I know the conventional wisdom about midterm elections — the party in power loses big — and I’ve lived through enough midterms to know that the conventional wisdom is mostly correct. Does this make Biden and the Democrats toast when it comes to retaining control of the House and Senate? No — especially because of one huge loose cannon aimed at the Republican Party: Donald Trump. About 30 percent of Americans love the guy, but a majority detest him. He’s toxic. As Republican Governor Chris Sonunu...
Apr 04, 2022•6 min•Transcript available on Metacast Yesterday was a big day for American workers. I want to start with the remarkable worker victory at Amazon’s giant warehouse on Staten Island and then move to yesterday’s great jobs report — and the real danger lying within it. First, the victory. America’s wealthiest, most powerful, and fiercest anti-union corporation — with the second-largest workforce in the nation (union-busting Walmart being the largest) — lost out to a group of warehouse workers who voted to form a union, by a remarkable 2...
Apr 02, 2022•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Andrew Jackson allegedly defied the Supreme Court in 1832 over a case called Worcester v. Georgia , involving Georgia's attempt to apply state laws to Cherokee lands. As the story goes, Jackson announced “John Marshall has made his decision now let him enforce it.” Whether Jackson actually said this is disputed, but it illustrates a fundamental truth about the Supreme Court: It has no power to enforce its decisions. Alexander Hamilton called it the “least dangerous branch” because it has neither...
Mar 31, 2022•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast A pandemic that hasn’t ended. Inflation that’s soaring. Putin’s war in Ukraine that could escalate into a nuclear confrontation. A climate crisis that’s worsening. Trump and his followers’ continued attacks on our democracy. I could go on. I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling a degree of stress I don’t remember feeling in a very long time. So here’s today’s Office Hours question: How are you staying hopeful in these trying times? At least, what are your coping mechanisms? Please let us know. ...
Mar 30, 2022•47 sec•Transcript available on Metacast President Biden’s budget, which came out yesterday, proposes a new minimum tax of 20 percent on households worth more than $100 million — which the White House says will reduce federal budget deficits by $1 trillion over a decade. The tax would apply only to the top 0.01 percent -- the richest 1 percent of the richest 1 percent. Half of the expected $1 trillion in revenue would come from 704 households worth $1 billion or more. If enacted, it would effectively prevent the wealthiest sliver of Am...
Mar 29, 2022•Transcript available on Metacast In a speech on Friday delivered from his office in the Kremlin, Putin criticized the West’s “cancel culture” which, he charged, is “canceling” Russia -- “an entire thousand-year-old country, our people.” It was the third time in recent months Putin has blasted the so-called “cancel culture.” Which is exactly what Trump, Tucker Carlson, and the GOP have blasted for several years. "The goal of cancel culture is to make decent Americans live in fear of being fired, expelled, shamed, humiliated and ...
Mar 28, 2022•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast As Putin’s war shakes up the world economy, the Fed last week raised interest rates by a quarter point and penciled in six more increases by the end of the year. Fed Chair Jerome Powell says he’s ready to do whatever it takes to bring inflation down, including following the example of his predecessor Paul Volcker, who increased interest rates to 20 percent in 1981. Volcker’s rate rise triggered a deep recession and double-digit unemployment. We can debate whether that harsh medicine in 1981 was ...
Mar 26, 2022•7 min•Transcript available on Metacast Joe Biden is in Europe today, consulting with NATO allies about how to ratchet up the pressure on Putin. I’ve been mulling how we might respond to Putin’s war not just by ratcheting up pressure but also by doing something positive for the world. As Europe and America cope with the energy problems resulting from the war, it strikes me that this is the perfect time to face the climate crisis and conserve energy. I think Biden should be asking Europeans and Americans to make this sacrifice. Let me ...
Mar 24, 2022•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast Has it been six months already ? I hadn’t intended to write every day but with so much going on in the world, I had no choice. One of my hopes when I began this newsletter six months ago was that you’d find sustenance here, particularly during these difficult times. The past six months have been grueling. I’ve felt the same anxieties many of you have felt, spilling over into some sleepless nights. Although the former guy is no longer in the Oval Office and the worst of the pandemic seems behind ...
Mar 22, 2022•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast Here’s the paradox: The higher you rise in any hierarchy, your decisions are likely to have larger and larger consequences. Yet the higher you rise, the harder it is to get accurate feedback about your decisions. I’ve worked with several presidents. All have made big blunders. I’ve also known and written about CEOs of big corporations who have made terrible mistakes. In every case, they had flawed systems for getting useful, accurate, and reliable feedback. Donald Trump (whom I didn’t work with ...
