Welcome friends to another edition of
Economic Update
a weekly program devoted to the economic
dimensions of our lives
jobs debts income all of the things that
make the world go around and make it go
around the money
as well and i'm your host richard wolff
i want to begin today's program on a
kind of positive note
about an important initiative being
taken by the new
prime minister in denmark
she met frederickson by name
uh represents the social democratic
party in denmark
and she has caused quite an upsurge of
interest in government
when she proposed new taxes and let me
tell you what they were
or what they are first a
cap on deductions for people who earn
over
1.6 million dollars
they can't take the deductions that
reduced
their tax bill the way they used to
because she felt it's unfair
and she likewise put a cap on the
deductions that banks can take
off of their tax obligations from the
income
they earn if they earn over 480 million
dollars
they're going to have their deductions
capped
this is remarkable because nothing
remotely like this
exists here in the united states
perhaps even more interesting is why she
is imposing
these taxes she's proposed them at this
time
and her answer is that there are
approximately
38 000 workers in denmark
whose work is particularly arduous
they are having to work under difficult
physical
emotional or both kinds of obstacles and
pressures
you know it's the equivalent of the
first responders the people on the front
lines of the covid
virus who take a risk literally every
day
by the situations in which they work
and she wants to at the very least equip
them
and pay them extra to offset
in part the extra difficult work
they do what an interesting idea
to pay people according to the
difficulty
and the social importance of the work
that they do well how have the bankers
and the rich people of denmark reacted
this is not going to come as much of a
surprise but let me tell you
two things they've stressed in their
rageful answers
one and i'm i'm gonna try to snarl a
little just to get the flavor
across here they're gonna pass the tax
on to the public
in other words they want the people of
denmark to know
if we get taxed by the government no
matter what the reason is
no matter what the fairness might be
we're going to stick
you with the bill so we don't have to
pay
nice and here comes the second one
we'll cut employment and growth well if
we have to give you
taxes well we're not going to invest it
we're not going to hire people we're not
going to grow
and boy will you suffer in other words
don't mess with us because we'll make
the pain
shift over and hit you worse
you know what this is like this is like
workers when they're hit with attacks
saying okay we're not going to work the
whole system stops you can't touch us
you can't tax us or maybe saying okay we
have to pay an extra tax
we will starting on monday so long as
our wages are raised by
exactly that amount or maybe a little
bit more for the time and the trouble
these are threats against democracy
these are threats against
the way the system ought to work in a
democratic society
there will now be discussions in the
danish parliament
and then there will be a vote and if the
vote is in favor of
imposing these taxes it's the job of the
business community
to pay them and not to issue threats
by the way let's look at the threats
we're going to raise prices no you're
not that's fake
you know why the banks aren't going to
raise prices because they'd lose
business
if they did they're not free to do that
they don't set the prices
not quite not yet so it's a bit of a
fake
then there's what could the government
do if they try to carry out these
threats you know
the government isn't powerless don't be
fooled you know what the banks and the
rich are really doing
they're providing excuses that
politicians can use
not to vote for this tax increase
on banks and the rich by telling the
people
oh we're not against taxing the rich but
you see bad things will happen
if we do so we can't i'm really
protecting
you by not voting what a hustle this is
don't be fooled very briefly let me
explain
what the government could do when
threatened
by business interests and the rich and
of course i'm telling you this story
about denmark
because it applies everywhere else
including
the united states here are some things
they could do
the government could issue price
controls
on banks what they charge in fees what
they charge in interest
same congress that passes the tax on the
bank
can pass the price control on the bank
and then the bank can't pass on the cost
of its taxes
by raising the prices of what it sells
in the way of services
problem solved suppose the banks come up
with some other way
to threaten well the government counter
threats
that's what it would do if it were our
government wouldn't it
here's an example oh you private banks
are going to threaten us
when we try to put a fair tax on you
okay
we'll set up government banks and we'll
compete with you
and then let's see where the public goes
confronted by your
private self-help program for yourselves
and your profits versus the public bank
that's why private bankers like those
here in the united states
fight against public banks they couldn't
possibly
cope with the competition their
celebration of competition
is for speeches on july 4th not the
reality
which is the last thing on earth they
want just look at the history of the one
state in the united states
