Episodes
Friday Jan 31, 2020
Economic Update - Exposing Economic Myths
Friday Jan 31, 2020
Friday Jan 31, 2020
Discussions of (1) "unemployment rate" as inadequate measure of economy's well-being; (2) decline of real value of US minimum wage; (3) multiple failures and flaws of markets, (4) corporations as less economically efficient than worker coops.
Friday Jan 24, 2020
Economic Update - Military Spending and Debt
Friday Jan 24, 2020
Friday Jan 24, 2020
Updates on France's successful mass uprisings (Yellow Vests in 2019; mass union strikes in 2020) that forced gov't to back down on changes that workers opposed; how endless wars impose huge debts; and how US Catholic Church uses bankruptcy law to keep assets from compensating victims of pedophile priests. Interview journalist Bob Hennelly on military spending and debts in the US economy.
Friday Jan 17, 2020
Economic Update - Independent Media
Friday Jan 17, 2020
Friday Jan 17, 2020
Updates on sale of coop craft brewery, US medical costs highest in world, and the "overcoming poverty" defense of capitalism's inequality and instability. Interview Laura Flanders on independent media.
Saturday Jan 11, 2020
Economic Update - "Answering our Critics"
Saturday Jan 11, 2020
Saturday Jan 11, 2020
Three major criticisms of Economic Update are considered: (1) that we don't praise capitalism for reducing world poverty, (2) that we don't admit that "socialism has never worked anywhere," and (3) that no inventor of a new product or technique who starts a business will ever accept that employees in such a business are equal partners with the inventor, originator of the business. Today's program answers these criticisms, refuting their arguments systematically.
Friday Jan 03, 2020
Economic Update - US Capitalism and the Family: Myth vs Reality
Friday Jan 03, 2020
Friday Jan 03, 2020
Updates on Job Quality Index and its US decline, the French activism against President Macron's effort to cut pensions, Gartman Letter urges investors to sell stocks in face of Trump's policies deteriorating the economy, Obamas purchase $11.5 million Martha's Vineyard mansion, and Kansas City cuts public transport fares to zero. Interview with Dr Harriet Fraad on myth vs reality of US capitalism and the family
Friday Dec 13, 2019
Economic Update - Libertarianism, Capitalism and Socialism
Friday Dec 13, 2019
Friday Dec 13, 2019
Libertarians defend capitalism by saying its many current flaws/faults flow from the state's economic interventions, not from the system itself. Libertarians oppose socialism as even more state-dominated. We criticize libertarians based on capitalism's long history of strong state interventions and socialism's long-standing anarchistic components. We conclude by inviting consideration of possible agreements between some libertarians and some socialists.
Saturday Dec 07, 2019
Economic Update - Competition and Monopoly in Capitalism
Saturday Dec 07, 2019
Saturday Dec 07, 2019
This week’s special topic discusses capitalism's growing problems, such as inequalities, instabilities, and unsustainability. That leads some defenders to argue that the causes of these problems are monopolies displacing competition in many industries. We disagree: capitalism's history is oscillations between competition and monopoly, each causing the other. Capitalism itself is the problem, not its oscillating forms.
Saturday Nov 23, 2019
Economic Update - Teaching Economics: A Revolutionary Approach
Saturday Nov 23, 2019
Saturday Nov 23, 2019
Updates on Sawant victory in Seattle City Council election, the US obesity problem's costs and causes, critiquing libertarian arguments for capitalism. Interview Dr. Amy S. Cramer, Prof of Economics, Arizona, on her accessible education project "Voices on the Economy.
Friday Nov 15, 2019
Economic Update - Political Strategy for Transition
Friday Nov 15, 2019
Friday Nov 15, 2019
Today's program discusses a political strategy for transition beyond capitalism to an economy based on democratic worker-cooperatives. The first half explores the history of how transition was achieved from feudalism to capitalism. The second half draws lessons from that history to provide a strategy for a transition now beyond capitalism.
Friday Nov 08, 2019
Economic Update - U.S.' Profit-driven Medicine
Friday Nov 08, 2019
Friday Nov 08, 2019