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US ECONOMY Democracy At Work: Richard Wolff Economic Update: Mounting Economic Problems March 31sr, 2025 Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNKM_bUNPwI Peter Burgess COMMENTARY I met Richard Wolff a long time ago when he was lecturing in Manhattan. This was almost certainly more than 20 years ago ,,, maybe much longer! I like a lot of what Richard Wolff has to say. He reflects a lot of my own thinking about the history of workers. He probably knows American history better than I do ... though maybe my perspective is better when it comes to international worker matters especially when it comes to the UK. Hopefully Dr. Wolff will have a positive impact on the thinking that is needed right now with the horrendous Trump initiatives that are already in play and planned! Peter Burgess
Economic Update: Mounting Economic Problems Democracy At Work 507K subscribers ... 19,883 views ... 2.2K likes Premiered March 31st, 2025 Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff [Full Episodes] [EU S15 E13] Mounting Economic Problems In this week's episode of Economic Update, Professor Wolff discusses certain minimum wages by the Trump administration, the costs of Germany's rearmament, and how Trump's tariffs and deportations have hit central America with economic catastrophe. The second half features a detailed discussion of the historical blaming of foreigners for the internal problems of capitalism in the U.S. If you haven't already, please subscribe to our channel, follow us on social media and of course be sure to sign up on our website: www.democracyatwork.info As always, we thank you for your attention, support, and solidarity. The d@w Team Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff is a DemocracyatWork.info Inc. production. We make it a point to provide the show free of ads and rely on viewer support to continue doing so. You can support our work by joining our Patreon community: / democracyatwork Or you can go to our website: https://www.democracyatwork.info/donate Every donation counts and helps us provide a larger audience with the information they need to better understand the events around the world they can't get anywhere else. We want to thank our devoted community of supporters who help make this show and the others we produce possible each week. We kindly ask you to also support the work we do by encouraging others to subscribe to our YouTube channel and website: www.democracyatwork.info Professor Wolff's latest book 'Understanding Capitalism' is available now for purchase: https://linktr.ee/understandingcapita... Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff [Full Episodes] Democracy At Work Transcript 0:00 [Music] welcome friends to another edition of Economic Update a weekly program devoted to the economic dimensions of our lives and those of our children i'm your host Richard Wolf as usual I begin by reminding you that Charlie Fabian is available to take your ideas suggestions criticisms of what we do on this program and I want to thank you for all that you have sent in you can reach him at charlie.info438gmail.com and likewise I want to remind you that we have this new book Understanding Capitalism which is something of a companion book you might say to this program many of the points we bring up 1:04 here are developed in detail in that book and made accessible and understandable it's like a course in what capitalism really is punctuated by what we do on a weekly basis here and I recommend it to you you can find out more about it by going to our website www.democracyatwork.info/books today we're going to be talking about a remarkable act by the Trump labor department we're going to be talking about what Elon Musk proposes for Amtrak and the post office the German decision to rearm which those of you with a notion of history will want to think about long and hard and then an analysis of Trump's tariffs in the second half of the show we're going to talk about a 2:01 longstanding obsession in the United States and I mean that an obsession with foreigners a need and a tendency to constantly blame foreigners for the problems we have at home because it is so difficult to face the problems we have at home it's a little bit like what we do sometimes in our personal lives when we blame others for something where we ourselves bear a good bit of the responsibility so let's jump right in the United States Labor Department in the Trump uh administration made a decision actually Mr trump made it he let everyone know he made it he instructed the labor department to change the existing law under the existing law here in the United States any business that does work on contract for the federal government is required to pay a specific 3:06 minimum wage it's not the same as the minimum wage in the United States which is an extraordinarily low $7.25 25 cents now this is the minimum wage for people who work on a contract for the federal government okay what was it it was $17.75 it had been raised a while back mr obama if I my memory is correct had set it at 1330 an hour and then it was raised to 1775 an hour now during the first Trump administration he didn't do anything about it but now in the second Trump administration he has and I want you to 4:06 know what he's done and I want you to think about what it means he chose to reduce the minimum wage to cancel that part of the law so that the government doesn't have to mandate or require those it contracts with to pay a minimum wage of 1775 an hour