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Economic Update with Professor Richard D. Wolff

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Economic Update with Professor Richard D. Wolff Empty Economic Update with Professor Richard D. Wolff

Post by Admin Thu Jun 02, 2011 2:45 am

I encourage all members here to follow this program. It offers economic analysis from a socialistic perspective from one of the few thoroughly socialist economists in American academia. Listen to the latest broadcast by clicking the link below.

Economic Update - May 28th Episode

Professor Wolff discusses the economic recovery for a few, the housing crisis and other current events.
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Economic Update with Professor Richard D. Wolff Empty Re: Economic Update with Professor Richard D. Wolff

Post by Coach Thu Jun 02, 2011 3:28 am

I second that!
Bookmark and follow Dr. Wolff's Economic Update program on WBAI, and you might find a lot of value in visiting his website too:
www.rdwolff.com
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Economic Update with Professor Richard D. Wolff Empty Re: Economic Update with Professor Richard D. Wolff

Post by Coach Thu Jun 02, 2011 4:19 am

No bull folks...tune into the Economic Update radio program link in the OP. You will be glad you did. It is a "user-friendly" program aimed at explaining economic developments HONESTLY and ACCESSIBLE to the masses. You don't have to have a college level economics education in order to grasp this stuff...which is good, because economics has never been my strong suit, and I need people like Dr. Wolff, Celtiberian and others to break it down in easy-to-grasp laymen's terms. Everything discussed on the Economic Update program is fresh and relevant, explains the capitalist crisis and recent economic developments around the world, helps you see what the capitalists are up to and then to EXPLAIN IT to others whom YOU engage with.

Tune in. See for yourself. You ain't gonna hear this stuff on the MSM.
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Economic Update with Professor Richard D. Wolff Empty Re: Economic Update with Professor Richard D. Wolff

Post by Admin Sat Aug 06, 2011 11:38 am

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Economic Update with Professor Richard D. Wolff Empty Re: Economic Update with Professor Richard D. Wolff

Post by Admin Mon Aug 08, 2011 9:07 pm

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Economic Update with Professor Richard D. Wolff Empty Re: Economic Update with Professor Richard D. Wolff

Post by Admin Sat Sep 17, 2011 2:18 am

Economic Update Sept 10 2011

*Click Link Above*
Updates focus on (1) the food stamp program, (2) giving corporations' names to football stadiums, (3) new supports for prison reform, and (4) analyzing the federal government's tax revenues. In-depth analysis focuses on how the world's three alternative economic theories - neoclassical, Keynesian, and Marxian - understand economics and economic crises differently, with special emphasis on the Marxian as it is least understood. Question answered focused on why Marx never wrote much about or analyzed communism.
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Economic Update with Professor Richard D. Wolff Empty Re: Economic Update with Professor Richard D. Wolff

Post by Admin Thu Oct 06, 2011 6:08 pm

The Death of Social Democracy in the West

Professor Wolff debates two bourgeois economists. (Expect the usual hubris and straw man rhetoric that is characteristic of capitalism's professional apologists.)

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Economic Update with Professor Richard D. Wolff Empty Re: Economic Update with Professor Richard D. Wolff

Post by Celtiberian Thu Oct 06, 2011 8:25 pm

Admin wrote:Professor Wolff debates two bourgeois economists. (Expect the usual hubris and straw man rhetoric that is characteristic of capitalism's professional apologists.)

Prof. Wolff did a superb job debating the contemptible bourgeois economists. The reactionary swine used all of the rhetoric one would expect from apologists for the system: "The rich pay a disproportionate amount of the federal income taxes," "wealth inequality is the result of poor education," "capitalism is showing no signs of decay whatsoever," and so on. Always conveniently omitted from these discussions, of course, is whether the source of capitalist profit is even legitimate, or the indisputable fact that capitalists disproportionately benefit from our common resources, e.g., courts, police, publicly subsidized research and development, roads, educational institutions, etc.

The blatant disinformation neoliberals employ must be challenged whenever it presents itself, and I commend Prof. Wolff for all he's done towards that end.
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Economic Update with Professor Richard D. Wolff Empty Re: Economic Update with Professor Richard D. Wolff

Post by Coach Fri Oct 07, 2011 3:00 am

Dr. Wolff obviously knows that when it's time to debate with pushy lying harty-har-har pro-cappies, it's not time to play nice and let them frame things.
Jump in without permission and strike down their bullshit as soon as it comes out of their lips. Our foes can't help but to keep on giving us opportunities in debates to call the system out and shut down their lies.

