Economic Update

Economic Update – Precarious Work = Capitalism's Inefficiency – 09.13.15

Updates on economics of refugees, Ford buys French political wife, LAs homeless, Labor Day history, Seattle Teachers strike, and Japan's jobs ever more precarious. Response to listeners on why rising wages need NOT mean rising prices. Interview with Dr. Harriet Fraad, mental health counselor, on the psychological pains, personal suffering, and huge social costs of imposing uncertainty and precarity on job security, hours and days of work, benefits, and wages.

Economic Update – When Profits Come First – 09.06.15

"Updates on extreme poverty, workers' victory over tech giants, NFL concussions,  Trump's economics analyzed, and Oakland for worker coops. Response to listeners on workers who lost out from 2007-2014 and on injustice of state and local taxes. Major discussions of (1) last week's stock market gyrations and (2) the resurgence of socialism."

Economic Update – System Toxicity – 08.16.15

Updates on China's currency moves, UK'S Corbyn like US Sanders, adjuncts unionize, Pepsi and Coke offer self-serving health advice, Rand Paul's misunderstanding of economics. We answer questions about what happened to US real wages from 1974 to 2014. We analyze why no consensus about global warming, what are toxic effects of rising inequality, and role of psychologists in advertising.

Economic Update - Capitalism's Endless Costs - 07.26.15

Updates on Coke vs Pepsi war, price gouging on cancer drugs, Corwyn good for UK Labor Party, and new Pope's strong anti-capitalist speeches. We respond to listeners' questions on guaranteed basic income and on why public employees are not an economic negative. Major attention is given to supporting countries that refuse to pay certain govt debts and especially to Greece in a review of is dramatic recent struggles.

Capitalism and its Others - 07.19.15

Today's program focuses on two alternatives to capitalism. The first is an alternative to how capitalism organizes enterprises in terms of their internal workings and relationships. We examine workers self-directed enterprises: how they work and how they compare to capitalist enterprises. In the program's second half we look at an alternative to how capitalism organizes the economy as a whole: the socialist tradition that has evolved multiple different forms in the world today. We examine how socialism has evolved, its complex relationship with government, and how socialism compares with capitalism.

Economic Update - Learning from Economic defeats - 07.12.15

Continuing our new format experiment: two in-depth analyses. In the show's first half: The New Deal was both a victory and a defeat. Both offer crucial lessons for today. In the show's second half, a critical review of labor's short and long-run goals, labor's defensive decline, and a new strategy built on lessons of that decline.

Economic Update - Class and Socialism - 07.05.15

We begin our 3-week experiment with a new format: two in-depth analyses, one in each half of the show. We begin by considering the different meanings  of class, class analysis and class struggle across human history and why those differences matter so much now. Today's second half explores how socialism evolved from a basic alternative to capitalism into a state capitalism not so different from private capitalism. 

Pope Questions Capitalism - 06.28.15

Our updates start with victory of alumna, faculty and students over autocratic board of Sweet Briar College in Virginia, then discuss the uniquely awful US record on paid leave for workers and an interesting move by cities (Santa Cruz, CA as example) to disconnect from corrupt big banks. We have fun with why US govt leaving Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York and we celebrate rising UK movement against austerity. Second half of show interviews veteran reporter Bob Hennelly on the Pope's statement about ecology, environment, and a failing economic system. 

Fighting Economic Injustice - 06.21.15

We open with Goldman Sachs injustice and move on to the 'independent contractor' ploy just busted at FedEx and Uber and then Wisconsin governor's attack on public university to lower taxes on corps and rich. We interview Prof Kristin Ross on (her new book) on the significance of the Paris Commune where workers fough injustice by reorganizing society dramatically and effectively.

Higher Education in Crisis - 06.14.15

Updates analyze unemployment numbers to show what they hide as well as reveal. Responses to listeners' questions expose the economics of lotteries and why the largest US corporations have recently used their profits to buy back their shares in the stock markets. An in-depth interview of Prof. Sohnya Sayres explores the end of free college and universities in the US, the rise of administrators dominating students and faculty, and what these trends have meant for the quality of higher education in the US.