is reluctant to have a trial, it’s expensive and unless it’s a slam dunk, they don’t want to start.

That’s how this merger was approved in the first place. Experts in law threading the needle and saying it was okay and convincing the government of such. And everything was groovy until…

Fees went up, other promoters couldn’t compete… People have bitched about concert ticket prices from time immemorial. But never has it been a topic of mainstream conversation. It was always a sideshow.

Once again, will concert ticket prices, costs of going to the show, go down dramatically as a result of a breakup of Live Nation and Ticketmaster? Absolutely not. But it will allow other players to compete on a more level playing field. And will the benefit ultimately trickle down to the public? That’s the theory.

All problems will not be solved. This trial is the music business’s worst nightmare, it doesn’t want its dirty laundry aired in public, because believe me, it’s dirty. You sign a deal for a national tour, with any promoter, and after you get your fee…don’t ask how they make a profit. Some promoters have been known to scalp their own tickets to make their money.

And I’m not going to delineate every bad action behind the scenes. But the truth is it’s a constant fight between acts and promoters. And especially today, with acts getting so much of the face price of the ticket…the promoter has to make it up somewhere.

So, once again, a separation of Live Nation and Ticketmaster will not solve all problems, nowhere close. But one thing it would be is a perceived victory by the public. In a world where citizens are screwed daily and told everything is fantastic. Does Donald Trump even go to a grocery store? And not only him… The Democrats didn’t realize there was an affordability problem until the results of the last election.

Tell me to leave Trump out of it, but I can’t. This is just one Trumpian endeavor the public can comprehend, that it has a vested interested in, that is palpable, that they believe directly affects them. War in Iran? That’s hard to wrap your head around, especially because it’s transpiring thousands of miles away. Not being able to get tickets not only for yourself, but for your kids’ favorite act, that’s emotional, that might sit with you forever… If you go you might have the experience of a lifetime, and if you don’t, you might feel left out.

So… It will be in Subramanian’s hands. And when the remedy is delivered…

You can’t appeal every decision. You must make the case there were errors. Now big corporations try this. Or they settle. But settlement didn’t seem to work here. So, there will be appeals, that could last years.

Or, Subramanian could not employ the nuclear option, and not only will the states have to pay the price, but the people too. This will leave a sour taste in their mouth. People like options, and they feel like they’ve got none, that Live Nation is lording it over them, laughing whilst making millions. Even if the company survives, it will be forever tarnished. Unlike record companies, if it does survive it won’t be superseded, the lift is too heavy, the risk is too gargantuan. And it’s Live Nation’s ownership of buildings, ownership of Ticketmaster and sponsorship, that allows them to pay acts more.

It always comes down to the acts. But the public considers the acts to be inviolate. Ticketmaster has taken the heat for the acts since its inception. But the public neither understands nor accepts that. So Live Nation has to pay. Not the acts that make your favorite tunes, the little guy against the machine.

The dirty little secret is so many of today’s acts ARE the machine!

And that hurts business.

But honesty, trustworthiness and credibility are out the window in today’s America, just look at our lying chief executive. So who pays the price? The public…and they’re mad as hell and ain’t gonna take it anymore! Even if Live Nation wins, this fight will not be over. The public will never lay down their arms and accept it. Is the judge on their side? I’d bet he is.