[SPEAKER_00]: If you need to show the financial community that you're saving money, that you're not going to go into debt, then you have to cut back on spending.
[SPEAKER_00]: Giving everybody $2,000 isn't doing that.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what it's doing?
[SPEAKER_00]: It is saving your political rear end.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's buying votes because he is worried as he should be.
[SPEAKER_00]: the election of Mundani and the other Democrats and the justices in Pennsylvania and the redistricting of project in California.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those were all the feats for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone he endorsed lost, everyone he opposed won.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not a happy outcome.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are so excited to bring you a special interview that I did with Professor Richard Wolff, who's an economist, Professor Emeritus at UMS Amherst, visiting Professor at the new school and founder of Democracy at Work.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so here's a great interview that I did with him about the shutdown.
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, if you would like to see the full interview where we talk about the victory of Mondani,
[SPEAKER_01]: and the fall of the American Empire, which are not related by the way, you can do that at useflateespodcast.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for coming back on to the show, Professor Richard Wolf.
[SPEAKER_00]: Glad to be here, Katie.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's always good talking with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, could not be more mutual in my end.
[SPEAKER_01]: Want to ask you about the recent shutdown and the Democrats response to the shutdown and the shutdown of the shutdown, if you will.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we just ended the longest government shutdown in American history and as people probably know, eight senators, eight Democrats voted to reopen the government.
[SPEAKER_01]: And exchange all they got was a promise.
[SPEAKER_01]: for a vote on healthcare coverage in December and it frees to federal firings for a few months.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what is your response to the shutdown and also to the way the shutdown was resolved?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I think the way I would handle this is to try to put the shutdown in a little bit of historical perspective and having to do with
[SPEAKER_00]: the problems that the Trump administration faces and how it is going to or try to solve them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I keep in mind two things.
[SPEAKER_00]: One that a great deal of what Mr. Trump does is political theater design not to solve problems so much as to present himself in an agreeable light as the
[SPEAKER_00]: On the other hand, I don't want to lose the fact that the United States economy faces very, very deep, serious problems.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been a professor of economics all my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have never seen the American economy in as bad as shape,
[SPEAKER_00]: as it is in now, and many of my colleagues, left wing, right wing, and in the middle, we don't agree on how we got into this, and we don't agree on how to get out of it, but we do agree that it is an awful condition.
[SPEAKER_00]: And just to get to the core of it, Mr. Trump had a real problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: he inherited, difficult days, which by the way he contributed to in his first presidency, he is no innocent here in this story.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the problem was that over the last 30 to 40 years, the United States economy has not grown very well.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm being as polite as I know how, just to give you an idea that people's Republic of China, the number two economy in the world, grew three times faster in every year of the last 30.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is an historically unprecedented.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why China is the colossus we face now, the real one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing like what the Soviet Union ever was in the 20th century.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the American economy has been, if you like, if you've met before, instead of having gas, or even the tank, it's been living on the fumes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the fumes, when you're an economist,
[SPEAKER_00]: And over the last 30 years, because you put and grow the economy, you borrowed to keep the illusion going, so for example, the standard of living of the average American family had to incorporate more and more debt.
[SPEAKER_00]: mortgage debt for the home, credit card debt for every day, automobile debt to have transportation, and then they really knew big one college debt so your kid could get a bachelor's degree in something.
[SPEAKER_00]: These were the ways that they kept their so-called American dream and standard of
[SPEAKER_00]: And let's remember, the 30 years ago our debt was in the high hundreds of billions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today it's $37.38 trillion, an explosion of debt far outrunning every other index of what we do as a society.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you keep doing that, whether you were an individual or a company or a government, eventually your potential creditor is going to look at you and say, I'm not lending you more money.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the reason is, you're so in debt.
[SPEAKER_00]: that I can see coming down the road, a situation where the mass of your people say to you, you're telling us you can't give us support, programs, food, if you're a person who needs this, not program, et cetera.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you're holding back the money, you're going to give
[SPEAKER_00]: who are already for those who don't know the richest corporations, the biggest banks and insurance companies and wealthy individuals, because nobody else lends to governments.
