Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff

In this episode, Prof. Wolff presents updates on the economic aspects of the Covid pandemic: lockdowns vs vaccines, scientific debate vs corporate advertising, long-term vs short term costs, the billionaires made by profiting from vaccines, and false claims of vaccine profiteers. In the second half of the show, Prof. Wolff is joined by former NY Times food-critic Mark Bittman to discuss his new book "Animal, Vegetable, Junk."

In this week's show, Prof Wolff presents updates on the efforts to finally add dental, vision, and hearing coverage to Medicare, the effects of Trump's tariffs on China, and the contradictions between capitalist profiteering and healthcare. In the second half of the show, Wolff is joined by Professor Manny Ness to discuss worker insurgencies and political organizations in the global South today.

This program begins by analyzing the political monopoly (aka "The Center") operated by the GOP and Dems in the US: its organization and dominance until the last few years. The monopoly deteriorates as both GOP and Dem coalitions suffer splits and cracks opening opportunities for radical political shifts and perhaps new parties. The context of a declining US capitalism facing mounting unsolved social problems adds to the winds of change as do pressures to resort to repression. Wolff affirms that the Center cannot hold.

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff comments on how and why "consumerism" matters and on why Biden's "progressive shift" is both like and unlike (far more limited so far) FDR's. Wolff then interviews two Canadian professors of labor studies, Bryan Evanson and Carlo Fanelli, on the stakes for labor in fighting for a "living wage.

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 FDRs response to 1929.

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff discusses Congress Bills H.R.51 giving statehood to Washington, DC, and H.R.1 countering GOP efforts to restrict voting; and Biden's tax reforms to help pay for new and expanded government programs. In the second half of the program, Wolff interviews Prof. Michael Hillard on the role of labor in the dramatic rise and fall of Maine's paper industry, a parable for the economic difficulties facing the US today.

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff discusses Bernie Madoff's $ 82 billion swindles and capitalism's incentives for swindling, the economics of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, US government's racist housing policies, and refuting the defense of capitalism as "lifting people out of poverty." On the second half of the show, Wolff is joined by Professor Nina Banks to talk about economics and correcting the undervaluing of community building work by women of color.

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff presents an analysis of how and why capitalism is an undemocratic economic system. The first half is devoted to the micro-level, namely to the organization of the enterprise (factory, office or store). Its undemocratic character is exposed using examples and empirical evidence. The second half has a macro-level focus that shows how capitalism's generation of growing income and wealth inequality impels the employer class (a small numerical minority) to use their money politically. Their practice undermines real democracy leaving only its empty forms.

From 1945 to 1990 we were told a great struggle pitted capitalism against socialism/communism (chiefly the USSR and China). Yet still today, US leaders demonize Russia and China despite the end of communism in the USSR and a huge growth of capitalist enterprises in China. The explanation lies in US capitalism's long history of using nationalism (i.e. foreign dangers) to justify tax-payer funded government actions to protect, subsidize, and support major capitalists' dominant position in the US economy.

On this week's episode, Prof. Wolff talks about Rolls Royce's $400,000 cars, unionization defeat at Amazon, why Biden boom is just hype, and progressive wins in the New York state budget. On the second half of the show, Wolff welcomes Green Party leader Dr. Jill Stein to discuss the achievements and goals of an anti-capitalist 3rd party.

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff discusses how the US home rental market is failing over 20% of all renters, and the basic flaws in Biden's $2 trillion infrastructure proposal. On the second half of the show, Prof. Wolff interviews Prof. Marcelo Vieta on his studies of workers' success in taking over enterprises mismanaged by capitalists.

After clearing away the Cold War debris that blocked discussion of Marxism's insights since 1945, we focus on Marxism's core contribution to (1) thinking about and (2) changing modern capitalist society. That contribution is class structure and class struggle. Marxism explores how class struggle exists in capitalism, how it influences all of social life, and how it changes over time. Marxism also envisions the end of class struggles as its social change goal now.

On this week's episode, Prof. Wolff talks about the structural failure of Biden's American Rescue Plan, Nigerian mass workers' movement, private electricity for the US rich, big vs small business struggles, and why opposition to lockdowns only prolongs Covid. On the second half of the program, Wolff interviews author Rob Urie on criticizing capitalism.

