How to Tackle the Inflation Crisis in the Interests of the Working Class
The Socialist Program with Brian Becker
The Socialist Program
4.7 • 587 Ratings
🗓️ 11 May 2022
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On today's episode Walter Smolarek and Prof. Richard Wolff discuss how the Federal Reserve raised interest rates at the highest rate in over 20 years, signaling a major shift in policy as it attempts to tackle the spiraling inflation crisis. But will this maneuver work? Or is it likely to instead spark a new recession?
Professor Richard Wolff is an author & co-founder of the organization Democracy at Work. You can find his work at rdwolff.com.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Federal Reserve raised interest rates at the highest rate at over 20 years, signaling |
| 0:07.8 | a major shift in policy as it attempts to tackle the spiraling inflation crisis. |
| 0:13.7 | But will this maneuver work, or is it likely, do you instead spark a new recession? |
| 0:20.0 | We need a new system. We need a new system. |
| 0:22.1 | We need a new society. |
| 0:24.0 | We need to demand that which may have sounded impossible even a few weeks ago, |
| 0:28.3 | but is not only realizable, but an imperative necessity. |
| 0:32.5 | Music We are very excited to have Professor Richard Wolfe join us for a regular weekly segment |
| 0:59.7 | where we discuss the biggest stories relating to the economy, the state of the working |
| 1:03.7 | class, and the crimes of big business. |
| 1:06.1 | I'm Walter Smolerick, filling in for Brian Becker. |
| 1:08.8 | The Socialist Program brings you content three days a week thanks to the support of our patrons at patreon.com slash the Socialist Program. |
| 1:16.9 | We appreciate all of your support and encourage you to become a patron today if you enjoy listening to the show. |
| 1:23.6 | Richard Wolfe is the co-founder of the organization Democracy at Work and, and the author of many books, the latest being, The Sickness is the System, when Capitalism Fails to Save Us from Pandemics or itself. And a new hard copy edition of Professor Richard Wolfe's book Understanding Marxism has been released. You can check that out in all of his work at R.D.Wolf.com. |
| 1:47.0 | Professor Wolf, let's start off by talking about this interest rate hike highest in 22 years. |
| 1:54.0 | What's the significance of this move? And why are interest rates important? |
| 1:58.4 | Well, there are two ways to answer your question. The first one is that they |
| 2:03.3 | are important because of what they're trying to do. And what they're trying to do is to slow or |
| 2:10.7 | stop the inflation that's going on in the United States. Average prices over the last year have risen about |
| 2:20.2 | eight and a half percent. If you look at the first three months of this year that we have data |
| 2:26.0 | for, average wages are going up at a rate of about four percent, which means that prices are |
| 2:33.7 | rising twice as fast as wages, which means we are less able, |
... |
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