Capitalism In Crisis

Series produced by Jim Sawyer

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The looming crisis of capitalism is inability to sort out self-interest rightly understood, from crass rip-offs that redistribute wealth and power away from America’s most vulnerable citizens.

In the contemporary corporate world of escalating internationalism, high technology and hyper-finance, an evolving crisis of capitalism is taking shape and making strident new demands. It is a crisis that can be resolved only by citizens—from outside the marketplace—rather than within corporate dominions.

This crisis requires thoughtful sorting—to illuminate greedy corporate behaviors and to negatively sanction them through added taxation and regulation. These nonproductive behaviors—typically of a financial nature—add little to the quality of American life and far too often, detract from it. I call such behaviors, pseudo-capitalism.
Maddening, particularly, are corporate capitalists now seguing into new roles as pseudo-capitalists. One role now popular—among many schemes of the Reagan and post-Reagan years, is the corporate inversion. In it, an international corporation previously headquartered in the U.S. “inverts itself” to now be headquartered at a previous offshore subsidiary in a lesser-taxed country.

The costs in lost taxes, of course, must be borne by U.S. citizens, now called upon to carry an added burden of paying for public services. Corporate inversions are one more manifestation of how the rich are becoming richer, while most everyone else faces declining fortunes.
This Capitalism in Crisis podcast looks at glitches of capitalist doctrine, how they have been venerated by economic fundamentalists, and what is required to fix them now and get America back on track.
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In the contemporary corporate world of escalating internationalism, high technology and hyper-finance, an evolving crisis of capitalism is taking shape and making strident new demands. It is a crisis that can be resolved only by citizens—from outside the marketplace—rather than within corporate dominions.This crisis requires thoughtful sorting—to illuminate greedy corporate behaviors and to negatively sanction them through added taxation and regulation. These nonproductive behaviors—typically of a financial nature—add little to the quality of American life and far too often, detract from it. I call such behaviors, pseudo-capitalism.Maddening, particularly, are corporate capitalists now seguing into new roles as pseudo-capitalists. One role now popular—among many schemes of the... Show full description


24 Pieces

Order by: Newest First | Oldest First
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It’s NOT the economy, stupid, says Alan Blinder, former Federal Reserve second-in- command. Instead, the 500-pound gorilla in the room is less econ...

  • Added: Oct 28, 2016
  • Length: 07:01
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The perspective of this podcast series is this. The way in which the economy behaves—changes. However, the way ideologues think it ought to behave,...

  • Added: Oct 28, 2016
  • Length: 06:28
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The community common in feudal society was shared by all; therefore not a place to throw one’s garbage. But public rip-offs by a host of corporatio...

  • Added: Oct 14, 2016
  • Length: 04:35
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Over 5300 Wells-Fargo employees lost their jobs even though no senior managers were fired. This isn’t cross-selling...this is fraud.

  • Added: Oct 07, 2016
  • Length: 04:42
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Where along the bifurcated Red-Blue conservative-liberal political continuum does one place Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump? Is h...

  • Added: Sep 03, 2016
  • Length: 05:27
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This week we try to understand U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump’s response to the Muslim father’s Democratic convention speech through econ...

  • Added: Jul 31, 2016
  • Length: 05:19
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What is the future of American capitalism? Can it lie in consensus decision-making in public spaces? about defining what is and what is not product...

  • Added: Jul 24, 2016
  • Length: 04:33
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What does equine capital in a Grandpa farm have to do with Turing Pharmaceuticals and its bid to raise the price of a life-saving drug by 50 times?...

  • Added: Jul 24, 2016
  • Length: 08:57
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This week, we discuss the economics and ethics of hedge fund bets on life-saving medication. What’s wrong with companies like Turing Pharmaceutical...

  • Added: Jul 10, 2016
  • Length: 03:45
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Science is a process of determining what is reality objectively. How do we sift the subjective from the objective for understanding economic propos...

  • Added: Jun 26, 2016
  • Length: 03:59
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Some develop a knack for turning the housing and finance industries on their heads, into cash cows. This is what the Great Recession was about.

  • Added: May 18, 2016
  • Length: 03:58
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Wheeling and dealing like Donald Trump? MBAs, capitalism and society

  • Added: Jun 20, 2016
  • Length: 03:50

  • Added: Jul 18, 2016
  • Length: 03:54
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The contemporary challenge is to describe economic reality—crisply—and to isolate fraud, rather than to look the other way.

  • Added: May 18, 2016
  • Length: 04:02
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Economic conservatives, like their social twins, have swooned at big government deficits to fund recession-oriented rescues. Adamantly—government ...

  • Added: May 09, 2016
  • Length: 03:59
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Harsh rhetoric in the 2016 Republican presidential race is a throwback to Frederick Bastiat. Mid-19th Century, he portrayed government as a waster...

  • Added: Apr 29, 2016
  • Length: 03:54
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The First Glitch of Doctrinal Capitalism is Say’s Law that declares supply creates demand. Consequently, there can be no unsold goods nor unemploy...

  • Added: Apr 29, 2016
  • Length: 03:53
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Entrepreneurs may rationalize themselves as they segue into pseudo-capitalists whose behavior does not align with the common good.

  • Added: Apr 15, 2016
  • Length: 03:44
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Fraud is deception; some frauds are legal, and the gray area in which fraud is commonplace is expanding due to doctrinal imprecision about the legi...

  • Added: Apr 15, 2016
  • Length: 03:55
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This podcast series explores legal and illegal frauds, introduced here, including inversions and earnings strippings. Pseudo-capitalist scams thriv...

  • Added: Mar 14, 2016
  • Length: 03:44