Political economy

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• Capitalism
• *** How a little-known organization is poised to shape a second Trump administration *** (35 min)
  Fresh Air, Host: Dave Davies, October 30, 2024. New York Times reporter Ken Bensinger says the America First Policy Institute, which has nearly 300 executive orders ready to be signed, would influence a Trump second term more than Project 2025. (Includes transcript.)
  (For an historical antecedent, see the 1971 Lewis Powell Memorandum to the US Chamber of Commerce)
• 'Glass House' Chronicles The Sharp Decline Of An All-American Factory Town (30 min)
  NPR Fresh Air, Feb 6, 2017 Lancaster native Brian Alexander chronicles the rise and fall of his hometown in his new book, Glass House. "People are genuinely struggling," he tells Fresh Air's Dave Davies. "The economy of the town is struggling, not because there's high unemployment, [but] because the employment that there is all minimum wage, or even lower than minimum wage." (Includes text of interview highlights.)
• *Diane Rehm Show - Ben Bernanke: “The Courage to Act”
  Ben Bernanke: “The Courage to Act” NPR, Diane Rehm Show, Tuesday, Oct 06 2015 • 11 a.m. (ET)
• *The West Has a Resentment Epidemic
  Roberto Stefan Foa, Jonathan Wilmot; Foreign Policy, September 18, 2019
  Across the West, the main trigger of populism has been the growing inequality—and hostility—between urban and rural regions.
  
  
• Barry Schwartz: Using our practical wisdom
  Barry Schwartz dives into the question "How do we do the right thing?" With help from collaborator Kenneth Sharpe, he shares stories that illustrate the difference between following the rules and truly choosing wisely. (TED)
• Confidential Memorandum: Attack on American Free Enterprise System (the Lewis Powell Memorandum to the US Chamber of Commerce)
  "In 1971, Lewis Powell, then a corporate lawyer and member of the boards of 11 corporations, wrote a memo to his friend Eugene Sydnor, Jr., the Director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The memorandum was dated August 23, 1971, two months prior to Powell’s nomination by President Nixon to the U.S. Supreme Court."
  http://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/
• David Brooks - Death by data
  Op-Ed Columnist David Brooks, on political campaigns.
  NY Times, Nov 3, 2014
• Diane Rehm Show - Rethinking the benefits of home ownership
  "Owning a home has long been a linchpin of the American Dream. But the recent housing crisis and changing bank lending practices have led to a drop in the number of people buying houses: The nationwide rate of homeownership is at its lowest rate in 20 years. While some have mourned this loss for the U.S. economy, a new study finds that half of American homeowners would have built more wealth by renting. The new research says many people looking to buy a home overestimate tax deductions, rely on biased, online calculators and underestimate expenses. Diane and a panel of experts discuss rethinking the benefits of homeownership."
  
  Guests
  Aron Szapiro consumer finance expert, HelloWallet, a company that provides independent financial advice to employees
  Julia Gordon director, housing finance and policy, Center for American Progress
  Michelle Singletary syndicated columnist of "The Color of Money" for the Washington Post
  
  Broadcast Monday, Dec 15 2014 • 11 a.m. (ET)
• Diane Rehm Show - The Future of Toll Roads in the U.S.
  Webpage description: "Toll roads make up a fraction of America’s highways, but their number is growing. More than 5,000 miles of U.S. roads require tolls today, up 15 percent over the past decade. One reason: The highway trust fund is in crisis. It’s currently financed by a federal gas tax that has not risen since Bill Clinton was president. So states are looking for other ways to pay for much needed transportation projects. Current laws prohibit the tolling of existing interstate highways. But many infrastructure advocates would like to change that. Others argue public roads should be accessible to all Americans."
  
