10:00 AM Pacific Time: Fridays
Economics Professor Richard D. Wolff and guests discuss the current state of the economy, locally and globally. The program explores government policies, alternative ways to organize, and markets.
In this week’s special fund drive episode of Economic Update, Professor Richard Wolff discusses Germany’s recession; efforts by California fast-food workers to unionize; how the war in Ukraine boosts the US stock market and corporate stock holdings, while hurting most wage/salary incomes; and major injustices of the US federal tax system (tax exemptions for schools, … Continued
On this week’s episode, Professor Richard Wolff begins with the increasingly more common corporate threats aimed to force remote workers back to working onsite. He then turns to Ukraine war economics, U.S. versus BGI as anti-Chinese economic nationalism, U.S. escalation of war in the Middle East, and finally a critique of injustices embedded within the … Continued
In this week’s episode, Professor Richard Wolff discusses the continuing decline of U.S. manufacturing; a 29,000 person strike at California State University; the Houthis disruption of Red Sea shipping in move against Israel; and Texas’s refusal to obey U.S. federal government’s rules in a struggle over immigration and white supremacy. Then we present a special … Continued
On this week’s Economic Update, Professor Richard Wolff discusses the special dimensions and qualities of the U.S. labor movement’s current dynamism. Thomas Piketty’s analysis shows how capitalism generates widening wealth and income gaps, leading to crashes or simmering, divisive, and domestic resentments. The system itself becomes destabilized and can then lurch to the left, as … Continued
This week’s updates include: information on the closing Greyhound bus stations, miscalculating strengths of Russian obstacle in Ukraine, UK empire cannot afford both Yemen bombs and National Health Service, Boeing aircraft safety debacle enables Chinese export leadership in global auto trade, and Israel’s caught in the shifts and changes of the world economy, as US … Continued
In this week’s show, Professor Wolff analyzes the corporation. It stands as a basic institution blocking real democracy in our society. The corporation’s structure and operations empower and enrich a tiny social minority at the expense of the people’s wealth and democratic power. Like the critiques of slave plantations and feudal manors that preceded the … Continued
The so-called “decoupling” of the US and Chinese economies is NOT happening. Their economies are too deeply intertwined. The reality hidden by “decoupling” is just capitalism’s usual uneven development. Capitalism relocated investment away from its old centers (Western Europe, North America, and Japan) to China, India, Brazil, et al. The US cannot stop or reverse … Continued
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 … Continued
On today’s show: Professor Wolff updates an analysis of Philadelphia, PA’s extreme income inequality, we consider the number of workers on strike per year since 2017 in the U.S., the UAW organizes a strike at the VW plant in Tennessee and conducts other unionization drives, and 400k public employees go on strike in Quebec, which … Continued
On today’s show: Professor Wolff updates an analysis of Philadelphia, PA’s extreme income inequality, we consider the number of workers on strike per year since 2017 in the U.S., the UAW organizes a strike at the VW plant in Tennessee and conducts other unionization drives, and 400k public employees go on strike in Quebec, which … Continued
