Richard D. Wolff

Hello Richard, What is the real inflation rate? Construction, food, and medical have gone through the roof.

In January the Labour party tried to add an amendment to the housing bill that simply stated that all landlords would have to ensure that the accommodation they rent out is "fit for human habitation" but it was voted down by the Conservative party. In a recent survey from the housing charity Shelter, it was found that 4 in 10 homes fall below acceptable standards. "Shelter said 24% of people were not able to save anything for unexpected costs after meeting their rent or mortgage, and 23% worried that their rent or mortgage charges might become difficult to pay if they rose. A further 18% of people could not meet their housing costs without regularly cutting back on essentials like food or heating, and 20% could not do this without missing out on social activities, the charity said. Nearly one in five, or 18%, of homes failed the criteria for decent conditions, with renters twice as likely as homeowners to live in places which fail on this element of the standard." There also seems to be a conflict of interest here as 39% of the Conservative MPs are registered landlords, as well as 22% of Labour party and 26% of the Scottish National Party. Even though landlords only make up 2% of the UK population their representation in Parliament is almost a third. "As well as renting property, 18 MPs have a shareholding, interest or directorship in at least one property company. David Tredinnick, a Conservative backbencher, is the director of Malden Mitcham Properties and declared £22,311.52 of income from his 12 hours work for the company each month." http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tories-just-voted-down-rule-7167072 https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2016/jan/14/mp-landlords-number-risen-quarter-last-parliament-housing-bill http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37655908

Dear Professor. i'm rasheed ali from jordan and i want to ask you how we could mang to have your book in arabic?

Dear Professor. I've been a fan and supporter of yours for many years. I've written many questions to Democracy at Work, mostly about environmental economic policy, cap and trade, etc. Today I must really ask for your help. The people of Oregon are extremely confused about a citizen initiatiative—Measure 97. It is a proposal aimed to raise taxes on corporations with sales larger than $25 million, but PBS has been attacking it claiming it would hurt co-ops. It has surprisingly divided even the most liberal voters, more than any other measure that I've been involved with. We would very much appreciate your POV.

Is it even possible for a tax system in the US to be fair given the ease with which wealthy people and organizations dodge tax liability?

Dear Professor Wolff, Thank you so much for your amazing work. I watched your recent video on the looming crisis and am very concerned. I know that you cannot predict what is going to happen but I wonder if you could say anything more about the possible forms this crisis might take, and what if anything we can do to prepare ourselves and our families and communities. Kia ora from New Zealand, Robin

Dr. Wolff I thought that You might find these two articles, which I just discovered today, to present interesting topics to be mentioned and explored for future discussion, in addition to perhaps being groups who may be interested in collaborating with the d@w project. http://www.geo.coop/story/how-urban-governments-are-promoting-worker-co-ops http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/01/1104943/-Anti-Capitalist-Meetup-The-Cooperative-Movement-and-the-Big-Tent-Approach Thank You SO MUCH for all that You do! In Solidarity, Your devoted fan and supporter Joel S Roberts [email protected] (still under construction :-) )

A lot of people seem to blame the recessions and problems with capitalism on the government "regulating" them. How do you reply to people who suggest capitalism is basically flowers and roses without government regulations? What do you think about capping corporate profits? Or the idea of limiting absurd amounts of wealth beyond reason? Finally, what is all of this wealth doing at the top 0.1%? Is it merely stagnant, or is it just being shuffled between other people in that wealth bracket?

The current model is NOT fixable from the standpoint of long-term sustainability! We are all now witnessing the accelerating death of a very bad designed model. There are no more good ways to get life improvement for all out of it. More and more we are seeing inequality on the rise as those with the power take from the less powerful. We are all wasting our time and jeopardizing our kids and grandkid's futures trying to fix this old model. It was doomed from the start because it was created based on too many negative concepts: 1) unlimited natural resources; 2) insufficiency for all; 3) leadership based on I'm more powerful than you; 4) corruption is OK; 5) concentrated power is the only thing that works; etc. What we need more than anything else right now is a new found sense of hope for the possibility of improvement in the future. I give you for consideration one possible new model. I call it the Lease Economy. It looks very different than our present model. Probably best to shift into sci-fi digestion mode. But within I hope you can see the promise of these radically different concepts. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1C7mVIpGaPoxTU_u4jvgJ-hWhImPXih8LXDWLZiSxsFA/edit?usp=sharing This is just a starting place for our collective imagination. It is by no means "The solution." My objective is to get everyone to shift effort away from trying to fix what is not fixable and instead put concerted effort into building toward something that promises real future improvement. Anything GREAT always starts within our imaginations, especially improvement possibility. I invite you to work with me to imagine and morph improvement into this Lease Economy model story. Let's together co-create a smooth (non-violent) transition plan from our present model to something that guarantees continuity of "great lives for all" into the long-term future.

Given the encroachment of automation in the workplace and the decline of full-time jobs in all sectors of the economy, millions of people will be unable to obtain employment. Entrepreneurship and the shadow economy won't be able to take up the slack. Is it time to consider establishing a government-guaranteed income for all citizens?

Hi, I'm wondering about arguments surrounding BDS, that is, Boycott, Divest, and Sanction movement that targets West Bank and Gaza businesses to force Israel to discontinue its occupation of those territories. Some opponents of BDS say that it would be harmful to the Palestinian economy, since Israel is Palestine's major trade partner. Others say that the economic reality of the occupation is already terrible, and therefore BDS is justified in lifting the occupation. Can you elucidate?

On recent weekly update, you talked about how productivity has gone up since the recession, but wages stayed the same. I’m wondering how productivity is calculated. From my own experience, I’m not sure people are being more productive. I think it may be that quality is declining. I can give you a couple of examples. Our school district has a program for speech therapy for students which my son was in. It really helped him in elementary school. After the school budget was cut, they cut the number of speech therapists. There was much less individual attention given by the therapists because their workloads increased. I know some kids made less progress because of it. On paper, it would look like the program is the same, serving the same number of students. My own employer, a large nonprofit, cut about 30% of its staff. We did cut some programs, but other programs continued and people left were just scrambling to keep things going at a minimum. So I’m wondering how productivity numbers are measured. Is productivity even applicable for schools and nonprofits?

What do you think of the rise of racism and facism i europe and america? Could it have something to do with the crashing of capitalism?

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/10/27/panama-the-hidden-trillions/

Wikileaks has just released excerpts from Mrs. Clinton's paid Wall Street speeches. There are some interesting economic tidbits that I would like for you to comment on. This includes her vision of a "Hemispheric Common Market, With Open Trade And Open Markets" and her endorsement of the "Simpson-Bowles Framework". I'll link to the page - see the attachments for the full doc. Thanks for your work! https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927