north dakota that has a public bank to
see what efforts
the private banks have gone to to try to
undercut by the way they
failed that public bank in north dakota
the threats are empty but the political
fallout is real
politicians are afraid to go against
those banks
afraid to go against the rich so they
use these kinds of arguments
to do what the banks and the rich want
while pretending
it's only to protect us from those empty
threats the banks have made don't
be fooled
my next update shifts us
from denmark to west virginia
why because the attorney general in west
virginia
one patrick morrissey a republican i
might add
has just filed lawsuits against walmart
and cvs the drug company
chain why because for years
they filled obviously suspicious
opioid prescriptions in huge
quantities and distributed them to
pharmacies
retail pharmacies across wide swaths of
the united states
we all know what the result has been
hundreds of
thousands of deaths from overdoses of
opioids
there is now a set of lawsuits against
the producers
of the opioids 26.4
billion dollars worth of lawsuits but
this
action by patrick morrissey in west
virginia
doesn't go after the producer of the
opioids
but someone equally guilty namely the
distributors
those who made it possible for those
producers to reach
the millions of people that have become
hooked
on opioids and then the hundreds of
thousands who have died
from them why am i telling you this
story
because it's the latest in a long list
of profit-making capitalism
killing people you know uh
let's see the cigarettes how about that
one
or the alcohol and how about that one
how about all the companies that cheated
on the emissions control
filling our air with pollutants while we
thought the pollution
test was giving us safe air it was
profitable to do all those things it was
the profit motive
that drove capitalists to do
what they did and kill
the huge numbers of people by the way
we're talking about numbers of people
sick and dead that are still ahead of
how bad covet has been
at least to this point so we ought to be
equally
upset about it the profit incentive
is not some kind of wondrous thing
that explains the wonders of our economy
it is as often a killer as it is
anything else so that the question can
we do better than a profit motive
driven society is a very good healthy
and honest question and banishing it on
the grounds at profit is just a
wonderful mechanism
is somewhere between stupid and evil
my last update for today that we'll have
time for
has to do with something bizarre and
unusual
that the united states state department
mike pompeo's baileywick
just did kind of remarkable you know
the state department is what in other
countries is called
the foreign ministry it deals with the
relationship or it's supposed to between
the united states and the rest of the
world
so imagine my amazement when i read
recently
that the statement department sent a
letter
to universities and colleges across the
united states
urging them if they owned in their
stock portfolios you know some
universities like harvard and yale and
princeton and so forth have a big
portfolio of stocks and bonds
that they have accumulated anyway the
state department suggested to all of
them that they get rid
of chinese companies whose stock
they own turns out they own quite a bit
because a balanced stock portfolio as
any stock advisor these days will tell
you
should include chinese stocks you know
why
because it's the second most important
capitalist country
in the world and growing three times
faster than the united states
and not to be invested in china is
thought to be
as an investment strategy somewhere
between stupid and evil
to stay with the theme what's going on
here
the government is picking companies
they're going to favor this company not
that one
and if you think it stops at foreign
policy
don't be naive next week they'll be
sending letters don't support this
company because it's run by a democrat
support that don't support this one
because it's run by a southerner
don't support you get it it used to be
the philosophy of capitalism
that the government has no point
no place choosing winners and losers in
the private sector
it's supposed to be we the consumer and
the producers
who in our competition determine who's
doing a good job who isn't who deserves
to grow who does it
none of that we're now going to have the
government
tell us what to do
and by the way lest any of you worry
this is not real anyway it's all for
show
two recent studies prove it one study
said
how much exodus of companies has
happened
from hong kong because companies don't
want to be part of china they wanted to
keep their independence answer none
they're not leaving because they know
the chinese are going to support them
in hong kong and the chinese-american
chamber of commerce in beijing
did a survey nobody's leaving there
either
they understand this is mr trump's
election strategy
and little more
well we've come to the end of the first
part of today's show
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stay with us we'll be right back with
our guest chris
hedges
welcome back friends to the second half
of today's
economic update it is with great
pleasure that i
bring back and welcome back to our
microphones and our cameras
chris hedges who by now has become a
colleague
and a friend uh he doesn't need an
introduction so i'm going to be very
brief
he worked for 15 years as a foreign
correspondent for the new york times
