Financializing Public Universities for Wall Street's Benefit

Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff

Democracy at Work

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4.8 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 1 October 2024

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On this week’s episode of Economic Update, Professor Richard Wolff addresses the numerous requests for financial planning or investment advice that he receives from many of you. We touch on the truth about investing in the stock and/or bond markets. In addition, Professor Wolff offers a basic understanding of the economics of US capitalism's century-long, profit-driven failure to adequately provide housing to its people.

Finally, an interview with Professors Eleni Schirmer and Sofya Aptekar about their new book "Lend and Rule", from Common Notions Press, and their fight against the financialization of US public universities, and why it is so necessary.

Sofya Aptekar is an associate professor of urban studies at the City University of New York School of Labor and Urban Studies. She is the author of Green Card Soldier (MIT, 2023) and a delegate of the Professional Staff Congress. She can be found on X/Twitter at @sofyaaptekar

Eleni Schirmer is a writer living in Montréal. She currently holds a postdoc at Concordia University's Social Justice Centre and organizes with the Debt Collective, the nation's first union of debtors. She can be found on X/Twitter at @EleniSchirmer.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	And the Welcome friends to another edition of Economic Update, a weekly program devoted to the economic
0:27.3	dimensions of our lives and those of our children.
0:31.1	I'm your host, Richard Wolf. I want to begin again by reminding you that Charlie,
0:37.8	our faithful volunteer is ready and willing to take your suggestions and comments for making this program better.
0:50.3	You can reach him at Charlie dot info 438 at gmail.
1:00.3	I also want to mention that October 7th is the first of four Mondays where we will be teaching classes.
1:08.8	I will be doing that personally.
1:11.9	It's a class called Understanding Capitalism, which is not coincidentally, likewise,
1:19.3	the title of the new book we have released. Indeed the classes are coordinated with the book. We will
1:27.0	take you through that book. And you will understand the capitalism at the end far better than you did at the beginning.
1:37.2	Why?
1:38.2	Well I've tried to collect there all of what I've learned over a lifetime of teaching what capitalism is.
1:47.0	Its problems, its achievements, the mythologies that sustain it, the impact it has on you, the different ways it has
1:58.9	been understood. It really is a labor of love of a lifetime and if you're interested these classes will allow me to present it and to discuss with you some of the major points that it makes.
2:17.1	Four Mondays in October, starting October 7. And even if you miss the first one, you might be interested in the rest.
2:28.0	All information about the book and about the classes is available at our website democracy at work. info.
2:40.5	In today's program I'm going to be talking to you about the stock market. I'm going to be talking about the housing crisis in the United States
2:48.0	and about the recent decision of the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates.
2:54.0	And then in the second half of the program I'll be joined by two young women,
3:00.0	Elinie Sherman and Sophia Aptecar, who are fighting a battle surrounding the
3:09.5	financialization of universities, the way Wall Street has forced public universities to become
3:18.0	more and more dependent on debts owned and controlled by Wall Street.
	...

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