[SPEAKER_00]: So at that point, the politicians will be caught.
[SPEAKER_00]: They can't say no to their the mass of their people.
[SPEAKER_00]: They'll either be voted out of office or revolutionized out of office.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they turn to their creditors and say, we're very sorry, but we can't pay you because it's impossible.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in case you're wondering, does that ever happen?
[SPEAKER_00]: Happens all the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two weeks ago, it happened to Argentina, a perpetual player of this game, and they went to Mr. Trump and got 20 to 40 billion
[SPEAKER_00]: 20 to 40 billion dollars of alone to help them through the fact that they can't pay their creditors.
[SPEAKER_00]: It happens all the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, the United States has been downgraded as a borrower.
[SPEAKER_00]: We used to have what's called AAA rating.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are three companies in the world of all America who design how credit were the governments and companies are.
[SPEAKER_00]: One is called Standard and Poor, another one is called Moody's and a third one is called Fitch.
[SPEAKER_00]: All three of them have downgraded the United States from a triple A rating, the highest you can get, which we used to have.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now we have a double A.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are there other countries in the world that have triple A?
[SPEAKER_00]: You bet.
[SPEAKER_00]: We stink at this game, and we've run out of the ability to borrow, which means, what?
[SPEAKER_00]: How can the government, which currently runs trillion dollar deficits each year?
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you want to deficit, it means you have to borrow the money because you're not raising enough in taxes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, when had Mr. Trump done, he has to do something.
[SPEAKER_00]: about this debt.
[SPEAKER_00]: It can't keep going up this way because we're getting very close.
[SPEAKER_00]: By the way, a few years ago, the head of Britain lives twice about to become prime minister.
[SPEAKER_00]: He came prime minister, lost her job within weeks because she proposed another budget for Britain, which borrowed even more money and the banks British and foreign said to her, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: and she collapsed her government fell apart and she's gone from the political scene.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is getting closer and closer to the American situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now Mr. Trump has to try to do something about this because otherwise he will not be tolerated.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not even by the corporations and the banks who otherwise he serves.
[SPEAKER_00]: So notice what he did and that will get us to what the shutdown was all about.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first thing he did on getting into office this time was to give the corporate sector an enormous tax cut.
[SPEAKER_00]: The perpetuation of the first one he gave during his first presidency and additional benefits to corporations in the rich.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first thing he did.
[SPEAKER_00]: now that doesn't make the problem better that makes the problem worse because you're taking less money from the corporate sector means you're deficit assuming you're going to spend the same assuming you're going to spend the same you have less money coming in.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is the second thing he does?
[SPEAKER_00]: A ha, a surprise, a little different kind of clever, unless it all collapses on him
[SPEAKER_00]: The second thing he does is the tariff program.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's going to raise money for the government by making every American company that imports goods and services pay attacks to Washington.
[SPEAKER_00]: He talks to this day as though the tariff is an act against foreigners on tariff in China.
[SPEAKER_00]: Know you're not.
[SPEAKER_00]: The American government can't tax anybody who isn't an American.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just like we are not taxed by the King of Belgium or the Prime Minister of Nigeria or anybody else.
[SPEAKER_00]: Taxing is something a government can only do to its own people.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, when he talks, however, he wants to kind of slide it through.
[SPEAKER_00]: There comes the flim-flyer man.
[SPEAKER_00]: Make Americans feel as though we're doing it to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: It hurts those companies because it's going to cut back on some shit here, because we don't want to pay the tax.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the tax goes too Washington.
[SPEAKER_00]: And corporations are paying the tax.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you had a cup of coffee, there's tax being paid on that coffee.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you drink a bottle of French wine, you're paying a tax for that wine or you have a piece of Japanese electronics and so forth.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Mr. Trump,
[SPEAKER_00]: is raising money.
