Economic Update

Economic Update - Economic Realities - 07/23/14

Updates on big bank fines, Tracy Morgan sues Walmart, highway trust and taxes, extreme wealth inequality in the Hamptons. Major discussions of workers self-directed enterprises and Oxfam's data on extreme global wealth inequality. Response to listeners on relation of wages to prices and on economic "value" of solar, wind and green energy vs coal, oil, gas and nuclear.

Economic Update - Banks and Other Outrages - 07/16/14

Updates on minimum wages in Europe vs US,  richest US families, and economics of immigration. Interview with Tom Sgouros on broken banking system. Response to listeners on overpaid CEOs.

Economic Update - It's the System - 07/09/14

Updates on vaccine price gouging, Canadian corporate misdeeds, Mass nurses fight inequality, Denmark's greater equality, Argentina as hedge fund hostage, and Gov Christie bombs again.

Major issues: GM scandals, US household wealth keeps declining, and US corps evade taxes.

Responses to listeners on Chinese food imports and Supreme Court decisions.

Economic Update - Analyzing Incarceration - 07/02/14

Updates on health economics, Mississippi political lessons, and whats wrong with a Harvard economist. Interview with Victor Wallis, on economics and politics of US prisons. Response to questions about: gender wage gap, real estate bubbles, and the "ultra richer" except in Latin America

Economic Update - Economic Codependency - 06/25/14

Updates on rising rates of young men earning below-poverty wages, Detroit's retired city workers accept 4.5% cut in pensions, Missouri government struggles over tax cuts for special interests. Major discussions of (a) new book on China-US codependency and (b) how/why our economic system works and breaks down. Response to listener's question on corporate taxes.

Economic Update - Capitalism's Mounting Contradictions - 06/18/14

Updates on RI Senate rewards firms limiting inequality, recession-driven increases in suicide rates, opposition to Dodd-Frank, negative effects of lower federal deficits, human costs of Detroit-type decline. Major discussions of economics of advertising and privatization. Response to questions on British real estate bubble and on worker cooperatives deciding on uses for their surpluses/profits.

Economic Update - Economic "Side-Effects" - 06/11/14

Updates on Walmart's Mexican bribes, car loans turn bad, state taxes, US slower than Europe on renewable energy, Seattle's $15/hour wage minimum, Finland fines according to ability to pay. Major discussions: (1) medical-industrial complex and (2) London conference to build mass acceptance/resignation to capitalism's "side effects". Response to questions on consumer stocks, H-1b visas, economic growth and differences between socialism and communism.

Economic Update - Myths of Capitalist Efficiency - 06/04/14

Updates on Maya Angelou, Chilean students' victory, uneven = no recovery, Detroit's plan to demolish 40,000 houses, and housing market realities. Major discussions on (1) international movement of economics students challenging curricula and teachers, and (2) economics of advertising

Economic Update - Fake Competition, Real Cooperation - 05/28/14

Updates on evaluating privatization of public schools, engineers’ class action against Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe, and US homeownership gives way to renting. Major discussions of big movement into worker coops in Cuba, different experience of Yugoslavia, and requiring departing corporations to pay back for publicly funded gifts received. Response to listener question on self-employment.

Economic Update - Yet More Big Bank Misdeeds - 05/21/14

Updates on US sanctions against Putin aides, relative decline in US median disposable income, stunning "accounting error" by Bank of America, and clever manipulation of US regulators by 15 biggest US banks. Major discussions of declines in discount stores reflecting absence of mass recovery, successes and growth of worker coops in Spain's deep economic crisis. Response to listener question on reverse mortgages and declining quality of jobs in US.