anymore that will lower the wage to what it was before or maybe even lower it's important to understand it's one thing to allow inflation to erode what you can buy with your wage it's another thing to directly diminish your wage hundreds of thousands millions of workers work on contracts with the 5:01 federal government those on the minimum wage are going to take a real hit from 1775 to 1330 these days is quite a cut in your salary then there's Elon Musk who recently said that he's in favor of privatizing Amtrak and the post office now this reminds me of a very old argument given by right-wing business types here's how the argument goes amtrak is not making a lot of money or it's losing the post office is not making a lot of money or it's losing money and now let's compare that with private enterprises and you know private enterprises if they don't make money go out of business see how much more efficient the private is than the public now I know it's not polite and I'm going to take a moment to be 6:04 impolite this argument is fundamentally stupid let me explain why if the Amtrak were going to charge the money it would have to to be profitable which it can do it doesn't have competitors for many of its runs that would make it profitable not a problem but you know who would pay for that you would and I would and every business that uses the rail system would face higher costs by lowering the price having the government run the railroad it operates like a subsidy to private enterprise part of the reason private enterprises have whatever profit they do is because the railroad system 7:03 operates at least in part at a loss the public one and this is even more true for the post office by having the cost of your mail lower yeah the post office runs a deficit but everybody else gets the benefit the profits of every company are higher than they'd otherwise be if they had to pay for the mail service what would profit a private male and if Mr elon Musk is correct and wins and gets it to be private not only will he be probably among those who bid to do it he wants that profit but he'll charge a price and all of us will learn what I'm explaining now that this was not a good idea good for Mr musk good for the private profiters but for the rest of 8:05 us including lots of private businesses no don't make stupid comparisons they lead to stupid policies germany has announced it's going to rearm you remember World War I you remember World War II those were preceded by German rearmament who's Germany going to fight they're a small country relative to the superpowers US Russia China that army they're building is only going to be useful to intimidate perhaps other European countries germany's among the richest and the largest uh-oh do we really want to see 9:02 this and now the other countries looking at this remembering the history they're going to build up their armaments too and the Germans have made no secret nor have the British as to who's going to pay for making more armaments it's that old story about guns and butter which is it you're going to use your resources for mr starmer in England is about to cut social services to cut the benefits given to disabled British citizens helping to fund money for Ukraine money for the British and maybe they'll rearm to deal with the Germans their traditional enemies uh-oh the decline of Western capitalism takes its ugly forms one after 10:05 another and for the first half of this show's final update I want to talk to you briefly about Mr trump's economic policies and I'm going to take the example of our neighbor Mexico because mostly we talk here about the impact on the United States and the whole world economy but let's talk about Mexico a very important country our southern border very important country in the context of Latin America what are Mr trump's actions doing well I want to focus on something you may not have thought about when you deport large numbers of people when you block immigration whatever else you think 11:01 about that here are some of the economic consequences in recent years for example even last year 2024 Mexico our big example received 64.7 billion dollar in remittances here's what that means mexican citizens immigrate leave Mexico come to the United States in the United States they take jobs that's what the overwhelming majority of them have to do and do they pay taxes to the United States government on what they earn that's the law and they more than anybody do not violate that law because it would risk not just the usual penalties but the 12:03 risk especially now of being deported or otherwise harassed by the authorities and they live frugally why because they have to not only pay taxes on their earnings but they send money home to help their families just as every other immigrant population in the history of the United States did but for Mexico it adds up to 4% of their annual GDP it's an enormous support and then I started looking into it and here's what I found for Nicaragua it's 27% for Honduras 25 for El Salvador 23% for Guatemala 19 haiti 18 and Jamaica 13:02 18 huge benefit to those economies they rely on it if you don't let those people come in anymore and we don't and if you deport large numbers of them and we do the remittances will stop they already have now you're hitting these economies with an incredible one two punch you are forcing back into that economy millions of American residents being pushed back there are no jobs for them now but they're going to be even fewer jobs because they can't bring any remittances