Full Program

Part 1

We begin with what appear to be a victory for people power with an apparent turnaround in Ukraine following an earlier about-face rejection of an agreement for closer ties with the E.U. Anders Aslund, the co-chairman of the board of trustees of the Kyiv School of Economics joins us to discuss Ukraine’s President Victor Yanukovych’s latest U-turn and his family’s ties to the oligarchy of tycoons who dominate an economy mired in corruption and cronyism.

Part 2

Then we look into our own cronyism involved in the fire-sale of valuable downtown properties belonging to the United States Postal Service that is being deliberately bankrupted by dictates from the U.S. Congress whose free-marketeers want to replace the USPS with postal kiosks in Wal-Marts.  Dr. Gray Brechin, an historical geographer at U.C. Berkeley joins us to discuss the exclusive contract that the husband of Senator Diane Feinstein has with a postmaster general determined to privatize the post office, that bestows his company the right to sell off valuable and historic public properties across the country.

Part 3

Then finally we get an economic analysis of the consequences of ending unemployment benefits for the jobless on December the 28^th, cutting loose 1.3 million Americans into poverty, with another 1.9 million to come, as a result of the budget deal that Washington is celebrating as a bi-partisan success. UCLA professor of economics Till Von Wachter, who researches labor economics, the economy of aging and the short and long-term effects of unemployment, joins us to discuss the lack of economic logic to Rand Paul and other conservative’s claim that they are helping people by cutting their benefits.

Full Program

Part 1

We begin and go to the U.K. to speak with David Patrickarakos, a journalist and a fellow at the Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of St Andrews.  We discuss the possibility of reintegrating Iran into the international fold and a strategic realignment in the Middle East following the nuclear deal with the P5+1, as well as David Patrikarakos’ recent article in The New York Times “Iran, From Enemy to Ally”.

Part 2

Then we speak with writer, journalist and professor, Mark Danner, about his provocative and widely-read article in the New York Review of Books, “Rumsfeld’s War and Its Consequences Now” and the new film about Rumsfeld by Errol Morris.  Mark Danner teaches at the University of California Berkeley and at Bard College and is the author of “The Secret Way to War: The Downing Street Memo and the Iraq War’s Buried History” and “Torture and Truth: America’s Abu Ghraib and the War on Terror”.

Part 3

Then finally, after months of unnecessary delay, financial regulators today voted to finalize the Volcker rule, a key provision required by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Micah Hauptman, the Financial Policy Counsel at Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division joins us to discuss the Volker rule’s implementation after fierce lobbying by the banks and whether or not the five big banks who dominate the $300 trillion domestic derivatives market, will be reined in or find ways around the new law.