You’ve got to be rich.

And it always comes down to who you know.

No one is willing to sacrifice anymore. Latest example? The Nevada Culinary Union. They bargained for a blue chip health care plan. Screw those who have inferior plans, or no plan at all. I’ve got mine, AND SCREW YOU!

How did it come to this? How is it that Americans drive gas-guzzling SUVs, which handle worse than cars, and are less safe than cars, and will kill those not driving SUVs, while the media excoriates electric cars, which even the auto industry admits are coming. Yes, if you follow the car business, you know that Volkswagen has doubled-down on electric vehicles. BMW cut back, and now they’re behind. And Tesla is winning not only because it’s cool, but it has the best technology, the best battery packs, the longest range! But we need to believe in the usual suspects, like GM, Ford and Chrysler, all of which have a long history of crashing after lining their pockets “giving the people what they want.”

It all comes down to marketing.

Which is how Michael Bloomberg went from zero to hero.

Because anybody with something does not want to sacrifice. Doesn’t want to be at risk of losing whatsoever.

And the media, the talking heads, the pundits, the opinion columnists, who are upper middle class if not outright rich, lobby for the status quo themselves. Because it works for them. They don’t want a renegade, they might lose their position.

But Donald Trump won by being a renegade. By talking about how the government does not work and the game is rigged.

The government has issues, but one thing’s for sure, the game is rigged.

Let’s see, all the people Trump pardoned/commuted today… It’s not like they had public defenders, it’s not like they didn’t have the right to appeal, they were convicted, fair and square, there’s a system, based on laws, and if you sacrifice the law…you’ve got chaos.

Which is what we’ve got today.

The automakers don’t want to lower fuel economy standards because they’re fearful of California. Sure, they’d like them to be brought down, but what if a Democrat wins and they’re pushed back up!

No one knows what’s gonna happen.

It is not business as usual.

But one thing is for certain, if you’re not rich, you don’t count, you have no voice.

Because they don’t want to let you have one.

Oh, they’ll let you call in to talk shows, they’ll get you fighting about secondary issues, but they won’t let you challenge the system, which is imperfect but works just fine for them.

You should watch Hasan Minhaj on obesity:

How America Is Causing Global Obesity | Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj

Americans are not fat because they’re lazy, unable to make good choices…no, they’re fat because big food wants them that way. First and foremost by the use of corn syrup, i.e. fructose, as opposed to the more expensive sugar. Got to keep those farmers voting Republican!

And as you will see in the Minhaj show, these big companies are not only fattening Americans, but Mexicans and Samoans… They get the law changed to their advantage, and they blame the consequences on YOU!

That’s today’s America, it’s your fault you’re not rich, it’s your fault you’ve got cancer.

Which brings me to last night’s John Oliver show, wherein he makes the case for Medicare for all:

Medicare for All: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Oliver goes through all the negative talking points, blows them away, and if you’re not for Medicare for all after you watch this, you’re greedy or, like members of the Culinary Union, have a blue chip policy.

But there can be no change.

But change happens. The last twenty years have been all about change. Digital disruption. It’s always outsiders with a creaky new way that is cheap and pooh-poohed that ultimately triumphs and kills what came before. Why can’t this happen in politics?

BECAUSE THOSE IN POWER DON’T WANT IT TO!

I’ll vote for any Democrat against Trump. But I must say, the DNC and the media are bending over backward to hand it to Michael Bloomberg. Today the polls came out and the stories were all about Bloomberg’s surge, when Sanders surged way ahead of the field.

Selective reporting.

It used to be different. There was the Fairness Doctrine, making sure the limited news outlets presented both sides.

And if you owned a megaphone, a newspaper, TV or radio station, you were powerful.

You’re less powerful today.

Those in power, the elite, hate technology, even though they selectively use it. I listened to NPR tonight wherein they sang the virtues of the independent bookstore, saying the digital book was neutered. But the sycophantic host even admitted he showroomed the Ron Chernow book on Ulysses S. Grant and bought the digital copy, because the physical book was just too heavy.

This is the establishment, they like it how it was, even though it’s no longer this way.

I get it if you’re a member of the Republican elite. The money and perks have always flowed upward. But the Democratic elite? They have contempt for those below them, believe they know better, spread their own disinformation in pursuit of their goals. There can be change, just as long as they don’t lose out.

And you wonder why the rank and file voted for Trump.

So it all comes down to hope. If Bloomberg is elected, we’ll get rid of the orange menace. But will the fundamental problems of this country be addressed? Of course not, because Bloomberg doesn’t even know how the hoi polloi live.

So Blagojevich broke the law. We don’t want our elected officials selling Senate seats. But we live in a country where our President can lean on Ukraine to neuter the campaign of Joe Biden, which he successfully did!

