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 spoke with the governor for our April episode about the economics of climate change; here is our full unedited conversation.

Jay Inslee first got into public service to fight for a new public high school in his community. He then went on to serve in the state legislature and in 1992 was elected to represent the 4th Congressional District in rural Eastern Washington. He later moved back to the Seattle area and was elected to Congress in 1998 where he served until 2012. In 2012 he was elected Washington's 23rd governor and is currently serving in his second term.

Twitter: @JayInslee

Links:

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/5/4/18527458/climate-change-jay-inslee-for-president-2020

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/01/us/politics/jay-inslee-on-the-issues.html

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 the topic of income inequality, and here he lays out a positive economic vision using the pillars of his book ‘Utopia for Realists’: a universal basic income, open borders, and a 15-hour workweek.  

Rutger Bregman is a Dutch historian and author. He has published four books on history, philosophy, and economics. His book ‘History of Progress’ was awarded the Belgian Liberales prize for best nonfiction book of 2013, and the Dutch edition of ‘Utopia for Realists’ became a national bestseller and sparked a basic income movement that made international headlines. The book has been translated into 31 languages. Bregman has twice been nominated for the prestigious European Press Prize for his journalism work at The Correspondent. 

Twitter: @rcbregman

Further reading: 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/18/solution-everything-working-less-work-pressure

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/26/rutger-bregman-utopia-for-realists-interview-universal-basic-income

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/02/20/dutch-professor-exposes-tucker-carlsons-fraud/?utm_term=.a252dc0fa581

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/feb/01/rutger-bregman-world-economic-forum-davos-speech-tax-billionaires-capitalism

https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1090045108064579584

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 are actually evolutionary systems—and once we shed the winner-take-all philosophy that has dominated Econ 101 classes for a century, we can change economic policy for the better.

David Sloan Wilson is an American evolutionary biologist, a Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences and Anthropology at Binghamton University, and co-founder of the Evolution Institute. In addition to his latest book ‘This View of Life: Completing the Darwinian Revolution’, he has also written ‘Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society’, and ‘Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin’s Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives’. 

Twitter: @David_S_Wilson

Further reading: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/246844/this-view-of-life-by-david-sloan-wilson/9781101870204/ 

http://evonomics.com/the-new-invisible-hand-david-sloan-wilson/

http://evonomics.com/complexity-economics-shows-us-that-laissez-faire-fail-nickhanauer/

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 overtime threshold that would expand overtime pay to 250,000+ workers. Since overtime laws haven’t been updated since 1976, this is a big deal! So brush up on your OT knowledge with this episode, featuring Sharon Block and Chris Lu. 

Sharon Block is the Executive Director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School. For twenty years, she held key labor policy positions across the legislative and executive branches of the federal government, including head of the policy office at the Department of Labor. 

Twitter: @sharblock

Chris Lu was the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Labor in the Obama Administration from 2014 to 2017. He also served as Assistant to the President and White House Cabinet Secretary under Obama from 2009 to 2013. He is a Practitioner Senior Fellow at the UVA Miller Center.

Twitter: @ChrisLu44

Further reading: 

https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2019/06/05/40402423/hundreds-of-thousands-of-workers-will-be-newly-eligible-for-overtime-in-washington-state

https://www.businessinsider.com/overtime-pay-is-a-fundamental-right-nick-hanauer-2019-6?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=topbar&utm_term=desktop&referrer=twitter

https://crooked.com/articles/beat-trump-overtime-pay/

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/11/overtime-pay-obama-congress-112954 

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 and political infrastructure will successfully orient our recovery from the next recession toward economic outcomes that reduce, rather than boost, wealth inequality around racial and gender lines. 

Connie M. Razza is the Chief of Campaigns and Policy at the Center for Popular Democracy, where she oversees CPD’s broad-ranging campaigns for economic justice and a robust, inclusive democracy, as well as the organization’s research efforts. Connie was previously Vice President of Policy and Research at Demos, and she has worked for economic and racial justice for nearly a quarter century as a union activist, organizer, researcher, policy analyst, and strategist. 

