Economic Update

Economic Update - ”Why the US Constitution is an Obstacle to Change”

In this week’s show, Prof. Wolff presents updates on the US banking crisis, plant closing injustice, growing child labor in the US, Biden's budget's tax "proposals," and a new book that shows US homelessness is an economic problem. In the second half of the show, Wolff interviews Professor Robert Ovetz on how and why the US Constitution blocks social change.

 

 

Economic Update - ”How Austerity Paves the Way for Fascism”

This week, Professor Wolf interviews Prof. Clara Mattei on her new book Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism."

Economic Update - ”Social Security, Ohio Derailment, Puerto Rican Poverty: US Capitalism Provokes”

 In this week’s show, Prof. Wolff focuses on the struggle over Social Security- real versus false alternatives- and the East Palestine, Ohio, derailment tragedy. In the second half of the show, Wolff interviews Alexis Colon about the colonial status of Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans fighting against it.

 

 

Economic Update - ”Establishment Media and Russia with Aaron Mate”

 In this week’s show, Prof. Wolff  presents updates on dying empires and climate crisis; mass shootings; fast-food mega-corps fund referendum to slow California plan to raise fast food workers wages and working conditions, and why the debt ceiling debate in Congress is a phony GOP-Dem political theater. In the second half of the show,  Wolff interviews Aaron Mate, independent US media critic with special expertise on Russia.

Economic Update - ”Are Mega-Corporations Ruining Our World?”

 In this week's show, Prof. Wolff presents a critique of monopoly and oligopoly; past efforts and success in popular control over mega-corporations - in US and abroad; the fight back by mega-corporations to nullify reforms and regulations. Finally, some real solutions to the social problem and costs of an economy dominated by mega-corporations.

 

 

Economic Update - ”Inequality’s Insidious Spread - COVID-19, India, Insurance”

In this week's show, Prof. Wolff presents updates on India's extreme inequality and its lesson, employers squeeze employees with "non-compete" job contracts, and how the profit motive distorts the concept of insurance. In the second half of the show, Wolff interviews Dr Stephen Bezruchka on how deeply and globally inequality endangers health with special attention to the US and Covid-19.

 

 

Economic Update - ”Unionization, Marxism and Education”

 In this week’s show, Prof. Wolff shares updates on Starbucks union growth; Texas journalists and Yale graduate students/employees unionize, strike, win; Western Mass Labor Federation denounces Biden's denial of railway workers' right to strike; two major kinds of US tax injustice: (1) exempting bonds and stocks from property tax when 10% richest own 80% of stocks and bonds, and (2) failing to levy excess profits tax on war profiteers as UK and Portugal have already done. In the second half of the show, Wolff interviews Notre Dame Professor Emeritus David F. Ruccio on Marxian economics, its absence from US universities, and its social insights.

 

 

Economic Update - 2023 World Economic Trends

 Identifying and examining the larger economic dimensions and trends of three key aspects of today's global economy: Russia/Ukraine war, Europe's quandary, and the decline of the US empire. Attention focuses on the immense direct and indirect costs of the war in Ukraine; on Europe's desperate position and choices caught between the US and China blocs in the world economy; and on how the US empire is responding to its decline in the world economy. Our approach is to stress what so many others deny or minimize. The risk of war and lessons of the past decline of empires figure prominently in the analysis.

Economic Update - ”A Corporatized America”

 In this week's show, Prof. Wolff explains why capitalism does not deserve credit for improved living conditions, Home Depot billionaire blames US capitalism's problems on US workers being "lazy, fat, and stupid," Southwest Airlines as example of failures by both corporations and their gov't "regulators," George Santos as creature of capitalist advertising. In the second half of the show, Wolff interviews Chris Hedges on the crisis of corporate America in 2023.

Economic Update - ”Economics for a New Year”

In this week's show, Prof. Wolff discusses US spending for war in Ukraine paid for by higher interest rates and inflation hurting middle and small businesses ; a rational transport system is NOT electric cars; an appreciation of the "degrowth" impulse with a critique of the degrowth movement's focus on individuals' consumerism and excess consumption.