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. In today's program,

we're going to be talking about the banking crisis that has enveloped the United States

yet again. We're going to talk about plant closings, what they mean, child labor in the

United States, the bizarre budget proposal of President Biden, and then some

new research on homelessness in the United States with an important book.

And then we'll turn to an interview with our guest, Robert Ovitz, who will have something

to tell us about the U.S. Constitution.

Let's jump right in. I don't want to rehash what most of you already know about the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank

and the bank runs and crises that have been proliferating above and beyond the surface of events ever since.

I want to stress, however, something you may not have thought about.

We now live in an economic system that cannot protect us, not you, not me.

We've had two dramatic lessons, even though there are lessons like this

every day. We've had two dramatic ones. Horrible catastrophe of a derailment in East

Palestine, Ohio, and now catastrophic collapse of a bank in San Jose, California. It's extraordinary. The system doesn't work.

The banks can't do what they're supposed to or are driven by profit to cut safety, to cut

care, to cut their responsibility. The railroad companies can't do it. The banks can't

seem to do it. The institutions, governmental, commissions and so on, that are supposedly

regulating and supervising, they can't save us and protect us either. Let me go over the timeline that leads to the banking crisis.

We have a pandemic and an economic crash in 2020.

That was not prepared for.

That was not managed very well.

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