Updates on Obama's SOTU Speech, Apple's Chinese factories, declining US union membership, rising health plan costs, and UK moves to curtail executive salaries. Major analyses of the capitalist/socialism difference and why there is plenty of money now for needed public services, contrary to business and political claims. Responses to listener's comments on: the "sugar baby" industry, women holding families together, and differences among kinds of coops.

 

 

Updates on PEW polls on shifts to market economies in Lithuania, Ukraine and Russia; on US media consolidation into 6 giant companies; on bankruptcy of Jefferson County, Alabama. Analysis of (1) public enterprises in US and especially community owned-power companies, and (2) economic inefficiency of global capitalist competition (example: excess automobile capacity). Response to questions on Henry George and taxing rents and on growth of pornography.

  Updates on latest data for income of top 1%, on low US tax burden relative to other countries, on flaw in two-tier union contracts (example: GM and UAW), and on PEW poll research findings of widespread positive US attitudes toward socialism. Interview with Prof. David Fasenfest, Wayne State Univ., on Detroit's economic decline as emblem of US capitalist development and role of Occupy Detroit movement.

Updates on (1) "the markets" as fake causes of layoffs and austerity, (2) the SEC deal over Citigroup conflict of interest, (3) China's tariffs on US autos, and (4) US real wage drop in 2011 while labor productivity and thus profits rise. Major interview with Gar Alperovitz on US economic decline and movement toward "socialized capital" and worker owned and directed enterprises.

Updates focus on European and US bank regulations, UK deals allowing major corporate tax evasions, and top 1% comments on OWS protests. Interview psychotherapist Tess Fraad-Wolff on how recent economic changes have affected and changed personal lives, including intimate relationships, partly by expanding the pornography industry and its impact. Listeners' comments addressed: Germany's role in Europe's economy, workers' self-directed enterprises, and Ron Paul's economic proposals.

Updates on latest European Summit as attempt of top 1% to impose austerity on 99% and Michigan's parallel attempt to impose austerity on Detroit; corruption scandals at Wachovia Bank and MF Global Brokerage. Interview with Victor Wallis on ecology and economics comparing capitalist and socialist responses to environmental crisis. Response to question on implications and lessons from Lehman Brothers Bank's bankruptcy, 2008 through 2011.

Updates today on a judge's rare rebuke of cosy SEC relations with banks, on rising debt among the elderly, on American Airlines' bankruptcy to pay its workers less, on latest unemployment data, and on Yale University's tax exempt fund-raising. The major focus was on Bloomberg Market Magazine's expose on Federal Reserve's secret $7.77 trillion loans to major banks. Question answered explained how markets could be changed to rationally connect workers' self-directed enterprises minus the traditional profit motive and its wasteful costs.

Updates covered rise in corporate profits versus fall in wages and salaries as % of GDP over last 50 years, economics of US military buildup in Asia, rising European governments' debts and interest costs, Newt Gingrich's lobbying income, and campaign to cancel student debt. Detailed analysis of European economic crisis and risk of dissolution of the European Union because of uneven/unequal capitalist economic development. Response to question about workers' self-directed enterprises if they function in a market economy.