Workers Crushed as Inflation Hits 40-year High
The Socialist Program with Brian Becker
The Socialist Program
4.7 • 587 Ratings
🗓️ 15 June 2022
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On today's episode Walter Smolarek and Prof. Richard Wolff discuss the newly-released inflation report that found that prices rose at a breathtaking pace – 8.6 percent, the highest in over 40 years. Anger is spreading across the country as working people struggle to afford the basic necessities in life as fuel, food and other essential commodities become increasingly unaffordable. What can be done to solve the crisis?
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 | The newly released inflation report found that prices rose at a breathtaking pace, 8.6%, the highest |
| 0:08.9 | in over 40 years. Anger is spreading across the country as working people struggle to afford |
| 0:15.7 | the basic necessities in life as fuel, food, and other essential commodities become increasingly unaffordable. |
| 0:23.6 | We need a new system. We need a new society. We need to demand that which may have sounded impossible even a few weeks ago, |
| 0:32.6 | but is not only realizable, but an imperative necessity. We are very excited to have Professor Richard Wolfe join us for a regular weekly segment where we discuss the biggest stories relating to the economy, the state of the working class, and the crimes of big business. I'm Walter Smolerick, filling in for |
| 1:12.0 | Brian Becker. The Socialist Program brings you content three days a week thanks to the support of |
| 1:16.8 | our patrons at patreon.com slash to the socialist program. We appreciate all of your support and |
| 1:22.7 | encourage you to become a patron today if you enjoy listening to the show. Richard Wolfe is the co-founder of the organization Democracy at Work and the author of many |
| 1:32.6 | books, the latest being The Sickness is the System. When Capitalism Fails to Save Us |
| 1:37.9 | from Pandemics or itself, you can check out all of his work at rd wolf.com. |
| 1:45.0 | Well, Professor Wolf, I mean, the inflation report showed that this had reached record |
| 1:50.0 | highs last seen in December in 1981. |
| 1:54.5 | Let's just start off by talking about how widespread the problem is, how bad the problem |
| 1:59.6 | is, what effect it's having on ordinary people |
| 2:02.6 | and the economy. |
| 2:03.6 | And then we can get a little bit into what could potentially be done about it, both what the |
| 2:08.6 | Federal Reserve and the Biden administration is planning to do about it and how this crisis |
| 2:13.6 | could actually be resolved in the interests of working people. |
| 2:16.6 | But please go ahead and just |
| 2:18.1 | explain, like, how bad has this problem gotten? The problem is severe, and anyone who suggests |
| 2:24.7 | otherwise is, at best, ignorant, and at worst, trying to deceive the public, which in this case is very hard to do, because if you |
| 2:37.5 | visit the supermarket or the department store or the drug store or any other store, you'll |
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