Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff

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.