Richard Wolff, author "Capitalism Hits the Fan and "Occupy the Economy"

Air Dates: November 15-18, 2014

This week's REPORT FROM SANTA FE features a new interview with the popular and internationally renowned economist Richard D. Wolff. Wolff is professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and the author of many books including his latest, ”Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism.”Economists who manage to engage both scholars and laymen are few and far between. Richard Wolff is that rare exception. On this week’s edition of “Report from Santa Fe,” host Lorene Mills and her guest Richard Wolff tackle such challenging topics as privatizing banking, cooperatives as an alternative business model, the eroding middle class and the elusive American Dream.Richard Wolff is notorious for his ability to identify problems and offer ways to effect solutions. Whether he is talking about the repercussions of a new generation of college graduates saddled with unprecedented student loan debt or our economic system, the point he makes is that everyone affected by a decision has the right to participate in making that decision. Wolff discusses the provocative economic ideas that turned his books "Capitalism Hits the Fan" and "Occupy the Economy" into national bestsellers.Wolff can be heard on national radio weekly as the host of “Economic Update” and has been a frequent TV guest on shows such as Bill Maher, Charlie Rose and Bill Moyers. In his new book “Democracy at Work,”, Wolff explores avoiding economic crisis with workers’ self-directed enterprise, alternatives to capitalism and the merits of privatizing banks.Quotes:"...Brimming with an electrifying explanation of how the ‘American Dream’ evolved into the ‘Nightmare on Wall Street’. -- Buzzflash.com on Richard Wolff's “Capitalism Hits the Fan”“Americans are working their rear ends off, and the rest of the world – the industrial world – isn’t. They have time for those languorous meals. We invented fast food.” -- Richard Wolff“And so we sit, a collapsed bubble, the wealthy having produced an armada of new instruments that are now not worth very much. So that our business community is aghast with staggering losses and so, in its own peculiar way, has come to replicate the exhaustion and anxiety of the working class. For different reasons, heaven knows.But we have an economic landscape that is littered with corpses.” -- Richard Wolff