ROB JOHNSON & I talk about the State of the Union – Biden’s speech plus our own take on things

Written on March 14th, 2024

ROB JOHNSON is a plain-speaking and passionate critic of an economic, financial, and political system that leaves too many behind. He and I do post-election shows – and we’ll do another this November, but this week we talk about the State of the Union as well as the state of the union. We talk about Biden’s speech and about how the two of us see things – the economy, the election, the two parties, the nation’s mood, how we got here, and how we might move forward. Rob is President of the Institute for New Economic Thinking and host of the podcast Economics and Beyond. You can learn more about him and his work at ineteconomics.org 

TIM DeCHRISTOPHER-Courage & Conviction-Tim served 21 months in prison for civil disobedience protecting public lands

Written on March 7th, 2024

We know Republicans exercise minority rule in the states, the House, and the Supreme Court. Now Biden is arming Israel without meaningful or effective demands for humanitarian treatment of innocent civilians. Is it time for civil disobedience? Here’s my 2013 conversation with Tim DeChristopher. In a disputed auction of oil leases on pubic lands, Tim bid and won the rights to 22K acres, which he had no plan to pay for or exploit. He was tried on federal felony charges and served 21 months in prison. I offer this example to remind us of the personal courage it may take to offer real resistance to policies and actions being done in our names. 

ANGUS DEATON, co-author, Deaths of Despair – ECONOMICS IN AMERICA: An Immigrant Economist Explores the Land of Inequality

Written on March 1st, 2024

ANGUS DEATON won the Nobel prize in Economics for work accomplished before he and his wife, economist Ann Case, wrote DEATHS OF DESPAIR and the Future of Capitalism. Pre pandemic, life expectancy in the US was no longer rising, and already falling among adults without 4 years of college, due in large part to alcoholism, drug overdoses, and suicides. In his newest book, ECONOMICS IN AMERICA: An Immigrant Economist Explores the Land of Inequality, Deaton reflects on 25 years of his writings from the perspective of 2023. He’s takes a hard look at the field of economics, and its role in a society and an economy that leaves out so many. His last words in this conversation: “I made a lot of mistakes in my life, and it’s good to be able to live long enough to be able to acknowledge them.” You can learn more at deaton.scholar.princeton.edu

5 BROKEN CAMERAS (2013)-EMAD BURNAT (Palestinian) & GUY DAVIDI (Israeli) co-directors, of the Oscar-nominated doc.

Written on February 22nd, 2024

This week the media offers Academy Award buzz as well as the horrors of Israel’s response to the horrors of October’s attack by Hamas. Here’s my 2013 conversation with Palestinian EMAD BURNAT and Israeli GUY DAVIDI, co-directors of the Oscar-nominated documentary, 5 BROKEN CAMERAS. The film tells the story of Burnat, a Palestinian West Bank farmer, his wife, and four small children. As we track the destruction of each of his cameras, we witness his village’s ancient olive trees bulldozed, protests intensify, and a son grow from a newborn to a young boy. 

MARGOT SUSCA-HEDGED: How Private Investment Funds Helped Destroy American Newspapers and Undermine Democracy

Written on February 15th, 2024

We all know the newspaper business is in trouble. A weekday edition of the LA Times – once a “national” newspaper, along with the NYTimes, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal – now might be 32 pages and another 100 were recently laid off in the newsroom. The culprit is assumed to be the internet, stealing both stories and ads. Not so fast. I talk with MARGOT SUSCA, a former reporter, now a professor of Journalism, about her first book, HEDGED: How Private Investment Funds Helped Destroy American Newspapers and Undermine Democracy. Her assessment: “What we have is not a crisis of profit. What we have is a crisis of greed and growing inequality.”