Economic Update

Economic Update - Stock Market Up, Economy Down: Mystery Solved - 02/05/13

Updates on declining higher ed in US, rising unemployment for all education levels, big money in politics. Discussions of (1) last week’s falling US GDP, rising unemployment and stock market peak, and (2) tragic scandals of profit-driven medical corporations. Replies to listeners on worker coops, whether Marx endorsed violence and worshipped government, and “real” capitalism fantasies.

Economic Update - Beyond Austerity to Economic Democracy - 01/29/13

Updates on global capital’s devastating moves and on the FED’s huge recent expansion of the money supply. Interview with Prof. Jan Rehmann: a Gramscian analysis of the Occupy movement. Response to listeners (1) how transition to workers self-directed enterprises (WSDEs) would change education and (2) an  example of WSDEs today, New Era Windows of Chicago.

Economic Update - Economics and Banking - 01/22/13

Updates on Gerard Depardieu's individual tax evasion, corporate tax evasion via profit repatriation, worst CEOs of 2012, and phony DC "debt-ceiling" theatrics. Discussion of Swiss bank crimes, Keynesian vs Marxian economics, political turmoil in 2013, and criticism of markets. Response to question on new capital gains taxes. On Economic Update with Professor Richard Wolff, Wolff and guests will discuss the current state of the economy, both locally and globally in relation to the economic crisis. Wolff will focus on wages, jobs, taxes, and debts - and on interest rates, prices, and profits. We aim to explain why certain economic changes are happening and other changes get postponed or blocked and we will explore alternative ways to organize enterprises, markets, and government policies. Economic Update is a weekly show for people who want to understand and change not only their own financial situation but also the larger economy we all depend on.

Economic Update - Contending Economic Theories - 01/15/13

Trying a new format, we use the full hour to examine the two basic kinds of economic theory mostly widely used now to understand economic issues. On one side, the dominant mainstream theories ("neoclassical economics" and "Keynesian economics") celebrate the capitalist economic system. On the other side, Marxian economics is the dominant critical theory of capitalism whose premiss is that society can do better than capitalism. Today's discussion builds on R. Wolff and S. Resnick's new book, Contending Economic Theories: Neoclassical, Keynesian and Marxian (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012).

Economic Update - Our Unjust Federal Tax System - 01/08/13

Updates on how the new US tax deal favors the rich, deepening student loan problems, and how 2012 benefited billionaires. Analysis of possible conversion from a war-oriented to a peace-oriented economy. Response to listener question on using workers' pension funds to change corporate behaviors.