Grubstakers

Check out the Texas boy that made money from casinos. a possible Lolita express connection and a grandson who shot up the school. Donald Trump would be his best man at Phil’s third wedding. He really enjoys furloughing staff and seems very drunk during his RNC speech. This one a doozy go grab Gary Busey tune in to Grubstakers!

This week we tackle the richest man in Europe, and briefly this year, the richest man in the world, luxury megabillionaire Bernard Arnault. We investigate his privileged upbringing, the sketchy background of the company he built his wealth on, and speculate on his relationship with Alligator mississippiensis. Part 2 will be available later this week on https://www.patreon.com/grubstakers. Rest in power Michael Brooks.

For our triumphant return from summer vacation we profile the Fanjul brothers, two Florida billionaires who had to flee their native Cuba when Fidel Castro came to power. This may have had something to do with the fact that they trace their wealth to slave run sugar plantations and their former mansion is now a museum to the cruelty of the sugar industry in Cuba. Since arriving in the US they've been showered with plentiful subsidies and price supports and they've found even found new workers to abuse and exploit by using the H-2 visa program and by looking the other way at the trafficking of desperately impoverished Haitians in the Dominican Republic. If you're looking for motivation to consume less sugar and more vegetables this episode is here to make the case. Further reading on the Fanjul brothers: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2001/02/floridas-fanjuls-200102

This week we're joined by Molly Lambert and Jonny Coleman of NOlympics LA to discuss California real estate billionaire Rick Caruso and the upcoming 2028 LA Olympics. We review the shady history of the games, the role of Epstein connected LA power broker Casey Wasserman in bringing them to the city, and the devastating impact of the 1984 Olympics on LA. The 2028 games will continue their proud tradition of allowing a small number of super wealthy people to put their hands in the public's pockets and screw over low income locals in the process. Unless we stop them. You can learn more and get involved at: https://nolympicsla.com/ You can listen to Molly Lambert's podcast Night Call here: https://podtail.com/podcast/night-call/

On this episode we cover the Italian stallion the lawyer with no law practice under his belt Gianni Agnelli. We cover how he was born with wealth from his grandfather, which included a 20 year long bender enjoying the exciting life of international playboy. This episode features such known guest stars as Winston Churchill, Mussolini, Gaddafi and Henry Kissinger they are all apart the Italian conspiracy to keep Italy “Italian.” Find out how the newest generation of Agnelli’s are continuing the tradition of abusing drugs, having sex with whomever they please as well as robbing the country of Italy blind with connections to unsavory characters that would make your Nonna say, “That’s not how you make a Sicilian pizza pie you just making a mess mama mia!”

This week we continue our look at the Pritzker family empire and today we have chosen Penny Pritzker and her many crimes against humanity to focus on. We discover how Hyatt Hotels has abused their staff, the Jeffrey Epstein connection the family and their connection to BCCI. We covered another J.B Pritzker on our Patreon last week, and found more dirt about that family, which we share here. If at anytime you felt corruption was not connected this episode should open your eyes to how heirs are against airing their dirty laundry to keep their money theirs. All that and more right here on Grub$takers.

Boy Howdy it's Episode 167 of Grubstakers where we profile Chinese billionaire Ma Huateng, creator of Tencent, the largest social media and game company you've never heard of. A de facto arm of the state surveillance apparatus, Tencent has their fingers in everything from the Chinese social credit system to Fortnite. We discuss the protests at the top, so if you want to skip ahead turn your dials to 0:17:40.

New episode on Nick Kroll’s father Jules Kroll. Full episode at https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-166-37650803

Episode 165 is out. The subject is Harold Hamm; the Okie billionaire who made his fortune innovating horizontal drilling, causing earthquakes, and who is the right-hand man to Trump for his energy independence policy-making. He’ll “drink your milkshake”, because he has type-2 diabetes. Watch out!

Final part of our 3 part series on Citi Bank on Patreon now! Full episode here :https://www.patreon.com/posts/37090443

This week we talk about DIY asshole Bernie Marcus, the man who says he built his $6.6 billion Home Depot fortune from scratch. We discuss the weird lies behind his origin story, his abuse of his workers, his illegal union busting, and the fact that he's profited off of keeping Home Depot stores open during the covid-19 pandemic. Home Depot refuses to say how many of their employees they have murdered through the decision to stay open but we know that there has been at least one. Rest in peace Johnathan Ferreira, you deserved better. Some of the sources used in this episode: https://www.courant.com/coronavirus/hc-news-coronavirus-retail-workers-20200508-l6ahgqo6mndf3ijnjtexhhp4a4-story.html https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/foundation-defense-democracies-iran/

