Richard D. Wolff

Dr. Wolff, please invite Dr. Jakubowski to your weekly radio program. His Open Source Ecology model and Global Village Civilization Set have much in common with workplace democracy and cooperative enterprises. The potential emergent synergy is enormous: http://opensourceecology.org

What is the mechanism by which the financial services sector of the economy drains the manufacturing and public service sectors of the economy.

Thanks to the glories of the free-market, this Harvard economist bought Hamilton tickets for his family--modestly priced at $2500 each: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/10/23/upshot/i-paid-2500-for-a-hamilton-ticket-im-happy-about-it.html

Hi Richard, I am currently leading an organizing drive to unionize me and 40 other coworkers. We are not yet public but soon will be as we have almost all the authorization cards we need for an NLRB election. For us workers, there is a large amount of autonomy in this drive since the local we are working with is a bit smaller and has never actively organized before. I would like to set a good precedent for what is possible in a drive for unionization. Having read a few of your books plus a fair amount of other Marxist/Marxian literature, I have some ideas about terms and conditions to make it a more democratic workplace. However, I am under no illusions about either how unionizing in essence stops short of fundamental change or the legal battle that would be involved in ceding control to the workers even if somehow we were able to generate a large degree of militancy and class consciousness. What would you suggest for basic changes to organizational structure that could possibly eventually lead to more fundamental and democratic change?

Please discuss Proposition 13 and how it has ruined public education in CA. Once in the top 5 in per pupil spending, CA now ranks at the bottom of the 50 states and a major reason is Prop 13. Teachers are stressed and overworked due to huge class sizes, kids are stressed and overworked with no one on one attention and parents are on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Right now the whole European establishment is in outright PANIC, because a little region in Belgium called Wallonia blocks CETA. The neoliberal ideologues double down on free trade and that this is the only way to produce wealth (as if production and industrial policies play no role). This is very important because in a world with countries highly dependent on exports or imports (i.e. imbalances in trade) more free trade is very procyclical. Although this is not the point most critiques of CETA are critical of (not even Wallonia), it should be pointed out to the public why it is important to have institutions and rules to balance nominal exports and imports and that the complete absence of even a debate about such mechanisms in free trade agreements currently negotiated (including TTIP) is the actual scandal (which doesn't diminish all the other scandals of those agreements).

What methods, lesson plans, content, concepts, and activities do you, would you, and/or could you use to keep students interested and engaged in economics?

Hello Richard, I have been following your economic updates since they went live on Youtube. Looking back, I noted how you there was more theoretical grounding of discussions e.g. Marx analysis of capitalism, from which one learned more about the instruments, contradictions and consequences of capitalism, for instance. It would be nice if a small discussion in the monthly updates would include a short theoretical slot so we also gain some in depth understanding of these issues and are also aware how to expand or apply some theoretical framework to broader issues.

in addition to the story, which Prof. Wolff covered in Economic Update: Economics of Tax Avoidance (2016.10.20) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yru0eUGT1uA#t=13m48s here it is: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-12-20/oakland-pays-17-million-for-nfl-raiders-as-cops-get- Certainly not the only story in the NFL of this kind. The NFL is also tax reducted. Many players have these odd charities etc. I also looked up once, which the biggest stadiums of the world were on wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stadiums_by_capacity Most are NFL stadiums. The NFL is the richest professional league of the world? For me, they are the absolute example of bread and games. It is also incredible to watch, how they spin all this shadiness in their TV channels. + there is the concussion problematic + systematic doping like in all professional sports (and no word about it) + possible game manipulations or how else can it be explain, that games still get decided by a wrong decision of the referees in times of video proof (like i.e. pass interference Falcons vs Seahawks last Sunday)? They are better at regulating their sports than soccer, boxing or ... wrestling though. Back to the raiders: Basically Oakland had it coming. The city got sucked out by the owner of the Raiders and now he will make another big deal. St. Louis Rams, now LA Rams, also similar story, I guess. This could be widened to big investments in sports in general for Olympia or soccer world championships. A couple years later former hosts like Greece, South Africa or Brasil etc. struggle with billions of Dollars debts and the tournament infrastructure often is rotting away unused. These mafia organisations like FIFA or IOC make profits worth xx billions of $ - and still get tax reductions.

What were the alternatives and what would have been the outcome?

Professor Wolff, I am currently studying Capital, Vol 1. and obviously a cornerstone of the entire thesis is the "Labour Theory of Value". Obviously, neo-classical economists favor "marginal utility" instead of the "labour theory of value". Can you explain "marginal utility" and how Marxist economics responds to this? Secondly, Marx refers to the "economic metabolism" several times and, to my knowledge, modern bourgeois economics refers to this as the "velocity of money". Below is a link to the St. Louis FRED and it clearly illustrates a plunge in the "velocity of money". Can you offer some insight into the importance of this metric? https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2V Thank you for all you do! You are a breath of fresh air.

I know you've reported recently on the town/gown relations of Yale and Harvard. I thought you might be interested in what's happening in Princeton, New Jersey. Property taxes in Princeton are very high, in large part because much of the property in town is owned by Princeton University which is tax exempt. About 5 years ago some neighbors of mine filed suit against Princeton University claiming that the University unfairly gets tax exemptions on properties that are, in fact, being used for commercial purposes. After years of delaying tactics by the University, the suit was settled out of court last week, just before it was set to go to trial. Princeton University has agreed to comparatively modest contributions to help middle- and low-income homeowners pay their taxes. The University will contribute $2 million this year and $1.6 million in the next five years to a fund that will help lower income homeowners. There will also be some other contributions to various areas of the town over the next few years. We are glad that we got something, but the outcome doesn't feel just, especially to those of use who have been paying property taxes here for many years. Princeton University's endowment is $22.7 billion. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-02/princeton-s-neighbors-say-to-heck-with-freebies-we-want-cash http://www.towntopics.com/wordpress/2016/10/19/university-paying-18-2-million-in-tax-settlement/

Greetings Professor Wolff, You are here in Tampa tonight at the Musical but I am too poor to attend, you may actually be covering this proposal but it is my hope that you will do so on your Economic update program before the election. I am no economist but I find this proposal extremely frightening as I believe you will. Here is a link to the article detailing the proposal: http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/hillary-clinton-wall-street-financial-industry-may-control-retirement-savings. Please take the time to look into this prior to the election covering the topic on your Economic Update program. Thanks for all that you do and be sure to blame me by name for bringing this up. Thanks, peace and be well, Clay G. Colson Precinct 36 Committeeman Pasco DEC (2006-2015) Public need over corporate greed (813) 601-3391 "Only after the last tree has been cut down, Only after the last river has been poisoned, Only after the last fish has been caught, Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten."--- Cree Indian Proverb "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and will never be." Thomas Jefferson

I learned about the Multiplier Effect while a student. I have never understood how it works at the most micro level. I understand that injecting dollars into the system will result in multiplying the original injection by X, and X will vary based on how many times the money changes hands and is active in the economy. But I have never understood at the most basic level, how if Jeff gives $1 to Steve for corn, and then Steve gives $1 to Mike for a potato, how did it turn into $1.02. Is it somehow being coupled with unused money currently in the Economy