ChatChat - Claudia Cragg

(Factory Girls meets The Vagina Monologues in this fascinating narrative on China’s single women―and why they could be the source of its economic future.) Claudia Cragg (@KGNUClaudia, @KGNU) speaks here with Roseann Lake (@roslake) on her new book, 'Leftover in China: The Women Shaping The World's Next Superpower. Lake is The Economist’s Cuba correspondent. She was previously based in Beijing, where she worked for five years as a television reporter and journalist.  Forty years ago, China enacted the one-child policy, only recently relaxed. Among many other unintended consequences, it resulted in both an enormous gender imbalance―with a predicted twenty million more men than women of marriage age by 2020―and China’s first generations of only-daughters. Given the resources normally reserved for boys, these girls were pushed to study, excel in college, and succeed in careers, as if they were sons. Now living in an economic powerhouse, enough of these women have decided to postpone marriage―or not marry at all―to spawn a label: "leftovers." Unprecedentedly well-educated and goal-oriented, they struggle to find partners in a society where gender roles have not evolved as vigorously as society itself, and where new professional opportunities have made women less willing to compromise their careers or concede to marriage for the sake of being wed. Further complicating their search for a mate, the vast majority of China’s single men reside in and are tied to the rural areas where they were raised. This makes them geographically, economically, and educationally incompatible with city-dwelling “leftovers,” who also face difficulty in partnering with urban men, given the urban men’s general preference for more dutiful, domesticated wives. Part critique of China’s paternalistic ideals, part playful portrait of the romantic travails of China’s trailblazing women and their well-meaning parents who are anxious to see their daughters snuggled into traditional wedlock, Roseann Lake’s Leftover in China focuses on the lives of four individual women against a backdrop of colorful anecdotes, hundreds of interviews, and rigorous historical and demographic research to show how these "leftovers" are the linchpin to China’s future.

Claudia Cragg (@KGNUClaudia for @KGNU speaks here with , on his latest book, , from  In this Tyler clearly lays out the sinister architecture of what many recognize to be 'The Swamp' and the fundamental problems plaguing US democracy. But Tyler also lays out a realistic pathway to improve middle-class economics. It's time, he says, for the people of the United States to demand a government that properly serves the nation - the way any real democracy should.  Economist George R. Tyler was appointed U.S. deputy assistant treasury secretary by President Bill Clinton in 1993. He subsequently served at the World Bank, as CEO of his own real estate investment firm and was a founder of a multi-million dollar Swiss medical R&D nonprofit. Mr. Tyler is the author of “,” a book that seeks to determine why families in other rich democracies have continued living the American Dream that is now lost to many U.S. families. His latest book is “Billionaire Democracy: The Hijacking of the American Political System.”  Mr. Tyler attended the University of Colorado and the Ph.D program in economics at the University of Virginia.

(@KGNUClaudia for @KGNU) talks here with Andrew Keen (@ajkeen) whose latest book is 'How To Fix The Future'.  Keen is one of the world's best known and controversial commentators on the digital revolution. He is the author of four books: , , international hit  How to Fix the Futurehas been called "[a] bracing book" by Walter Isaacson and "the most significant work so far in an emerging body of literature…in which technology's smartest thinkers are raising alarm bells about the state of the Internet, and laying groundwork for how to fix it" by . The book also received a starred review by . Andrew is executive director of the Silicon Valley innovation salon  and an acclaimed public speaker around the world. He is the host of "Keen On" show, a popular  chat show, and was named one of the "100 Most Connected Men" in 2015 by  magazine.

When Jennifer McGaha () discovered that she and her husband owed back taxes―a lot of back taxes―her world changed. Desperate to save money, they foreclosed on their beloved suburban home and moved their family to a one-hundred-year-old cabin in a North Carolina holler. Soon enough, Jennifer's life began to more closely resemble her Appalachian ancestors than her comfortable upbringing. But what started as a last-ditch effort to settle debts became a journey that revealed both the challenges of living close to the land. McGaha never expected to own a goat named Merle. She didn't expect to be buying organic yogurt for her chickens. She never thought she would be pulling camouflage carpet off her ceiling or rescuing opossums from her barn and calling it "date night." Most importantly, Jennifer never thought she would only have $4.57 in her bank account.

's speaks here with   about Americans who, she says, are asking, in the wake of Trump’s victory, "What do we do now?" Her answer: "(We) need to organize and fight to protect and expand our democracy." Americans, she says, are distraught as they see tightly held economic and political power drowns out their voices and values. Legendary author Frances Moore Lappé and organizer-scholar  offer a fresh, surprising response to this core crisis. This intergenerational duo, from her cooperation with Eichen, opens with an essential truth: It’s not the magnitude of a challenge that crushes the human spirit. It’s feeling powerless—in this case, fearing that to stand up for democracy is futile. It’s not, Lappé and Eichen argue. With riveting stories and little-known evidence, they demystify how we got here, exposing the well-orchestrated effort that has robbed Americans of their rightful power. But at the heart of this unique book are solutions. Even in this divisive time, Americans are uniting across causes and ideologies to create a “canopy of hope” the authors call the Democracy Movement. In this invigorating “movement of movements,” millions of Americans are leaving despair behind as they push for and achieve historic change. The movement and democracy itself are vital to us as citizens and fulfill human needs—for power, meaning, and connection—essential to our thriving. In this timely and necessary book, Lappé and Eichen offer proof that courage is contagious in the daring fight for democracy.

