Stock Market Chaos Amid Trump’s Billionaire Family Feud w/ Prof. Richard Wolff
The Socialist Program with Brian Becker
The Socialist Program
4.7 • 587 Ratings
🗓️ 9 April 2025
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Trump enacted major tariffs on countries all around the world last Wednesday, and the stock market crashed over the next two days, with about $5 trillion in losses. Upsetting the world’s billionaires, stocks have continued to be extremely volatile this week. Brian Becker and Prof. Richard Wolff discuss what Trump’s aims are, what’s coming next, and what it means for our class.
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 | Donald Trump moved forward last Wednesday with heavy tariffs against countries around the world. |
| 0:08.3 | The U.S. stock market crashed during the next two days with about $5 trillion in losses. |
| 0:16.2 | Extreme volatility continues in global stocks this week. |
| 0:20.3 | What is Trump doing? What are his real goals? |
| 0:24.4 | And what's coming next? We need a new system. We need a new society. We need to demand that |
| 0:31.6 | which may have sounded impossible even a few weeks ago, but is not only realizable, but the crimes of the |
| 1:11.3 | working class, and the crimes of big business. I'm your host, Brian Becker. The Socialist |
| 1:17.2 | Program brings you content several days a week thanks to the support of our patrons at patreon.com |
| 1:23.4 | forward slash the socialist program. If you're not a patron yet, please become one today. |
| 1:30.5 | Richard Wolfe is the co-founder of the organization Democracy at Work. |
| 1:34.1 | He's the author of many books, including understanding capitalism, |
| 1:38.0 | which is available at Democracy at Work.Info. |
| 1:41.8 | Professor Wolfe, welcome back. |
| 1:43.6 | Thank you, Brian. Glad to be here. Well, |
| 1:46.9 | topsy-turvy, volatility, lots of losses is a recession coming. Here's an article, Richard. |
| 1:53.1 | I want to get started with this. Most of our listeners are not reading the Wall Street Journal, |
| 1:58.7 | so I want to share this little piece from it |
| 2:01.6 | with them and have you comment. By Monday, that would be the Monday of this week, April 7th, Monday, |
| 2:10.6 | hedge fund billionaires, many of whom had been loud and proud boosters of Mr. Trump's second |
| 2:16.7 | term were going public with their cries. |
| 2:20.4 | Quote, the global economy is being taken down because of bad math. |
| 2:27.1 | The hedge fund manager William Ackman posted Monday on X, formerly known as Twitter. |
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