and won a pulitzer prize for doing so
and he's the author of over a dozen
books some of which we have discussed on
this program in the past
and the most recent one is called
america
the farewell tour so on behalf of an
excited group of
radio and tv audience thank you very
much chris for joining us
today thanks rick all right i'm going to
jump right in
um is the american
empire or is the american century or
however you want to call it
is it now in decline is there something
happening or some set of things that are
happening
that qualify for such a phrase to be
used
and if you think so what are the signs
that say that to you
well there are physical manifestations
of decline of empire
all around us uh and we are dying in the
same way that empires throughout history
have died
uh the assault against urban centers
that's
actually a characteristic of dying
empires the
uh decrepit infrastructure the
abandonment
of whole sectors of the population
the hollowing out of institutions that
are unable to deal
with the stresses that are put on a
country
so the foundations uh rot away the
facade remains and i think the pandemic
of course is one of those stresses uh
we've
lost or because of this for-profit
health care system
because of the ineptitude of the trump
white house but i think we have to go
back for
uh you know decades the uh kind of
assault on
on the health care system is hardly uh
tied exclusively to the republicans uh
an estimated three hundred thousand
americans uh will be dead by december
possibly four hundred thousand by uh
january uh real unemployment as you know
better than most is
not at ten or eleven percent uh but
because of the way they fixed the
numbers
uh upwards to um uh perhaps 20 percent
uh ever since 2008 uh there's been
assault
on uh the incomes of uh
american households the average
middle-class family's net worth is
uh uh more than 40 000 below what it was
before the crash of 2007
2008 men of course people of color
suffer worse black
families are down 40 latino families 46
and now we're watching as the
unemployment benefits uh the uh
supplemental unemployment benefits are
withdrawn
the moratoriums on evictions and
foreclosures
and a real uh
ruthless and uh assault against uh
american families i mean before this
pandemic four million
people were being evicted a year before
the pandemic one in four
tenant households spent half of its
pre-tax income
on rent before the pandemic we had some
2000
unhoused people sleeping in their cars
uh
sleeping uh on you know on bridges on
city
streets uh 27 million people are
expected now to lose their health
insurance
and just to close the the capitalists
have reacted they know what's coming
banks are not lending but like my bank
wells fargo i know i shouldn't be in
wells fargo
is uh just a complete uh moratorium on
any kinds of loans
because they need to stockpile reserves
of cash for the
wave of bankruptcies and defaults on
mortgages and student loans and
car loans and personal loans and credit
card debt that they know
uh is coming so we're headed for
a social and political dislocation
within
weeks if not months that we haven't seen
since
the great depression all of that are
symptomatic
of an empire in deep distress unable to
deal
with any kind of stress uh that that's
put on a system that's been
uh essentially pillaged by a global
capitalist elite that you have been one
of the most prominent voices in pointing
out
chris here's a question that arises when
people think about the network of things
you just mentioned
how do you understand that at the same
time
everything you said is the reality for
the overwhelming majority of the people
at the top we have a government that
celebrates
a booming stock market that has more
than recovered
from the depths of the pandemic crash
in march of this year do we and here's
what i'm after
do we have now a kind of classic
collapsing empire ruling class
that is so besotted with the
accumulation of
evermore that they've lost all sense
of the of the reality around them that
they are
uh if i can borrow the old phrase
somehow
busily killing the goose that laid the
golden egg that they've stolen from
everyone
yes that's also a characteristic of
dying
civilizations as joseph taner pointed
out in his book the collapse of complex
civilization
so you have an elite that as you
correctly
pointed out severs themselves from
reality remember that
the oligarchs who now control both uh
our financial and political system don't
live in america they live in
uh a bubble of their own creation a new
yorker writer called it richistan they
don't
fly on commercial airlines they don't
have any contact with
the working class uh they associate only
with their own
tiny elite there was an article in the
new york times a little while ago
that pointed out that
productivity uh within the american
workplace had increased by
77 percent since 1973
but hourly pay had only gone up 12
percent
this is the new york times and they are
they said that if the federal minimum
wage was attached to productivity
it would be more than 20 an hour
uh instead what you have is a third of
the workforce
and this was before the pandemic earning
less than 12
an hour and most of them did not have do
not have access to
employee sponsored health insurance
which of now of course
many people are losing an estimated 27
million people because they've lost
their jobs
are expected to add to those without uh
health insurance so