Who works and how we work have changed dramatically in recent years, yet the policies and institutions governing work and employment remain mired in the world of work of the 1930s. As a result, the social contract—what we expect from and are accountable for at work—has broken down. The central challenge of our generation of industrial relations professionals is to update these policies and institutions to create and support a new social contract capable of meeting the needs and expectations of the workforce, economy, and society of the 21st century. To discuss this further, KGNU's Claudia Cragg returns to #ItsTheEconomy with Thomas A. Kochan (). He is President, Industrial Relations Research Association MIT Institute for Work & Employment Research. Kochan believes that we can’t do this, making the important changes needed, alone. He says there is a need to continue taking ideas to the American public. Unless a broad cross section of the public is engaged —young and old, women and men, entry level and professional-managerial workers-- the message will, he says, fall on deaf ears. To learn more about the EdX course referred to in the interview, please go to:

's speaks here with  about her new book which illustrates the ways that segregation, poverty, and race intertwine to affect America’s education landscape, Rooks () clearly and vigorously maps the systemic disadvantages imposed upon students of color and the poor. “The infrastructure, ideology, progress, and promises [of America’s schools] all fall more than a little short if the goal is equality,” Rooks argues. While the performance gap between students from poor schools and wealthy schools is widely reported, Rooks shows how reform efforts have “focused far less on the structure or system itself and more on the failures of those it is designed to educate.” By closely examining these federally supported and increasingly privatized initiatives over the past 30 years, Rooks finds both a growing racial divide in education and an increasingly lucrative sector of business. She introduces the term , which she defines as “the business of profiting from high levels of racial and economic segregation.” Pointing to the financial success of organizations such as (valued at $400 million dollars in 2016), Rooks questions who actually benefits from charter schools, voucher programs, and virtual schooling. She argues that reform must integrate those who are most often excluded from the process: teachers and members of disenfranchised communities themselves. Poignant and plainly stated, Rooks’s thorough narrative of socioeconomics urges greater criticism and thoughtfulness about education reform in the 21st century.

, please? All feedback greatly appreciated. Thank you.  's speaks with pioneering antinuclear activist  about a new book she has edited, . This is a "frightening but necessary" assessment of the threat posed by nuclear weapons in the twenty-first century, edited by the world’s leading antinuclear activist “Dr. Helen Caldicott has the rare ability to combine science with passion, logic with love, and urgency with humor.” —Naomi Klein With the world’s attention focused (not incorrectly) on climate change and terrorism, we are in danger of taking our eyes off the nuclear threat. But rising tensions between Russia and NATO, proxy wars erupting in Syria and Ukraine, a nuclear-armed Pakistan, and unsecured stockpiles of aging weapons around the globe make a nuclear attack or a terrorist attack on a nuclear facility arguably the biggest threat facing humanity. In Sleepwalking to Armageddon, Helen Caldicott assembles the world’s leading nuclear scientists and thought leaders to assess the political and scientific dimensions of the threat of nuclear war today. Chapters address the size and distribution of the current global nuclear arsenal, the history and politics of nuclear weapons, the culture of modern-day weapons labs, the militarization of space, and the dangers of combining artificial intelligence with nuclear weaponry, as well as a status report on enriched uranium and a shocking analysis of spending on nuclear weapons over the years. The book ends with a devastating description of what a nuclear attack on Manhattan would look like, followed by an overview of contemporary antinuclear activism. Both essential and terrifying, this book is sure to become the new bible of the antinuclear movement—to wake us from our complacency and urge us to action.

KGNU's Claudia Cragg speaks here with Ron Formisano about his new book, '' and what he sees as the permanent political class has emerged on a scale unprecedented in America's history. Formisano discusses what he sees as the self-dealing, nepotism, and corruption which contribute to rising inequality. Its reach, he says,  extends from the governing elite throughout nongovernmental institutions. Aside from constituting an oligarchy of prestige and power it enables, he says, the creation of "an aristocracy of massive inherited wealth that is accumulating immense political power." In a muckraking tour de force reminiscent of Lincoln Steffens, Upton Sinclair, and C. Wright Mills, #AmericanOligarchy demonstrates the way the corrupt culture of the permanent political class extends down to the state and local level. Ron Formisano breaks down the ways this class creates economic inequality and how its own endemic corruption infects our entire society. Formisano delves into the work of not just politicians but lobbyists, consultants, appointed bureaucrats, pollsters, celebrity journalists, behind-the-scenes billionaires, and others. Their shameless pursuit of wealth and self-aggrandizement, often at taxpayer expense, rewards channeling the flow of income and wealth to elites. That inequality in turn has choked off social mobility and made a joke of meritocracy. As Formisano shows, these forces respond to the oligarchy’s power and compete to bask in the presence of the .01 percent. They also exacerbate the dangerous instability of an American democracy divided between extreme wealth and extreme poverty.

, please? All feedback greatly appreciated. Thank you.   speaks here with 's about his new book about .  Even though this, ,  has only just been published, many others have already spoken to Hagan about the sleazier elements. This, though, ignores the, arguably, huge political ramifications of Wenner and his publication The 'celebritization' of politics, Hagan argues, is very likely a significant contributing factor to the rise in the U.S. of Donald Trump as a political force to the position of President today.