The American Trucking Industry Runs On Exploitation — Here’s The Proof | Candace Ep 196

pop quiz what year did the United  States of America abolish slavery. you might have answered 1865 but are you  sure about that because today we're going. to talk about the modern mask of slavery  in America and the indentured servitude. that is creeping into more and more of  our biggest industries and trapping more. and more of us while the rich just keep  getting richer welcome back to Candace.

in The Secret Life of Groceries Benjamin Lord  does a profile on a trucker that he rode with. for a week while he was trying to learn about the  shipping and logistics that go into our groceries. and it is shocking and last time I covered a  story from this book and it involved a lot of. reading in order to contextualize the character  of Tunin who was a slave labor in the shrimp. industry in Thailand this time I won't do as much  direct reading but rather mix together quotations.

and summary to convey just how absolutely insane  and messed up the world of longhaul trucking is. and similar to the last story this one's going  to start out seemingly somewhat mundane and by. the end of it you'll be rethinking your entire  perception of America the grocery store and every. single product that you buy because it turns out  our American way of life isn't just dependent on. brutal slave labor in faraway places like Thailand  or India more and more Americans are slipping.

deeper into what can only be called indentured  servitude and bordering on outright slavery as. well and truckers are a vast and underappreciated  lot so first of all understand that everything. everything in your life comes to you on a truck  from the big appliances of our lives to the. smallest bite of food every single staple butter  knife copper wire or ceramic mug comes via a truck.

if you build it yourself the parts you use for  building arrived on a truck if you grow it the. seeds organic fertilizer and bailing wire for  your compost bin arrived that way too trucking. as an industry is gargantuan in America 10.7  billion tons of freight are moved per year that. breaks down to 54 million tons a day or 350 lbs  of freight per man woman and child moving around. this country every single day today to support  our modern American lifestyle 350 lb of stuff.

got moved from one place to another in our supply  chain just for you plus another 350 lb for me plus. 350 lb for Candace and another 350 lb for Baby  Roman every single day trucking is the most common. form of employment in the majority of American  states with more than 12.6 million commercial. drivers circulating our highways that is almost 5%  of adults in America working in trucking without.

trucking life in America ceases they are like our  nation's circulatory system bringing everything. that is needed where it is needed when it is  needed and the industry es and flows with minute. shifts in our economy or our taste for the holiday  season and yet it's also one of the most dangerous. jobs right up there with deep sea fishermen and  timber cutters trucking has the highest numbers. of deaths per year of any job in The Secret Life  of Groceries Lore writes quote "The trucker is.

constantly on edge recalculating braking distance  based on the load expecting and then reacting. to major equipment failure tensing up at the  slightest precipitation in a manner that simply. has no analog in the modern car runaway ramps are  meaningful lifelines shifting into the wrong lane. merging onto any and every off-ramp a momentary  lack of caution or just for half a second treating. your truck like a regular car will lead to death  lynn Riyles the trucker that he's profiling says.

quote "In a car your blind spot might be a  few feet mine is 53 ft." Lore lived in the. cab with Lynn Riyles for a week and he describes  one load in particular just any old average trip. from somewhere to somewhere else but indicative  of the shape of Lynn's life and at the end of the. trip they arrive at an Aldi distribution center  this trip was dairy starting in Charlotte North. Carolina and was 1,50 m stopping at three  different distribution centers for this trip.

Lynn was paid $1,231 gross or $116 per mile which  is pretty decent for a brokered load apparently. on top of that she was also paid $368.50 for fuel  which doesn't cover the fuel but all told for 2 or. 3 days work it doesn't sound so bad right well as  Laura puts it that's the lure but here's the hook. the deductions right off the top Cargill who she  drives for takes 28% of her gross pay and 10% of.

her fuel pay for the privilege of driving in their  fleet then the $300 weekly fee for leasing her. truck she still owes last week's truck payment too  because it was a slow week so it was double this. week then she has to pay the guys who unload her  truck as well there's also a mandatory cleaning. fee out of pocket um maybe a couple hundred more  bucks then there are the fixed costs that are due. each month and year lynn pays taxes per mile  per state and needs to pay an accountant to. handle the complexity of all that not a choice  for her as Cargill requires it they also require.

her to retain a lawyer to handle billing disputes  then insurance also mandatory with their approved. insurer then maintenance on her truck which  she doesn't own which lore points out when. you drive 12,000 m a month in a big rig it's  a whole different thing than for a regular car. then she has to pay into an escrow account called  her security which once again she is contractually. obligated to fill despite the fact that it is held  by the trucking company in case she ever decides.