Dr. Wolff is one of only a few intellectual activists from the old Left that are still fighting the fight as best they can where they can, and so are still worth supporting. What I especially like about him is that he expresses his message appropriately clear to the audience that most needs to understand and has the actual power potential to transform the system---he speaks to the working class the way one does when they want the masses to actually learn and grasp what is said, and so this THEIR OWN more developed consciousness can guide them then to necessary actions.
Notice that even though they spoke on Social Democracy, Dr. Wolff didn't suggest that they try to petition Congress to restore that social contract. Instead he pointed to the emerging and expanding anti-Wall Street protests, showing that he knows that even just minimal reforms will have to be forced by the action of the rising masses 'from below'. Of course, who says we will settle for just minimal reforms, if we are out their struggling and exercising our power in our masses to change society?
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Economic Update with Professor Richard D. Wolff Empty Re: Economic Update with Professor Richard D. Wolff

Post by Admin Thu Oct 13, 2011 1:00 am

Capitalism and Poverty
by Professor Richard D. Wolff

The US Census Bureau recently reported what most Americans already knew. Poverty is deepening. The gap between rich and poor is growing. Slippage soon into the ranks of the poor now confronts tens of millions of Americans who long thought of themselves as securely "middle class."

The reality is worse than the Census Bureau reports. Consider that the Bureau's poverty line in 2010 for a family of four was $22,314. Families of four making more than that were not counted as poor. That poverty line works out to $15 per day per person for everything: food, clothing, housing, medical care, transportation, education, and so on. If you have more than $15 per day per person in your household to pay for everything each person needs, the Bureau does not count you as part of this country's poverty problem.

So the real number of US citizens living in poverty -- more reasonably defined -- is much larger today than the 46.2 million reported by the Census Bureau. It is thus much higher than the 15.1 per cent of our people the Bureau sees as poor. Conservatively estimated, about one in four Americans already lives in real poverty.

Another one in four is or should be worried about joining them soon. Long-lasting and high unemployment now drains away income from families and friends of the unemployed who have used up savings as well as unemployment insurance. As city, state, and local governments cut services and supports, people will have to divert money to offset part of those cuts. When Medicare and if Social Security benefits are cut, millions will be spending more to help elderly parents. Finally, poverty looms for those with jobs as (1) wages are cut or fail to keep up with rising prices, and (2) benefits -- especially pensions and medical insurance -- are reduced.

Deepening poverty has multiple causes, but the capitalist economic system is major among them. First, capitalism's periodic crises always increase poverty, and the current crisis is no exception. More precisely, how capitalist corporations operate, in or out of crisis, regularly reproduces poverty. At the top of every corporation, its major shareholders (15-20 or fewer) own controlling blocs of shares. They select a board of directors -- usually 15-20 individuals -- who run the corporation. These two tiny groups make all the key decisions: what, how, and where to produce and what to do with the profits.

Poverty is one result of this capitalist type of enterprise organization. For example, corporate decisions generally aim to lower the number of workers or their wages or both. They automate, export (outsource) jobs, and replace higher-paid workers by recruiting domestic and foreign substitutes willing to work for less. These normal corporate actions generate rising poverty as the other side of rising profits. When poverty and its miseries "remain always with us," workers tend to accept what employers dish out to avoid losing jobs and falling into poverty.

Another major corporate goal is to control politics. Wherever all citizens can vote, workers' interests might prevail over those of directors and shareholders in elections. To prevent that, corporations devote portions of their revenues to finance politicians, parties, mass media, and "think tanks." Their goal is to "shape public opinion" and control what government does. They do not want Washington's crisis-driven budget deficits and national debts to be overcome by big tax increases on corporations and the rich. Instead public discussion and politicians' actions are kept focused chiefly on cutting social programs for the majority.

Corporate goals include providing high and rising salaries, stock options, and bonuses to top executives and rising dividends and share prices to shareholders. The less paid to the workers who actually produce what corporations sell, the more corporate revenue goes to satisfy directors, top managers, and major shareholders.

Corporations also raise profits regularly by increasing prices and/or cutting production costs (often by compromising output quality). Higher priced and poorer-quality goods are sold mostly to working people. This too pushes them toward poverty just like lower wages and benefits and government service cuts.

Over the years, government interventions like Social Security, Medicare, minimum wage laws, regulations, etc. never sufficed to eradicate poverty. They often helped the poor, but they never ended poverty. The same applies to charities aiding the poor. Poverty always remained. Now capitalism's crisis worsens it again. Something more than government interventions or charity is required to end poverty.

One solution: production would have to be organized differently, in a non-capitalist way. Instead of enterprise decisions being made by directors and major shareholders, the workers themselves could collectively and democratically make them. Let's call this Democracy at Work (DAW), since it entails the majority making the key enterprise decisions about what, how, and where to produce and what to do with the profits.

If the workers made those decisions, here are some likely results. Primary goals would no longer be to reduce their own numbers or their wages. If technological changes or reduced demand for their outputs required fewer workers, they would likely maintain the wages of workers and retrain them for other jobs meeting growing demands. Workers would not be fired and thereby pushed into poverty.

Second, workers making democratic decisions would not likely allow today's huge differences between average wages and top managers' salaries, bonuses, etc. By eliminating concentrated income and accumulated wealth at the top, resources would be freed finally to end poverty at the bottom. A DAW system could produce and secure the vast "middle class" that this country pretended but never yet really had. Workers disposing of their enterprises' profits would no longer distribute a portion to politicians and parties to protect a rich minority against the envy and resentments of the majority. By establishing a far more egalitarian income distribution, a DAW system could also transform a political system now corrupted by the money of corporations and the rich.

