Posted on 09 September 2020. Tags: COVID-19, Dean Baker, Federal Reserve Board, Hotel Workers, Jerome Powell, Unite-Here
The most important political figure in your economic life—to be sure, the boss of a company has got a lot of power—is not the president of the United States, no matter who that is. It’s probably the head of the Federal Reserve Board. We know interest rates are at historic lows and mortgage rates are […]
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Posted in Audio, Economy, Labor, Podcast, Workers
Posted on 02 September 2020. Tags: COVID-19, Elections 2020, Jessica Martinez, Margaret Hoover, National COSH, Safety and Health
The last name “Hoover” is, if I can use this term, a brand name in conservative circles. Herbert Hoover was the 31st president of the U.S. who served during the Great Depression, taking office in 1929 the year the stock market crashed—an apt historical reference for today perhaps since the economic implosion we are living […]
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Posted in Audio, Labor, Podcast, Politics
Posted on 26 August 2020. Tags: Adam Christensen, Alexandre Galimberti, COVID-19, Florida, Oxfam, Poultry Workers, Stimulus, Unemployment
It’s never enough to remind people every single day how many workers are out there on the frontlines risking their lives in the pandemic. I’ve talked about those folks regularly on the show: the transit workers, retail workers, and teachers. And, surely, the workers who put food on our plates are right up there on […]
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Posted in Audio, Economy, Podcast, Politics
Posted on 19 August 2020. Tags: Elections, Garment Workers, Haiti, Lauren Stewart, Miles Rapoport
Voting in America, compared to many other countries, is not easy. That’s always been true. Donald Trump’s relentless effort to undermine the vote in November, in this case by crippling the postal service and trying to make it impossible for ballots to be counted on time, is surely corrupt. But, the undermining of the vote […]
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Posted in Audio, Current Events, Economy, Labor, Podcast, Politics
Posted on 12 August 2020. Tags: Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Gabrielle Carteris, Jen Perelman, MeToo, Netflix, SAG-AFTRA
Today the show is all about Hollywood. Hollywood, California and Hollywood, Florida. Hollywood, California is in a rumble. For most performers in the entertainment business, residuals are the foundation to making a living—either a solid middle class living or somewhat less than that. Over many decades, residuals have been tied to various things such as […]
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Posted in Audio, Economy, Podcast, Politics
Posted on 05 August 2020. Tags: Bernie Sanders, Budgets, Convention, COVID-19, Democrats, Michael Leachman, Progressives, States
The pandemic has ripped a hole through every state budget in the country to the tune collectively of over $550 billion. That red ink is more than half a trillion dollars in money states won’t have—which translates into millions of people losing their jobs, services being decimated that we all rely on, attacks against people […]
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Posted in Audio, Economy, General Interest, Podcast, Politics
Posted on 31 July 2020. Tags: Bernie Sanders, COVID19, Democratic Party, Progressives
Years from now, at a great price in human life and suffering, the corona pandemic will have marked a potential decisive shift in the country because tens of millions of people will have seen that the country’s system and leadership have failed, over many decades, to protect the people. Progressives have a golden opportunity to […]
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Posted in Economy, Politics
Posted on 29 July 2020. Tags: Amazon, Bob Lynch, Florida, Jeff Bezos, Lori Wallach, NAFTA
By the time you are tuning into the show, Jeff Bezos, one of the great scars on the economic landscape, will have finished his song-and-dance testimony before Congress, during a hearing that mostly focuses on the massive anti-competitive power of the big tech firms like Amazon and Google. But, long before today, Jeff Bezos has […]
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Posted in Audio, Economy, Labor, Podcast, Politics
Posted on 22 July 2020. Tags: Amy Hanauer, China, IRS, ITEP, Rahima Mahmut, Slave Labor, Supply Chains, Taxes, Uyghurs
China’s leaders and wealthy elites are willing partners of global capitalism, opening up its doors, willingly, to Wal-Mart and huge multinational companies so those companies can produce trillions of dollars of stuff using cheap slave labor—in good capitalist style. Since 2017, China has been conducting a steady campaign of mass transfer of more than a […]
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Posted in Audio, Labor, Podcast, Workers
Posted on 15 July 2020. Tags: Big PHARMA, COVID19, Drug Companies, Gerald Posner, Pramila Jayapal
Here is something we can all agree on I think—drug companies are blood-sucking, greedy cheats who cannot be trusted with the health and welfare of tens of millions of people. Am I right? And that’s even more true as we watch the global scramble to be the first company to profit big-time from a vaccine […]
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Posted in Audio, Economy, Podcast, Politics