Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

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What's Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer about?

Any society that allows itself to become radically unequal eventually collapses into an uprising or a police state—or both. Join venture capitalist Nick Hanauer and some of the world’s leading economic and political thinkers in an exploration of who gets what and why. Turns out, everything you learned about economics is wrong. And if we don’t do something about rising inequality, the pitchforks are coming.

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Does economics have a media...

12.10.2019

Most people understand the economy through the news—how it’s doing, what the new laws are, and what experts predict for the future. For better or for worse, that means journalists largely dictate our common knowledge of economics issues. What’s the ...

Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer episodes:

12.10.2019 Does economics have a media problem? (with Matt Gertz) Most people understand the economy through the news—how it’s doing, what the new laws are, and what experts predict for the future. For better or for worse, that means journalists largely dictate our common knowledge of economics issues. What’s the ...
12.03.2019 How monopolies feed plutocracy (with Matt Stoller) In his new book ‘Goliath’, author Matt Stoller explains how the 2016 election heralded the return of authoritarianism and populism to American politics, due largely to concentrated financial power and rampant consumerism. This week, Matt joins Nick and Goldy for ...
11.29.2019 BONUS: George Monbiot - Unedited Conversation George Monbiot joined us on our ‘How neoliberalism happened’ episode last month. Enjoy our full, unedited conversation with him! George Monbiot writes a weekly column for The Guardian and is the author of a number of books, most recently ‘Out ...
11.26.2019 How to make the rich pay their taxes (with Gabriel Zucman) Tax rates on the wealthy have steadily eroded in the United States over the last forty years, leaving us with an upside-down tax code that benefits the rich. And it’s surprisingly easy for powerful people to evade the taxes that ...
11.19.2019 Economic woman (with Katrine Marçal, Lisa D. Cook, and Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman) We’ve heard all about economic man, but what happened to economic woman? Women are noticeably absent in theoretical economic models and—perhaps not so coincidentally—they're also massively underrepresented in the field of economics itself. This week, we’re joined by journalist Katrine ...
11.15.2019 Listener voicemails! (with Nick and Goldy) It’s three answers to three voicemails! Nick and Goldy field questions about self-interest in Congress, CEO accountability to shareholders, and if inflation is inevitable when you raise the minimum wage.
11.12.2019 Is economic orthodoxy evolving? (with Luigi Zingales) ‘Chicago School’ is a descriptor often used to signify conventional economic thinking. This week, our friend Luigi Zingales, a finance professor at the Chicago Booth School of Business, joins Nick and Goldy to find out where they agree—and where they ...
11.05.2019 Can we hold big corporations to higher standards? (with Mayor Dave Bieter and E.J. Dionne) Nick pitches a big idea to the mayor of Boise and political commentator E. J. Dionne: a suite of progressive labor standards that would hold large employers to higher standards nationwide. Is this the way to bring progressive, inclusive economic ...
10.31.2019 HALLOWEEN SPECIAL: Trickle-Down or Treat We asked our guests and listeners: what’s the spookiest, sneakiest, and scariest trickle-down trick? Find out what’s making Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, Professor Stephanie Kelton, author Matt Stoller, and more good witches and wizards quake in their boots this Halloween.
10.29.2019 Tax me more, I’m rich (with Abigail Disney and Chye-Ching Huang) Trickle-down economics would have you believe that the rich are job creators—the more money they have to invest in creating jobs, the better the economy is for everybody. This lie has had catastrophic effects: the top 0.1% of Americans now ...
10.22.2019 Will bad economics kill the Green New Deal? (with Naomi Klein and J.W. Mason) The only thing holding us back from big, bold, progressive change is ourselves. When critics wonder if we can afford to pay for the Green New Deal, they couch their concerns in the language of neoliberal economics: they say that ...
10.18.2019 Paul’s Book Review: Kochland Be still, our hearts—it’s another book review, straight from the glittering literary mind of Paul Constant. This week, Paul recommends the New York Times Bestseller ‘Kochland’ by Christopher Leonard, a deeply reported investigation of Koch Industries’ secretive corporate power, smarmy ...
10.15.2019 The trade-offs of global trade (with Dean Baker and Port Commissioner Ryan Calkins) In the 1990s and early 2000s, free trade was considered an unalloyed good. But now, policymakers and economists agree that global trade creates winners and losers—and they acknowledge that we've never really tried to fairly compensate the losers. Economist Dean ...
10.08.2019 How neoliberalism happened (with George Monbiot and Binyamin Appelbaum) It’s trendy to mock the malicious pervasiveness of neoliberalism now, but have you ever wondered what its origins are? This week, George Monbiot and Binyamin Appelbaum join the show to uncover just where the dominant economic theory of our time ...
10.04.2019 BONUS: Rewriting the rules for an inclusive economy (with Darrick Hamilton) As we reimagine the rules of our political and economic institutions, it is essential that racial justice be centered in the conversation. Darrick Hamilton explains how neoliberalism exploits existing structures of racism and power in America, and shares his optimism ...
