On March 11, 2019 a crowd of reporters gathered at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to cover the announcement of the site of the Democratic National Convention. Over a year later, the United States has become paralyzed by the novel coronavirus as our institutions are being pushed to their breaking point. As our nation grapples with an out of control pandemic, the greatest recession in living memory, and a national reckoning on race, the question remains...what’s the way out? This is Made to Fail. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Prologue

From healthcare, to unemployment insurance, to exercising the right to vote, the COVID-19 crisis has affected every part of American life. The rampant employment. The social unrest in American cities. It's pulled back the curtain on the policies that time and time again, have failed the people they were supposed to protect. But what's happening in our country is something much bigger than a pandemic. Something that's been in the works for a long, long time.  Made to Fail tells the stories of Americans in states across the country, and the ways in which our country has left our institutions gutted, corrupted, and unaccountable. As we confront an unprecedented era of economic uncertainty, amidst a health crisis and a national reckoning on race the question is...how do we find a way out? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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A new series from Goat Rodeo:

 Many Americans watched the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001 unfold right before our eyes. What happened on 9/11 and how it changed our world is the most important story of the modern age. It’s the hinge on which so much changed. But in the years since the history we've come to tell of that day is incomplete—and sometimes wrong.
Hosted by journalist Garrett Graff, author of the bestselling book THE ONLY PLANE IN THE SKY: AN ORAL HISTORY OF 9/11, "Long Shadow" examines the questions that linger two decades later and the enduring mysteries that still surround 9/11, the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil. This is a different history of September 11th than you likely remember. But it’s one that will help you make sense of the world the attacks left behind. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Goat Rodeo Presents: Long Shadow

As the President-elect prepares to take office amid a global pandemic and a worsening economy, he must also face—and address—the broken political and economic system that we laid out in our previous episodes. 
While Made to Fail showed us how the conservative project has hurt our institutions, in this new era we have the opportunity to rebuild those broken institutions. What has been made to fail can and must be restored to succeed.
Made to Fail host Elliot Williams recently moderated a virtual panel to hear the Roosevelt Institutes’ bold ideas to transform our economy. The event featured President & CEO,  Felicia Wong, Director of Climate Policy, Rhiana Gunn-Wright, and Managing Director of Corporate Power, Bharat Ramamurti. 
The panel’s discussion centered around how the Biden-Harris administration can create a democratically accountable and effective government that will work for everyone.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

BONUS: Made to Succeed: Bold Ideas for a Biden Administration to Transform the Economy

 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Epilogue

When COVID-19 began to burn across America, the hospitals of Madison, Wisconsin weren’t ready. They weren’t ready to meet the needs of the patients -- collapsing in the emergency room, dying while awaiting ventilation -- but they also weren’t ready to meet the needs of the doctors. And the nurses. And the custodial staff.
The front line workers who were forced to wear the same dirty masks, shift after shift, as more and more COVID-19 patients poured through the doors, gasping for care.
It didn’t have to be this way, and it might not have been, if Wisconsin’s once-mighty unions still held the power to organize and fight for the rights of essential workers. But years ago, the state’s conservative politicians deliberately dismantled organized labor. So when crisis came to the Badger state, workers had no one looking out for them. 
And then they began to get sick.
This country’s employment infrastructure was made to fail -- but failure doesn’t have to be the ultimate fate of American workers. Because unions made this country strong -- and in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, we need them to make the country strong again. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chapter Eight: Busted in Wisconsin

The Paycheck Protection Program was co-written by Maine’s very own Republican Senator Susan Collins, and it was signed into law as a means for small businesses with fewer than 500 employees to pay their workers and keep operations running during the pandemic. But, a loophole written into the program allowed for several major chains to receive millions of dollars in PPP loans from the same finite bucket of money, leaving crumbs for small businesses who followed the strictest of rules. Those loans, which made up a $349 billion stimulus effort were exhausted after just two weeks.    The loophole is one reason that small businesses got so little when it came to the PPP loans, But then, there’s also the fact that banks were administering these loans. As banks were deciding the fate of businesses everywhere and making big profits, businesses all across the country were closing their doors and laying off workers. By April 23, more than 30 million people across America had filed for unemployment. This number has continued to rise. But that same month, in April, the S&P; 500 and the Dow had their best months since 1987. The stock market was rallying...   Why on the one hand did we see so many businesses close and massive job losses one day and see the stock market soaring the next? What does it mean that we have consistently seen both of these trends throughout a global pandemic? The links in our economic system that ensure when businesses profit, the people who work for those businesses profit as well, are fundamentally broken. 
 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Prologue

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