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 Wolfe. I want to begin today's show,

although I want to mention to you what else we're going to cover. I want to begin with some

union information and strike information. We're also going to be talking about the right-wing

shift in Sweden, the politics there, the return of Nazis and so on,

the rise in electricity prices here in the United States, Germany nationalizing energy

businesses, and the rising US dollars. So we have a lot to cover. Let me begin by

shouting out to the 6,000 Seattle public school teachers and their

strike and the 15,000 members of the Minnesota Nurses Association that also had a recent strike.

They're heroes, these men and women, that are going out on strike.

They're making it very clear that they're fighting in one case for decent public education

and in the other case for decent public health.

Yeah, they want better working conditions which they deserve, having gone through the

pandemic and worked in many cases under unspeakable

conditions, where they were told they were essential workers, but are now told not essential

enough to pay even a living wage. It's remarkable. But they're also fighting for basic

values of public health and public education for everyone.

They want these things done for the mass of our people, and it can and should have been done

by taxing the disproportionately rich. Labor is on the move in this country, and we're all the beneficiaries

of it.

So let me turn next to Sweden.

In a recent vote, the Swedish voters voted about 20%, one-fifth of them, for a far-right

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