to quit on her lease to own agreement and lastly  there are lots of other little fees like food cell. phone GPS and other electronic devices that she  is required by her carrier to use etc and then. there's risks outside of her control like the week  before this book was written when a newbie trucker. accidentally backed into her and then sped off  to avoid liability it's just one example lynn was. left with the insurance claim for the damage and  no one on the other end of it there's a saying in. trucking the open road is unpredictable in almost  every way except one the longer you're on it the.

more certain something costly will happen a hit  and run might be rare but it's just one risk among. thousands trailer brakes failing tires blowing  reefer lines freezing collectively these risks. become inevitable and in the case of this hit and  run the damage was minor and so her deductible. didn't even cover it and she had to pay out of  pocket lynn said quote "If I need a repair done. and I actually have the money I just pay for it."  But that is never the case instead I got to get.

approval then I got to get a loan then they charge  extra fees for the loan and then I have to use. their garage to get it fixed plus the whole time  she's doing that she's grounded with no income and. so a tiny accident can easily become a slippery  slope into complete financial ruin lynn estimates. that she grossed $200,000 last year and that she  took home less than $17,000 and she is a 14-year. veteran driver who knows her industry inside and  out lives in her truck and stays out on the road.

3 weeks at a time she works more than 70 hours a  week in a state of constant vigilance sleeping in. four or 5 hour bursts and waking up for 3:30 a.m  jobs she didn't see her mother for 2 years because. she didn't have the time off and couldn't get  loads that lined up with her mother's location. and lore points out that that $17,000 figure is  a number likely inflated by pride in the week he. spends with her Lynn receives a weekly paycheck  for just $100 which is what she received the week.

before and the week before that quote "It's in my  contract." Lynn says "No matter how many expenses. I have I always have the right to a check for  $100 so that is what I usually get i've gotten. pretty good at knowing how to stretch it." That is  nothing laura estimates that in the week he spent. with her she netted something closer to negative  150 after factoring in her cell phone bill.

unanticipated repair and just the food she has to  eat one night he overhears her on the phone asking. for a cash advance from her future $100 paycheck  so she can afford to eat dinner that night the. next morning Lynn turns to him and says "I think  I can get back in the black maybe another 3 or. 4 weeks of this." And it is completely unclear to  him what she means cuz she's losing money another. three or four weeks like this and she will be even  deeper in debt further beholden to cargo quote "Or. I could just run into a ladder on the interstate  that tears my brake lines," she says to complete.

what they are both thinking lynn like most  truckers is homeless sleeping exclusively in the. cab of a truck which she does not own and almost  certainly never will and she'll almost certainly. lose it when she can no longer make her payments  her credit is shot her health is destroyed. she can't eat most food because she lost all her  teeth and her new dentures are not properly fitted. so it hurts to chew her obsession with Pepsi for  calories shifts in Benjamin's awareness into just.

absolute sadness when he learns this and all that  despite the fact that she's extremely good at her. job hypervigilant on the road and extremely  hardworking a team player who never once in. Benjamin's presence complained about any task  or hardship or even her whole lot in life these. things he points out are not unrelated that's Lynn  Riiles one very experienced trucker with more than. a decade on the road still working to pay off her  truck which is more like her prison than her form.

of employment but now that you have some texture  for what life is like behind the wheel the real. darkness in the truck industry becomes apparent  when you zoom out if you hadn't picked up on it. yet debt is the weapon used to shackle drivers to  these trucks and to their contracts and hope is. the lure that keeps them on the line trucking  recruiters frequently recruit from homeless. shelters soup kitchens recovery wards and prison  work release programs truckers also frequently.

come from minimum wage retail or construction or  from serving in the military overseas recruiters. promise guaranteed jobs big pay no experience  required you'll get a free one-way bus ticket free. hotel and food during your orientation but then  on the fourth day or so you're given a contract. to sign and then you're officially a student  driver and you suddenly have all the student. debt to prove it then they have a new enticing  offer after you signed your contract for school. and debt of course you could be an owner operator  not just an employee you can get your own truck.

and be the master of your own destiny you don't  have to pay a single scent upfront that's how. they get you they force you to take on a literal  truckload of debt which is to be taken out of your. future paychecks plus interest until you pay it  off which almost no one ever does instead you get. thrown into an impossible industry where you work  insane hours under high pressure and serious risk. of death all just to earn your minimum which you  quickly learn is $100 a week assuming you don't.

