What an Epstein recording reveals about how elites get jobs

And I'm Adrian Ma. Today on the show Elite Power Brokering. The Epstein files have revealed extraordinary details about how many top business people and politicians operate inside an economy of favors and implicit debts. We'll learn just how much personal networks are valued compared to competency. And we'll hear more of that conversation between Epstein and Ehud Barak.

And this revolving door has some problems. Of course, it could mean that regulators go soft on the industry if they're hoping to later get hired by them. At the same time, it means that people in the government have industry expertise. Matilda Bombardini is an economics professor at UC Berkeley.

Epstein is giving Barack advice on how to use his power and connections to make money as a politician about to leave politics. We started by showing Matilda a clip of Epstein talking to Barack. And in this one, Epstein is repeating a mutual friend's advice was he thought

Okay, so sort of like a log of people who are in your debt. Yeah.

So that's one point for connections, zero for expertise as being valuable. Here.

Now, if that clip suggested Barack would mostly use his connections to make money, the next clip has Epstein shouting it.

Epstein seems to be assuring Barack that even if his only role is a door opener, that will still be very valuable at companies. And this is actually consistent with Matilda's research. She studied payments to lobbyists who had personal connections to a lawmaker. It turned out those connected lobbyists could get paid about 9% more than others, substantially more than lobbyists who were actually experts on the topic at hand.

Two years later, Barak became chairman of a public safety tech startup called Carbine.

He later became chairman of a medical cannabis company and co founded a cybersecurity and surveillance company called Toca.

Epstein, though, was emphasizing personal connections. Like in that conversation, Vladimir Putin comes up. Barack knows the Russian president personally and so Epstein encourages Barack to take advantage of that as he leaves office.

Matilda suspects that underneath this conversation, Epstein's also thinking about how Barack's connections could be useful to him.

reaching and we are seeing just how wide that reach was. Epstein's network crossed traditional political divides from right wing strategist Steve Bannon to linguist and author Noam Chomsky. There have been waves of resignations over Epstein connections, from the chairman of Hyatt Hotels to a leader of an elite law firm to the CEO of a Dubai port operator.

Ehud Barak's office told us that Barack's business activities were always within the law. And they added, many people tried to give Barack informal advice about what he could do after leaving office and including Epstein.