Part 2 of our profile on Sanford I Weill and his role at Citigroup we will take a longer look at Citi group in our last part of this trilogy. This episode covers Sandy Weill’s children and their misdeeds into falling upward in a no consequence system. The tarnished relationship between sandy and his former protégé Jamie Dimon and we close out the episode with the end of Glass-Steagall Act. The primary source for this episode was the biography "Tearing down the Walls" by Monica Langley: www.barnesandnoble.com/w/tearing-dow…ey/1023673999

The first part of our 3 part series exploring the saga of Citigroup, the first American bank to become too big to fail. We follow the career of its billionaire CEO Sandy Weill: a rich kid from Brooklyn who had a dream to climb the corporate ladder by smashing up a million people's pensions, health benefits, salaries, and then to make a corporate monstrosity that would cook up fake documents to steal their house as well. When we talk about too big to fail banks we are talking about government sponsored entities. These are "private" banks run by private boards of directors that pay the profits to private individuals but are almost entirely funded with public (taxpayer) money. This series will study how this strange system came to be and hopefully motivate enough people to demand it end. The primary source for this episode was the biography "Tearing down the Walls" by Monica Langley: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/tearing-down-the-walls-monica-langley/1023673999

Enter Joe Lewis: reclusive restaurateur-turned super villain currency speculator. Joe Lewis (the businessman; not the boxer) made billions betting against sovereign currencies, and nearly lost a billion betting on Bear Stearns. Now he wants to setup his own State in Argentina. In order to stop Joe, first get to know him and the empire he has built up, right here on Grubstakers.

In our 2 part series on one of the richest families to ever exist, the basis for the Orson Wells classic Citizen Kane and a man who was kicked out of Harvard for shenanigans involving mailing his poop we discuss the illustrious Hearst Family. Covering George Hearst, the father of the megalomaniac William Rutherford Hearst the man of the hour. We cover in this our his involvement in the Spanish American war, how his father made his riches from grubstaking and the legacy his life leads. In our second part we discuss Patricia Hearst, the corporate maneuvers to maintain their wealth and of course Chris Hardwick. We are joined the hilarious Elie Sairs! He hosts the podcast of Roast Ghost and has an inside look at a Hearst owned corporation. Links to follow his work below. @elisairs https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/eli-sairs-the-roast-ghost/id1455875406?mt=2

Due to (thankfully mild) illness, we had to delay this week's regularly scheduled episode. In it's stead, here's the most recent Patreon episode, the Grubstakers' reactions to the end of the Bernie campaign. Stay safe stay healthy.

Re release so people have better access to the episode. We use Google Hangouts to explain the rise of Eric Yuan and Zoom video conferencing -- all from the quarantine underground. Eric wants you to socially distance yourselves from his personal history and source of wealth, but we've got the details: burning down his neighbor's chicken coup, secretly recording your conference calls, not adhering to buffet protocol, and more

We discuss the continuing and worsening covid-19 emergency in New York City and take an in depth look at the $6 trillion wall street relief bill that just passed congress. It's getting money directly to the people who need it most in this crisis: too big to fail banks who just had their junk bond portfolios blow up.

We freebased DayQuil and recorded a podcast episode about Vice billionaire Shane Smith. This one delves into Smith's murky backstory, Vice's humble beginnings as a media property pump and dump, Vice union busting, and Smith's racist friend Gavin McGinnes. About ten minutes before the episode ends there were some technical difficulties (somebody forgetting to charge his recorder), so Sean's feed switches to Skype audio.

On this episode we discuss founder of the Unification Church, the Washington Times, North Korea’s Pyonghwa Motors, and Humanity’s Savior/first parent/successor of Christ Himself Sun Myung Moon. We delve into his teenage experience of being visited by Jesus, his time in a North Korean prison camp, building a fortune investing his followers’ candle sales, and his work spreading love through mass marriages as well as spreading hate through the Washington Times. To help anyone who needs their Grubstakers fix we have chosen to make all the episodes on our paywall free for a month. It's not a April Fools joke, but it is 4/20 all month.

David Greene wants to affect the world for 10 billion years find out why that makes your life suck. Full episode here https://www.patreon.com/posts/35280505

In another grab-bag episode on the Coronavirus response, we discuss the senate insider trading scandal, Rashida Talib's trillion dollar coin proposal, and how the wealthy are taking themselves and their COVID-19 up the Long Island Railroad to party it up in the Hamptons.

Full episode here. https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-150-eric-35033817 Stay safe.

Note: Some of what we discuss at the top of this episode is already out of date - so Steven and Andy recorded a tag at the end with the updates as of Monday night. In Grubstakers first completely remote episode we discuss the stock market response to COVID-19 and the response from the Federal Reserve.

