Economic Update with Richard Wolff: Rising Costs of Capitalism's Failures

On this episode of Economic Update, Professor Richard Wolff begins the program by telling viewers about a recent ruling by William Orrick, a U.S. district judge in San Francisco who blocked Donald Trump's executive order to defund sanctuary cities. According to judge Orrick, this executive order is unconstitutional because it would most likely violate the separation of powers as well the 5th amendment, which is the right to due process. The judge implies that this executive order exceeds the President's authority under the 10th amendment and unfairly targets those jurisdictions.

Professor Wolff states that Cerberus Capital Management is the financial institution that owns and controls the third largest supermarket chain in the United States. This group has expressed great interest in acquiring the Whole Foods Corporation. Whole Foods' sales have been declining lately, which provides an opportunity for financial sharks to get involved and take over the company.

On a different note, Professor Wolff tell his audience that the number of employees in U.S. Department Stores has declined from 1.8 million to 1.2 million between 2000 and 2017. This is a loss of a third of all jobs in U.S. Department Stores. Professor Wolf continues to say that we currently witnessing the steady collapse of an entire industry. Mr. Wolff explains that between the 2008 economic crisis, which hurt the purchasing power of American consumers and the technological shift from buying in a department store to buying online has accelerated the loss of jobs in U.S. Department Stores.

Mr. Wolff then talks about French Elections and informs the public that Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Penn will head to the second round of the French Presidential elections. Professor Wolff compares Macron to Hillary Clinton and also campare Le Penn to Donald trump. Macron used to be a banker who then served as Minister of Economy. On the other hand, Le Penn is a so-called outsider who uses anti-immigrant rhetoric and insists that France should break away from the European Union. Jean-Luc Melenchon, a leftist progressive whose agenda resembles that of Bernie Sanders' did not sufficient votes to move to the next round.

On another segment, Professor Wolff talks about a British worker cooperative called SUMA, which is a vegetarian products producer and distributor. This worker cooperative recently received the queen's awards for enterprise. Every worker in this cooperative gets paid equally (16 pounds an hour). Mr. Wolff also informs his audience that Jack Ma, the chairman of Alibaba Group allegedly foresees three of decades of pain from technology since there will be millions of displaced workers who could eventually be replaced by machines. However, Professor Wolff offers an alternative solution by giving every employee half their workweek off without reducing their income. Everybody could work half-time and still produce the same output with the help of technology. Professor Wolff states that technology isn't the problem, but it's how technology is implemented. Mr. Wolff claims that capitalism's promise is false because it doesn't pursue technology for its social benefits, but rather focuses on pursuing technology for its private profits.

According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), 40 million additional people will be looking for work every year until 2030. Statistics from the World Bank shows that 600 million to 1 billion people will be entering the job market between now and 2030. Very few jobs available for upcoming entrants into the job market. Lastly, Professor Wolff warns about possible cuts to social programs and public services. #MNN #RichardWolff #EconomicUpdate #CerberusCapitalManament #WholeFoods #Monopoly #Capitalism #Capitalists #DepartmentStores #FrenchElections #Politics #Cooperative #Automation #Technology #Jobs

Updates on courts blocking Trumps attack on sanctuary cities, selling Whole Foods, Jack Ma and blaming technology for jobs collapse, falling department store jobs since 2000, British queen's enterprise award to UK worker coop, Suma. Major discussions: Trump's corporate tax "reform," crisis as millions of new entrants into global job markets find too few jobs, SSDI crudely targeted by Trump budget director, populism as an elite-vs people formatting of elections.
Economic Update airs Tuesday nights at 8PM on MNN 1 (TWC 34 & 1995, RCN 82, FiOS 33 and streaming on www.mnn.org). Previously aired episodes of Economic Update can be found on the Manhattan Neighborhood Network YouTube page.

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