  [As with many important questions, there is no right answer - and it may not matter in any case, as the decisions are based on what people with greater influence perceive is more to their liking. - Vic]
  
  Guests
  Ed Rendell Building America’s Future Co-Chair; former governor of Pennsylvania.
  Bill Graves president and CEO, American Trucking Associations; former governor of Kansas.
  Chris Edwards economist and editor of DownsizingGovernment.org, Cato Institute.
  Donald Cohen executive director, In The Public Interest. It's a resource center on privatization and responsible contracting.
  Robert Puentes senior fellow, Metropolitan Policy Program, The Brookings Institution.
  
  Transcript available on website.
• Diane Rehm Show - The Government Spending Bill: What’s In It For Banks, Big Business And The Middle Class
  "In a rare Saturday session, the Senate approved a $1.1 trillion spending bill. The House narrowly passed the measure earlier in the week. Massive in scope, the bill funds the government through September 2015. Three controversial provisions in particular have received a lot of attention by editorial boards of the nation’s leading newspapers. One puts the pensions of more than a million workers at risk. Another weakens Wall Street regulations. And a third raises limits on donations to political parties. We discuss arguments for and against those provisions – and why they matter."
  
  Guests
  Michael Greenberger founder and director, University of Maryland Center for Health and Homeland Security and professor, University of Maryland Carey School of Law; former director of Trading and Markets at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
  Kevin Hassett director of economic policy studies, American Enterprise Institute.
  David Leonhardt editor of The Upshot, a New York Times website covering politics and policy; author of the e-book: “Here’s the Deal: How Washington Can Solve the Deficit and Spur Growth."
  Annie Lowrey staff writer, New York magazine.
  
  Broadcast Monday, Dec 15 2014 • 10 a.m. (ET)
• Guardian Sustainable Business - Rethinking prosperity
  From The Guardian
• Harold Varmus - The Art and Politics of Science
  Nobel Prize winning scientist, NIH Director, and NCI Director Harold Varmus' memoir, which gives an insider account of how science works.
• Inside The Minds Of The Mega-Rich
  WAMU 1A, March 28 2019
  What’s going on in the minds of the one percent of the one percent? And what does it mean for everyone else?
  Host Joshua Johnson; show produced by Gabrielle Healy. Text by Kathryn Fink.
  Guests:
  Michael Kraus Psychologist, assistant professor, Yale University School Of Management; @mwkraus
  Anand Giridharadas Author, "Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World"; editor-at-large, *Time*; @AnandWrites
  Nick Hanauer Co-founder and partner in Seattle-based venture capital firm, Second Avenue Partners; @NickHanauer
• Lee Fang - The anti-pot lobby's big bankroll
  The Nation, July 21/28, 2014, p12 - PDF not yet available
• LSE: International aid used to influence elections
  Dr Ryan Jablonski, an Assistant Professor in LSE’s Department of Government, tracked the spending of aid across Kenya from 1992, when multiparty elections began, to 2010 [1]. His research, published this week in World Politics, reveals that electorally strategic voters receive higher levels of foreign aid over those who may be more in need but support the opposition.
• LSE: League table thorws new light on cost of banking misconduct
  The researchers, led by LSE Professor Roger McCormick, assessed the costs accrued by ten of the world’s leading banks across the UK, Europe and America as a result of misconduct. When put together, and reviewed over the period 2008-2012, these ten banks alone incurred nearly £150 billion for misconduct of various kinds, including mis-selling PPI and other products, manipulating LIBOR, and failing to observe anti-money laundering rules.
• NPR - Closure Of Private Prison Forces Texas County To Plug Financial Gap
  Closure Of Private Prison Forces Texas County To Plug Financial Gap
  John Burnett, March 26, 2015, NPR Morning Edition
  