spend it on food if at any point you realize that  this isn't your cup of tea no problem because then. you realize that that contract you signed yeah  none of this was free it was all on debt and now. if you want to walk away that debt is coming with  you turnover in the trucking industry is insane. over the last decade industry turnover has ranged  from 95 to 112% it's hard to graph what that.

actually even means turnover at a competitive law  firm is 17% turnover at Starbucks is around 65%. 100% turnover in the trucking industry means that  every single member of any given fleet either quit. or was fired and successfully replaced that year  but trucking is not a declining industry it's not. shrinking it's growing aggressively all while  this is happening because as with every other.

industry just like in the private equity playbook  trucking has figured out how to not just make. humans replaceable but how to actually profit  off of their replacement first they recruit. dishonestly convincing people to take out lines  of credit for the opportunity and then they pay. them the lowest possible wages or training wages  while simultaneously unlocking a critical new. superpower they can force you to drive in pairs  and when you're driving in pairs you are not.

bound by law to take the same number of breaks  to stop to sleep like a solo driver would be. suddenly trips can be completed in far less time  and drivers work for far lower pay lynn who we met. at the beginning of this episode she was making a  little over a dollar per mile which is still left. her broke and destitute at the end of a 70hour  work week on the road nonstop student drivers. frequently are paid wages as low as 12 cents per  mile you could hire almost 10 student drivers for.

the price of Lynn's starvation wages even driving  in teams that's four or five times as many trucks. on the road student drivers are the cash cow that  the modern trucking industry lives off of trucker. Desire Wood said in the book quote "There is so  much money in students they work so cheap 12 to 13. cents a mile it pays for the entire system and a  lot of these trainers have been driving less than. six months themselves she goes on to say "This is  not far from sharecropping it's debt bondage it's.

sharecropping where instead of the field they  are tenants on wheels." So that's one side of. the story a side most Americans don't know about  but now I want to take it to a conversation Tucker. Carlson and Ben Shapiro had about six years ago to  voice another side of the story so we can really. grasp the whole complexity of this issue you talk  in the in the book about technology and how it's.

shifting and taking away jobs from folks and you  make specific reference to truck driving and the. fact that there are going to these automated  cars on the roads so would you Tucker Carlson. be in favor of restrictions on the ability of  trucking companies to use this sort of technology. specifically to you know sort of artificially  maintain the number of jobs that are available in. the trucking industry are you joking in a second  in a second in other words if I were president. when I say to DOT Department of Transportation  we're not letting driverless trucks on the road. period why really simple driving for a living  is the single most common job for high school.

educated men in this country in all 50 states by  the way that's the same group whose wages have. gone down by 11% over the past 30 years the social  cost of eliminating their jobs in a 10ear span. 5ear span 30 years span is so high that it's not  sustainable so the greater good is protecting your. citizens and he's not wrong tucker has a great  point i used to hold the same view and in.

some ways I still do because already driverless  semi-truckss are on the highways of America and. it's only a matter of years before this industry  one of the largest sectors of employment in. America is largely replaced by robots and AI but  Tucker uses a phrase that I want to highlight he. said decent people living happy lives and if that  were still true I would completely agree and that. used to be true but as progress has marched  on prices have ground down and margins have.

slimmed more and more of this massive industry  is preying on these largely high school educated. people that are for lack of a better phrase  extremely vulnerable to exploitation and they. wind up where we left off with Deserie Woods  saying quote "This is not far from sharecropping. it's debt bondage it's sharecropping where  instead of the field they are tenants on wheels. and listen I don't know the solution i don't  know what to make of it all but at least now.

I have a little more compassion for truckers on  the road and now that I know that what they go. through I find myself giving them more space to  do their job on the road and just a little more. patient when I'm waiting behind an 18-wheeler  in the passing lane these are the men and women. that make the world work and they've got a  pretty rough go of things and speaking of. sharecropping next we'll talk about plantations  that operate today as prison labor camps eerily.

similar to their slavemaster roots but first I  want to take a minute to tell you about ground. news let's be honest the media is not here  to inform you anymore it's here to steer you. to bury inconvenient facts distort headlines and  promote whatever narrative keeps the power where. it is that's why I don't trust a single outlet  to tell me the truth i use ground news because. I want to see what's really going on not just  what the media wants me to believe ground News. is an independent platform that brings together  news coverage from across the political spectrum.