[SPEAKER_00]: People who lend to the government will be impressed all at least he's raising but they're not very impressed because the money he's raising with the tariff is negated by the tax cut he gave few weeks earlier.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the corporate sector doesn't complain about the tariffs because they got the payoff beforehand.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what are the companies doing that
[SPEAKER_00]: step by step they're doing what they always do is pass the cost of that tax.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have to pay the Washington on to you and be in retail price increases.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're simply pay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that whole sale of who brings in the French wine is charging more to your neighborhood liquor store if you want to buy a bottle of wine there because you're going to have to pay that tax.
[SPEAKER_00]: The imported
[SPEAKER_00]: So, what is happening here, we are all getting screwed, which is why the inflation is not coming down.
[SPEAKER_00]: We continue to have a serious inflation.
[SPEAKER_00]: But now, here we get to the good point.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is the theatric to show the creditors given what I've just told you is a serious effort
[SPEAKER_00]: The first one, the factory of government efficiency, the Department of Government efficiency, Elon Musk, that theatric, in over two or three months, were whole departments of the government, the education department, this department, that department, everybody fired, everybody laid off,
[SPEAKER_00]: ridiculous.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've done professional efficiency studies.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're slow, they're methodical, they're detailed, they never, ever, ever happened in the form.
[SPEAKER_00]: But here again, flimflam theatrics.
[SPEAKER_00]: So for four, three, four months, we have that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that saves an amount of money, relative to our deficit, it's tiny.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's something.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then it runs into trouble because it's causing backlash, lawsuits, it's kind of crumbling.
[SPEAKER_00]: They need something else.
[SPEAKER_00]: The shutdown of the government.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because they don't have to spend money.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a saving.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hence, all the remarks we may never pay you.
[SPEAKER_00]: The people I'm for a long time never get the money back.
[SPEAKER_00]: That they get some of the...
[SPEAKER_00]: He's, and you know, something now that that's been voted to end with the caving of the eight Democratic senators, he, the flimflam man is busy working on the next iteration of something that symbolizes that he is not going into debt as much.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to tell you, though, he's, it's desperate time because
[SPEAKER_00]: what he's raising with the tariffs and what he saved with the government shutdown is still way short of dealing with the size of the deficit that has built up into our national debt over 30 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you're picking up a sense that the man and his government are desperate
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the one clear thematic through it all, desperate efforts to cope with problems, having been kicked down the road way bigger than what he can do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, thank you for such a comprehensive response to that.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the ask you to respond to White House press secretary Caroline Levitt, who was asked about the Trump administration going to court to fight being forced to
[SPEAKER_01]: give out snap benefits to people who desperately need them, including children.
[SPEAKER_04]: So let's hear what she has to say.
[SPEAKER_03]: So recipients missed their snap benefits because the Democrats shut the government down and they forced the administration to tap into a contingency fund that did not even fund the full entirety of this program and so then you had an unhinged judge who was trying to dictate from the bench.
[SPEAKER_03]: what the executive branch has to pay for and where that money has to come from.
[SPEAKER_03]: That is judicial overreach at its finest and so that's why the administration pushed back on that.
[SPEAKER_03]: We can't have the judicial branch telling the executive branch that we need to rob the children nutrition fund which is what this judge was trying to do to pay for snap benefits.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's completely inappropriate and it's unconstitutional and we've been proven right with that legal argument.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what is your response to these comments?
[SPEAKER_00]: everything that comes out of her mouth is offensive to be honest with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really extraordinary.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the same government which is telling us that for some legal technicality, they can't do what we all know they could and should and would do.
[SPEAKER_00]: And while they are not doing this obvious thing, which they can and would do and would never occasion them, the slightest legal difficulty, this is the same government that is executing people in boats in the Caribbean, in violation of every law in the country, out of the country, I won't give me a moment if you will.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, this is it, it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's
[SPEAKER_00]: It blows my mind and let me assure you, I cover European newspapers, I read them every single day.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm fluent in French and German, I use that skill which I inherited from my parents in order to get access to this material.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we arrest people for drug traffic, which we do in this country every day, since we have a drug problem everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: We give them a lawyer.
[SPEAKER_00]: We allow them to have evidence.
