Ismael Hossein-zadeh discusses his book The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism.

Hossein-zadeh's wide-ranging, interdisciplinary analysis blends history, economics, and politics to challenge most of the prevailing accounts of the rise of U.S. militarism. While acknowledging the contributory role of some of the most widely-cited culprits (big oil, neoconservative ideology, the Zionist lobby, and President Bush's world outlook), this study explores the bigger, but largely submerged, picture: the political economy of war and militarism.

The study is unique not only for its thorough examination of the economics of military spending, but also for its careful analysis of a series of closely related topics (petroleum, geopolitics, imperialism, terrorism, religious fundamentalism, the war in Iraq, and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict) that may appear as digressions but, in fact, help shed more light on the main investigation.

An Iranian-born Kurd, Hossein-zadeh came to the United States in 1975 to pursue his formal education in economics. After completing his graduate work at the New School for Social Research in New York City (1988), he joined Drake University faculty where he has been teaching classes in political economy, comparative economic systems, international economics, and development economics.

News and commentary for the week of December 26, 2007 - January 1, 2008 with Mike Kaspar and Nathan Callahan.

News and commentary for the week of December 19-25, 2007 with Mike Kaspar and Nathan Callahan.

Robert Kuttner discusses his book, The Squandering of America: How the Failure of Our Politics Undermines Our Prosperity.

The incomes of most Americans today are static or declining. Tens of millions of workers are newly vulnerable to layoffs and outsourcing. Health care and retirement burdens are increasingly being shifted from employers to individuals. Two-income families find they are working longer hours for lower wages, with decreased social support. As wealth has become more concentrated, the economy has become more recklessly speculative, jeopardizing not only the prospects of ordinary Americans, but the solvency of the entire system. According to Kuttner, what links these trends is Robert Kuttner in this provocative, engaging, and necessary book, is the consolidation of political and economic power by a narrow elite, who blocks the ability of government to restore broad prosperity to the majority of citizens.

A co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect magazine, Kuttner writes for the magazine regularly on a variety of issues. Mostly, however, he focuses on economic policy, both domestic and international. His editorial column, which first appears in The Boston Globe, then on the Prospect website every Thursday, is distributed to 20 major newspapers nationwide. It was awarded the John Hancock Award for excellence in business and financial journalism. As well, Kuttner won the Jack London Award for labor journalism.

News and commentary for the week of December 12-18, 2007 with Mike Kaspar and Nathan Callahan.

Walter Russell Mead discusses his book God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World.

Mead, the Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and one of the country's leading students of American foreign policy, contends that the key to the predominance of the two countries has been the individualistic ideology of the prevailing Anglo-American religion. Mead explains how this helped create a culture uniquely adapted to capitalism, a system under which both countries thrived. We see how, as a result, the two nations were able to create the liberal, democratic system whose economic and social influence continues to grow around the world.

According to Mead, the stakes today are higher than ever; technological progress makes new and terrible weapons easier for rogue states and terror groups to develop and deploy. Where some see an end to history and others a clash of civilizations, Mead sees the current conflicts in the Middle East as the latest challenge to the liberal, capitalist, and democratic world system that the Anglo-Americans are trying to build. What we need now, he says, is a diplomacy of civlizations based on a deeper understanding of the recurring conflicts between the liberal world system and its foes.

News and commentary for the week of December 5-11, 2007 with Mike Kaspar and Nathan Callahan.

News and commentary for the week of November 28-December 4, 2007 with Mike Kaspar and Nathan Callahan.

An interview with Christopher Ellinger of Bolder Giving. Christopher and Anne Ellinger were plunged into the philanthropy world when Christopher received an unexpected inheritance at age 21. After ten years of exploring the resources available for people looking to connect their money and values, they decided to put this knowledge to use by helping other wealthy people maximize their positive impact. In 1991, they founded More than Money, a nonprofit peer education network with over 2,000 participants nationwide. Through its publications, gatherings, and web resources, More Than Money helped people with significant financial resources to explore the impact of money in their lives and to act on their highest values.