Jeff received a linguistics degree from California State University. Mr. Smith is a Georgist scholar and social justice activist who has promoted Georgist policies throughout his career. Mr. Smith is the author of "Counting Bounty," a book that examines the economic value of land and all of the earth’s natural resources. He served as the Director of Education at Basic Economic Education in San Diego and was the Chief Editor at Progress.org, a blog that promotes progressive policy perspectives. Jeff is also known for publishing "The Geonomist," which won a California Greenlight award. He has helped the city of Portland research new transportation policies and is a member of the International Society for Ecological Economics. Mr. Smith joined us to discuss how he helped form the Green Party in California, how progressive activist groups can build sustainable political momentum, and how Universal Basic Income may not be as helpful as some policymakers think.

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Dr. Semmler earned his doctorate from the Free University of Berlin in Germany. He is the author of several books including "Sustainable Accumulation and Dynamic Portfolio Decisions" and has appeared in numerous economic journals such as the Journal of Applied Econometrics, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organizations, and Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control. Dr. Chappe received her masters in Comparative Business Law and received her Ph.D. in Economics. Mr. Bastos Neves is a current Ph.D. at the New School of Social Research where he focuses on climate change, development finance, and macroeconomics. Together, the three talked about the impacts of carbon taxes, how taxes have impacted inequality, and how private investment patterns have changed throughout the years.

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Dr. Nell attained his bachelor's from Princeton University with an economics degree and his master's and Ph.D. from Oxford University in England, after being awarded the Rhodes Scholarship. Mr. Nell has taught at numerous universities in the U.S and across the globe including Wesleyan, Bennington College, McGill University, Bard College, and the University of Siena. He has written for many economic journals on topics such as macroeconomic theory, development, and monetary and financial analysis. He is also the author of "The General Theory of Transformational Growth," "Making Sense of a Changing Economy," and many, many more. Together, we listened to Dr. Nell's analysis of the E.U.’s response to the Greek government-debt crisis, why wages haven’t kept up with productivity in advanced economies, and how globalization has negatively impacted the U.S. economy.

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Mr. Tonelson received his bachelor’s degree in history from Princeton University and is currently a Research Fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry Council, a lobbying group that fights for the growth of domestic manufacturing in the United States. He was also a fellow at the Henry Stimson Center and Economic Strategy Institute where he focused on the economic impacts of manufacturing and offshoring. Mr. Tonelson runs his blog RealityChek, which focuses on domestic production, U.S. trade deficits, free trade, and globalization. He is the author of "Race To The Bottom" which examines the role free trade and globalization have on declining wages and global labor standards. Mr. Tonelson talked about the domestic economic impacts of offshoring, protective tariffs, and how free trade helped create the 2007 Financial Crisis.

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Dr. Keen is known for his criticisms of orthodox economic thinking and its detachment from reality. Mr. Keen received his bachelor's degree from the University of Sydney. He went on to complete his master's degree and Ph.D. in Economics and Economic History from the University of New South Wales. He is the author of several books on economics, of which the two most famous are Debunking Economics and The New Economics. Both are critiques of modern economic theory that discuss debt deflation and financial instability. Dr. Keen has taught at the University of Western Sydney and Kingston University in London. He briefly worked as a fellow at the Centre for Policy Development in Australia. Dr. Keen has since retired and is now leading the development of a software platform called Minsky, which will be used to create visual models for national economies that are more accurate than previous iterations. Together we discussed the flaws behind the neoclassical economic framework, how human beings’ nature directly contradicts the current philosophical underpinnings in economics, and how firms can get away with charging prices above their marginal costs.

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Martin received his bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and his master’s in Business from UCLA. Mr. Ford is a futurist and a New York Times Best Seller. He is the author of four books: The Rule of the Robots, Architects of Intelligence, The Rise of the Robots, and The Lights in the Tunnel. All his books focus on technology, robotics, artificial intelligence, and their socioeconomic impacts. He serves as an artificial intelligence expert and helps to manage Societe Generale’s Rise of the Robots index, a basket of stocks that profits from the growth of AI technology companies. Mr. Ford explained to us the power of technological progress, how information technology can create sustainable prosperity, and how automation will affect employment for both educated and uneducated workers.

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Mr. Fingleton graduated from Trinity College in Ireland, where he earned his degree in Economics, Mathematics, and English. Mr. Fingleton worked for over 27 years as a journalist in Tokyo serving as an editor for the Financial Times and Forbes, covering Asia and globalization. Mr. Fingleton is the author of three books: In Praise of Hard Industry, In the Jaws of the Dragon, and Unsustainable. He has been featured in notable publications such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Washington Post, and the Harvard Business Review. Together with Mr. Fingleton, we discussed the problems caused by deindustrialization, how free trade can hurt domestic production in the long term, and whether or not free trade is always a good idea.

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Mr. Dodson attended Shippensburg University and Temple University where he received his economics degree. Mr. Dodson worked for Fannie Mae, a public-private partnership, to help distribute home mortgage loans. During his time at Fannie Mae, Mr. Dodson held numerous management and analyst positions within the Housing & Community Development group, helping grow neighborhoods and local communities. He also has extensive experience as a history lecturer at the Osher Life Long Learning Institute and the Learning is For Everyone program at Burlington County College. Mr. Dodson is the author of a three-volume work titled "The Discovery of First Principles," and many of his articles and papers on diverse subjects have been published in periodicals and journals. In 1997 he founded an online education and research project, the School of Cooperative Individualism. We were lucky enough to talk with Mr. Dodson about land value taxation, how bad tax policy can incentivize risky speculation, and why the teachings of Henry George are rarely discussed in mainstream economics classes.  

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Dr. Varoufakis is a Greek economist and politician who attained his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Essex in the United Kingdom. Dr. Varoufakis is the founder and secretary-general of the European Realistic Disobedience Front, a progressive leftward party, which is part of the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025. He served as Greek Finance Minister in 2015 and is a current member of the Greek Parliament. Dr. Varoufakis explained his critique of Capital in the 21st Century, by Thomas Piketty, why mainstream economic frameworks ignore inequality, and how Piketty’s solution to alleviating poverty falls short.

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Dr. Shaikh draws from his experience of living in cities across the world including Ankara, Washington D.C., Lagos, New York, and more. Mr. Shaikh received his bachelor's degree from Princeton and earned his Ph.D. from Columbia, both in economics. He is the author of Capitalism: Competition, Conflict, Crises and Measuring the Wealth of Nations. He is the author of many journals on topics such as macroeconomics, competition, inequality, and many more. Shaikh discusses the effects of the Bretton Woods agreement, how countries like Japan and South Korea gain a competitive advantage through high productivity and low wages, and the negative impacts of free trade most economists don’t think about.

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