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that we've talked about sharecropping on wheels  let's talk about the slaves that still work the. plantations to this day a lot of people don't know  that the 13th Amendment which abolished slavery. in the United States didn't actually abolish  slavery it just put one very simple condition. on the practice in the very first line it says  quote "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude.

except as a punishment for crime whereof the party  shall have been duly convicted shall exist within. the United States or any place subject to their  jurisdiction." And so we get the prison industrial. complex some prisons sit literally on the land  of former plantations and their fields are still. worked by a slave population to this day which  is predominantly composed of black Americans. and although many people have contributed to  this modern slavery and the racial bias of its.

selection process perhaps no one has contributed  more to it than this man Joseph R biden in 1986. Joe Biden authored and championed the Anti-Drug  Abuse Act which among other things imposed. extremely harsh penalties on crack cocaine use  versus powdered cocaine the penalties for crack. cocaine were 100 times stricter than for regular  powdered cocaine so the minimum sentencing was.

5 years for 5 g of crack or 5 years for 500 g of  powdered cocaine you might notice in the snippet. from the New York Times here that it says this  was an amendment to the 1984 minimum sentencing. bill joe Biden championed that bill too in fact  all throughout the 70s and 80s Joe Biden was at. the front of the charge to expand the power of  the prison system and he authored numerous acts. to expand prison populations that were written in  ways that clearly skewed towards black Americans i.

probably don't need to remind you that it was our  own CIA that was flooding poor black neighborhoods. with crack cocaine at the time and so from 1973  when these laws started passing and prisons. started expanding until 2009 when this trend  peaked the imprisonment rate in America increased. 7fold we went from just a couple hundred,000  people in prison to over 1.5 million except by. some data sets it's over 2 million and has been  since 2005 depending on who you trust when you.

look up official Department of Justice fact sheets  though they conveniently show the data going back. just to 2009 when prison populations had peaked so  it looks in this graph like prison populations are. decreasing what a convenient way to present it you  see they just show this last little decrease at. the end there highlighted in pink pay no attention  to Joe Biden's legacy the Sentencing Project. reports that one in five black men born in the  year 2001 is likely to be imprisoned at some point.

in their lifetime black Americans account for  nearly seven out of 10 people in American prisons. biden actually went out of his way as a Democrat  senator to reach across the aisle and ally with. segregationist Republican senators to pass these  bills throughout the late 70s the 80s and the '90s. in 2013 Biden boasted on the Senate floor that  quote "Every major crime bill since 1976 that's. come out of this Congress every minor crime bill  has had the name of the Democratic senator from.

the state of Delaware Joe Biden." And so now for  every 100,000 black adults in America 1,196 are in. prison the rate for white people is 229 you know  this is a liberal publication too because they. say Latin X a term that no Latino person has ever  used literally their entire language is gendered. but whole sidetrack it's also worth noting that  almost half of federal prison inmates are there.

because of drug charges a fact they have the war  on drugs and Joe Biden's crime bills to thank for. only 21% are in prison for weapons related charges  and just 7.3% for violent crimes now this problem. is incredibly complex and multiaceted and all  too often people don't want to account for all. of these different factors that are contributing  the justice system has been designed to target and. more severely punish black people also black  culture has been infested by music celebrity.

and gang culture that glamorizes criminality  poverty and schools in predominantly black parts. of America make it all too easy to slip through  the cracks and none of these truths should serve. as any excuse more than one thing can be true at  once just because you're black doesn't mean you're. bound for a life of criminality with no way out  but if you're born into a class and culture where. criminality is the norm and even seen as cool and  high status and you see it all around you well.

it's a vicious cycle and regardless of the color  of your skin once you're in the 13th Amendment's. abolishment of slavery is out the window and  you join a vast hidden workforce that enriches. all of America's most beloved mega corporations  from frosted flake cereal and ballpark hot dogs. to gold medal flour Coca-Cola and Riceeland  rice prison labor products are on the shelves. of virtually every supermarket in the country  including Kroger Target Aldi and Whole Foods we.

even export some of these products to countries  that we have previously blocked imports from. in protest of those other countries poor labor  practices which to me is peak American hypocrisy. some prisoners work on the exact same plantation  soil where slaves harvested cotton tobacco and. sugarcane more than 150 years ago and slaves are  still picking cotton today willie Ingram who was. featured in this expose by the Associated Press  picked everything from cotton to okra during his.