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff discusses the US coal industry decline, Brazil's Covid disaster, economic surge after Covid, and Elizabeth Warren's wealth tax proposal. On the second half of the show, Wolff interviews investigative journalist Bob Hennelly on the gap between Biden regime actions and pronouncements, and the hard realities of economic depression and "food insecurity.

On this week's show, Wolff talks about the taxing of CEO pay in the US, the immoral and self-defeating vaccine policy, and LeBron James speaking out on social issues. On the second half of the show, Wolff interviews attorney James S Henry on the struggles for a stock transfer tax in New York, the US and globally.

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff presents updates on the Texas energy catastrophe, the 'Robinhood/Reddit' Wall Street incident, college workers organizing, Hollywood's dependency on China, and how New Zealand used total lockdown to beat COVID and support its economy. In the second half of the program, Wolff interviews Prof Marina Sitrin on pandemic solidarity and horizontal social action.

On this week's EU, Prof. Wolff presents updates on worsening US inequality, universities borrowing more, billions earned by hedge funds in 2020, Bezos "charity" giving, Macron and French conservatives' anti-Americanism, and Communists after 1945 vs Proud Boys now. On the second half of the show, Wolff interviews socialist Senator Rafael Bernabe from Puerto Rico.

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff discusses Amazon's profits; New York state's eviction crisis and capitalism's reproduction of poverty and inequality; New York's stock transfer tax; raising the minimum wage; and the subsidizing of billionaire's big sport businesses.

The extreme economic inequalities of both global and US capitalism are not new or exceptional. Capitalism reproduces inequality and repeatedly blocks or reverses redistribution efforts.Inequality stems from capitalist enterprises' internal organization: a tiny minority, employers, with dominant, unaccountable power enriches itself at the expense of all others, the employee majority. To overcome capitalism's inequality requires democratizing its enterprises' organizations.

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff presents updates on the radical policies of Berlin's city gov't and its Die LInke Party; why raising minimum wage to $15/hour is too little, too late; how bans on evictions and utility shut offs fight Covid-19; and lastly, he argues for the urgent need for a changed China policy. On the second half of the show, Wolff interviews Prof. Arlie Hochschild on her 10 year study of the US political right.

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff evaluates capitalism by how it deals with Covid-19 and talks about Boeing's latest fatal crash. The second half of the show is dedicated to a major discussion of the causes of Hitler in Germany as offering clues to the rise of Trump and the assault on the Capitol.

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff presents short updates on the Economic Plans of the Biden administration and US economic inequality, and why raising minimum wage to $15/hour is insufficient to deal with US economic inequality and its social consequences. The second half of the program features an interview with Kristen Ghodsee on women and the socialism vs capitalism debate.

On this week's show, Professor Wolff explains where the government is respected and empowered, nations have effectively contained the Covid-19 pandemic. He gives examples including New Zealand, Taiwan, South Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, and China. Alternately, where the government is demonized, disrespected, distrusted, the pandemic has been devastating. Examples of this include the UK and the US. Wolff argues that a rational economy includes both less and more government-regulated private enterprises plus state-owned and operated enterprises according to which performs best to meet society's needs. No fundamentalist "either/or" arguments are justified. Finally, he says how private and government enterprises are internally organized - hierarchical or alternatively democratic worker-co-op - is equally important.

This week, Professor Wolff gives updates on President-elect Biden's economic advisor "team", how Argentina's women's movement leads the defeat of the government and Roman Catholic Church oppositions to win legalized abortion and now targets other basic social changes, and how the deepening inequality of US wealth and income cause and reflect the growing gap between stock market prices and the depressed Main street US economy. The second half features an interview with Noam Chomsky on political and economic realities and possibilities facing us in 2021.

This program introduces the economic concept of "externalities." Those are the real costs of employers' business decisions that employers do not pay for or take into account: costs "external" to businesses' profit/loss calculations. Examples include costly damage to the environment, to employees' private lives, etc. Those real social costs are external and additional to capitalists' private costs. Therefore, capitalists' investment decisions based on comparing costs and revenues do NOT take into account the real, external costs. Thus their decisions are not "efficient." Capitalism never was the efficient system its apologists claim.

