Welcome, friends, to another edition of Economic Update, a weekly program devoted to the economic

dimension of our lives and those of our children as well. I'm your host, Richard Wolfe. Two quick shoutouts

before we jump into today's program. I want to salute, first of all, the women of Iran who have

taken to the streets and have broadened out from an initial horror, which we all share,

at the murder in police custody of a young woman whose crime was to be wearing clothing,

not quite subordinate to whatever the religious police there require.

A Kurdish woman, which adds the horror of the abuse of that minority to what is already

a regime with a lot to answer for.

I'm proud of what those women have done.

I'm elated at the fact that large numbers of men and women in surrounding countries

and then across Europe have had demonstrations, the latest one I saw in Paris, France,

in support and solidarity. That is what we are feeling and want to show as well. And the second shout

out is to something called zero evictions. Turns out October is zero evictions month

around the world. If you go to habitants.org, you can find out all about how to participate and support

a movement that we still require here in the 21st century that says that it's a human

right to have food, water, clothing, and yes, shelter, which means housing.

What a commentary on the achievements of four centuries of capitalism that we still have

to fight for people to have decent housing.

Let's jump then into our updates. The first one is it's just a general

comment that I have to make. Pardon me, I'm an economist. This is how I look at the world.

Global capitalism is now facing what is really a storm of storms, a kind of perfect storm,

as it's called, when everything seems to be

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