• Park Avenue: money, power and the American dream - Why Poverty?
  Documentary by http://www.whypoverty.net/
• Robert Shiller on How Human Psychology Drives the Economy
  Study non-profit management, urban and environmental policy, human resources, and international affairs at the Milano School, a part of The New School in New York City. | <a href="http://www.newschool.edu/milano" target="_blank" title="http://www.newschool.edu/milano">http://www.newschool.edu/milano</a><br/><br/>Professor Robert Shiller, will present the annual Irene and Bernard L. Schwartz lecture titled Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why it Matters for Global Capitalism, focusing on the current economic crisis and its causes and consequences. The lecture will be based on Professor Shillers upcoming book of the same title, which is co-authored with George Akerlof, Koshland Professor of Economics at University of California, Berkeley and Nobel Laureate. A panel discussion and question and answer session, will follow the lecture with Professor Brad DeLong, professor of Economics, University of California Berkeley, Teresa Ghilarducci, Irene and Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of Economic Policy Analysis, The New School for Social Research; Director, SCEPA and Jeff Madrick, seniors fellow, SCEPA, The New School for Social Research. <br/><br/>Robert J. Shiller is the Arthur M. Okun Professor of Economics, and Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics at Yale University. He is also professor of Finance and Fellow at the International Center for Finance at Yale School of Management. He has written about financial markets, financial innovation, behavioral economics, macroeconomics, real estate, and statistical methods, as well as on public attitudes, opinions, and moral judgments regarding markets.<br/> <br/>Brad DeLong is a professor in the Department of Economics at U.C. Berkeley; chair of the Berkeley International and Area Studies Political Economy major; a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research; and a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. From 1993 to 1995 he worked for the U.S. Treasury as a deputy assistant secretary for economic policy.<br/><br/>The Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysisis the economic policy research arm of The New School for Social Researchs Department of Economics. Each year the center hosts economic policy workshops, publishes topical policy notes, and sponsors newsworthy lectures by top economists and financial leaders. SCEPAs work is supported in part by a generous gift from Irene and Bernard L. Schwartz.<br/><br/>Graduate Program in International Affairs (GPIA) | <a href="http://gpia.info" target="_blank" title="http://gpia.info">http://gpia.info</a><br/>Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA) | <a href="http://newschool.edu/nssr/schwartz-center" target="_blank" title="http://newschool.edu/nssr/schwartz-center">http://newschool.edu/nssr/schwartz-ce...</a><br/><br/>* Location: Tishman Auditorium, Alvin Johnson/J. M. Kaplan Hall. 02/18/2009 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
• Sherry Glied - Containing state health care expenditures--the competition vs regulation debate.
  Containing state health care expenditures--the competition vs regulation debate.
  Sherry Glied, Michael Sparer, Lawrence Brown
  Am J Public Health. 1995 Oct;85(10):1347-9.
• Teneo Network
  Inside the “Private and Confidential” Conservative Group That Promises to “Crush Liberal Dominance”
  Leonard Leo, a key architect of the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority, is now the chairman of Teneo Network, a group that aims to influence all aspects of American politics and culture. By Andy Kroll and Andrea Bernstein, ProPublica, and Nick Surgey, Documented
  March 9, 2023
• The Power of Piketty’s ‘Capital’
  A brilliant book has named the problem of our time. But will anything change?
  Eric Alterman
  April 23, 2014 | This article appeared in the May 12, 2014 edition of The Nation.
• Tracking How History Made Room For Trumpism (30 min)
  October 2, 2018 Host Frank Stasio speaks with Scholar Lawrence Grossberg, a professor of communications and cultural studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, about his take on the state of American politics and why he says the U.S. may be heading toward a Robocop-style society. Grossberg has spent decades documenting the rise of the political right. In his latest book, he places the rise of President Trump within the historical timeline of American conservatism. “Under The Cover Of Chaos: Trump and the Battle for the American Right” (Pluto Press/ 2018). The book digs into how the turmoil of the Trump presidency has spurred an “explosion of vital and diverse forms of organizing” on the left, but also how that organizing has bypassed real conversations that acknowledge the core of political disagreements and develop long-term strategy.
• William Galston - The New Challenge to Market Democracies
  The Brookings Institution
  William A. Galston holds the Ezra K. Zilkha Chair in the Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies Program, where he serves as a senior fellow.