Twitter: @ConnieRazza

https://www.epi.org/publication/break-glass-in-case-of-emergency-strategy-memo-for-winning-a-robust-and-just-recovery-from-the-next-recession/

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 last week’s must-listen episode.

Trae Crowder is a comedian and co-author of ‘The Liberal Redneck Manifesto: Draggin’ Dixie Outta the Dark’. Trae has earned national attention for his “Liberal Redneck” series of viral videos. He has been performing his particular brand of Southern-friend intellectual comedy in the Southeast for the past six years, and is now on the WellRED Comedy Tour with fellow comedians and writing partners Drew Morgan and Corey Ryan Forrester.

Twitter: @traecrowder

Instagram: @officialtraecrowder

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 in Washington D.C. An edited version of this conversation appeared in the episode, "Should Democrats appeal to the center by moving hard left?", linked below.

http://www.pitchforkeconomics.com/episode/should-democrats-appeal-to-the-center-by-moving-hard-left-with-congresswoman-pramila-jayapal/

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 we help people see that a $15 minimum wage is good for everyone? We answer these questions and more! 

Trae Crowder is a comedian and co-author of ‘The Liberal Redneck Manifesto: Draggin’ Dixie Outta the Dark’. Trae has earned national attention for his “Liberal Redneck” series of viral videos. He has been performing his particular brand of Southern-friend intellectual comedy in the Southeast for the past six years, and is now on the WellRED Comedy Tour with fellow comedians and writing partners Drew Morgan and Corey Ryan Forrester.

Twitter: @traecrowder

Instagram: @officialtraecrowder

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 of wildland firefighters work around the clock to save lives, property, and public lands. It’s not just a Washington problem, either: wildfires are burning more acreage than ever before across the country. Luckily, this is a problem we can actually do something about! In this bonus episode, Washington State Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz sits down with Nick to explain the ins and outs of forest health, fighting for funding to give wildfire fighters the resources they need, and her fleet of Vietnam-era helicopters.  

Washington State Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz protects and manages nearly six million acres of public lands in Washington. She is leading the push to make Washington’s lands more resilient in the face of climate change, and as the leader of the state’s largest wildfire fighting force, she has pushed for new strategies, innovations, and resources to protect communities. Commissioner Franz’s 20-year Forest Health Strategic Plan will make more than one million acres of forest healthier and more resistant to wildfires.

Twitter: @Hilary_FranzCPL

HuffPost: Controlled Burns Lower Wildfire Risks. These Western States Struggle To Set More Of Them. http://bit.ly/huffpowildfire 

Crosscut: A bold plan to curb wildfires, create jobs and build affordable housing http://bit.ly/CrosscutDNRplan 

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 rural areas and the rise of cities. Can rural America be saved? And is urban America obligated to do the saving? Journalist Eduardo Porter and author Sarah Smarsh weigh in. 

Eduardo Porter is an economics reporter for the business section of The New York Times, where he was the Economic Scene columnist from 2012 to 2018. He is the author of ‘The Price of Everything’ and is working on an upcoming book called ‘American Poison’. 

Twitter: @portereduardo

Sarah Smarsh is the author of ‘Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth’, which became an instant New York Times bestseller and was a finalist for the 2018 National Book Award. She has covered socioeconomic class, politics, and public policy for The Guardian, The New York Times, and many other publications.

Twitter: @Sarah_Smarsh

The Hard Truths of Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/14/opinion/rural-america-trump-decline.html

Country pride: What I learned growing up in rural America: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/06/country-pride-kansas-rural-america-sarah-smarsh

America’s Worsening Geographic Inequality: https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/10/americas-worsening-geographic-inequality/573061/

The Contribution of National Income Inequality to Regional Economic Divergence: https://academic.oup.com/sf/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/sf/soz013/5418441

The Economic Innovation Group’s 2018 Distressed Communities Index: https://eig.org/dci