10.01.2019 Why philanthropy can’t undo this mess (with Anand Giridharadas) Few books have shaken the philanthropy world more than ‘Winners Take All’, Anand Giridharadas’s blistering critique of wealthy do-gooders. Global elites who ostentatiously give away hundreds of millions of dollars, he argues, are actually just preserving the status quo that ...
09.27.2019 BONUS: Saru Jayaraman - Unedited Conversation Food labor expert Saru Jayaraman joined us earlier this month to expose the lie of marginal productivity, and to reveal how it’s used to take advantage of workers. For the sake of time, we cut a fascinating tangent on the ...
09.24.2019 Author Interview: Chris Arnade In an effort to rethink the conversation around poverty, author Chris Arnade’s new book, ‘Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America’, pushes aside decades of academic detachment, instead encouraging those who have been left out of prosperity to describe their ...
09.20.2019 Paul’s Book Review #2: Janesville, An American Story Everyone’s favorite human library, Paul Constant, is back with a review of ‘Janesville, An American Story’ by Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist Amy Goldstein. Pair with a Wisconsin-brewed beer. Buy Janesville on IndieBound: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781501102233
09.17.2019 Behind the scenes of Nick’s new TED Talk: The dirty secret of capitalism—and a new way forward In July, Nick took the stage at TEDSummit in Edinburgh, Scotland to make the case for a new economics that recognizes people, not capital, as the driver of economic growth. The talk, released by TED last week, explains why unchecked ...
09.10.2019 Does the market really pay you what you’re worth? (with Marshall Steinbaum and Saru Jayaraman) The theory of marginal product of labor says that every worker is paid exactly what they’re worth—the value that their labor generates. Employers cite marginal productivity to legitimize paying the lowest wages possible, but it’s just another trickle-down scam. Economist ...
09.06.2019 BONUS: Voicemails with Nick and Goldy It’s that time again—Nick and Goldy are answering your messages. This week, Dale from Washington D.C. wonders if rent control is a symptom of low wages or a safeguard from hardship, and Warren calls in all the way from Toronto ...
09.03.2019 How to spot a bogus minimum wage study (with Ben Zipperer) Not all minimum-wage studies are equal. Some of the most headline-grabbing negative reports on the effects of the minimum wage were commissioned and promoted by right-wing organizations looking to legitimize trickle-down policies that hurt workers. How can you spot studies ...
08.27.2019 Does the future of work include a Federal Jobs Guarantee? (with Pavlina Tcherneva and Representative Ro Khanna) Under a Federal Jobs Guarantee, rather than distributing unemployment checks, the government would give a living-wage job to everyone that needs one. It’s a concept that’s been gaining popularity recently, and it’s often pitted against universal basic income. For the ...
08.23.2019 Paul’s Book Review: Listen, Liberal We love books here at Civic Ventures, and writer, book reviewer, and former bookseller Paul Constant is the first person on the team that we go to for recommendations. Today, we’re excited to share his thoughts about ‘Listen, Liberal’ by ...
08.20.2019 A skeptic's guide to Universal Basic Income (with Scott Santens and Sukhi Samra) You can’t throw a rock without hitting a wandering conversation about Universal Basic Income these days—but in our office, we’re still skeptical. For the first in a two-episode series exploring guaranteed income and its sister idea, guaranteed jobs, UBI expert ...
08.13.2019 Shared security, shared growth: a social contract for the 21st century (with Senator Mark Warner and Abby Solomon) There are nearly 60 million gig economy workers in the U.S. workforce, yet benefits like health care, retirement, and paid leave are still tied to traditional salaried jobs. It is essential that we adopt new policies guaranteeing all workers the ...
08.06.2019 Educationism (with Diane Ravitch) Like many rich Americans, Nick used to think that focusing their philanthropic efforts in the country’s education system could heal many of our biggest problems. But in The Atlantic last month, he admitted he was wrong—better schools won’t fix America ...
07.30.2019 The robots are coming… what now? (with Heidi Shierholz and Daron Acemoglu) With every technological advancement since the dawn of time, conventional wisdom has warned that technology and automation kills jobs. But robots aren’t the root cause of our problems. Although technology has always changed the nature of work, this week's guests ...
07.26.2019 BONUS: What to listen for in the second round of presidential debates The second round of presidential debates are quickly approaching. The debates move fast, and we know there’s a lot to sift through—so allow us to make it easier on you! In this pre-debates briefing, Nick and Zach lay out exactly ...
07.23.2019 Health Care Part 2: One nation, with liberty and health care for all (with Sanders for President Campaign Co-Chair Nina Turner) Medicare for All is the most ambitious health care proposal on the table right now, and the Bernie Sanders campaign is ground zero for making it a reality. In the second episode of a two-part series on health care, former ...
07.19.2019 BONUS: Don't Pass Go—without learning more about monopolies (with Barry Lynn) We’re revisiting a timeless topic: monopolies! Expert Barry Lynn shares his thoughts on market concentration, the dangers of industrial monopolies like Boeing, and what ‘reigning in’ companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon actually means. Barry Lynn is the Executive Director ...
