Aired 05/01/11

Live from USC - The Annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books

JOE MATHEWS writes about California and the West as the Irvine Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation. A LA Times staff writer for 18 years, he is co-author of CALIFORNIA CRACKUP.

MARK PAUL, former deputy treasurer of California and deputy editorial page editor of the Sacramento Bee, is a senior scholar and deputy director of the California program at the New America Foundation. He is co-author of CALIFORNIA CRACKUP.

http://www.californiacrackup.com/

http://www.truthdig.com/bill_boyarsky

http://peoplesmachine.blogspot.com/

http://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/

 

Aired 04/24/11

ESTHER DUFLO, a Professor of Economics at MIT, has received numerous honors including a John Bates Clark Medal for the best American economist under 40 in 2010, a MacArthur "genius" Fellowship in 2009. She was recognized as one of the best eight young economists by the Economist Magazine, one of the 100 most influential thinkers by Foreign Policy, and one of the "forty under forty" most influential business leaders under forty by Fortune magazine in 2010.

Together with Abhijit Banerjee and Sendhil Mullainathan of Harvard University, she founded the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab in 2003, and authored with Banerjee, the new book, POOR ECONOMICS: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty

http://pooreconomics.com/about-book/excerpt

 

Aired 04/24/11

ROBERT THURMAN, the author of more than 20 books and the first American ordained as a Tibetan monk by his friend of more than 40 years, the Dalai Lama, is Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University, President of Tibet House US, a non-profit dedicated to preserving and promoting Tibetan civilization.

 

Aired 04/10/11

LESTER BROWN has been described by the Washington Post as "one of the world's most influential thinkers." After working with the Department of Agriculture in international agricultural development, Brown helped establish the Overseas Development Council, then founded the Worldwatch Institute, which plays an important role in the public's understanding of trends in our global environment with its annual State of the World report and Vital Signs. In 2001, he left Worldwatch, founded Earth Policy Institute, and continues his vital work. During a career that began with tomato farming, Brown has been honored with numerous prizes, including the MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship, the United Nations Environment Prize, and Japan's Blue Planet Prize, along with some 20 honorary degrees.

In his new book, WORLD ON THE EDGE: HOW TO PREVENT ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC COLLAPSE, BROWN lays out the symptoms, the diagnosis, and the cure, what he calls "Plan B". He estimates that we could solve all the world's greatest problems for $200B a year - less than a third the US defense budget - but it will take an all-out response at wartime speed proportionate to the magnitude of the threats facing civilization.

http://www.earth-policy.org/

 

Aired 04/03/11

Today one of our two major political parties - nationally and in state capitols -- is unwilling to consider raising taxes no matter what the circumstances. Though most of Washington's officials and media are hysterical about the deficit, and willing to hurt anyone in an effort to reduce it, both parties voted in December to extend tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans for two more years.

I last interviewed today's guest, Pulitzer Prize winning tax writer, DAVID CAY JOHNSTON in January 2009 on the day of Barack Obama's inauguration, We talked then about how we could make the most of the opportunity presented by the financial catastrophe. Did the bailouts make sense? and What could we do that would be smarter, more efficient, more effective - that might work?

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON worked as an investigative reporter for several newspapers. He was with the Los Angeles Times from 1976 to 1988, and at the New York Times from 1995-2008 where he won a Pulitzer Prize for his innovative coverage of our tax system He now teaches the tax, property and regulatory law of the ancient world at Syracuse University College of Law and Whitman School of Management and writes a column at tax.com. He is the author of two bestsellers, Perfectly Legal and Free Lunch. His next book, The Fine Print, will be published in 2011.

http://www.tax.com/