what you have seen uh and again you've
been one of the
you know most important voices on this
is this assault by a rapacious
oligarchic global oligarchic elite
uh that uh has brought us
to this point and and what they've done
of course the pandemic has not only
swollen
or bloated the stock market uh but the
bank accounts of the billionaire
class i think what the last figure i
read was over they've increased the
ruling billionaires have increased their
wealth by over 500 billion dollars
uh you know jeff bezos is over the last
figure i read was
increased by 30 billion um so yes and
they
because of our money saturated elections
uh because lobbyists write our
legislation because the courts are
controlled by corporations um
there's no redress for the citizenry and
this has essentially created a system
where i mean most of these corporations
engage in tax boycotts
amazon didn't pay tax any federal taxes
last year in fact they got
money back but they're hardly alone i
mean bank of america on and on and on
uh they uh there's no
check there's no this is why marx calls
capitalism
ultimately a revolutionary force there's
no internal or external check
on their pillage and their greed and and
this is now having
very very dire uh social and political
consequences uh which are playing out
in front of us do you think the election
will make any difference to this
scenario we're discussing no
because uh i mean the problem with
the elections is that and this is this
election is no different
is that it's all reduced to uh
personalities and it's really based on
on
fear uh it's um
you know you vote for uh joe biden
because of the fear
of trump uh biden himself is not
authoring or offering anything other
than
uh the kind of uh continuum that got us
into this mess in fact of course
uh biden was one of the architects
of of uh neo-liberal policies and
endless war
i mean i think you should be clear we
should be clear
that you know it's not just voting
against
trump uh you're you are you know voting
for
uh something and uh you know i teach in
a prison we can begin with
the violent crime and law enforcement
act of 1994
uh which biden pushed through which gave
over 30 billion dollars to police and
prisons
uh biden you know pushed all the death
penalty issues
uh so uh he was
one of the architects of nafta he was
one of the cheerleaders of the war and
all the way back to his misogyny in
terms of going after
anita hill he was a segregationist he's
had
many times called for assault on social
security
uh look there is no way within the
american political system to vote
against the interests of goldman sachs
uh so uh you know whether you have the
more
civil and uh palatable face of
biden or the you know narcissistic
uh uh divisive racist
rants of of trump um the actual system
of corporate
power is untouched and would you say
that the trump versus biden is also
a symptom of an empire declining that in
in moments of crisis like this
this is the best you can come up with
yeah
of course it is i mean and and let's be
clear that biden was selected
uh by the by the democratic oligarchic
elite figures like lloyd blankfein the
former ceo of goldman sachs
and others made very public that if
bernie sanders
to a lesser extent warren but
particularly bernie sanders was the
nominee
they would vote for trump so the whole
least worst issue
only applies to me and you it doesn't
apply to them
and and so they anointed
uh joe biden because joe biden
serves their interests in in the same
way trump does
and uh and in that sense the the
political and economic system
is completely fixed i want to add that
it's not a solution because
uh a continuation of the kinds of
policies the democratic party
has after clinton sold out to corporate
power has imposed
on the american people is inevitably and
i think history bears this out
going to result in a fascist with brains
a competent fascist
what do you see as positive going on
what what hope is there that we can
find a way forward other than the
uh trails marked out by the republicans
the democrats
and all of that well the street protests
and i think what has struck me about
these protests or
you know and triggered by the kind of
indiscriminate police murders
uh uh disproportionately targeting
people of color
uh well african americans in particular
uh
is that there's a sophistication they
aren't being gaslighted by
nancy pelote nancy pelosi and a kente
scar
for police taking the knee or muriel
brower the mayor of washington
painting in 35 foot tall letters black
lives matter in front of the white house
at the same time she
calls for a 45 million dollar increase
in the police budget
and the building of a 500 million dollar
new jail
they're not buying it uh and that kind
of gaslighting by the elite and in
particular by the democratic party
isn't working uh so uh
any hope comes from sustained mass civil
disobedience uh the kind of uprisings
and it's interconnected because
neoliberal economics is global that
we've seen
around the world lebanon uh chile
and everywhere else that's where the
hope lies and i think there is an
understanding
in my sense of those who are leading
these movements
that they grasp that these are systemic
problems that have to be addressed
they're not reduced to the political
personalities of donald trump or joe
biden
chris we've come to the end of our time
thank you as always
and i look forward both on this program
and on yours to continuing the
conversation
thanks rick take care
