Richard D. Wolff

I would appreciate you speaking on the law passed quietly under Obama some years ago that put our bank accounts at risk if/when another meltdown occurs - it may be called "bail-in". And then therefore, where is my IRA/savings most safe in these freaky times and/or, how do I invest my IRA/savings to best meet my values and move us forward to a more environmental sustainable and socially justice U.S?

And if so, where can I find the critiques? Thank you.

Its always hip to know correct pronunciation.

How and why would coops tackle the scourge of financialization of the economy ? Why would coops be any more likely to oppose American imperialism and plunder of poor countries' assets. Why would you expect coops to be any less patriotic in the reactionary sense of that word, than workers in any corporation ? Why, if they were given an opportunity to exploit overseas workers, and plunder their assets would they be any less likely to seize that oppotunity ? Why wouldnt highly successful coops collaborate with rich corporations rather than support their comrade workers ? We need a lot more trhan faith, and whenever you stray into this territory, you tend to become somewhat more faith-based than persuasive.

...in which solar panels become more expensive in the US? Here's the article I read about the dispute. I find it interesting because I am an environmentalist and yet I feel so ambivalent about the trade situation between the US and China. http://e360.yale.edu/features/could-trade-dispute-with-china-bring-an-end-to-u-s-solar-boom What are the economics of preventing climate change? What actions would advance the goal of a sustainable economy and sustainable environment? (And I realize you may not have an answer. It is a wicked problem.) Personal responsibility is not enough.

richard d wolff economic update: worker coops as our economic future: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmu3vtF0n8Q First, the explanation on what's actually happening regarding Ford Motor Company is brilliant, because this of course, is not explained in the news as you've laid it all out. However, if, out of 200,000 employees, 10% of their work-force here in the US - 10,000.00 Americans will lose their jobs, yes, those families will suffer, and they will be stressed, but I just wanted to point out that, depending on how Ford structures the, "letting go" of all of these people, aka, the difference between being...fired, and being laid off, is a HUGE difference, when it comes to claiming unemployment benefits, assuming that they *can* claim such benefits, to begin with. People who are fired, have to practically submit to an investigation en-par with what Trump is now enduring concerning Russia, just to prove they were fired unjustly, so they can collect! Otherwise, if they were laid off, they have money, usually for 9 months, while they look, and may even get an extension after 9 months, depending on which state they live in. Why am I bringing this up? Because your usage of the word "fired" has different connotations, and thus, outcomes on the people being let-go. I think you were using it for effect, but I just wanted to mention it, as, if they are laid off, they have time to look elsewhere, and find work again. Not that being laid off is any *bargain* but at least they have some money coming in! And thus, they and the communities they live in are still hit, but it's not like they're being left out with nothing. Lastly, I would like to point out this wonderful link which makes an indirect comment on monarchy in government, today, or, how one man thought it should still be. It's a quote by the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, spoken when he tried to measure the rights of the individual against he rights of the government, when trying to justify the Death Penalty: "The death penalty is undoubtedly wrong unless one accords to the state a scope of moral action that goes beyond what is permitted to the individual. In my view, the major impetus behind modern aversion to the death penalty is the equation of private morality with governmental morality. This is a predictable (though I believe erroneous and regrettable) reaction to modern, democratic self-government. Few doubted the morality of the death penalty in the age that believed in the divine right of kings. Or even in earlier times." https://www.firstthings.com/article/2002/05/gods-justice-and-ours If that isn't a comment on how he believed government should have sway above and beyond individual rights, I don't know what does.

I suppose my wife and I should consider ourselves fortunate that we can afford to buy a new car. And, because we have a high enough credit score, we are entitled to Honda’s 0.9% financing for 60 months and no down payment necessary. We waited until the end of June. Salesmen are more motivated to offer a good price at month's end because they are concerned about meeting monthly and quarterly goals. We knew the exact make and model car we wanted right down to the options and upgrades (none) and color (red). Our research showed us the best “out-the-door” price to request. (“Out-the-door” is car speak for a price that includes all the extras – optional equipment, fees, taxes, delivery charges, dealer prep, tags, registration, etc.)

We got an education this week. While we did get the car we wanted at a reasonable price and with the financing we wanted, it wasn’t easy. Car buyers need to know that negotiating with the salesman is only the beginning. If you are financing the car you have to negotiate with the finance department. After spending a couple of hours negotiating with the salesman, we agreed on the out-the-door price, or thought we did.

By the time we came out of a grueling one- or two-hour session with our finance manager, we were committed to $2651 worth of service contracts, which he kept insisting we were getting absolutely free. These “free” contracts added over $4000 to the price of our car over the 60 months. This man was a real shark.

It took my wife until the next morning to wake up to this rip-off and other “discrepancies”. Unfortunately, in Florida there is no “cooling off” period after signing for a new car. We were at a disadvantage when we went back to the finance guy. But, he did agree they had “neglected” to take off the $500 discount we were promised for financing through Honda. After reminding us he was under no obligation to do so, he rewrote the contract. But, he refused to yield on the “free” service contracts. Fortunately, we did have an advantage here. Service contracts can be cancelled within 60 days without penalty. It took a third day of negotiations, this time talking to the head of the finance department before, we finally got the contract the way it was supposed to be.