Mitt Romney did the right thing, and he was excoriated by the right, but…they still love him in Utah, because their society is built on the family and helping one another, morality.

Bernard Kerik was caught red-handed, as was Eddie DeBartolo, Jr. Commit a blue collar crime and you’re screwed, there’s a camera everywhere, you’re going up the river. But white collar crime is seen as less bad, these are good people, we don’t want to ruin their lives, like the judge said in the Stanford rape case. SO WHY DID THEY DO THIS?

That’s what you’ve got to ask. These people thought they were invulnerable, they’d been getting away with bending the rules for years, it’s just that this time they got caught. Whereas you’re lucky if you can get probation on the first offense.

So there’s a different legal system for the rich and poor. And unlike in the old days, the rich no longer worry about the optics. Trump doesn’t care how it looks, Kerik working with the Donald’s henchman Giuliani, Blagojevich appearing on “The Apprentice,” he just does what he feels like, with a vengeance, vindictively.

Susan Collins told us Trump learned a lesson…yeah, that he can do whatever he wants!

As for those who support him, it’s less about him than the tribe on the other side. They hate Democrats so much, they’ll endorse the behavior of any Republican, just ask the evangelicals.

So if you live online, you see contrary opinions.

But big media has told us it’s all cranks and their opinions don’t count. Meanwhile, Breitbart and the Daily Caller got Trump elected. Who cares about veracity, that demonstrates power.

And although the right decries authoritarianism in China, it refuses to publicize any story it doesn’t agree with, that doesn’t reinforce its position.

So, you can be an outsider, you can have the illusion of power, because you vote.

But for the first time in my life I’m starting to wonder if it matters. If we organize and come up with a contrary candidate, our own opinion, they shut us right down. Bernie Sanders is a socialist who loves Russia and will ruin the economy, after eliminating Democratic coattails.

Meanwhile, Trump is a guy who really loves Putin, and endorses/enables socialism for the rich, with low taxes, the carried interest rule, government handouts, but somehow that’s different.

It isn’t about Bernie Sanders the man, it’s about what he’s saying, telling the truth in a world where that is abhorred. The everyday person got screwed, and the playing field must be leveled, while everybody is taken care of while they get back on their feet.

But those on both the right and left say this can’t be so. Change must be gradual, and you know there can’t be change because the government is gridlocked, and you’re asking the impossible anyway.

Meanwhile, let’s hand the nomination to a billionaire who just recently was a Republican, who changed the law so he could serve a third term as mayor, who made the elites feel safe while his police force threw those less privileged up against the wall.

But that’s overlooked. Even the sexism. Because this is the guy the elites want, because he’ll just be the anti-Trump, who cares if he gets anything done.

And their plan is working. I was with three twentysomethings just now, all were Bernie fans, now they’re behind Bloomberg, the media has convinced them, they’re defeated. Even though it’s their future at risk.

So what we’ve found is despite our numbers, we ain’t got much power. Even if Bernie Sanders wins a primary, he loses. The owners of this country want it this way.

As for Michael Milken… Wasn’t he the first guy to make so much money on Wall Street? Isn’t he evidence of the basic problem? By pardoning him aren’t we endorsing this kind of behavior, especially if you employ your riches that remain for good causes?

It’s depressing. And everybody is telling us we know nothing and should do what they say. And however it plays out, they’re not gonna lose, but we are.

Meanwhile, we’re fighting each other for scraps and most have no idea how the game is really played anyway. Everybody believes they’re gonna be a successful entrepreneur, become a billionaire. Someone else did it, so why can’t they?

Because that other person had wealthy parents who gave them the best education at institutions where you can make relationships that pay dividends down the road. You never had a chance. And today, both parties are doing their best to snuff whatever light, whatever hope remains, out.

And you wonder why there’s a rash of suicides.

Tune in tomorrow, Tuesday February 18th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

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

Twitter: @lefsetz or @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive

Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: HearLefsetzLive

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app: LefsetzLive

Ask Again, Yes: A Novel

I could not put this book down.

I’m wary of recommending something you might not like. I recently finished Liz Moore’s “Long Bright River,” one of today’s hot books. It’s about sisters, one’s a cop and one’s a drug addict. And to tell you the truth, I had a hard time putting that one down too, but it just didn’t resonate the same way.

“Ask Again, Yes” is a story. Of people.

Guys don’t read this kind of book. They want non-fiction, business, they want their reading to get them ahead, to pay a dividend for their investment. And they also read genre books, you know, mysteries, thrillers, and a few are highbrow, but many are just filling the time, until you get to an unforeseen twist.

But women will read a story with no supernatural characters, no aliens, no superheroes, no tie-in to world events. You see women feel, and men have a problem with that.