51-year stay in Louisiana State Penitentiary known  as Angola which is built directly on top of an old. plantation quote "They'd come maybe four in the  truck shields over their face billy clubs and. they'd beat you right there in the field they beat  you handcuff you and beat you again." Angola sits. on a massive plot of farmland previously owned  by one of the largest slave traders in the US. today it houses about 3,800 men who head to the  field within days of arrival at first they work.

for free but then they can earn between 2 cents  and 40 cents an hour and across the country work. is done for most of our biggest brands whether  it's manufacturing products specifically for that. company or producing raw ingredients that are then  sold into the supply chain this is just a small. list that the AP was able to directly observe  in their investigations and they do it because. it's incredibly profitable these workers don't  have benefits or protections or typical safety.

standards they hardly get paid and so can produce  goods for much cheaper than a normal worker. and then these products and goods are sold on  the open market where they compete on price. with regular farmers and manufacturers further  pushing on family farms to cut prices prisoners. also often work in industries with severe labor  shortages and so they wind up doing some of the. dirtiest and most dangerous jobs in America for  basically no pay altogether the modern slave labor. industry brought in more than $2 billion in 2021  and that's just the prison labor not to mention.

work release and other programs curtis Davis  who spent more than 25 years in a penitentiary. said slavery has not been abolished it is still  operating in present tense nothing has changed. and next we're going to talk about how they're  trying to bring slavery to the middle class to. you but first let's take a break real quick guys  I want to tell you about American Financing we're.

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americanfinancing.net/owens so the poorest  and most rock bottom are being farmed out. as prison labor on literal plantations people  on the verge of falling through the cracks or. just crawling out of them are prayed on by the  trucking industry among many other exploitive. fields average Americans are locked into dead-end  jobs that used to be enough to buy a house a car. and send your kids to college on now those same  jobs have Americans on food stamps and taking. out debt for just basic purchases so how do you  break free of this rat race how do you chase the.

American dream out of the rat race and change your  fortune you start a business right wrong because. oh boy is the franchise industry up to the same  games and listen we are about to skim the surface. of an incredibly complex dig and I've done my  best to keep it from getting too dry and keep it. interesting the way that I try to do because it's  not always the flashiest most Twitter viral news.

stories that is going to be the most important  to actually know about many of the most important. things happening in our world are bound up in  complex legal filings and drawn out across years. and years of frankly boring processes and this  one it matters it matters in so many more ways. than I'm going to be able to fit into this segment  but this is a start because you see if you're the. type of upstanding citizen with good credit and  some amount of savings and income that you could. consider applying for the loans required to open  a business you are an even more valuable cash cow.

to be milked and the franchising industry which  has for generations been the most accessible way. for regular people to become business owners and  achieve the American dream it has found a way to. extract every penny that that dream is worth many  people think of their net worth as how much they. have in the bank how much money do you actually  own but truly you're worth so much more than that.

even in a strictly financial way that's because  we have credit you have credit and it's important. before we go down this rabbit hole to unpack  credit a little bit because credit is not just. a plastic card that you keep in your wallet credit  is your future it's a promise to pay it back later. and it's a promise to exchange your future time  and your future work for something right now and. give yourself some credit you can probably be  worth so much more down the line than you are. worth today and that precise monetary fact is what  private equity and mega corporations have learned.

to prey on in the franchising industry which has  started a whole predatory practice of contracting. people into new businesses milking them for all  the credit they can take out of the bank and then. leaving them with the bill to pay for the rest of  their lives it all starts with a discovery process. and a contract suppose that you wanted to start a  business or do something meaningful something to.

change your family's fortunes and provide a better  life for your kids and you hear about this great. new idea a martial arts studio franchise and a  burger franchise are advertising a new business. model in your town they're looking for someone to  open a new franchise location in your town and the. business is basically turnkey it's ready to go you  hardly even need to spend any time working on it. because their proven business model is actually  so dialed in that you just open up shop hire some. workers and the business runs itself pure passive  income you just work a few hours a week on the.

side you can even keep your day job if you want  it sounds too good to be true but you decide to. schedule a meeting with them just to hear them out  maybe this is actually your family's lucky break. when you sit down with them they show you all  kinds of materials and data it's actually true. these franchises are opening up all over the  country lightning fast and they're profitable. almost right away the Burger Place comes with  crazy celebrity endorsements and the martial.

arts studio runs totally hands off it's awesome  they have all the equipment you're going to need. it's already sorted out all the branding the  advertising it's all sorted out all you need. to do is secure the financing to open up shop  and your life will change forever you think it. over with your family it's a pretty big risk but  you know that you're hardworking and you've always. dreamed of more the document you took home with  you is extensive it's several hundred pages long. and it details everything about how to open and  run the store as well as all the legal stuff and.

