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. Today we're going to be talking about things that seem far apart but aren't.

And I want to get right to them after our usual announcements about Charlie Fabian, who's

awaiting word from you.

If you have suggestions for this program, Charlie.

.info3.8 at gmail.com.

And a reminder of our new book, Understanding Capitalism, which is a real companion piece

to these programs and which you can find out more about at our website,

Democracy at Work.Info.

Today's program is an attempt to show you the linkages among things you might not have thought

were connected.

And here I mean, among other things, the remarkable reaction across the United

States to the assassination of an executive of a health insurance company. And that linked

to the collapse of governments in France, South Korea, and Syria, to the explosion

of labor militancy and strikes, above all in the last few weeks, the hundreds and thousands of workers in the Volkswagen Corporation

in Germany, the powerhouse auto company that has been at the center of German economic growth.

So I want to show you that they're linked and how they're linked and what

the lesson is we need to draw from those linkages. So here we go. I want to begin with the threat

of incoming President Trump that he may slap huge tariffs, even a hundred percent

on nations, he mentioned the bricks, Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa.

If they do things he doesn't like, threaten the value of the dollar,

...