anymore they're not working in United States they can't send money home so the economy will contract just as millions of young working people come back looking for work you know what you're doing to Central America you're 14:03 blowing it up you're creating unlivable dangerous violent social conditions which will come back to haunt the United States threaten the United States is anyone even asking the question is this worthwhile what we are doing to our own country by hurting all these people and these countries in this way forget just the hatred the social disruption we will be hearing and reading about it as Mr trump's policies work their damage stay with us we've come to the end of the first half we'll be right back with an examination of the foreign problem in the United [Music] 15:05 States before we jump into the second half of today's show I wanted to thank you for your very generous response to our fundraising efforts uh this year and in particular in the last couple of months and in part responding to that we are extending the availability of our limited edition linen covered hard coverver version of understanding capitalism the book I wrote and that we have been making available now for quite a while if you are interested I will be signing copies of that hard cover and they will be available to you as they have been uh over the last few weeks just simply send an email to us at info democracywork.info and put in the 16:03 subject line limited edition we will send you all the information you need to order and receive your copy signed copy of understanding capitalism in its hardback and thank you again for your kind attention to the fundraising dimension of what we do welcome back friends to the second half of today's economic update i want in this second half to talk about a problem that has interested me for many years the remarkable tendency here in the United States although similar things exist in many not all other countries it's remarkable here in the United States that we have an extraordinary tendency to blame foreigners people who 17:00 are not American citizens for the problems we have at home and we do that to a fault what I mean is foreigners may bear some responsibility deserve some blame that's often true but they get a way disproportionate excess of blame because we are unable very often to face our own problems and I'm going to give you one past and one present example but I think if you consider it you'll notice it as I have happening over and over again in American history so my first part my example from history takes us back to the 1930s roughly a hundred years ago 18:05 capitalism our economic system crashed october 1929 suddenly stock market fell apart executives jumped out of top story windows because they couldn't face their economic ruin in a very short time between 1929 and 1933 the unemployment rate in the United States rose to 25% one out of every four workers had no job and that was a time when we didn't have unemployment insurance so you didn't get any money if you didn't have a job your next step was to beg stand outside a soup kitchen line run by a local church or something like that you were desperate if one out of four workers are not working then every 19:04 family in America had somebody who wasn't working uncle Harry Aunt Louise and the rest of us were all worried if we had a job that we would keep it and we weren't getting paid as much as before we were grateful for any job and we would accept one with lower pay which was happening left and right so we had an unemployed family member and less money in the pockets of those who still had jobs it was very hard times and it wasn't one of those short capitalist breakdowns it started in October of 1929 and it lasted across the entire decade of the 1930s that's why they got known as the Great Depression we were all depressed those of you who read the novels of people like John Steinbeck The 20:04 Grapes of Wrath or of Men those were novels and there were many describing the unspeakable suffering and poverty and joblessness and loss of self-esteem that afflicted American capitalism but something remarkable happened the American people the American people rose up and said 'This is not tolerable we will not be treated this way bad pay difficult jobs massive unemployment loss of social services.' And so they turned politically to the left i stress that because it's rather different from what we've been seeing the last few years when an angry bitter 21:03 part of the working class turns to the right but let's go back to our story they turn left here's what they do they join unions we had the greatest unionization drive in American history nothing like it ever before nothing like it ever since the 1930s exploded as working men and women joined unions by the millions these were people who had never been in a union before these were people whose parents had never been in a union they joined because they were trying to hold on they also joined two socialist and one communist party and they all became strong in those days and they worked with the unions together they were known as the New Deal Coalition they demanded a new deal in America they came from all walks of life 22:05 they were all over the US north south east and west they were very powerful they counted their strength in millions and they went to the sitting President Franklin Roosevelt and they said You've got to help us you've got to do for the American people what no president before has done and in very short order under the pressure