Mar 21, 2022•5 min•Transcript available on Metacast This morning I had coffee with my colleague Heather Lofthouse, who runs Inequality Media. We talked about generational change (boomers; millennials, and today’s children), and the idea of progress. Feel free to pull up a chair. I’ve enjoyed experimenting with this Substack newsletter — including sending you my written posts, drawings, and audio recordings, and exchanging comments with you. Would you find it interesting if I added informal conversations (such as this morning’s coffee klatch with ...
Mar 19, 2022•11 min•Transcript available on Metacast Okay, I’m going to go out on a limb today and suggest something that would have seemed utter nonsense as late as a month ago: I’m seeing the stirrings in Washington of a new era of … I’m not sure what to call it. “Unity” is way too strong. “Bipartisanship” is premature. “ De -partisanship” is too clunky. But something new seems to be happening, and Vladimir Putin is responsible. Don’t get me wrong. Democrats and Republicans won’t join hands and sing Kumbaya anytime soon. Mitch McConnell and Kevi...
Mar 17, 2022•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome to Wednesday, friends. Biden’s advisers are saying that the crisis in Ukraine presents a chance for a reset — Biden’s best opportunity to restore his standing before the November midterms. But what’s the message for the reset? Despite falling coronavirus positivity rates, a bipartisan infrastructure package, and rising employment numbers — and even foreign policy leadership — Biden’s approval ratings remain in the 40s . With inflation soaring and gas prices spiking, the Democrats could s...
Mar 16, 2022•2 min•Transcript available on Metacast Hello friends, and welcome to Tuesday. This morning I filled my car with gas costing over five dollars a gallon. My car is a Mini Cooper that I bought years ago, partly because it wasn’t a gas guzzler. Now it’s guzzling dollars. But when I consider what’s happening in Ukraine, I say what the hell. It’s a small sacrifice. Yet guess who’s making no sacrifice at all — in fact, who’s reaping a giant windfall from this crisis? As crude oil prices hit levels not seen in more than 13 years, Big Oil has...
Mar 15, 2022•5 min•Transcript available on Metacast It’s like watching a three-hundred-pound bully beat up a kid half his size, for no reason — bloodying the poor kid, pulverizing him. Yet you don’t dare try to stop the mayhem because the bully has a gun that he’ll use on you if you intervene. You look for police, but there are none. You round up your friends, who join you in shouting at the bully. But he pays no attention. They threaten that if he doesn’t stop they’ll no longer go bowling with him or invite him out for drinks. Their threats have...
Mar 14, 2022•2 min•Transcript available on Metacast I used to believe several things about the twenty-first century that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Donald Trump’s election in 2016 have shown me are false. I assumed: Nationalism is disappearing . I expected globalization would blur borders, create economic interdependence among nations and regions, and extend a modern consumer and artistic culture worldwide. I was wrong. Both Putin and Trump have exploited xenophobic nationalism to build their power. (Putin’s aggression has also ignited an in...
Mar 12, 2022•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast Among the most heartrending casualties in Ukraine are the children. So far, a million of them have fled the nation. Many are on their own, without parents or relatives to protect them. The 6 million who remain in Ukraine are in grave danger of being maimed or killed. Yesterday Ukraine accused Russia of bombing a children’s hospital. Of all the victims of war, children are the most innocent. If they survive, their physical and psychological injuries may last a lifetime. Children are also the most...
Mar 10, 2022•5 min•Transcript available on Metacast I’m becoming increasingly worried that a growing segment of the American public is pushing for a war with Russia. Needless to say, that would be suicidal. This morning I saw an open open letter to the Biden administration signed by a group of 27 foreign policy heavyweights, calling for a limited no-fly zone over Ukraine — “starting with protection for humanitarian corridors that were agreed upon in talks between Russian and Ukrainian officials.” The proposal sounds reasonable until you think abo...
Mar 09, 2022•2 min•Transcript available on Metacast Nothing good comes from war except, on occasion, the prevention of something even worse. As pressure increases on the Biden Administration to take more aggressive action against Putin, the question is how to minimize the collateral damage to Americans and use the crisis to move toward a more humane future. Here are five possible ways. 1. Help Americans endure higher fuel prices. The best way to stop Putin’s war machine would be to put economic sanctions on anyone buying Russian oil or gas, becau...
Mar 08, 2022•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’re sanctioning Russian oligarchs up the wazoo, hoping it’s a way to get Putin to stop his deadly attack on Ukraine. But for this tactic to work (1) the U.S. and our allies must be able to locate and tie up Russian oligarchic wealth, and (2) Russian oligarchs must have enough power to stop Putin. Let’s take them one at a time: Can we locate and tie up the wealth of Russian oligarchs? Anecdotally, sanctions on the oligarchs appear to be working. Last Sunday, billionaire industrialist Oleg Derip...