This week's show features updates on the continuing lessons from 2020 at the year's end: the economics of US policing and the 'defund' campaign, building a Cold War against China, and lessons from the 2020 election about political monopoly. In the second half, Professor Wolff interviews David Pakman about growing independent progressive media.

This week's show features a survey of the major economic events of 2020 that were poorly covered by mainstream media: the twin crises of viral pandemic/capitalist crash; protesting right-wing regimes (France, US, India, Poland); how the US Census Survey reveals the extent of US suffering; how Federal Reserve policies, intended to combat Covid-19 and economic crash, worsened income/wealth inequality; and the correction of poor unemployment data during a massive jobless crisis.

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff discusses Biden's 'new economic team,' big US banks falling short in key stress tests, India's 250-million-strong general strike, and lastly, huge chunk of US relief funds aimed at small and medium businesses grabbed instead by big business. The second half of the show features an interview with Flight Attendants Union President Sara Nelson.

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff discusses the immense social waste of today's US unemployment the Trump ban on investments in Chinese companies, new global organization for worker co-ops, and higher education cuts in UK and US. The second half of the show features an interview with Niki Okuk, South Central LA activist fighting for community control of downtown Crenshaw Mall.

This week's show is dedicated to a discussion of the signs of US capitalism's decline. US history as the passage of US capitalism from its birth, through its state-supported growth and expansion, to its global peaking from 1945 to 2000. Wolff presents the causes of its ongoing decline this 21st century, and then offers a conclusion on the right, center and left political responses to decline.

On the first half of this week's show, Prof. Wolff discusses labor's gains (Florida and Maine) and losses (the tragic Prop 22 in California), and the refutation of the claim that China's spectacular economic growth is a product of capitalism, not socialism. The second half of the show features an interview with Bob Hennelly, investigative reporter, on labor in the U.S. today with a particular focus on public employees.

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff presents the following short updates: Inspire Brands buys Dunkin Donuts, as big firms grow while medium and small firms die; private US capitalism is now on "life-support" financial dependence on US gov't; and pre-Covid US eviction tsunami is now getting worse fast. No matter who wins, the capitalist system gets continued support, continued failure to end instability, continued erosion of the New Deal, and continued denial of real political choice in the US.

On this week's show: what major social changes will flow from today's combination of major economic crash and the viral pandemic (capitalism's worst nightmare)? To answer, we consider how European feudalism changed after its 14th century combination of economic decline and the bubonic plague. The two big changes then were (1) switching from a decentralized to a strong state, monarchical feudalism and (2) transition from feudalism to capitalism. The two big parallel changes now are also (1) switching to a strong state capitalism and (2) transition from capitalism to a worker-coop based economy.

On the first half of this week's show, Prof. Wolff presents updates on the different metrics used for US unemployment, IMF on uneven recovery, money and US elections, Indigenous People's Day, and lastly China's commitment to digital currency, while big banks hold back other countries. The second half of the show features an interview with Havana professor Camila Piñeiro-Harnecker.

On the first half of this week's episode, Prof. Wolff presents a critique of pandemic eviction and updates on: the real US unemployment costs, Denmark sides with Germany against US pressure, China's successes, and lastly, why there has been no economic recovery in the US. On the second half of the show, Wolff interviews Lance of The Serfs, a major Canadian left-wing podcast.

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff talks about the Geneva, Switzerland vote that's raising the min wage to $ 25.16/hour or over $50k/year; GOP block federal aid to cities and states; economics of police brutality; 20th vs 21st century depressions; and lastly, how profit motivates capitalists to market fake, toxic hand sanitizers. On the second half of the program, Wolff interviews John Samuelsen, President of Transport Workers Union in the US.

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff presents updates on how capitalism gets in the way of fighting Covid-19, systemic racism and Covid-19, why Europe did not allow the mass unemployment imposed on the US, and Wells Fargo CEO's fake excuse for lack of diversity among bankers. In the second half of the show, Wolff explores why capitalism fears the modern state and how it controls that state.