I mean really it's actually mostly all legal stuff  but it also has all the data about how many other. successful businesses that franchise has opened  across the country lately so you decide to do it. in your next meeting you sign on the line and you  officially join the brand family next you're off. to the bank to secure a loan in order to open up  your new business and I'm sure that you see where. this is going sometimes this process does work  great if you're working with an honest company.

this really can be the path to a new life but  all too often that document that you're holding. is actually filled with deception halftruth and  outright fraud the Federal Trade Commission sued a. franchise called Burgerim the burger joint that I  described just a moment ago in our intro for fraud. they were selling their franchises a pipe dream  that had nothing to back it up even though they. had information in that document causing these  people to take out huge amounts of debt only to.

have nothing actually materialize the Franchise  Times reported that they sold at least $1,550. franchises and collected at least 57.7 million  in just initial franchise fees from 2015 to 2019. but they had only opened 130 out of 1,550  locations by 2018 to make it even worse they. were advertising to veterans and then extracting  all of their credit all their future time and.

earning potential only to leave these veterans  broke and destitute on empty promises burger. was pitching this as a business in just the way  that I described earlier a business in a box and. the company was targeting veterans with discount  programs to lure them into the business it sounds. kind of insane and even unbelievable but actually  it's a lot more common of an occurrence than you. might realize in 2023 Lena Khan the chair of the  Federal Trade Commission which is the government.

body that oversees all this stuff she posted a  request for comment from franchises so business. owners could share their concerns and grievances  about the industry at large her inbox was flooded. with comments from franchise owners who had  experienced these same predatory practices and. lost everything she later published a document  summarizing the findings of her investigation. and it had paragraphs like this in it quote  several franchises discussed misrepresentations.

franchisers made during the sales process startup  costs and sales revenue and profit data were some. of the critical areas where commenters reported  receiving information they believed was false or. misleading one commenter described quote sales  data that does not add up and a completely false. estimated profit margin another commenter said  that quote Dickiy's barbecue business model. involves selling stores as substantially more  than quoted with Dickies getting a big portion. of the cut dickies will tell franchises the cost  will be 400,000 and it will cost sometimes double. that but you don't know until you are already  heavily invested then the owner would default.

on their SBA loan and the next buyer comes in and  pays half but then they will default until the. restaurant is sold for about 10% of the original  cost to build note how they said the owner will. default on their SBA loan we're going to come back  to that because private equity has figured out. how to make the government backs stop this fraud  and now when these franchises are bankrupted and. penniless because the business they were promised  was all a lie the government actually pays the bad.

loans and the private equity firm walks away rich  some of these private equity firms are actually. setting up webs of shell companies and doing  what's called the Texas two-step to hide their. assets in tax shelter LLC's while bankrupting  out of their failed business before anyone. they stole from has a chance to sue for damages  we'll get back to that in a minute because it's. super messed up but anyways in Lena Khan's report  she listed the top 12 complaints along with what.

franchises were most frequently mentioned in that  type of complaint and Michael Browning Jr finally. got that sweet sweet recognition that he always  craved his company Unleash Brands was top of the. industry in misrepresentation and deception actual  and threatened retaliation tiffany's story is just. one of many franchise disclosure document issues  which is a nice way to say fraud and private. equity takeovers but it's worth noting that almost  all of these top complaints from business owners.

are all separate elements of the same fraudulent  scheme where you lie to get people to buy into. your franchise then you trap them in predatory  contracts that change over time to be more. exploitative if they speak out you retaliate  against them with lawfare you can take their. businesses bankrupt them in court or just charge  them the $200,000 fee that they owe you when. you fire them because you recently amended the  contract they signed years ago to add this little.

tidbit in they tried to speak out against it but  obviously a contract's a contract right like I. really cannot convey how insane this stuff is it  sounds impossible it sounds like someone would. stop it like there would be any amount of justice  like you can't just pretend to have a business and. sell millions of dollars of fake franchise burger  joints and then launder the money out into a chain. of LLC's and say "Whoopsies money's gone guess  there's nothing we can do." But that is literally.

happening in broad daylight right in front of the  courts and the regulators the comments that the. FTC received were cries for help here are just a  few that specifically highlighted Unleash Brands. quote "Franchises were forced to use a  construction management company named Foxfield. that was stealing money foxfield Company set up a  shell corporation for a bogus procurement company. that franchises were required to use foxfield's  owner Chuck Piaza put his wife in charge of the. procurement company the sole purpose was to  create an additional markup on items markups.

were in excess of 80% on some items and sold tens  of thousands of dollars from each franchisee.". Quote "Unleash Brands has ruined my family's life  i am a franchisee of Premier Martial Arts that has. lost everything I own in under two years they lied  to us countless times during the due diligence and. sales process and Miles Baker vice president  of Premier Martial Arts told us to suck it up. and get over it when my husband and I confronted  him about all the lies he told us unleash Brands.