07.16.2019 Health Care Part 1: Everyone does it better than us (with T. R. Reid) When it comes to health care, every country in the world is running their own version of the same experiment—and the results vary widely in terms of cost and patient outcomes. In the first episode of a two-part exploration of ...
07.09.2019 The decline of worker power (with David Rolf and Larry Mishel) Not so long ago, economic growth was shared widely among Americans thanks to a suite of policies that boosted the bargaining power of workers. In recent years, employer power has increased while worker powers have been significantly eroded—and as a ...
07.02.2019 Our full conversation with Governor Jay Inslee In March of this year, Washington state Governor Jay Inslee announced he is running for president on a platform of combating climate change. He has already succeeded in centering the political conversation around this central crisis of our time. We ...
06.25.2019 A roadmap to utopia (with Rutger Bregman) Rutger Bregman, who The Guardian has called “the Dutch wunderkind of new ideas”, joins us this week to daydream a better future. Bregman won international fame by taking on everyone from Tucker Carlson to the wealthy elites at Davos on ...
06.18.2019 Picking up where Darwin left off (LIVE with David Sloan Wilson) Classical economics argues that the economy is an equilibrium system—that for every winner there must be a loser. In this episode, author and professor David Sloan Wilson joins Nick live on stage at Town Hall Seattle to argue that economies ...
06.11.2019 Update: Whatever happened to overtime? (with Sharon Block and Chris Lu) This episode was first released in March, but so much has happened since then in the world of overtime that we thought we’d repost this episode with a new intro. Since this originally aired, Washington state has proposed a new ...
06.07.2019 BONUS: Strategies for building a robust and equitable recovery from the next recession (with Connie Razza) Zach speaks with Connie Razza, the author of ‘Break glass in case of emergency’, a strategy memo recently published by the Economic Policy Institute for winning a robust and just recovery from the next recession. Connie explains what policy proposals ...
06.04.2019 Ask Nick Anything - Part 2 (with Trae Crowder) We couldn’t contain our favorite listener voicemails in one Ask Nick Anything episode, so we made two! Why does the middle class pay an income tax? Are unions cool? Nick and Trae answer eight more questions in this follow-up to ...
05.28.2019 BONUS: Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal - Unedited Conversation Nick spoke with Congressmember Pramila Jayapal in December 2018 about the fight for a $15 minimum wage, what Representative Jayapal has changed his mind on, and how Democrats can tell better stories. Here’s their full conversation in Congresswoman Jayapal’s offices ...
05.21.2019 Ask Nick Anything - Part 1 (with Trae Crowder) You’ve been flooding Nick’s voicemail for months, and the time is finally here! Comedian Trae Crowder joins Nick to answer your questions in this freewheeling Ask Me Anything session. What does John Hickenlooper think about Nick’s net worth? How can ...
05.17.2019 BONUS: Why do we fight fires like it’s still 1969? (with Washington State Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz) Washington state lost 440,000 acres in almost two thousand wildfires last year﹣a record high. Once the most beautiful month in Washington’s year, August is now marred by hazy, smoky skies that drive everyone indoors while our small and underfunded team ...
05.14.2019 Can rural America be saved? It’s not just economic inequality, the gap between rich and poor people, that’s growing wider in America. Spatial inequality, the gap between rich and poor places, is growing too. The most obvious example of spatial inequality is the decline of ...
05.07.2019 Homo economicus must die (with Samuel Bowles) Homo economicus is the figurative human being used in economic modeling. But the term defines human nature as perfectly rational, perfectly logical, and always self-interested. Does that sound like any real humans you know? Nope, we didn’t think so either. ...
05.03.2019 BONUS: Tax the Rich! (with Tax March Executive Director Maura Quint) Our friends at the Tax March, a national progressive tax awareness coalition, just launched a new campaign called “Tax the Rich” which urges every Democrat in Congress and every presidential candidate to support taxing the country’s wealthiest people. Zach talked ...
04.30.2019 What are the economics of climate change? (with Governor Jay Inslee and Fadhel Kaboub) All the economic and social policy that we discuss on this podcast won’t matter if we don’t address climate change. Governor Jay Inslee and Professor Fadhel Kaboub join Nick and Goldy to explain that if we don’t get climate right… ...
04.23.2019 What is Modern Monetary Theory? (with Stephanie Kelton) Is government debt real? Is anything real? Professor Stephanie Kelton gives Nick and Goldy a master class on the hottest idea in economics right now: Modern Monetary Theory. Stephanie Kelton is a professor of public policy and economics at Stony ...
04.16.2019 Should Democrats appeal to the center by moving hard left? (with Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal) For too long, pundits and politicians have talked about the political center as a perfect balance between conservatives and liberals. But this quest for some sort of mythical middle ground between left and right has only succeeded in elevating the ...
04.13.2019 BONUS: Senator Cory Booker - Unedited Conversation We spoke to Senator Cory Booker about stock buybacks and his Workers Dividend Act in February. We hope you enjoy the full, unedited conversation! Cory Booker is the U.S. Senator from New Jersey and a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate. Twitter: ...

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