Economic Update: Strikes and the Labor Movement Today

Season 6, episode 40
THIS WEEK'S TOPICS (w/timestamps):
00:57 - Significance of California Disclose Act;
03:50 - Updates on closing 6,400 retail stores in 2017;
08:39 - decline in US housing starts;
12:14 - 800 major corporations oppose Trump on DACA;
15:36 - announcements;
17:15 - US child poverty rates;
23:00 - US to rely on banks' "self-reporting" of their misdeeds;

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[allypoum]

Always thrilled when a new video gets posted by the good Prof...

[AlexRodriguez-rhsc]

Nothing like grabbing some popcorn and listening to Prof. Wolf talk about how the world is crumbling around me.

[rbauer]

Around 1990 I was in the housing construction industry in San Diego County, CA. Houses and apartment complexes were going up so fast that it was scary. It was scary to imagine how many natural resources were being used up. It was scary to realize how fast people would be out of work at such a clip. That's how fast things could be built. Of course, it all came to a halt with an economic downturn. But, to see it in full swing was scary. That was just my impression.

Capitalism is all about growth. I've read that the reason the bloated Military Industrial Complex needs to start wars is to keep all of it's employees employed, to give them something to do. That's the kind of gut reaction fear that I seemed to sense back then. It's like something out of control.

[GamingXx]

Why we are in the middle east, a new thought: This is a very complex subject but I'll try to dumb it down a little bit. I'm going to start with how Rome fell, but the same could be said for ANY empire that's ever existed. Romes empire became too courageous, and started wars on a quest of total domination. To fund this, they melted copper into their gold coins (The historical version of just printing more money.). Their gold coins lost their value of course considering each was up to 80% copper. People lost faith in the currency, total chaos erupted, Rome falls. America has been doing the same thing. Our currency starts it's life at the treasury in the form of bonds. Bonds are then sold to bankers, bankers then sell those bonds to the federal reserve in return for checks (The federal reserve has no store of value (Their banks account is a big fat $0), the bankers then type up some numbers to account for those bonds, boom, money is created out of thin air. Our politicians promise us stuff, like healthcare, and other shit, how do they pay for it? The currency that is magically created from the bankers. The government spends that money, then the worker who works for the government gets their paychecks. This is when it's important to pay attention. Those employees deposit their currency in a bank (I refer to our dollar as currency because it is NOT a store of value. The piece of paper it's printed on means nothing.) The bank then does what's called fractional reserve lending. Meaning if you deposit 100 in the bank, they take $90 and lend it to someone else leaving bank credit in your account, so you can still withdraw 100$. This is important because bam, 90$ is created out of no where. This cycle repeats and repeats creating currency all along the way. This increases the currency supply where inflation eats it up. okay, so how does this relate to us being in the middle east? Well what's the American dollar backed on? Oil. You can only have as much currency as the value of what it's backed on is worth. Let's say you have a gold coin worth $20, well then you can only have $20 worth of currency or else the currency's value means less and less. We're in the middle east to save America's economy, And I will explain why. With an exponentially expanding currency supply, we need an exponentially expanding store of value to back it on. Meaning Oil. If currency outweighs the value it's backed on, the currency simply collapses. Americas collapse is inevitable. One of three things will bring us down. 1, Oil supply dries up. We use it all. (This is unlikely to be the cause of our demise as the other two options are much more likely to happen sooner). 2. The American people get tired of us being in the middle east and over run our government, withdrawing us from our wars, bam, the oil supply running into america dries up, and our currency collapses. 3. Renewable resources. Wind, solar, geothermal, etc. etc. The world switches to green power. All of a sudden the oil our currency is backed on loses it's value, bam, Americas economy collapses. This is why even Bernie sanders (He's definitely not perfect, he's just better than what we've had) will NOT withdraw us from these wars. Americas economy is SOULY dependent on these wars to survive, there is NO backing out of what our government has done, and our demise is INEVITABLE. I'm not on our politicians side, staying in these wars that is, but I can't exactly be against it because that means just about every loved one I have will be robbed or killed when Americas economy collapses. I have no answers, only truths. Do with this information what you will, however let my last words be "we are FUCKED".

[MartinScreeton]

The retail sector like the housing sector is falling apart due to people not receiving a sustainable wage in a large percentage of America... anything retail is or will be in trouble in the long term...

[ScienceTalkwithJimMassa]

This was a very informative video. Thank you professor Wolff for discussing these important issues.

[oreagle]

Turn all the failing malls into homeless center/co-op. Then they will not be empty. After all these are the same people who are not shopping there, and paid for the infrastructure in the first place.. Transform them to housing coops. Creating jobs for care, maintenance, alterations, etc. Condense the needed retail space as needed. (Wall Street can just restructure, transfer, defer, or write off the debt)

[duskydon]

Cutting taxes for those who already pay a lower rate. Borrowing trillions to pay for essentials (services). Eliminating government regulations that keep my air water and food safe. Wasting more on the biggest military in the world with constant war; immoral conduct, torture, targeted civilians, extrajudicially targeted Americans. This onslaught leaves me helpless and unable to identify what to grapple with.

[zpetar]

Retail stores are not closing only because of Amazon. They are also closing because people don't have money to spend in those stores. But anyways it was unsustainable from beginning. On average woman in US have four times more clothes than back in 80s. It's ridiculous.

[hermenutic]

I really appreciate professor Wolff's insights. I've read Braverman's book, Labor and Monopoly Capital, and I've been a worker. It wasn't until I read the book that I understood the culture of the workplace. Professor Wolff has given me an updated refresher course on the economic strategies of the American elite.

[pipertipurts]

TBH, I'm surprised there's 238 Kmarts left *to* close. I wouldn't have thought it was that high.

[karrasue]

I'm only a few minutes into this show; but, I hope Pro Wolff talks about Co-Ops. Every time I see Detroit, Flint, and most of the devastated wasteland of our country, I recall his story of co-ops in Europe.

[edwardmaxwell]

Maybe the US needs a Civil War 2.0 and Great Depression 2.0 to revert back to sensible progressive all-inclusive laws of politics and finance. I'm just afraid we might lose it all before that happens.

[MarkMark-jits]

The IRS should adopt the same approach as the commodities and futures trading commission.

[AlexeiRamotar]

As a person who isn't living in poverty I've always wondered why poor people even have children. Children are super expensive.

[pagetvido]

Allowing banks to self-report, given their recent history of financial crimes? That's an act of madness for students of the future to try and make sense of, if they're still allowed to think independently at all then.

[smashingdeano]

The world needs a capital jubilee (a forgiving of all debt owed and the accumulation of it erased, all accounts set to zero) for everyone. We used to do it in the past and we can do it again and we will.

[camouflage]

The final part about banks "self-reporting" their misdeeds is really mind-blowing. The next 2008 will be biblical.

[ErikratKhandnalie]

Campaign finance is perhaps the most important overarching issue in our current political system, one of the biggest barriers that has kept us from functioning as a democracy. Capital has a death grip on the State, and strict campaign finance laws are one of the better ways to loosen that grip.

[domingodeanda]

Mr Wolff, you should have a debate with Trump.