Third, a DAW system would be less likely to raise prices or reduce output quality. When workers are both decision-makers at work as well as consumers of their enterprises' outputs, they would more likely pass and sustain laws to outlaw the price gouging and quality deterioration common in capitalism.

A serious commitment to end poverty and its costly social effects requires us to face that capitalism has always reproduced widespread poverty as the other side of profits for a relative few. No wonder such a system has provoked Occupy Wall Street and so many of its signature slogans and demands.

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Economic Update with Professor Richard D. Wolff Empty Re: Economic Update with Professor Richard D. Wolff

Post by Celtiberian Wed Nov 02, 2011 3:53 pm

The following is an animated version of a lecture presented by Prof. Wolff on class analysis and the current economic crisis:

Economic Update with Professor Richard D. Wolff HCW

CLICK HERE TO WATCH
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Post by Celtiberian Mon Nov 14, 2011 4:30 am

At Prof. Wolff's Economic Update this month at the Brecht Forum, the Greek Marxist economist, Yanis Varoufakis, was invited to speak on the current Eurozone crisis. Prof. Varoufakis's talk was extraordinarily informative, and I especially encourage our European comrades to listen to it.

Global Capitalism - A Monthly Update & Discussion (Nov. 2011)
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Post by Rev Scare Mon Nov 14, 2011 3:10 pm

Celtiberian wrote:At Prof. Wolff's Economic Update this month at the Brecht Forum, the Greek Marxist economist, Yanis Varoufakis, was invited to speak on the current Eurozone crisis. Prof. Varoufakis's talk was extraordinarily informative, and I especially encourage our European comrades to listen to it.

Global Capitalism - A Monthly Update & Discussion (Nov. 2011)

Excellent video. It is highly unusual that a Marxist would be appointed to such an esteemed position inside a bourgeois institution. An American equivalent of Prof. Varoufakis would either be decried by the corporate media or be entirely dismissed, with numerous subtle attempts from various reactionary corners to sabotage the individual's career, and right-wing nut jobs would use such a scenario as rich fodder in the noble quest to "prove" the existence of some complex "red conspiracy" within academia.
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Economic Update with Professor Richard D. Wolff Empty Re: Economic Update with Professor Richard D. Wolff

Post by Celtiberian Mon Nov 14, 2011 4:25 pm

Rev Scare wrote:An American equivalent of Prof. Varoufakis would either be decried by the corporate media or be entirely dismissed, with numerous subtle attempts from various reactionary corners to sabotage the individual's career, and right-wing nut jobs would use such a scenario as rich fodder in the noble quest to "prove" the existence of some complex "red conspiracy" within academia.

Absolutely. In many ways, the intellectual climate in Europe is much freer than that which exists here in the United States. From what I've heard, Marxist professors can be found in many, if not most, departments in universities throughout Europe.

Coincidentally, Fox News recently learned of Richard Wolff's growing influence within the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations and has decided to attempt to whip up public hysteria by drawing attention to the fact that he's a Marxian socialist ("UMASS Professor Encourages 'Occupy' to Overthrow Capitalism").
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Post by Admin Mon Jan 02, 2012 7:54 am

Global Capitalism - A Monthly Update & Discussion (Dec 2011)

The chief focus of this talk was a detailed explanation of the linked European economic crises (of the Euro as common currency, of the sovereign debt of major European economies, and of deepening disunity among members of the European community). The particular position and policies of German capitalism are stressed as central to explaining these crises.

Great update for last month. I highly recommend viewing it.

Some of Professor Wolff's points regarding Germany's role in the Eurozone crisis coincide with those made by German economist, Dr. Heiner Flassbeck, at the recent Crisis in the Eurozone Conference.
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Post by Admin Wed May 02, 2012 11:58 pm



Last edited by Admin on Sat Dec 29, 2012 1:52 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Economic Update with Professor Richard D. Wolff Empty Re: Economic Update with Professor Richard D. Wolff

Post by Red Aegis Sat Jun 16, 2012 1:41 am

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Post by Red Aegis Mon Sep 03, 2012 9:55 pm

There is no video but here it is.
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Post by Red Aegis Fri Sep 14, 2012 12:47 pm

He put out a few more. Here is one of them. It deals with quantitative easing and austerity.
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Post by Red Aegis Fri Sep 21, 2012 6:31 pm

I think that this one was his best yet.


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Post by Red Aegis Mon Oct 01, 2012 5:30 pm

This one is mainly about Class Warfare and the resurgence of the topic in mainstream discourse. Wolff is joined by another professor teaching a university course titled: Class Warfare.
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Post by Red Aegis Fri Oct 12, 2012 12:39 am

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Post by Admin Sat Dec 29, 2012 2:30 am

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Post by Red Aegis Wed Jun 12, 2013 11:56 pm

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