Economic Issues
Economic Issues
![](https://keepingdemocracyalive.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/51BLBWXXrCL-360x240.jpg)
The Biggest, Most Inhuman Power in America: Amazon
The dehumanized Amazon warehouse as pictured in the movie Nomadland is more benign than reality. There is an “existential bleakness” where every instant is being watched, humans serve robots, and one can be fired by algorithm. In his powerful new
![](https://keepingdemocracyalive.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/610c198ad1c8d.image_-360x240.jpg)
After Rich Trumka: Now What for Labor?
You may not have heard of Rich Trumka who passed away suddenly August 5th. From working in the mines of Pennsylvania he served as president of the AFL-CIO from 2009 to 2021. Our guest today is once and future president
![](https://keepingdemocracyalive.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/chuck-collins-wealth-hoarders-360x240.jpg)
How the Wealth Defense Industry Poisons Democracy
As our guest Chuck Collins explains, it’s like one person orders expensive wine for a dinner crowd and sneaks out without paying. His new book is titled The Wealth Hoarders; How Billionaires Pay Millions to Hide Trillions. What he calls
![](https://keepingdemocracyalive.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/51dMgQbo3uL._SX327_BO1204203200_-329x240.jpg)
Poverty: Change the Structure of the Game
Despite the myths, there is less opportunity to climb the ladder out of poverty in America than in other modern nations. Did you know a majority of Americans will experience poverty in their lifetimes? And that childhood poverty costs us
![](https://keepingdemocracyalive.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/9781950665464-268x240.jpg)
Broke In America: Policies Not People Are To Blame
When one thinks of people in poverty, what judgements come up? Did you know that the vast majority are working often two or three jobs? When you go to a bank or a mortgage, do they ask you how much
![](https://keepingdemocracyalive.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/917WaeX5BTL-360x240.jpg)
Occupy Wall St. 2011 Was Just The Start
From its birth in one block in New York City to more than a thousand town squares, the conversation began ten years ago. It was the first social media driven movement and as Heather McKee Hurwitz writes in her new
![](https://keepingdemocracyalive.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/20201031_blp902-360x240.jpg)
The UK’s Jeremy Corbyn: What Now?
Smeared and driven from leadership of the British Labour Party. Relentlessly attacked by the uniquely powerful British tabloid media, our guest today Matt Sarb-Cousin argues there’s never been a leader like Jeremy Corbyn. Except perhaps America’s own Bernie Sanders. Trump
![](https://keepingdemocracyalive.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/reverend_Theoharis_ap_img-360x240.jpg)
The Push Biden’s Going to Need
Ousting Trump is not enough. Getting back to the normalcy of tremendous economic injustice is not enough. With unprecedented wealth owned by a very few, close to 50% of Americans are at the edge of real poverty. Guest is Reverend
![](https://keepingdemocracyalive.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/OeSy4tUYJi-t4eI9G6HapwJMOoQMMxQAmS31Ja9vaWoNyANF-x_SrHct2R9OaEYlbi9tqe_26Go3GHN3Hs55moYWEftSwXzE2U_HFxDOlF4l8TC5LkYj6-51vlXlTAKfoe9vzQ-360x240.jpg)
4 Day Work Week: Beneficial Effect of Covid?
With the pandemic throwing everything up in the air, there are new opportunities for us to shape the way it all lands. Going back to the old “normal” is not the only option. On this show Joe Ryle a leader
![](https://keepingdemocracyalive.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Flat-scaled-1-360x240.jpg)
Thomas Frank’s New Book On Elitist Anti-Populism: “The People, NO”
The parties have flipped: It used to be that Republicans were for Wall Street, Democrats were for Main Street. Now the Democrats are seen as the party of the elitists, Republicans are for the common people. On this show Thomas
![](https://keepingdemocracyalive.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/populism-360x240.jpeg)
Can Democrats Address What Fuels Angry Populism?
Populism is a legitimate form of anger at perceived elites dismissing everyday people. There are indeed real reasons for today’s populist anger. On this show Rutgers Law School professor Dennis M.Patterson explains why we need to take populism seriously. It
![](https://keepingdemocracyalive.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/images-1.jpg)
A New CCC to Save the Planet?
FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps achieved remarkable success in so many areas: Creating meaningful work for young men in a time of mass unemployment, planting forests, conserving our natural resources. It ended with the start of World War II. Perhaps now
![](https://keepingdemocracyalive.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/PPC_Logo-360x240.jpg)
Which America Will Be Ours After the Pandemic?
Is this possibly a time of reckoning? As with all significant change, those in most pain today are once again leading. With Covid 19 further squeezing already low income people, many are in desperation just to survive. America has been
![](https://keepingdemocracyalive.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/images-2.jpg)
Thirties Historian: This is Not Depression 2.0
Both the Great Depression and today’s recession started off in a time of great economic inequality. Both economic calamities brought to the surface systemic inadequacies. Perhaps the most recognized authority on the history of the Great Depression, Stanford history professor
![](https://keepingdemocracyalive.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/crisis-side-800x509-1-360x240.jpg)
When Political Parties Lose the Consent of the Governed: The Civil War and Donald Trump
Why did so many Obama voters go for Trump in 2016? What happens when party elites don’t know how to react to changes of popular opinion at the ground level? While they may try to do both: keep the elite
![](https://keepingdemocracyalive.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/images-1.jpg)
Inequality in The Trump Era: More of The Same But With Cruelty
“The Trump administration didn’t invent the policies that redistribute wealth and income to the top, but it has doubled down on them in characteristically cruel and petty ways,” according to today’s guest Colin Gordon, history professor at the University of
![](https://keepingdemocracyalive.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/faad1a_35533082596dafaf59523114fa643e88.jpg_srz_1258_846_85_22_0.50_1.20_0-360x240.jpg)
From The Bottom Up: Real Change, Right and Left
Populism is defined as “a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups.” We never hear of the grassroots Tea Party any more because they won. The took
![](https://keepingdemocracyalive.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Tech_Poster-360x240.jpg)
21st Century Tech Trusts: 1984 on Steroids
With much of state and federal government in their pockets, the interface between the tech trusts and the infrastructure enables concentration and nearly unimaginable control by the tech giants. As a result they are able to over-charge customers between $40