OF COURSE I’M GENERALIZING! There are women who are hard-asses and men who are sensitive. But what I’m saying here is many men won’t dive into a book like this and they should, because we’re all living life, we’re all making choices, life is an endless river with twists and turns and you never know when the water will rush, or run out, or you’ll enter rapids unprepared.

The husbands are cops.

But this is not a cop story.

And there’s an incident, but the entire book does not hang on that.

Do you fall into a career, or do you choose it?

Do you buy a house and have kids before you’re truly ready?

Does your betrothed stand up for you?

Is love forever?

Are you principled, or do you have a wandering eye?

Are you a good person, but flawed?

All these questions are asked and more.

Do you have expectations for your kids? What if they don’t take the road you want them to? And how important is money? And as life goes by do you realize how much you’re missing and will never experience, and do you care?

The characters could be more developed.

But you don’t have the endless scene-setting and description of the highbrow “literature.” First and foremost a book must be readable, and too many highfalutin’ writers break this rule, so their work is immediately compromised, but not Mary Beth Keane.

And you may not see yourself in the book, but maybe you will. Especially if you grew up in the suburbs.

And life happens and stuff gets thrown at you that you had nothing to do with, and you’ve got no choice but to soldier on.

Reading is a private endeavor. Antithetical to today’s internet, show-off environment. It’s just you and the book. You delve into a world. You may be walking around the neighborhood, at work, but part of you is still in the headspace of the novel, and you can’t wait to get back there.

There’s no big lesson when the book ends. There’s not even a slam-bang, unexpected ending.

In a world where everyone lauds comic books, as if guys should get credit for reading them…

In a world where everybody goes lowbrow and bristles if you say their behavior is in the gutter…

Where you’re wary of acting like you’re better than someone else (I’m not talking about the wannabe bozos online, just the people you come in contact with each and every day)…

The truth is we’re all just trying to figure it out, we’re all the same, despite the totems. At heart we’re animals, with feelings. Sometimes we bury them, we’re afraid of being judged. But when you read a good book your life opens up, you feel free, connected, inspired…you know that you are not alone. And isn’t that the purpose of art?

P.S. This is not a rare book. It was a hit over the spring and summer. But I just picked it up.

P.P.S. I read a physical copy, boy is that a pain in the ass. I’ve got to turn on the lights, which ruins the nighttime mood. Yes, I read in the dark, it enhances the experience. And the typeface was too small. On a Kindle, you can adjust it. But the antiquities who run the book business like it this way, they love that they killed the Kindle book. Come on, click on the link above, the hardcover is a dollar and sixty cents cheaper than the digital edition, which required no printing, no shipping and no return. The book business should have learned the lessons of the record business…everybody thinks their business is different, but it’s not.

Break Shot: My First 21 Years: An Audio Memoir

It’s free.

The fifties and sixties are already fading into the rearview mirror. Kinda like the radio days, before TV, Woody Allen made a movie, but they’re disappearing along with the Greatest Generation.

And it won’t be long before the baby boomers are history and no one will really know what it was like to grow up before the internet, before you could reach everybody instantly from the palm of your hand, when no one got lost, when you stayed in touch and knew what was going on with every person you ever met.

It was boring.

Our parents lived through the Great Depression. And the war. They knew what it was like to lose everything, so they paid cash and did not live large. Seemingly everybody in the suburbs lived in a newly-constructed house, where a mom who didn’t work didn’t drive an SUV but a station wagon, and the emphasis was on integrating yourself into the group. Almost no one was famous, there was almost no way to become famous, we all lived in our own little burgs. And if we were just a bit off-kilter, just a little bit different, we were lost outsiders, there was no online group to make us feel at home.

And most music came from the radio. People owned few records, which they knew by heart, and then the Beatles came along and created a whole new paradigm, one heretofore unknown, wherein you could become internationally famous and rich seemingly overnight, and not just release pabulum written by others, never forget the Beatles wrote their own songs, and this was important.

So James Taylor’s dad was a doctor. The family started in Massachusetts and then moved to North Carolina. Where did this leave James?

These were not today’s dads. Friends to the kids, doing the diaper-changing and the dishes. No, our dads were locked up, not emotional, and they went to work and brought home the bacon and you did not want to be ungrateful.

And sure, there were poor people. But there was a strong middle class. The bills were paid, and suddenly the progeny could be thinking about distant horizons, developing themselves, getting lost, becoming all they wanted to be.

JT’s mother took him to Broadway plays.

You see our parents wanted to educate us in the arts. They exposed us to so much. And we all listened to the Original Cast Recordings. They played “Oklahoma” in James’s house, they played it in mine.

And then James got lost.

His dad went to Antarctica for two years and came back a changed man. James was shipped off to boarding school.

And then he sank.

And he credits this sinking and his subsequent institutionalization with removing the pressure to fulfill his parents’ desires, become a doctor or a lawyer, live the safe life, at least in terms of work.

