Episodes
4 days ago
4 days ago
On this week’s episode of Economic Update, with the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election only 8 days away, Professor Richard Wolff explores the shared refusal of both major candidates and their parties to face and debate solutions to the grave problems facing US capitalism in 2024: (1) inequality, (2) instability and (3) a declining empire. Instead, we are witnessing both Trump and Harris compete to be the "cheerleader in chief" for capitalism. Missing from the discourse is a genuine opposition party that might dare to offer an alternative non-capitalist vision and solution to the system's deepening problems.
Saturday Oct 26, 2024
Economic Update: Puerto Rico Crises and Left Political Unity
Saturday Oct 26, 2024
Saturday Oct 26, 2024
Tuesday Oct 22, 2024
Economic Update: Flint: The Water Crisis Persists
Tuesday Oct 22, 2024
Tuesday Oct 22, 2024
On this week’s episode of Economic Update, Professor Richard Wolff discusses how FED Chair Jerome Powell admits capitalism's intrinsic instability, a Tennessee plastic plant won't let workers leave before storm Helene hits, we examine new drugs for obesity (Ozempic and Wegovy) which highlights the failures of for-profit medical care. Finally, we interview Jordan Chariton on his new book "We, the Poisoned: Exposing The Flint Water Crisis Cover-up and the Poisoning of 100,000".
Saturday Oct 12, 2024
Economic Update- Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC)
Saturday Oct 12, 2024
Saturday Oct 12, 2024
Monday Oct 07, 2024
Monday Oct 07, 2024
Saturday Sep 28, 2024
Economic Update- Understanding Communism - Part Two
Saturday Sep 28, 2024
Saturday Sep 28, 2024
On this week’s episode of Economic Update, Professor Richard Wolff offers a special episode to continue the previous discussion on communism. We will discuss how socialism's history evolved into separating socialism from communism and creating multiple, different meanings of what is considered communism today.
Wednesday Sep 25, 2024
Economic Update- Understanding Communism - Part One
Wednesday Sep 25, 2024
Wednesday Sep 25, 2024
On this week’s episode of Economic Update, Professor Richard Wolff offers a special episode discussing the unscary origins of the ideas of communism and socialism before the Cold War demonized them. We will discuss how socialism's history evolved into separating socialism from communism and creating multiple, different meanings of what is considered communism today.
Saturday Sep 14, 2024
Economic Update- Yanis Varoufakis on the Changing World Economy
Saturday Sep 14, 2024
Saturday Sep 14, 2024
On this week’s episode of Economic Update, Professor Richard Wolff draws attention to the 10,000 hotel workers who recently conducted a strike impacting major hotels across 19 US cities. We highlight the contested merger of the two largest grocery chains in America (Albertsons and Kroger threaten to become the third largest retail giant after Amazon, and Walmart) plus the Canadian government forces 9,000 Canadian railway striking workers back to work, with murmurs of a general strike looming. We also give a shout-out to a small Brooklyn pizzeria unionizing with Starbucks workers. Finally, an exclusive interview with world-renowned economist, author and the former finance minister of Greece Yanis Varoufakis who discusses global economic change and the working class, topics discussed in his latest work "Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism".
Saturday Sep 07, 2024
Economic Update- Labor Day and Abe Lincoln, Honoring Both Together
Saturday Sep 07, 2024
Saturday Sep 07, 2024
On this week’s special Labor day episode of Economic Update, Professor Richard Wolff honors both Labor day and President Abraham Lincoln. President Lincoln once said in 1861 that "Labor is the superior of capital." Yet, capital in the United States has only two major political parties, the Republicans and the Democrats who both are currently advocating for capital over labor and essentially operating as a two-party monopoly excluding all others. In today's political discourse, Labor has no party advocating for what Lincoln once advocated. The injustice and inequality generated in and for society by capitalist economies is neither necessary nor welcome. A genuine labor party is the missing solution
Saturday Aug 31, 2024
Economic Update- Worsening Economic Inequality Yields Worsening Social Condition
Saturday Aug 31, 2024
Saturday Aug 31, 2024
We will juxtapose their latest paper "The Spirit Level at 15: The Enduring Impact of Inequality" Which details how economic inequality has only gotten worse in the past fifteen years, despite government laws and programs aimed to "reduce" inequality.
Wilkinson and Pickett show how inequality leads to severe social ills, divisions, and disintegration. What we need is to face that it is capitalism that generates the inequality that generates the hostilities and social tensions intruding upon and damaging our lives."