Thanks for joining us on our International Woman’s day special! We chose to discuss the tenacious Meg Whitman. She grew up in the area of NY, that F. Scott Fitzgerald based the book The Great Gatsby on. Her parents came from families tied to Boston's elite, known as the "Boston Brahmins. She would make her billions using her ties to Goldman Sachs with her new business she works at eBay. Her kids have assaulted people and used racial slurs at college. They support Joe Biden to ask America why why why why why why why why why why why…Enjoy

This week we are sad to end our run of billionaires endorsing Pete Buttigieg. We cover the billionaire Mimi Haas who married Peter E. Haas a heir to the Levi Strauss estate. Find out how your boomer relatives’ favorite garment is directly connected to 30 years of labor abuse, slavery and sex trafficking. We spend a few minutes up front discussing SF social elite Nellie Bowles, and a bio on how Levi Strauss bought his empire. Lastly this episode does deal with people being sexually abused so Steven mentioned there should be a TW.

Find out all this and more on Reed Hastings on our newest episode streaming now at Patreon.com/grubstakers

This week we profile Mexican Jew Daniel Lubetzky who’s fathers experience in the holocaust informed his views on making money the “Kind” way. The kindest way to make the world a better place by profiting from the slave labor of chocolate, the palm oil farmers burning their trees to maintain their deadlines and the horrendous amount of water utilized to produce this many nuts. Daniel Lubetzky was able to build trail mix in a bar with his gumption, his intelligence and the measly 200,000 loaned to him from his Friends and Family LLC. Kind bars taste delicious and the FDA flip flopped on them being called healthy, because the check finally cleared all that and more right here on Grubstakers.

From the Patreon episode on fracking billionaires Dan and Farris Wilkes. For the full episode visit: https://www.patreon.com/grubstakers

This week we're joined by Adam Sokol to talk student loan billionaire, media mogul, and poker jackass Cary Katz. Adam talks about his experiences moderating for Katz's media property The Blaze and we find absolutely no connections between Katz and a different successful businessman, gun rights advocate, and poker enthusiast from Las Vegas. Follow Adam Sokol on twitter at @SokolAdam and check out his blog Good Trek/Bad Trek at https://adamsokol.wordpress.com/

Reid Hoffman, Buttigieg supporter and friend of the late Jeffrey Epstein, wants to growth hack democracy. Listen to the full episode at https://www.patreon.com/grubstakers

This week it's one of Pete Buttigieg's wine cave billionaires and top ACRONYM donor Seth Klarman. We couldn't find anything wrong with him so we just spent the whole episode saying nice things. Overall? Great guy.

By popular demand we've unlocked our recent episode running down what just occurred in the Iowa Caucuses. After we recorded this episode DNC chair Tom Perez immediately followed the news that Bernie Sanders was victorious in Iowa by announcing that there would be a recount. As we've always said this is all just a big misunderstanding and there is no bias at work here. New Hampshire votes February 11th. You know what to do: https://berniesanders.com/

Full episode at Patreon.com/grubstakers

This week we take a look at Columbia University with our spy on the inside Stephanie. We discuss how the business school operates in teaching the propaganda of capitalism to students all over the world for a profit. From biased views of how business can and will save the world to never really solving the issues of murder, sex abuse as well as racism rampant on their campus. Tune in and tune out you got the Grubstakers.

We channel our inner Chris Hardwicks and it's grotesque.

This week we take a extra deep dive into the Canadian billionaire power couple Gerry Schwartz and Heather Reisman. With his predatory private equity acumen and her tenacity to run other bookstores and plant shops out of business they have accumulated a vast net worth which they’re using to host fundraisers for Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg. Why have so many billionaires lined up behind his dark horse candidacy and what do they hope to gain? And did these two scions of Canadian business actually do anything to “earn” their money besides asset stripping, corporate bust outs, age discrimination, and fraud? Find out here! *EPISODE CORRECTION*: Gerry Schwartz and Heather Reisman *have not* donated money directly to Pete Buttegieg. Canadian citizens are not allowed to donate to US candidates for federal office. They did however use their Nantucket mansion to host a fundraiser for him so providing that material benefit is to us functionally equivalent to being donors. Apologies for not clarifying this distinction though. Some sources used in this episode: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1918821/kipperman-v-onex-corp/ http://archive.rabble.ca/babble/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=004821 https://www.winsightgrocerybusiness.com/amp/retailers/military-vets-accuse-save-lot-owner-fraud-racketeering https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-us-boeing-discrimination-071609-2009jul16-story.html

Find out how James Simons company cheated the IRS of Billions vis a vi you and me! Full Episode on Patreon.com/Grubstakers

This week we profile a billionaire north of the border Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll! Join as we discussed how he cheapened American brands Polo Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger and Michael Kors with the help of his business partner Silas Chau. Together they made billions in investing in name brand clothes, cheapening the products, and selling their shares at a profit before people realized what they had done. This money was then used to buy a yacht named Faith, which resulted in a British deckhand being drowned, a failed music career for his daughter Chloe stroll and a career F1 racing for his son who doesn’t seem to really know where he is most of the time. All that and more coming up on Grubstakers!

