Transcript
Richard Wolff (0:20)
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 Wolff. We have a packed program, so let's jump right in. We're going to be talking about the global decline of population. We're going to be talking about Mr. Trump's interests in Greenland. And most of all, we're going to be talking about the fight back, the resistance that is really mushrooming up inside the United States in response to the kinds of changes the Trump administration is trying to make. Indeed, we'll talk about that in the first half, and then we'll interview one of the key organizers of that resistance, David Cobb. In our second half, I want to remind everyone quickly that we have a book, Understanding Capitalism, that is a kind of companion volume to this program. If you like the program, I think you'll find the book a way to get deeper into the topics that we discuss here. I also want to remind you that a volunteer, Charlie Fabian, is awaiting word from you. If you're interested in making suggestions about the program, you can reach him at charlie.info438gmail.com okay, here we go. Around the world, demographers are becoming increasingly worried because populations are not reproducing themselves. And this is true in the United States, in Japan, and in most other parts of the world besides Central Asia and Africa, the two areas where population is growing pretty much in the rest of the world, the population is declining. We are simply not having enough children to replace those of us when we die. And it's a remarkable phenomenon, and it is something that is affecting all of us slowly, steadily, but irreversibly, or maybe it can be reversed. What's happening? Well, employers are beginning to get upset because they understand that the pool of employees they can approach to hire is shrinking. That's what declining population does. If you add the reality that the population we have is getting older, then it's clear that we are minus young people, that is, we are not producing them. And that's going to drive up wages as the employers compete for a shrinking population of employees. And I want to take a moment to make sure everyone understands why is this happening? Poll after poll indicates very clearly what's going on here. Modern masses of people. And remember, employers are a tiny percentage of the population in the United States. For example, According to the U.S. census, 3% of our people are employers. The rest of us are not. And it's the rest of us who are not having children. Because when you look at the data. There is a subgroup, small, that does have children, that is reproducing itself. And you know who it is, the rich. And there's your clue. We're not having children because the employee class doesn't have enough money to have children. The costs of living being what they are, the payment and wages and salaries being what they are. And you know what they are. They are what the capitalist system we live in gives. The mass of people, it presents us with wages and salaries. That's our income. And then the costs of having children. And they don't work. And so capitalism, in the words that Karl Marx might have enjoyed, its own internal mechanisms undercut its own survival. And we see what the crude employer class is coming up. Support for a denial of abortion. Force people to have more children. Vice President Vance is famous for going around the country saying, I, I want to see more babies. A quote, incentives give people a tax break. Take advantage of their economic difficulties by saying, we'll give you a little break if you go out and undertake an enormous expense called the child. Capitalism is a system that works in very devious ways and undermines itself in this way. The second economic update I want to talk to you about is based on a comment from one of you. A viewer of this program who took me to task, perfectly reasonable, took me to task for saying that Mr. Trump's interest in Greenland was to create a huge golf course. Now, I said that in jest. I didn't mean it to be literally. I don't know exactly what, in Mr. Trump's mind, I wouldn't dare guess at such a phenomena. In any case, I'm sure the interest in Greenland has many causes, not just one or two. And the viewer who corrected me wanted me to know that there is some evidence that oil and or gold might be lying below the intense ice underneath Greenland. I don't know. That's perfectly possible given what Mr. Trump says and does. That would be a perfectly additional reason why he might be interested. But let's be very clear. Greenland is either the property of the people who live there or is the property of the government and country of Denmark because of relationships entered into between the folks who live in Greenland and the state of Denmark. And that has been true for a very long time and contested by no one. Mr. Trump, if he is motivated by the oil gold possibility, is then doing something very old in the history of colonialism. He's worried that someone else might take it, and so he's going to jump the gun and take it himself. First Take it away from whoever has it, the local people or some other country that has a relationship. That's what Britain and France and Belgium and Germany and Russia used to do in the 18th and 19th centuries. They even went to war against one another over who would get what piece of what continent as they carved up the world. Is that what making America great again means? To go back to the warfare among powers carving up the world? The last two centuries have been devoted to anti colonialism, to the vast majority of people breaking out of subordination to a handful of European states. If the United States is on the way to doing that again, it will also reap the whirlwind