I agree that primary and secondary schools in this country should include a solid education in finance. But how do we protect ourselves against this kind of blatant lying? We consider ourselves pretty savvy and cynical, but even we were nearly flimflammed. I don’t see how even a good background in finance would help a lot of people. We were among the very small minority of car buyers who actually fight back. Government regulation has its limits. The more federal and state governments try to protect consumers, the more confusing the process gets. You should have seen the finance agreement – a very long sheet with numbers all over the place. And, we were pressured to sign it on the spot.

I think the dealer was willing to renegotiate our contract not once, but twice because most people don’t even know they were scammed in the first place. Or, if they suspect they were, they're either too embarrassed or beaten down to come back. Plus they may not even be able to articulate the problem. The dealerships count on that. They are not accustomed to dissatisfied customers coming back.

The working poor are an even sadder story. They try to buy the cheapest used car available just so they can hold onto a job and get back and forth to work. They are given subprime loans. Even those who might qualify for more favorable interest rates are steered to much costlier loans by these sharks. In Florida there is no interest rate cap on loans for used cars. Then, when the car breaks down or the owner can no longer keep up with the payments, the car is repossessed. And, it is invariably under water. This leads them to a lifetime of ever-mounting debt from which they can’t escape. Is it any wonder that there is over $1 trillion worth of auto loan debt out there? Can it be possible that this will be even bigger than the housing collapse?

One more thing - the reason car dealerships are able to get away with no cooling off periods and other outrageous practices is their prodigious political clout. There is hardly a community in this country that doesn’t have several car dealerships. Local television stations depend heavily on revenue from car commercials. Just count the number of car commercials during any weekday broadcast of the local evening news. The owners of these dealerships are pillars of their communities. They’re very active in all civic and fraternal organizations. Many may even hold political office. The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau is a noble idea, but it is no match for this juggernaut.

While a socialism that consists of worker co-ops (like you propose) still operates in the market, communists argue that markets will always produce artificial scarcity because if you produce more than you can sell, you'll probably rather lower your production instead of your prices, as the latter is painful. But the alternative that communists propose is not libertarian: they propose that everyone just shares his or her production with the community and everyone can jut take what he or she wants or needs. But there might be people who don't want to just share everything but rather want to sell it in order to get stuff that is actually scarce. What do you think of the following proposal? The market stays in place, but at the moment, where you produce more stuff than you can sell on the market, you can sell it to the community which then distributes it according to communist principles. In that system, no one is forced to share everything he or she produces, but there will also not be false scarcity (and therefore, no one is forced to work either). If those, who say that humans actually want to share and help but the market prevents that, are actually right, then the above system would let communist distribution grow, but it would do so in a libertarian way.

Governor Paul Lepage is threatening to shutdown the government because the Legislature will not pass a sufficiently austere budget. The dispute centers on a 3% marginal tax hike on households in the top 1% (having income of more than $200,000.00) with the proceeds going to education. This tax hike on the the highest income households was passed by the people of the state during the 2016 election. The Republicans in the legislature and the governor have refused to enact a budget that contains the tax hike enacted by the voters. Now the Governor is prepared to shutdown the State, with all of the impact that will have on ordinary people, in order to protect the wealthy from a tax enacted by the people in an act of direct democracy.

Maybe she really means, "No coders willing to work for Chinese / Indian-level compensation." When I graduated finished Cal in 1979, my CSEE friends all got great jobs in Silicon Valley, or even Detroit. Those companies knew they had to be trained, and after two years they moved laterally to other companies. But many of those jobs were sent to China or India, for a fraction of a US wage. At GM and Ford in 1980 you had to know how to work on a Cray or CDC supercomputer, so you had to learn that on the job. How many 2017 CS, EE, and IT graduates can't get jobs? Perhaps the problem is capitalism, again. 'We don't want to pay you, and we don't want to train you.' http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/28/technology/gm-engineer-training/index.html

The poor and middle class americans are being attacked by the capitalist elites relentlessly. Why not state their intention to demolish the middle class which can be used as a stepping stone to riches by americans. This way, there will be only two classes and these will be permanent...there is no way to get out of it. Even those who think they are in middle class will find that they need to work all their life just to survive.At the moment, we are just hoping that americans will rise against hardships, but the scale of the disaster needs to be articulated so that they will know that we are going the Greece and Peuorto Rico way sooner or later. Militarised police are trained to control any and all uprisings so as to kill them if necessary to maintain peace.....or its semblance.

Hi, I am particularly interested in learning more about cooperatives in the EU, in particular the Netherlands. How they work, where they are based and how can someone get involved with them. Especially if they are in the renewable energy sector. I am new to the Netherlands, and enjoy reading your articles, and watching your talks and would love to be part of democracy at work movement in the Netherlands.

Hi Dr. Wolff, are there Marxist financial advisers? I'd like to climb out of my financial hole without being ripped off or ripping anyone else off.

Noted leftist and fascist-spitter Jimmy Dore is pretty close to making the plunge to the far left. I (and many comrades at /leftypol ) think an educational discussion with an esteemed Socialist like yourself would help to de-spookify him towards any bourgeois illusions he might still have. As such, we think you should make an appearance on Jimmy Dore's youtube show/radio show/ podcast "The Jimmy Dore Show." Thank you.