Welcome friends to another edition of
economic update a weekly program devoted
to the economic dimensions of our lives
debts jobs incomes the future for us and
for our children
I'm your host Richard Wolff I've been a
professor all my adult life a professor
of economics and I hope that has
prepared me to offer these updates as to
what's happening and on the economy we
all depend on and that is in deeper and
deeper trouble as we do I want to begin
today with a shout out to something
changing America I'm talking about the
wave of strikes you know now that the
working class of the American Society
has understood that a sequence of
Republicans and Democrats each one
outdoing the other claiming to be for
working people for the middle class for
the needs of average Americans have not
been able to deliver if even they wanted
to and so they're beginning to
understand an ancient historical truth
the only way the working class can
assure its own well-being and that of
its children is if it acts on its own
behalf striking is a way that workers
show their solidarity get together which
is their strongest suit and fight for
what they need and so it is honorable
for us to recognize and appreciate that
53,000 employees of the University of
California began a strike May 7th
through 9th in order to demand the kinds
of decent salaries and decent working
conditions that should have been given
to them by those in charge of this
institution but wasn't available because
the business community and the rich
won't pay the taxes and the politicians
they put in off
we'll do nothing about it so the workers
themselves have to the American
Federation of State County and Municipal
Employees local $32.99 the California
Nurses Association and in another Union
on the CWA
University professional and technical
employees organized this strike strikes
are difficult strikes take a long time
strikes require workers to show
solidarity and to become aware that only
by their own actions can they make sure
that the promises they gave to
themselves and their children will not
be broken by an economic system that
already is broken I want also to correct
the small point I made in my discussions
of uber over recent weeks yes uber is
simply a way to get around the rules
governing taxi drivers rules designed to
protect us the public by making sure
taxi drivers are vetted making sure
their cars are insured making sure as
their cars are in mechanical order so we
don't take risks uber gets around all of
that as I explained nothing new about it
the technology is not what's important
it's getting around the taxi Commission
in every city and state
that's what's their profit model but I
neglected to mention that uber doesn't
stop at all of that if it can make even
more money by pressing down what they
actually pay Uber drivers they do that
too in order to out-compete the taxi
companies by charging less in some
situations because they have fewer costs
and because they squeeze drivers more so
poor people have a chance to get a ride
from an uber that's cheaper than a taxi
company that has to be acknowledged but
of course if there were the public
transportation system that we need and
want it would be a much cheaper way of
moving people giving them the transportation they need and deserve without
ripping us off either by private
companies like uber or by overcharging
through the taxi system
it's a sad comment on the second best
that this country increasingly imposes
on people let me turn now to the regular
updates that I want to discuss with you
briefly today the first came across my
desk this last week and it's so shocking
to me
that I thought it would be interesting
to you I learned that since 2005 wealthy
Americans or Americans willing to pay
the extra price of the expensive
insurance can buy insurance policies
covering fire damage to their homes that
includes the provision by the insurance
company of a firefighting team that will
come to your house or your business if
and when you're threatened by fire in
other words where the average American
citizen you and me relies on the local
fire department to protect us richer
people the very ones who won't pay the
taxes to support the fire department are
going around by buying private fire
departments through their insurance
company Chubb one of the high end of our
insurance companies in America is one
such company and it had to provide fire
fighters to many homes in the Sonoma
California area when they had their bad
fires last autumn and so it struck me
that here are the wealthy impoverishing
public services for everybody else and
then noticing that the quality of the
service is not what they want will not
be democratic or patriotic by helping
improve the surface for everybody
instead they have found a way to save
more on taxes than it costs them to have
a private fire department just for them
it reminded me also since I'm an
economics professor of a very ancient
debate it happened 5,000 years ago in
Greece and it involved Plato and
Socrates often considered founders of
Western philosophy they argued in both
cases both men against markets why
because markets divided people in my
example the market if we allow it to be
the way you get fire protection allows
rich people to buy it and for people not
to it distributes fire protection
according to how much money you have as
opposed to distributing fire protection
as a civic obligation the community has
equally to everyone in the community
Plato and Socrates argued social
cohesion holding a community together is
undone by markets and on those grounds
they opposed markets as contrary to what
society needs let me say that again
Plato and Socrates agreed that markets
are socially disruptive institutions
maybe we ought to go back and read that
stuff once again another shocker this
last week it turns out that the Koch