when anti colonialism designates the United States as the new colonial aspiring power. Now to the major economic update for today. What we might call the resistance, or if you like, the fight back. We have seen in the early weeks of the Trump regime a major focus on on firing federal employees. Mr. Musk has been put in charge of the DOGE Department of Governmental Efficiency, which seems to mean firing workers across the board. Usaid, Social Security, Internal Revenue Service, you name it. They're looking to fire people and they have already fired thousands. It took a little bit not long before working class people began to realize this is an attack on them, on all of them, private employees as well as the public. Let me explain, first of all, some basic statistics. How many public employees do we have working for the federal government? Roughly 3 million. Out of a working population, a labor force of 160 million. 3 million are federal employees. Firing them does not solve the economic problems of the United States. It's even sillier than the idea, which the same people push, that if you get rid of immigrants, it'll really help our economy. It won't. Number two, you know what? The number of federal employees. Three million, 2.5 million. It's been around that number for at least the last half century. During that time, the population in the United States went from roughly to 200 million to over 340 million. A huge increase in population, but no comparable increase in federal employees. Wow. You know what that means? That the same number of people are servicing a much larger American population. And that's usually called an increase in efficiency. Why are you cutting the number, which hasn't grown very much in 50 years. It's a situation that's under control. Oh, wait a minute. The government needs to find a scapegoat, somebody they can beat up on to look like they're fixing the economy. Beat up on the immigrants. When you can't go much further on that. Immigration has almost stopped. Well, then find somebody else. And the federal employee is the scapegoat of the month. Wow. But I'm more interested in the fight back. I'm interested that workers are discovering that if you fire tens of thousands of public employees, they're not like immigrants. You can't throw them out of the country. So they're here and they're going to have to find other jobs. And you know where they're going to go? They're going the private sector, because that's the only one they can go to, unless they lie down and die, which they're not going to do. So they're going to go to the private sector and they're going to go to private employers and say, okay, give me a job. Why should I? Said the employer. I already have someone doing that job. Ah, said the ex federal worker. I'll do it for less or I'll do it under bad circumstances. You know what's happening in the federal government as you fire tens of thousands, you don't expect the work not to be done. You're going to put pressure on the remaining public employees who now face extra pressure. We call that speedup, extra pressure to do the work of those that have been fired without an increase in pay. Plus, their job is obviously less secure than they thought it was. Harder pressure, more work, less security. You are really screwing the federal employees over. Of course they're going to fight back to their credit. And let me quickly tell you, across the country in New Haven, Connecticut, the teachers fighting back, making demonstrations in West Haven, Connecticut, in front of the VA hospital, Veterans showing up saying, we're being fired from the va. A third of our employees here at the VA are ex veterans. You're firing the veterans. Is that respectful of what you said were the important people you claim to respect? There's no respect there. Across the country, lawsuits are being filed. Demonstrators everywhere. They're demonstrating in front of Mr. Tesla's showrooms, everywhere, tens of thousands of Americans. It's an important phenomena. Don't think that there isn't a fight back. The Democratic Party may be remarkably quiet, but the people, and especially the working people are fighting back. Stay with us. We'll be talking to an organizer of that fight back in a moment. 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 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 hardcover 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 hardcover and they will be available to you as they have been over the last few weeks. Just simply send an email to us@infodemocracyatwork.info and put in the 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 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'm very happy and glad to bring back to our cameras and to our microphones, David Cobb. He's been on the program before, but today I want to talk to him about being an organizer for the fight Back, for the resistance that is developing across the United States to the programs of the Trump administration in general and the firing of federal employees in particular. David Cobb was raised in the rural south, grew up in poverty, worked construction, and was a deckhand before he attended junior college. A self described people's lawyer, David has sued corporate polluters, elected officials, run for public office himself, and worked closely with the Wiatt tribe on many projects in Northern California, including the workers co op project known as Cooperation Humboldt. David ran for Attorney General of Texas in 2002 and he was the Green Party nominee for president in 2004. For more about David's many activities, see his substack@www.redneckgongreen.substack.com and his podcast Redneck Gone Green with shane knight@YouTube.com democracyatwork David, welcome to the program.