[SPEAKER_00]: They can bear assumed innocent until proven guilty.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have a jury.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have a judge.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have rights of a pit.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the United States government thinks, thinks that people may be engaged in the traffic in a boat in the Caribbean.
[SPEAKER_00]: What does it do?
[SPEAKER_00]: want to use to do the legal thing or have a navy ship go board that vessel if they find drugs take them confiscate them and arrest the people involved.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't do that now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now they send the missile kill everybody who's on the boat sink the boat and notice what's happening here.
[SPEAKER_00]: You go directly from somebody's idea in the government to the execution, and if I have my numbers right, it's at the number 76 people have been executed by the United States.
[SPEAKER_00]: They aren't U.S. citizens.
[SPEAKER_00]: And to use the capital all off, we don't have capital punishment for the drug trade in this country.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we arrest and convict,
[SPEAKER_00]: and find guilty.
[SPEAKER_00]: A person in the United States for doing drug traffic, we don't kill them.
[SPEAKER_00]: We give them every day.
[SPEAKER_00]: This government wants us to believe that they did something because they are observing the constitution, the laws of the land,
[SPEAKER_00]: Last week the British government announced it would no longer share intelligence with the United States about what's going on in the Caribbean because they can't be part of a process using that intelligence for what is simply illegal cold-blooded murder.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yesterday the French Ministry of Justice indicated it's going to do pretty much what the British did.
[SPEAKER_00]: So coming out of her mouth, this pious, moronic notion that you can't feed hungry people because of some detail in the law, you know, if she were representing a government screw pillously doing the law, and let me give you one more.
[SPEAKER_00]: The biggest thing to think that Mr. Trump has
[SPEAKER_00]: must have known that that may not be legal.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are awaiting a Supreme Court decision.
[SPEAKER_00]: This week, I believe, or early next week, which may, in fact, say what the Constitution of the country says, which is that taxing tariff is attacks is something only the House of Representatives can do, not the President.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the president's only argument that he made two days ago is it'll be so disruptive if you do the non-legal thing I have built my whole economic crop.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a government that doesn't worry about the law until and unless it's convenient.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you have to ask, why is it convenient?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because they don't want to spend money on starving children.
[SPEAKER_00]: They think their base will support it and maybe they will.
[SPEAKER_00]: But to take it seriously on its face, well, then you'd have to take seriously everything, Caroline Levitt says, and that is long ago been rendered impossible by her.
[SPEAKER_01]: We actually have another comment from her.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was asked about Trump's new proclamation saying that he will pay people $2,000 dividend checks.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's take a listen.
[SPEAKER_05]: The Trump has talked about sending a $2,000 checks to a US citizens.
[SPEAKER_05]: Earlier this year, we also talked about sending a doge dividend.
[SPEAKER_05]: That didn't materialize, should US citizens expect a $2,000 proposal is the White House committed to making that happen.
[SPEAKER_03]: The White House is committed to making that happen, yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we are currently exploring all legal options to get that done.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't have a timeline for you or any further details, but I can.
[SPEAKER_03]: confirm for you that the president made it clear he wants to make it happen and so his team of economic advisors are looking into it and when we have an update we'll provide one.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love this and I tell you why why I love this.
[SPEAKER_00]: A few weeks ago Mr. Trump basically did the same thing and it worked out well for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He told the people of Argentina that if they voted to keep in power, Mr. Milley, they are leader.
[SPEAKER_00]: He would give them $20 to $40 billion.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if they didn't, he wouldn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that worked.
[SPEAKER_00]: That helped get Mr. Milley another period in office if he can survive, which is a touch-and-go question.
[SPEAKER_00]: So clearly, using money to buy votes is something Mr. Trump now understands and sees the potential for.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it is a sign of what I mentioned a few moments ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you need to show the financial community that you're saving money, that you're not going to go into debt, then you have to cut back on spending.