brothers through their Koch foundation
were exposed giving a lot of money to
George Mason University it turns out
that for years they were given in
exchange for their money influence over
hiring of professors in the Economics
Department and elsewhere this is a
university that likewise maintains close
ties to the Trump administration
having private corporations give money
to universities is a serious problem and
always has been to imagine that the
universities needing this money wanting
this money do not seek the favor of
these wealthy donors is naive and silly
of course they do they always have but
to give them direct influence over
hiring professors that kind of takes it
another step it makes a mockery of the
claim that academic institutions are
open objective there's no one on the
Left comparable in their donations to
what the Koch brothers are doing unions
aren't doing this workers can't do it
big corporations and the super wealthy
like the Koch brothers are in a position
to do it and they're doing it big-time
that controls the curriculum our
students learns from it controls what
people understand and how they think it
has nothing to do with a democratic
educational system it is the negation of
all of that another sign in the wind on
the opposite side for the first time
fast food joint workers have won an
election to establish a union of
fast-food workers that's right
McDonald's said it couldn't be done
Burger King was sure it wouldn't happen
but it did because America is changing
and working people as the workers at the
University of California have understood
have to begun begin to take their own
destiny into their own hands thus it was
that at the Burgerville fast-food joint
in Portland Oregon workers recently
voted 18 to 4 with 3 abstentions to form
a union this is the
to do that since the fight for 15
struggle began five years ago workers
realizing they have to band together to
confront their employer as a unified
group to get the kind of salaries
working conditions that working people
need hats off to people with that
courage with that solidarity of course
now having voted to join a union
they must bargain with the employer
allowing the employer all kinds of
stalling techniques and other methods to
try to undo this victory of the workers
by blocking postponing delaying a union
contract but the workers are smart
they've shown by this 18 to 4 victory
that they are very strong maybe they
will be able to bargain with their
employer
maybe they'll have to strike to give the
employer the understanding that the days
of telling workers what to do and when
to do and how much you're not going to
pay them those are over working people
are not marching to the tunes that once
enthralled them and this country is
changing my attention this last week was
also caught by the results of a poll and
there's almost a kind of sadness that
comes over me in reporting this to you
was released on May 1st by the Cigna
insurance company a poll conducted by
Cigna and lip source another famous
polling company and they used the UCLA
loneliness index an index of how people
feel whether they feel lonely isolated
alone in life and they show in their
polling just released that over 50% of
Americans feel seriously lonely we
the mental and physical health effects
that go with that why am i reporting
this to you this is a program about
economics yes
well economics includes what the economy
does to people and economics also
includes what happens to an economy when
people are in trouble mentally or
physically what this poll shows us is
that the American people are in very
deep trouble you know when you want to
understand whether we have quote unquote
recovered from the crash of 2008 and 9
in our economy you tend to look at GDP
and other numbers that economists like
to talk about but they're not the only
numbers that measure particularly
measure what counts fifty percent over
of Americans find themselves lonely now
many of them lonelier than they have
ever felt that too is a result of the
crash of 2008 and all its consequences
that too is a measurement of the
recovery we don't have for most
Americans from that crash and you know
when you take many things away from
people so that they feel isolated alone
and lonely you know they hold on to what
little they have left and they discover
maybe that they have to hold on more to
the fact that they are white that they
are US citizens that they are
churchgoers and so the tendency might
develop to be hostile and critical
towards the people who aren't white who
aren't US citizens and who don't go to
your church it's the little you have to
hold on to it's what makes you feel
maybe just for a little bit less lonely
economic down
turns have always threatened large
numbers of people with economic decline
with loss with serious depression
economic but also mental physical that's
why economic downturns are associated
with the rise of scapegoatism turning
against your fellow citizen blaming him
or her for the troubles you find
difficult to account for in any other
way and that scare you in the news last
week was a particularly horrific example
of where this can go this one happened
in Great Britain in England it's there
called the wind rush scandal and for
those of you that don't know about it
let me briefly summarize back in 1948
after the shortly after the end of World
War two Britain had to set around
rebuilding itself the City of London had
been bombed by German Rockets England
had gone through terrible sufferings and
it needed literally to rebuild its
society an appeal to and welcomed
roughly 50,000 West Indian immigrants
who left the Caribbean and went to
England to work they were part of the
British Empire welcomed at the time
because their labor was going to help
rebuild England and they've lived in
England and worked in England over the