Mar 07, 2022•6 min•Transcript available on Metacast The waitperson where I had breakfast this morning broke down in tears over Ukraine. “I just don’t know what to do,” she said. She’s not alone. I feel the same way. You probably do, too. That one tyrant can cause this much human suffering defies whatever progress we assumed civilization had made since Hitler’s rise almost a century ago. That Putin can wreak such havoc on innocent people, seemingly unconstrained by others in Russia’s government, makes a mockery of modern ideas about governance in ...
Mar 05, 2022•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast If Europe and the United States do what must be done next to contain Putin’s despicable invasion – blocking Russian exports of gas and oil – energy prices will soar. That means consumers will have less money to spend on everything else. This could well push the U.S. economy back into recession. Which makes all the more bizarre Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s statement yesterday to the House Financial Services Committee that he will propose increasing interest rates at the central bank’s...
Mar 03, 2022•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast When I was in elementary school in the 1950s, I was periodically required to “duck and cover” by huddling under my desk in case the Soviet Union dropped an atomic bomb on my town. If I didn’t survive, I was also issued a dog tag with my name and address to help my parents identify my body. (I remember thinking that if the bomb dropped my parents wouldn’t be around to identify me anyway.) The whole thing was terrifying. Years later, when I had my own children, I learned that the only means by whi...
Mar 02, 2022•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast In a few minutes, Joe Biden will give his first State of the Union address. It’s his best opportunity between now and November’s midterm elections to shape the narrative — describing the key choices ahead and explaining where he’s leading America. But there’s far more at stake than mere politics. Biden needs to frame not only what he’s accomplished and wants to accomplish but also what America stands for at this precarious point in our nation’s history. That should be the choice between democrac...
Mar 01, 2022•6 min•Transcript available on Metacast The world is currently and frighteningly locked in a battle to the death between democracy and authoritarianism. Yesterday, Vladimir Putin issued a new threat to the West — telling his defense minister and his top military commander to place Russia’s nuclear forces on alert. It is a new cold war. The biggest difference between the old cold war and the new one is that authoritarian neo-fascism is not just an external threat. A version of it has also taken over one of the major political parties i...
Feb 28, 2022•6 min•Transcript available on Metacast In the midst of Putin’s attack on Ukraine, it’s hard to keep our minds on domestic priorities — such as protecting voting rights, delivering economic security, and fixing our woefully expensive and unfair healthcare system. Yet maybe this is exactly the time to focus on these domestic goals. Doing what’s right for our people strengthens our moral authority to defend democracy and human rights abroad. Protecting voting rights lends credibility to our claims of the superiority of democracy to auto...
Feb 26, 2022•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast We must do what we can to contain Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine. But we also need to be clear-eyed about it, and face the costs. As I’ve said before, economics can’t be separated from politics, and neither can be separated from history. Here are eight sobering realities: 1. Will the economic sanctions now being put into effect stop Putin from seeking to take over all of Ukraine? No. They will complicate Russia’s global financial transactions but they will not cripple the Russian economy...
Feb 24, 2022•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast The stock market is gyrating wildly in light of Putin’s aggression in Ukraine, but Wall Street traders are doing just fine. Bad news is good news for traders who make money off volatility. After all, in the year of Delta and Omicron, climate chaos, Trump Republican attacks on democracy, bitter divisiveness, a calamitous exit from Afghanistan, and accelerating inflation, the Street’s biggest banks have reaped record profits. Bonuses are through the front Porsche. Hundreds of traders have racked u...
Feb 22, 2022•5 min•Transcript available on Metacast Happy Presidents Day. It’s a good day to contemplate whether Joe Biden has a prayer of keeping a Democratic House and Senate next year. Call me a hopeless optimist, but I think he does. Yes, I know: Republicans are suppressing votes, Democrats are hopeless at messaging, Biden’s poll numbers are in the basement. But let me give you ten reasons why I think there’s a decent chance Democrats can maintain control of both the House and the Senate, and maybe even gain some seats. First: It’s likely tha...
Feb 21, 2022•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast Hello again, friends. Thank you for joining me for the second week of my Wealth and Poverty class. In today’s class, we begin to explore why such inequalities have soared since the late 1970s and early 1980s. The questions we’ll focus on today are: How did the market for financial capital contribute to inequalities of income and wealth? Did the accepted purpose of the American corporation change over the last fifty years, and, if so, when and how? More generally, for whom should the corporation ...
Feb 18, 2022•2 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