[SPEAKER_00]: Giving everybody $2,000 isn't doing that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is saving your political rear end.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's buying votes because he is worried as he should be, the election of Mundani and the other Democrats and the justices in Pennsylvania and the redistricting project in California.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those were all the feats for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: everyone he endorsed lost everyone he opposed one.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not a happy outcome.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all the pretense led by Carolyn Levitt cannot hide that.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is an act of desperation.
[SPEAKER_00]: This really is no different from the ward healer of a hundred years ago going through the poor community distributing turkeys at Thanksgiving in the hopes that it translates into a vote the week before
[SPEAKER_00]: But it will harm his relationship to the creditor community.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if he goes through it, if she's telling the truth, and by the way, he did promise the dividend from the efficiency nonsense, which never happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: and he will all forget this and will she'll give a story about something that came up that man I'm a blah blah blah so nobody should take this seriously but if they go through it and he's so desperate he could he actually could go through it it's going to cost him he's going to be called in by Jamie Diamond a chase
[SPEAKER_00]: day people are going to chase or someone like that and told we can't support you anymore, we cannot lend you money, we cannot advise our clients to lend you money and then you're going to have a real problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know what that means, Mr. Trump will have to come up with another dramatic, cost-saving.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it will be much bigger than the SNAP program.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will have to be, and it will be at least as outrageous as that one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because that's what we're doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going from one to the other desperately trying to figure out how we can save a significant amount of money.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just wanted to drive home.
[SPEAKER_00]: How crazy they are.
[SPEAKER_00]: He saved a trivial amount on air traffic controllers and our whole flying system collapsed.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of those corporations, I know many of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: been screaming for the last three or four days that can't get into or out of New York City to fly to wherever their business takes them and they let the government know this is going to stop it's interfering well they don't care about the people on food stamps but he didn't think through that he could so he asked this this is herky jerky behavior
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very, very important to understand, and it is catastrophically short-sighted of the Democratic Party not to have stayed with a very strong position in a lot of binonist, but it was a strong position that they cared enough about at least one corner of the health expenditures that need to be made, and they wouldn't cave in, and then they do cave in.
[SPEAKER_00]: It tells you a lot about the crisis of the Democratic Party, which this combination of the left-wing gaining Al-Aman-Bam.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry, I always do this, Mambani.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it shows you the power that his victory in New York shows one direction that you can applaud, even if you're a conventional Democrat.
[SPEAKER_00]: The conventional Democrat, even there, is split.
[SPEAKER_00]: because what the leader Schumer from New York did in arranging those eight to do what they did, allowing that, not preparing anyone for it, just...
[SPEAKER_00]: that's a more desperation.
[SPEAKER_00]: We live in a time, you know, I beat this horse a lot, but it's worth beating one more time, even if the horse has expired.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're living in the collapse of the American Empire and it is taking down the American economy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you feel that you're caught up in a
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not wrong, you're not depressed, you are grasping the reality that every one of the leaders of this country with very few exceptions is desperately trying to deny, but denial solves nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, speaking of Zoram Amtani, what is the significance would you say of his victory?
[SPEAKER_04]: And to hear the rest of the interview, please go to useful idiotspodcast.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: And to hear the full interview with Richard Wolff, where we talk about the rise of socialism, the victory of Zoram, I'm Donny.
[SPEAKER_01]: Richard Wolff's thoughts on Zoram, I'm Donny's father.
[SPEAKER_01]: And how the West can prepare for the fall of the American Empire.
[SPEAKER_01]: Go to usefuladgetspodcast.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, it's usefuladgetspodcast.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you'll hear Lilan, don't about Richard Wolff himself running for mayor.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for tuning in to Use Flodgets.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll see you next time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Bye, everyone.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks so much for listening to and watching useful idiots.
[SPEAKER_02]: For extended episodes, bonus content and our weekly Thursday throwdown episode, please subscribe at usefuledidspodcast.com.
[SPEAKER_02]: Support the show for free by subscribing on YouTube or rumble and wherever you get your podcast.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you like the podcast, don't forget to rate and review.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can also follow us on Twitter at usefuledidpod.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for supporting independent media.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll see you next time.
[UNKNOWN]: You