On the first half of this week's episode, Prof. Wolff discusses the following: graduate student strike at University of Michigan, Johnson & Johnson charged in opioid deaths, the richest Americans gain $845 billion from March-September 2020, New Jersey raises taxes on millionaires, and real unemployment is at 18%. On the second half of the show, Wolff talks with rising podcaster Mexie on how she brings the left together.

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff presents updates on the 'Social Progress Index" and US capitalism's decline; how most young Americans, 18-29, now live with their parents; Argentina's debts are cut in half; and lastly, why most of the US economy is now on welfare. The second half of the show features a major discussion of a social transition beyond capitalism.

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff presents updates on why the FED monetary policy dominates the US; fatal flaws of eviction moratorium; luxury, fashion centers shift to China despite US anti-China policies; and the unnecessary crisis of US restaurants. On the second half of the show, Wolff interviews sports journalist Dave Zirin on historic strikes of US professional athletes.

On this week's all new Economic Update, Prof. Wolff discusses the Federal Reserve's pro-inflation policy's causes and effects, professional athletes and "dual power," more state-monopoly capitalism in the US, and Denmark vs US on Covid-19 battle. On the second half of the show, Prof. Wolff interviews journalist Bob Hennelly on the US labor crisis.

On this week's Economic Update, Prof. Wolff discusses the following: Denmark's new taxes on banks and rich people to help workers doing dangerous jobs; West Virginia AG sues Walmart and CVS for complicity in opioid scandal; and US State Department urges universities to sell shares in Chinese corporations. On the second half of the show, Prof. Wolff interviews author and journalist Chris Hedges on signs of the declining US empire.

On this week's episode, Prof. Wolff talks about the Chinese economy. China is run by a Communist Party but describes itself as socialist, while the employer/employee structure of its enterprises is capitalist. We examine what this means for (a) its place in the world economy, (b) its place in the transition from capitalism to socialism/communism, and (c) its conflict with the US.

On this week's all new EU, Prof. Wolff contends that defenders of capitalism chose a poor definition because that made it much easier to defend capitalism. A much better, clearer definition was and is available. But, he explains, it exposes capitalism to profound criticisms.

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff discusses the following: the US is a poor place to raise kids according to a recent Forbes' magazine article, the collapsing restaurant industry, eviction policy (France vs US), Bugatti cars for very rich kids, and Pfizer CEO wants big profits from Covid-19 vaccine. On the second half of the show, Prof. Wolff talks with former Goldman Sachs banker Nomi Prins on how the Fed rigs US money supply in disastrous ways.

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff discusses corruption of public workers' pensions, capitalist contracts displaced by legal fights, Canada's COVID-19 record vs US, retail apocalypse deepens, and Bezos vs 50 homeless people in Pittsfield. On the second half of the show, Prof. Wolff interviews economist and former UN Assistant Secretary General, Jomo Kwame Sundaram.

On this week's episode, Prof. Wolff presents the following updates: company cutting candy bar size but keeping the same price, Barcelona punishes landlords with empty apartments, Macy's closing stores while giving $millions bonuses to top executives, IMF anti-Covid-19 funds used instead to pay off private loans, health insurer profits because people cannot afford and fear doctor and hospital visits, Amazon profits from pandemic. On the second half of the show, Prof. Wolff interviews epidemiologist Rob Wallace on capitalist agriculture and viral pandemics.

Throughout capitalism's history, the big topic in economics was how far the government should intervene in the economy. Conservatives wanted minimum intervention while liberals and socialists wanted much more. In fact, government intervention mostly aimed at saving, protecting, supporting capitalism. The genuinely "great debate" could and should have been about the strengths and weaknesses of capitalism versus those of a real alternative system, socialism.

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff presents updates on false "trade-off" between illness and economy, going from normal to extraordinary injustice, hypocritical scapegoating of foreigners instead of facing domestic public health and economic failures, and lastly, the tragic neglect of education during the pandemic and economic crash. On the second half of the show, Prof. Wolff is joined by The Nation magazine sports editor, Dave Zirin.

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff presents updates on "zombie" companies and their rapid growth in the US, The Federal Reserve "stress tests" expose risks, and weaknesses of major US banks. On the second half of the show, Prof. Wolff is joined by Greek economist, academic, philosopher and politician, Yanis Varoufakis on DiEM25, Europe's new internationalist left.