last sixty years in the rush of the
British government to serve the
capitalist class in England by blaming
the collapse of capitalism not on a
system that broke down in 2008 not in a
system that has lowered the wages of
British people for the last decade not a
system that is now about to implode as a
result of brexit no no blame it on
immigrants
was the achievement of the May
government Theresa May was Home
Secretary before she became prime
minister in both capacities
she has waged a war against West Indian
immigrants it went so far as to say that
if one of those wind-rush fellows men or
women couldn't come up with five or six
documents to prove they were in the
country illegally after fifty to sixty
years of labour rebuilding England they
would be deported and some were and many
were threatened with it the current home
secretary or the recently departed Home
Secretary amber Rudd went even further
and she was forced to resign as the
British people rose up and said this is
outrageous you're going to deport people
who helped rebuild England in your rush
to blame people whose skin is brown and
who can be portrayed as immigrants
anything to save the system from getting
the criticism it so badly deserves
well the Windrush scandal is still
roiling British politics as the scandal
of what mr. Trump is doing to immigrants
here is doing in the United States and
will continue to do it should be a
warning to everyone my attention was
also caught last week by a speech given
by Hillary Clinton she explained that
her endorsement of capitalism and
portrayal of her as a capitalist hurt
her with Democratic primary voters in
2016 she said and I'm virtually quoting
capitalism's reputation is pretty much
in tatters big companies she even says
are disrupting what she calls our econ
me by promoting inequality and she is in
favor of capitalism with quote
appropriate regulation and quote
appropriate accountability hello mrs.
Clinton we've been having appropriate
regulation and appropriate
accountability often brought to us by
Democratic politicians just like you for
a hundred years and look where we are it
doesn't work does it it hasn't worked
our inequality promoted both by Clinton
Bush Obama and Trump administration's
one after the other is worse than it has
been in a century the instability of our
economy horrific the inequalities
percolating down the loneliness I just
summarized for you
capitalism is the problem and mrs.
Clinton if you really want to suggest
that the socialist ideas that led many
Democrats to not vote for you is a
terrible problem are you asking them to
leave the Democratic Party do you think
you have a chance folks like you if they
did do you count on them to follow this
advice and to reform the Republicans
immediately seized upon what she said to
try to portray the Democrats her
included as socialists with that care
for detail that they typically exhibit I
want to take a moment to thank
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Play our our last updates have to do
with two things first Martin Winterkorn
he used to be the CEO of VW he was
indicted this last week by Jeff Sessions
the Attorney General of the United
States for placing emissions testing
evasion devices onto VW diesel and other
vehicles 11 million of them across the
world and a large number here in the
United States of course this kind of
indictment is a bit of theater since
Germany will not extradite mr.
Winterkorn
who
lives there now so this is publicity
hound hunting and not much else but
there's more to this blaming an
individual for the problem is bizarre
it's very normal in capitalist society
because capitalist society is a kind of
religion where God is in the hands of or
played by the corporations and they have
to be kept free and clear the system
that ties these corporations together
capitalism has to be kept out of the
light of any criticism so we blame
individuals if we blame anybody at all
the first events of the corporation we
didn't do anything
second defense it was a few bad apples
third defense it was the leadership but
it's always this individual or that
individual we're not gonna solve the
problem of these corporations by blaming
individuals if we do they will resign as
mr. Winterkorn did or we even put them
in jail which sometimes rarely happens
and they will be replaced by other
people who behave in the same way
because this system has its ways of
rewarding you for this bad behavior and
punishing you if you don't automobiles
pollute they pollute so badly that
Germany like many other countries
installed emissions control devices made
the mandatory to save society from the
bad results of automobile pollution but
these companies wanted to profit off of
this situation because that's what
they're in business to do profit so they
came up with defeat devices ways they
could avoid putting in a device that
might slow the car down or slow its
acceleration down so they could still
sell them while pretending to do what
the society needed for the profits of
the small number of people that are
shareholders of VW all of us suffer more
lung disease more emphysema for
cancer and everything else that we know
comes from this pollution this system is
no good if you want to run businesses
the workers in them and the public
served by them should together run them
because that's a much better chance that
society's concerns our concerns get on
the table when they make their decisions
that tiny number of people who run
corporations now have shown that leaving
the running of capitalism in the hands
of capitalists is not the way to go
thank you all we have come to the end of
the first half of economic update I hope
you found these updates interesting I am
sure you will find the interview that
follows even more interesting and I ask
you therefore to stay with us we will be
right back
you
