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 remind you that we have a volunteer, Charlie, who's ready and willing to take your comments, your suggestions, for what you might like to see addressed on this program. You can reach them at Charlie.info-338 at gmail.com. or if you want, can also reach charlie via Twitter or now x

Twitter.com Charlie Fab's FABZ okay we're going to be talking today about

wealthy corporate rich people paying universities

and governments to come down on student protesters.

It's a remarkable story, and I want to build on a remarkable piece of reporting in the Washington Post.

I want to talk about the head of Boeing, the company that has had more safety disasters in the

last few years than anybody can remember any airline company having.

I want to talk briefly about the workers at Mercedes-Benz in Alabama, who voted against

being represented by the United Order Workers, and finally, about that old problem of private versus public transportation, and

why it's more important than the shift from gas cars to electric cars. Okay, let's jump right in.

A very few days ago, the Washington Post, and in case you're interested, the date exactly

May 16th, Washington Post, carried a story about a recording it had obtained of a WhatsApp

conversation among government officials and rich donors.

The rich donors were pressing the government officials to use police in universities. They were probably pressuring the university

authorities to do that too, to collaborate with the police, to crush student

protests, protests that were overwhelmingly peaceful, and that were directed

at a peace objective, namely a ceasefire in Gaza.

These peaceful demonstrators, demonstrating for peace, were then crushed, often violently, by police brought in.

But now we know from the Wall Street, sorry, from the Washington Post,

...