of these militant Americans the president passed the Social Security system that's why we have one we did not have one before the first minimum wage we never had that before either the first unemployment compensation program at a federal level across every state we never had that before and we created a public employment for 15 million Americans who stopped being unemployed because the federal government hired them and where did the money come from to do this by taxing corporations and 23:07 the rich and what we didn't tax from them we borrowed from them and what we use the money we taxed and borrowed from them for to do for the mass of people social security unemployment compensation minimum wage and federal jobs fantastic a president who taxed the rich to help the middle and lower classes and what happened to the president who dared alone in our history to do that he was reelected three times franklin Roosevelt was the most popular president the country had so much for the argument that a politician dare not do that yes he does he needs a lot of pressure from below but now let's watch what happened 24:01 not only did this New Deal coalition get the New Deal they wanted allying with the president but it only led up to the real solution for the Great Depression which had not been found before because we got a capitalist system that makes solving these problems very hard what finally got us out of the depression world War II simplifying we took half the unemployed who were in the millions and put them in the military and the other half we put to work in the factories making the uniforms guns bullets tanks and planes for the military and that's how we put everybody back to work but the corporations and the rich were very upset they didn't like a president who did this they didn't like to be taxed more than they ever had been they didn't like 25:03 to have to lend money to the government not to benefit themselves but to help the average person so when the war was over even though our ally in the war against fascism in Germany and Italy was the Soviet Union socialists we did a quick reversal harry Truman was the president who pulled this one off a little known and unrespected nobody from the Midwest yeah what'd he do here we go he made the problem the bad foreigner what yes all those militants who built the unions the Socialist Party the Communist Party were redefined not as the militants who 26:00 won the best program the working class ever got from a president who supported the president who was the most popular in American no no they weren't celebrated they were transformed literally overnight between 1945 and 1947 they were transformed into agents of a foreign power a story was made up the Soviet Union a very poor country in the far east of Europe that they are after us they are going to get us and worse they have agents all around us the socialist the communist the unionist even the Democrat is an agent to do unbelievable and we had McCarthyism and we had a purge the kind that Mr trump is trying to do again now and you know we blamed the Soviet Union and we bl it's all foreigners you 27:03 see it's not our capitalist system that doesn't work it's not our noble workingclass heroes and militants who made something good happen out of that bad depression no no no no no the story has to be rewritten evil foreigners are after us and their agents are among us if you want to understand why Mr trump decided that migration is a problem that those poor immigrants from Central America are something he's going to fight against cuz they're foreign and Americans seem to like to blame foreigners look at Mr trump canada never done us any harm at all is suddenly evil to quote Mr trump nasty they are nasty 28:00 people what he can talk about them this sounds like he used to talk about the Soviets and it should remind you of that mexico listen to Mr trump the whole world is cheating us europe is cheating us we're going to hit them with tariffs to fight back against these foreigners cheating the story of blaming them it's always a foreigner it's not a problem here for example it's not a problem that we have 3% of our people who are employers and the other 97% are not they're mostly employees we allow the 3% employers to set the prices of everything we buy in the store and they do it to help them make profit for them make them rich and us not they're the ones who donate to the candidates they're the ones who sit 29:01 behind the president the billionaires come on you don't think we have problems at home we ought to deal with of course you do of course you do blaming the foreigner here's the part about it it's not that the foreigners are blameless of course they're not no more or less than anybody else but we live in a country that has made a very dangerous habit of not looking honestly or debating openly the problems we have as a society and particularly our economic system that divides us into a small minority that own and operate the businesses and the rest of us that work from and buy from them that's where we have to go that's what we haven't done and we shouldn't be 30:02 fooled and misled by people who just want us once again to rev up the idea that those foreigners who are migrating in and those bad Canadians and those Mexicans and those Europeans who cheat us come on we're bigger we're better and we're smarter than all of that don't be fooled thank you for your attention and as always I look forward to speaking with you again next week

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