From our Patreon episode on Larry Robbins beating the court to fulfill his lifelong dream of not needing to walk too far to a hockey rink. . For the full episode and more fuller episodes, check out www.patreon.com/grubstakers

We take a deep dive on two of the world's youngest billionaires, Victoria-Katharina Flick and Karl Friedrich Flick (born 1999). How did they get so rich? Well, hard work and inheriting their grandfather's slave labor war crimes fortune. That's right: many of the people who carried out and profited from the holocaust were able to pass on the profits they accumulated first to their children and then to their grandchildren. The effects of that stolen wealth are still being felt today, but remember the rich are only rich because they do more for society than the rest of us! Some of the sources used: The Book "Nazi Steel" by Marcus O. Jones https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-03/world-s-youngest-billionaires-are-shadowed-by-ghosts-of-german-past https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-inadequacies-of-justice/ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/22/germany.secondworldwar https://web.archive.org/web/20041219072628/http://www.adl.org/braun/dim_13_2_flick_print.asp

Published Jul 25, 2019 The premium episode is all about the Koch brother for the left Tom Steyer. The man who became rich from poisoning the planet to now considering being against earth poison because he wants a vanity project because he's jealous of his older brothers. Younger brothers never change. This episode lacks the presence of Steven because the man wouldn't let a foot soldier of the 9-5 get off time when he was supposed too.

This is an entirely made up story about a fictional company named Blern. Any resemblance to any persons or companies living or dead is entirely coincidental. For the full episode, visit: https://www.patreon.com/grubstakers

Welcome back. We're ringing in the new year with Thomas Kaplan, an obscure minerals billionaire who happens to be a major funder of the "not a CIA/Mossad front company" United Against a Nuclear Iran. The man loves gold, panthers, Rembrandt, and genocidal war. Also we forgot to mention in the episode that he's a bundler who's raised $25,000 for none other than one Joe Biden. Also also Andy confuses Rembrandt and Raphael at one point and is kind of embarrassed now.

It wouldn't be a Disney property without a tacky celebrity cameo. On this clip we talk about how once upon a time you could take snorkeling trips from the Disney Cruises at Little St. James Island, among other things. Full episode at https://www.patreon.com/grubstakers

It's a list of Disney properties set to "We Didn't Start The Fire". This shit is so stupid and we're sorry for subjecting you to it. For more visit https://www.patreon.com/grubstakers

In our final episode of the decade we run down the 2nd largest media conglomerate in the world, the Walt Disney Company. In this first of three parts we start with Walt Disney's birth in Chicago in 1901 and continue all the way up to his company introducing another death star as if its an original plot device. Along the way we learn about a man and an empire that has abused copyright law, bought the US government wholesale to change said copyright law, flirted with Nazism, busted unions, snitched to Joseph McCarthy, and offered family cruises to Jeffrey Epstein's private island. I'm sure it's just a coincidence that former Disney chairman Richard Cook was on the flight logs. Check our patreon for Parts 2 & 3. Here's the referenced Paste article about Walt's Nazi links: https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/06/walt-the-quasi-nazi-the-fascist-history-of-disney.html

This week we go to Brazil with special guest Michael Brooks. We cover Edir Macedo, an evangelical pastor who teaches that the true path to salvation is giving him lots of money and possibly your newborn. We also talk about his associations with Jair Bolsonaro and the smash blockbuster Nothing to Lose based on his life. This one was recorded right after the election in the UK so we're a tad shell shocked but we kept calm and carried on for you fine people. Follow Michael Brooks on twitter @_michaelbrooks, check out his YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh2UY1hxlMr4_7Az_iQ82HQ, and support him at https://patreon.com/TMBS

From our Patreon episode on the deceased new king of coal Chris Cline featuring Kahn Fight. For the full episode and more fuller episodes, check out https://www.patreon.com/grubstakers

It's the IKEA episode on furniture entrepreneur and "not a nazi anymore" Ingvar Kamprad. We discuss Ingvar's innovations in do-it-yourself furniture, made-from-illegally-logged-wood furniture, crafted-by-child-slaves furniture, and crushes-your-toddler furniture. It's one of our more light-hearted episodes.