Economic Update

Economic Update - "Politicians Faking It"

Updates on Luxembourg making all public transport free, Europe evading US sanctions on Iran, Saudi Arabia sleaze deals with Trump, Deutsche Bank corruption massive, Pompeo's anti-China strategy contradicts Trump "nationalism." Interview with journalist Bob Hennelly on politicians betraying workers' and local citizens' needs.

Economic Update - "Ecosocialism"

Updates on New York City council votes minimum wage for ride-hailing drivers (Uber, Lyft, etc.), Trump store is 85% goods made abroad, charter school teachers strike in Chicago, contradictions in US-China trade war, VW ends gas car production in favor of electric in evasion of need for mass transit. Interview Victor Wallis author of Red-Green Revolution: The Politics and Technology of Ecosocialism.

Economic Update - Capitalism: Slow-motion Implosion?

Canada cuts corp tax cuts in race to bottom, Macron pleases business but outrages French people, Italy's new gov't budget provides for its people, Hillary Clinton joins right in scapegoating immigrants, and how "quantitative easing" policy after 2008 crash made the rich richer. Interview with Dr Harriet Fraad on psychological implications of the US mid-term elections. 

Economic Update - Capitalism - Changed by its Contradictions

Updates on poverty in California, childhood obesity in US, economic fallout from (real meaning of) Trump steel tariff. Prof Wolff responds to questions by explaining how US politics has sustained US capitalism and what the politics of change will require. 

 

Economic Update - "What Elections Hide"

Updates on LA vote on public bank; contradictions of Trump's "nationalism;" big business criticism of tariffs; corporations like 7-Eleven use immigration crisis for profits. Major discussion: the urgent social issues that elections ignore or hide.

Economic Update - Cooperation Jackson: a closer look

This week’s updates include: massive international study of profit-driven food production, the huge costs of contemporary loneliness, police raid Deutsche Bank, Falling house prices, Belgium follows France in mass street demonstrations, and US economy hurt by poor incomes of Millennials. Interview with Kali Akuno, co-founder of Cooperation Jackson, the Mississippi development project focused on worker coops.

Economic Update - The Great American Purge

The program begins by explaining the economics behind the great US  anti-leftist purge (“McCarthyism”) after 1945. It then shows the economic impacts of that purge over the last half century. Finally, it explains how that history produced a very different political response to the crash of 2008 compared to FDR’s response to 1929.

Economic Update - Seattle firm converts into a worker coop

 Updates on Amazon subsidized by New York, Virginia; French people act to limit corporate greed, Sears favors bosses in bankruptcy too, Pfizer ups drug prices despite Trump, California fires expose US economic divide. Guest Matthias Scheiblehner discusses why his Seattle construction firm converted into a worker coop.

 

 

 

 

Economic Update - Why Capitalism Demonizes Government

Updates on UK war on "Unexplained Wealth," why capitalism needs yet attacks government, historical reality of low wages in US, cozy deals between big corporations and credit rating agencies again. Major discussions of capitalism's oscillations between nationalist and internationalist phases (are we now moving backwards to nationalism again?) and once more on the inefficiency and immorality of markets as a mechanism of distribution.

Economic Update - US Midterm Elections

Updates on how China hits back economically; capitalism surviving in Italy through explosive debt creation; why lotteries have heavy economic costs; and how Grinnell College undergraduate workers successfully organized. Interview with Prof. David Harvey on a Marxist view of the US midterm elections: causes and consequences.