Economic Update: Xmas vs Economic Realities

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On this week's episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on politicians lying about economics, fines for big banks, Maine votes left, int students come less to US, Pebble Mine struggle, fading American dream. Major discussions of (1) Xmas spirit vs deporting immigrants, (2) the only way to rescue and rebuild the US "middle class" and (3) raising capital for worker coops.


Showing 5 comments

  • Landon Swearengin
    commented 2017-09-14 14:22:26 -0400
    This article shows us the economic reforms which are in United States and how badly they are implementing them. In one of survey conducted by http://www.thebestessayshelp.net/ blog 90% of the people are against these reforms. The public is suffering a lot because of these reforms and inequality in earnings.
  • Dan Va
    commented 2017-01-02 11:41:17 -0500
    Once drone farming takes a good hold on agriculture all that’s left is sex education and population limitation. Time to morph into the next level of human development. Time to pity the skill-less insatiable wealth hoarders. Concealment of wealth is hardly a know-how skill to exalt as a virtue.
  • Paul Flansburg
    commented 2016-12-29 08:04:24 -0500
    I just read the last criticism. Let me summarize: 1) reform doesn’t work; 2) we don’t have enough time.

    1) We know what does work. History delineated in Wolff’s address peroxides a good example. I don’t see Wolff contradicting himself, as the last comment seems to suggest.

    2) History also shows “quick fixes” are part of the reason we can’t trust the politician singled out. I’m not asking Wolff to be a good con man and offer a solution that works quickly. Moreover, if we act quickly, we have a chance at addressing cataclysm with collective action.

    The dominant narrative takes no issue with the paradigm of GLOBAL COMPETITION. Our government, businesses, even our churches fail to challenge the competition paradigm. We pray for “our troops.”
    What’s needed is a new paradigm: global solidarity.
  • Will Cooper
    commented 2016-12-27 15:49:29 -0500
    Prof. Wolff: In the second half of this program you first advocated reforming the capitalist system by mounting pressure on the government to tax the rich and fund a federal jobs program, etc. To do this you urged workers to join unions and dissident political parties en masse. I see several problems with this. First, the unions are corrupt, as you know. Joining the labor movement today, under its present pro-capitalist leadership, would not accomplish much. Second, the left is splintered into a myriad of parties which, each of them, have a different outlook and programmatic goals. Given the media blackout on alternatives to major party politics, how would these parties be able to attract much attention from workers, and how would they coalesce into a unified worker-supportive organization? Hasn’t history taught us that reform doesn’t produce lasting results? Secondly, while I whole-heartedly back your efforts to help establish worker self-directed enterprises, thus far they have only arisen on a relatively small scale. (I am omitting the foreign exceptions of Mondragon and Emilia Romagna.) If WSDEs ever threatened the system in a substantial way, one might expected a concerted push-back by capitalists and their henchmen in Washington. Effectively meeting that assault would require the same kind of broad-based and deep involvement of workers and communities as the reform efforts you described earlier in the program. Wouldn’t they face the same organizational challenges, making their success problematic? My last point is that the country and the world do not have much time in which to take strong measures to slow or halt climate change. Global warming poses an existential threat to humanity, or at least to millions or billions of our species. The second danger is nuclear war. The capitalists will not do anything to alleviate these problems; they’re the cause of them. Adopting worker cooperatives is a long-term strategy that could take many decades if not more than a century. We don’t have that much time. What’s to be done?
  • Dan Va
    commented 2016-12-26 16:29:10 -0500
    Could you please criticize the notes I made regarding the Obama vs Trump Puffing comments? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j63BBlVq-Zs It’s about a 1 minute slide show that would go with talk; I hope.

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