Gavin Newsom: Something Is Fundamentally Broken When Wages Go as Low as $7 While Elon Musk Becomes a Trillionaire

TRANSCRIPT:

NEWSOM: "Well, look, 10 percent of people own two thirds the wealth in this nation. That same 10 percent own 93 percent of the stock market. A 30-year-old today is doing worse than his or her parents for the first time in U.S. history. If that’s not a five-alarm fire, I don’t know what the hell is. We were sitting there, some of us at least, celebrating the best of Roman republic, Greek democracy on July 4th, you know, the vision of our Founding Fathers, coequal branches of government — coequal branches of government — popular sovereignty, rule of law, but I’m reminded, thinking about the Greeks, there was a guy around 50 A.D., 2000 years ago, warning the Athenians, Plutarch, he said the imbalance, the imbalance between the rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics. Think about that. 2000 years ago, he was warning the Athenians that the imbalance between the rich and the poor. And fast-forward today, the first trillionaire is minted. At the same time, we have 20 states still paying $7.25 an hour. Something’s fundamentally broken here. And that wealth, creating power, power locking in rules and regulations, locking everybody else out. You can’t play in the margins anymore. We can’t fail more efficiently."