and PMA have treated franchises not only in PMA  inhumanely and might as well be called the mafia.". quote "It is traumatizing to be told they are  trying to bankrupt anyone with your family name. all while they continue to siphon money from  our accounts unleash Brands are monsters and. the franchise industry should be disgusted  by the example they set." The stories about. Unleash Brands piled up and got pretty specific  one franchisee even claimed that Steven Pazola the.

lead lawyer for Unleash Brands said to them quote  "We are going to crush you into submission just. like we are doing with Premier Martial Arts and  the Little Gym." It is sickening to see how people. are being treated after we used our life savings  to start a business and they are using their life. savings as well as their life's credit over and  over again so many franchises have the same story. they are lied to in the process of buying into  the business and not just little lies overt fraud.

felony level lies many of which are blatantly  provable in the very documents themselves if any. regulator cared to investigate then as soon as  you sign on the line they own you and little by. little the fees are added on the kickbacks pile  up and the fraud and extortion slowly bury you. into bankruptcy if you try to get out they can sue  you or charge you tens or hundreds of thousands of. dollars in exit fees which are often written in  from the start or added on to your contract but.

even more appalling private equity has latched  on to a new strategy they tell franchises to use. special SBA and Rob's loans a Rob's loan short for  rollover as business startup although in this case. the abbreviation robs conveys way more clearly  what they're actually doing they are a way for you. to pledge your retirement account as collateral  to fund your business and so now the private. equity firm not only gets these people trapped  in contractual servitude and milks them for all.

the credit they can acquire but it also gets all  their liquid assets but then it also gets their. retirement account on an empty promise that you're  going to have a brand new business just trust us. sign on the line if that wasn't bad enough they  make sure that whenever possible their victims. are using SBA loans which are special loans for  starting small businesses which are backed by the. government i presume that the initial idea here  was to encourage banks to lend to people that.

are starting small businesses so it could spur  the economy but what it has become is a way for. private equity to extort the system and steal from  our tax dollars to the tune of lord knows how much. each year because an SBA loan if you go bankrupt  and can't pay it back as so many of these aspiring. franchises cannot it's backed up up to 85% by the  federal government and so what winds up happening. is based on these false promises and often  fraudulent documents predatory private equity.

groups can convince regular people to take out  massive loans that they would never qualify for. if they weren't joining an apparently reputable  franchise and when it turns out that the business. model isn't what they were told they're bankrupted  their franchise is closed down private equity. walks away rich and the taxpayer dollar covers  the bill to the bank in this way private equity. is using average Americans as willing suckers as  gobetweens who get tricked into extracting every.

ounce of cash savings and future credit that  their whole life represents and private equity. can run this whole scheme never having taken on  any risk at all except risk of going to prison. if any regulator or law enforcement agency would  ever wake up and do their jobs which so far has. not exactly happened and so the show goes on this  happened to basically every owner of a premier. martial arts franchise they all tried to sue  Michael Browning Jr and he crushed most of them.

with lawfare and arbitration and regular court as  well this happened to dozens and dozens of little. gyms but this also happens with other private  equity like BurgerM like Dicky's Barbecq Pit like. Dagwoods and Subway and iHeart Mac and Cheese it's  also happening with mental health care clinics and. the list goes on and on and it's going on right  now for thousands of franchises around the country. iheart Mac and Cheese is in arbitration right now  and the lawyer representing all of these regular. Americans is fighting with everything she's got  if you want to know more about how corrupt the.

franchising industry has become and just how  this fraud works franchisereality check.com. is a website started by Genevie Prao who was the  first franchisee to buy into the iHeart Mac and. Cheese brand based on false promises and fraud  exactly as we've described she has now been in. litigation for 7 years against the company and she  lays everything out on that website in detail with. explanations and evidence and it's all true  crime rabbit hole if you want to check it out.

iheart Mac and Cheese is particularly dark because  the owners are in the process of doing what is. called the Texas two-step where you open a new  legal entity in this case called Pilar Coffee. Bar and then you transfer all of your assets to  it but none of your debt or liabilities and when. you're bankrupted because oh I don't know you  were running an entirely fraudulent business. model that was designed to defraud your franchises  then there's nothing in the bank account when they. finally make it through a decade long legal  battle to seek some form of compensation cuz.