That’s what we heard from day one. That we were going to college and becoming a doctor or a lawyer. You had to become a professional. To give yourself a leg up. I did not grow up with any lapsed lawyers, but almost all of the attorneys I know in California no longer practice, they’re members of the bar, but sitting behind a desk cleaning up and annotating others’ lives, going to court, that’s anathema.

Today you become an entrepreneur, work on Wall Street.

No one I knew started a business. As for working on Wall Street…it wasn’t that lucrative back then, and it was seen as selling out.

But you could become a musician.

Everybody was a musician, everybody took piano and guitar lessons. People formed bands, whipped out their guitars at parties for singalongs. It was the equivalent of Instagram or TikTok, but it was up close and personal, there was no digital creation, it was all analog.

This is the best part of “Break Shot.” It brings you back to those days, it sets your mind a-wanderin’, remembering when, recalling feelings and events you haven’t thought of in years. The audiobook creates a mood. Outside the regular world. You cannot multitask, cannot watch TV and listen, although I guess you could surf the web. But that would detract from the exquisite experience, of being up close and personal with the creator, the man who wrote those songs you know by heart.

And this isn’t about hero worship.

And James admits he grew up in an upper middle class environment, even went to Europe in high school, but the more you listen you realize he’s really no different from you and me. Shuffling along with more questions than answers.

And like my dad, his dad Ike was good in a crisis. You didn’t want to bother them with your everyday emotions, but when Ike heard the desperation and loss in his son’s voice, he told him to stay put and he’d be there soon. Ike drove to NYC and took James back to North Carolina to kick heroin.

You see those people who fit in don’t need drugs.

But the dirty little secret is very few of us fit in. And stunningly, we feel most connected when we hear a musician sing our lives in their songs.

Now there isn’t much that isn’t public knowledge in this book. And I don’t want to reveal what you may not know.

And at first you’ll be thrown off guard, because James is quite definitely reading, he’s a bit stilted.

But when he stops and picks up his guitar…

And to tell you the truth, I could listen to this book all over again, but in a much deeper edition. I want to hear more of the story of Suzanne. The woman who inspired “Carolina In My Mind.”

More about James’s love affairs, more about rattling around in Martha’s Vineyard.

But most musical biographies are written at a distance, with attitude, you read the story, but you don’t feel it, you don’t get the sense you know the author.

But you definitely get the sense you know James Taylor as you listen to this.

So is this a new art form?

I never listen to audiobooks.

I certainly hate the abridged editions, and I like to create the pictures, the voices in my head. I remember when the Peanuts characters appeared on TV, their voices were completely different from the ones I had in my mind. To a degree, it ruined it for me.

But you cannot hear music in a book, even if it includes a playlist. When James tells the story of being at the first Rock in Rio, playing to 300,000, revealing it took ten hours to get back to the hotel, and then you hear “Only A Dream In Rio,” you too are wowed.

This is the studio version, but a lot of the material is cut just for the book.

And you realize songs are inspired by life. Every song has a story. They do not come out of thin air. Some were written in mental hospitals. It’s a need to express yourself more than a need to become rich and famous. Although James does say it only truly works if you connect with the listener, evoke feelings and thoughts in their brains.

Now I played “Carolina In My Mind” every morning in the spring of my senior year of high school. The world was coming alive, and the song inspired me, even though at the time I hadn’t been to Carolina, that would take decades.

And “Something In The Way She Moves” was so personal, you could see through James’s eyes, but also your own.

And both of those were on the original Apple album “James Taylor,” which has been lost to history. Oh, you can now stream it, it resurfaced in the CD era, it’s just that the original versions of these songs are not the ones you know now, but the remakes, from the Warner Brothers “Greatest Hits” album.

And then came “Sweet Baby James”…

I went to see James at the Capitol Theatre and there were only about a hundred and fifty people there.

A few months later you couldn’t get a ticket.

And it wasn’t hype, it was a need to get closer to humanity.

And this was an era where you could own James Taylor and Led Zeppelin, our tastes were not so narrow.

And James tells the story of “Suite For 20 G” and then it’s over. “Break Shot” stops at this point.

But James carried on.

Many did not, they were bitten by the drugs, they didn’t fit into the era of greed which started in the eighties. Surviving is the hardest part. You can die and become a legend, but you won’t even know that!

So if you’ve ever run that road from Stockbridge to Boston, if you’ve ever seen the snow on the Berkshires, if you’ve ever driven on a gray day with the heat on and a cassette in the dashboard radio…

You’ll know what James Taylor is talking about. It will resonate. You’ll feel warm and connected. You’ll know what has been buried is still there. The victories and the losses. It’s the music that carries us through.

And James Taylor wrote a lot of that music.