Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff

Updates on capitalism vs higher education, real costs of apps, how other half banks. In depth analyses of projected economic downturn in 2016, capitalist inequality and housing changes, and how capitalism affects sports.

November 1, 2015 Today's episode includes updates on Obama's harshness regarding student debt, how much corporations and the rich abuse tax havens, MIT rejects fossil-fuel divestment and Tylenol's profit over safety practices. Prof. Wolff responds to listeners on where the US economy is now headed and discusses the problems and prospects of teaching economics after the 2008 crisis during an interview with life-long high school teacher Alan Schulman.

Sept 7, 2015 This week's updates cover extreme poverty, workers' victory over tech giants, NFL concussions, Trump's economics analyzed and Oakland for worker coops. Prof Wolff responds to listeners questions on workers who lost out from 2007-2014 and on the injustice of state and local taxes. We close with major discussions of last week's stock market gyrations and the resurgence of socialism.

Sept 14, 2015 This week's updates include the economics of refugees, Ford buys French political wife, LAs homeless, Labor Day history, Seattle Teachers strike and why Japan's jobs are ever more precarious. Prof Wolff responds 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.

Sept 20, 2015 This week's updates include the GM settlement, a look at why the Census Bureau proves there is no recovery for 90% and why GE is moving jobs overseas. Prof. Wolff responds to listeners on FED agonies over interest rates and how capitalism mishandles unemployment. We end with a major discussion of WSDEs and capitalist corporations.

Sept 27, 2015 This week's updates include a look into new Detroit book, the Mayor's austerity policy in Chicago, homeless school children and soaring medical insurance deductibles. Prof. Wolff responds to listeners on the VW scandal and the Pope's statements on economics. Prof. Wolff also interviews Prof. Ian Seda-Irizarry on the current crisis in Puerto Rico.

This week's episode includes updates on the Swedish plan for peaceful transition beyond capitalism, ripoffs in car insurance and Ferguson, MO's credit downgrade. Prof. Wolff's response to listeners about the CA drought and the best solution for corporate abuses like VW's. Major discussions include what class means and what is at stake in the different meanings of class and guaranteed income vs guaranteed jobs.

October 11, 2015 This week's episode includes updates on the attack against Planned Parenthood and Irish and French unions' current initiatives. Prof. Wolff responds to questions on the VW scandal and the TPP deals. The second half of the show includes an in-depth update and analysis of the ongoing Crisis in Greece with Prof. Harry Konstantinides.

Today's episode includes updates on a monstrous beer merger, buying the US presidency, homelessness in Hawaii and the Canadian election results. Prof. Wolf responds to a listener's question on the relationship of individualism to capitalism and socialism. We end on a major discussion of the history of socialism vs. capitalism with a focus on the specific place of democratic socialism.

October 18, 2015 This week's edition of Economic Update features discussion on: saving capitalism, looming economic downturn, 250,000 against TTIP in Berlin, US plan to give Puerto Rican taxes to banks, and a one-on-one interview with Ms. Laura Flanders, an independent journalist on co-ops vs capitalism.

June 14, 2015 Today's updates include an analysis of 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. The second half of the show features an in-depth interview with Prof. Sohnya Sayres where we explore 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.

June 21, 2015 Today's show opens with Goldman Sachs' injustice and then we move on to the 'independent contractor' ploy just busted at FedEx and Uber followed with Wisconsin governor's attack on public universities to lower taxes on corporations and the rich. In the second half of today's show, we interview Prof Kristin Ross on her new book about the significance of the Paris Commune where workers fought injustice by reorganizing society dramatically and effectively.

June 28, 2015 Today's updates begin with the victories of alumna, faculty and students over the autocratic board of Sweet Briar College in Virginia. We then discuss the uniquely awful US record on paid leave for workers and an interesting move by cities (ex: Santa Cruz, CA) to disconnect from corrupt big banks. We have fun with the US gov't leaving the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York and we celebrate the rising UK movement against austerity. The second half of the show features an interview with veteran reporter Bob Hennelly on the Pope's statement about ecology, environment, and a failing economic system.

July 6, 2015 We are beginning a new 3-week experiment with a new format that includes two in-depth analyses, one in each half of the show. We begin this update 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.

July 12, 2015 Continuing our new format experiment of two in-depth analyses, the first half of today's show we discuss how The New Deal was both a victory and a defeat. Both offer crucial lessons for today's world. In the show's second half, we'll dive into 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.

March 29, 2015 In this episode of Economic Update we take a look at the Trans-Pacific Partnership secrets, the Heinz-Kraft merger, the overly costly and underperforming US medical care system, the fines for Graco selling faulty child car-seats, China's real-estate bubble and the estate tax repeal being pushed by Republican House Representatives. We will also hear responses to listeners on property: private versus public and discuss how system change has happened in the past and and how it can and should happen within capitalism today.

April 5, 2015 This episode of Economic Update features a look into the car parts industry, why and how German courts cut Uber, how Russia's economy is growing despite economic sanctions, why there's no recovery in declining teaching positions in the US for new PhDs in the humanities, and the impact of huge Mexican worker strikes against the agricultural giant Driscoll. We also respond to listeners regarding various countries' currency manipulations and the role of unions in workers' co-ops. Another interview with Dr. Harriet Fraad (a longtime NYC mental health counsellor) on how capitalism's changes since the 1970's have disrupted the personal lives of men and women in the US and the creative solutions to which many have turned.

April 12, 2015 In this edition of Economic Update, we take a look at inadequate unemployment insurance, where Ted Cruz's campaign money is coming from, a law that's giving domestic workers real benefits and who's demonizing the poor. We also hear responses to listener questions on the California drought and the US medical system's experiments on real people. We also dive into an interview with Yochai Gal to discuss two successful Boston-based worker co-ops he's organized - TechCollectives.

April 19, 2015 This edition of Economic Update include updates on: Bernanke's new big-bucks finance job, how GM is avoiding billions in victims' claims for faulty ignitions, how a Seattle capitalist raised all of his employees salaries to a $70k/yr, Americans' self-delusion on inequality, how private profit is trumping public policy and anti-student-debt activism. Responses to listeners in the second half of the show include: the impact on China if capitalism's relocation is stopped and major discussions on the economics of wages and prices, the narrowness of economics in education and basic global economic development issues.

April 26, 2015 In this edition of Economic Update we will examine the potential impacts of the UK elections, the economic crisis' long-term effects, how Kansas demonizes the poor and the mustard-ketchup economic war. We'll also have responses to listeners' questions on child-support economics and US car production moving to Mexico. Our major discussions in the second half of the show will cover the history of capitalism and war and the new stages of Cuban socialism and US Cuba-policy as well as the high stakes of Greece's economic situation.

May 3, 2015 This episode of Economic Update includes updates on the May Day holiday, the Baltimore uprising, the Nepal earthquake and poverty, Varoufakis vs repression, Bud Light pushing beer by endangering women and responses to listeners' questions on varieties of coops, plus an Interview with Prof. Yahya Madra on Turkey, Capitalism, and Islam!