you've transferred it away you get away with  the fraud and you walk away rich they get taken. for all their cash life savings and land with a  lifetime of debt to boot it sounds unbelievable. even impossible but as we've learned over the  last couple of weeks the system is designed to. protect the big boys and to exploit all of us at  virtually any franchise owned by private equity. you can expect some version of this playbook  because franchising is supposed to be a long game. a business built over decades and generations like  McDonald's originally was but private equity lives.

on annual growth and two-year cycles extracting as  much cash as possible as quickly as possible with. little or no thought of the damage or consequences  left in its wake and so now we've covered three. different versions of the same story essentially  in three different class segments of society it's. happening to the middle class it's happening  to those at the bottom and it's happening to. anyone who falls through the cracks into prison  but I'm sure there are thousands of you out there.

that work in other fields that have other similar  stories to this because various versions of these. stories are becoming more and more common every  year this is the natural progression of the system. that they've built up around us where the ultra  wealthy write the rules and the ultra wealthy have. a secret court system that works for them and  the ultra wealthy control the politics through. donations and powerful leverage and with every  new advancement in technology and AI with every. new economic emergency and corporate bailout every  new war and an omnibus spending bill we are all.

being marched deeper and deeper into indentured  servitude the two primary levers of power that. control the world are money and the law we are all  trapped under an everinccreasing inflationary vice. while our tax dollars pay for their kickbacks  their bailouts and their wars and if any of. us slip through the cracks or into their secret  courts they've got a prison labor system ready to. catch you at the bottom and put you to work this  is their vision of the future where you'll be a.

good little worker be slaving away in the lower  cast of society while they sit mint jeulips in. their McMansions where there's one tier of justice  for the rich and another tier of justice for us. where they write the rules and we are the ones  bound by them and the whole system relies on us. staying distracted on us not knowing how the law  works or how arbitration works these stories are. too complex too boring for us to pay attention  to when the TV is filled with flashy pop stars.

and big booty hoes just go to the movies turn  off your brain and enjoy some good old-fashioned. entertainment nothing to see here but not you  guys y'all are something special i want to commend. you on getting through another incredibly complex  episode i do my best to make these digs meaningful. and entertaining even when it's a subject that is  inherently so complex and boring that most people. will probably never learn about it so thanks for  sticking through to the end of that dig i hope.

you learned something or will at least think  differently the next time you see a semi-truck. on the road because I know that personally I can  never look at trucking the same way again since. I learned all this crazy and to me that's the  beauty of learning not only do we grow smarter but. hopefully also more compassionate for other people  by at least walking a short distance in their. shoes so lastly let's close the week off with some  of your comments and I just want to say you guys. leave the best comments it's so heartwarming to  read a Candace comment section y'all are some of.

the nicest and most informed people out there and  the dash of sort of conspiracy theory sprinkled. throughout is just it's just oh it's so good i  love it so Kimberly says we better start adding. Ian to the prayers for his safety and maybe state  that he is not suicidal at the end of each episode. i'm I'm gonna be okay guys i'm I'm safe and I am  of course not suicidal very happy lovely life but. I appreciate you please do keep me in your prayers  um SW said Ian needs to start a history channel.

i do feel like I'm just doing like learning more  and more history because all the history that we. were taught is lies um I think it's fun nom De  Plume said "My husband did four deployments in. Afghanistan he was a military intelligence officer  and he spent the entire deployment protecting. poppy fields." If you have not yet seen the dig  that we just did into the opium trade poppies. uh the the US government's involvement in drug  trafficking that was spicy i'm very proud of that. video very proud of the team for how it came out  um definitely go check it out if you haven't seen.

it yet nakia Clark said "Candice we miss you  but Ian has been nothing short of fantastic.". Aw you two should do a regular podcast together  from time to time enjoy your maternity leave. candace is enjoying her maternity leave she's  around she's doing great baby Roman's doing great. um I do love coming on i'm going to love when  I come back and do podcasts in the future but. um unfortunately I was talking to Candace and I do  have to travel more this year i got a lot of plans. but I'll definitely always come back and come  check in because you guys are the best candace. is the best and the team is the best so Emily Hag  says quote "Drink your water love your family and.

do something nice for someone is the best sign  offline yeah it's just like I mean like we just. need a little more positivity in this world we got  to remind ourselves sometimes to keep it light to. keep it happy and so I think there's a good place  to end it good place to close it out so thanks for. um watching the whole video with us thanks  for liking it before you leave thanks for. subscribing to Candace and for following the  link in the description to go to my channel. on YouTube Ian Carol Show and subscribing over  there and be sure of course to drink your water.

do something healthy for yourself and tell someone  you love them tonight and we'll see you next week.