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Emma Caterine of DSA joins us to talk about why we need to organize in 2021. It has to do with class warfare, austerity politics, and Biden’s love affair with the financial industry.
we're joined by the delightful EMMA CATERINE to take a walk through the history of debt, how's it's evolved, and how it's weaponized against working people-- plus an aesthetic breakdown of the three types of dudes who collect medical debt! SUPPORT RASHIDA TLAIB'S BILL TO MINT THE COIN support the local bailout for the many!
Today we do a deep dive into Joe Biden's terrible record in the Senate, and marginally-less terrible record as vice president. Then we turn to electability, and why a Biden nomination would screw up almost all of the strongest arguments against Trump -- on protecting Social Security and Medicare, on trade, on #MeToo, on abuse of immigrants, on corruption, and on mental fitness. Links to stuff mentioned in the discussion: Corey Robin on Clarence Thomas, Emma Caterine on bankruptcy, Ryan's episode on the bailout disaster, Branko Marcetic on Biden's record, and Jon Walker on Obamacare's technical defects.
Steve’s guest, Emma Caterine, is a consumer rights attorney with special interest in predatory lenders like loan sharks and payday loan companies. She begins by talking about credit as a social construct, To fully grasp the causes of Great Recession we must understand the difference between consumer debt, with a high risk of default, and federal spending, which is new money and can never default. When our economy grows through private debt, it’s unsustainable and leads to crises like the Great Recession. MMT economists, including Wynn Godley, Stephanie Kelton, and L. Randall Wray, have shown that the idea that public “debt” and the deficit are inherently evil and to be avoided at all costs, or that financial crises are caused by “imbalance in the economy” are all myths. What we see then is that cutting public spending -- austerity -- is a political choice. Emma asserts that private household debt and private corporate debt have similar consequences on different scales, though the households bear more of the burden. Private equity firms load companies with tons of debt to be serviced by cutting labor and selling real estate holdings, which is detrimental to surrounding local communities -- people of color and the working poor in particular. This growth model based on private debt proves that lessons weren’t learnt from the Great Recession. It’s a more intense and modern version of basic capitalism. The data underscores how undemocratic it is. It’s actually about who gets the power to make these decisions. Emma boils down the increasingly neoliberal method: austerity politicians deregulate and cut funding, then the private financial sector fills the gap with privatization. Nearly everything in our lives has private equity behind it, prepared to strip all value with no regard to long-term sustainability. Emma expresses the hope that politicians like Warren and Sanders can and will stop the Wall Street looting. Steve and Emma then turn to the effects of austerity, from abandoned malls and virtual ghost towns to shorter, more brutish lives, and an ever-growing private debt bubble from payday and title loans -- death traps for the already suffering. The average family cannot afford a $400 emergency but are forced to turn to these predatory forms of credit. Steve, as someone who suffered the ill effects of the recession, and Emma, a consumer rights attorney whose clients are working-class and mostly people of color, discuss how we cannot simply talk about income inequality but must actively choose to reverse austerity and the neoliberal paradigm to end the punishment of poverty. Emma advocates increasing public investment, regulating private corporations and the financial industry. She supports the Loan Shark Prevention Act, putting a cap on interest rates. This regulation would counter any inflationary risks of the Green New Deal and Medicare For All. Plans are not enough here; an organized, people-led movement is essential for any paradigm shift. Emma doesn’t trust “professional middle-class experts” to solve the problem but instead focuses on community groups, agitation, organizing, and allying with labor. The movement needs to be people-powered, and groups like DSA are there to hand out the (metaphorical) torches and pitchforks. Emma Caterine is a consumer rights attorney on the board of the Modern Money Network, a decades-long writer and advocate of economic justice, LGBTQIA+ racial and feminist justice movements - and a proud member of Democratic Socialists of America. @EmmaCaterineDSA on Twitter Sign the manifesto at https://jobguaranteenow.org/ https://lpeblog.org/category/piercing-the-monetary-veil/
Emma Caterine of DSA & Modern Money Network joins us to talk about loan sharks, payday loans, credit card debt and the great recession.
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This time we bring on lawyer and activist Emma Caterine to talk about her article analyzing the feminist aspects of the wretched 2005 bankruptcy reform bill, and her article endorsing Queens DA candidate Tiffany Cabán on prison abolition grounds. (The book The Communist Horizon we mention can be found here as well.) Enjoy!
Talkin’ law with lawyer and activist Emma Caterine. Why should we decriminalize sex work? How do create a socialist prosecutor? How to deal with the tension between abolitionist perspective and using the state in for our favor? Should stoner renters unite, because they have nothing to lose but their bong rips? Also: Why a Fox […]
Emma Caterine of Democratic Socialists of America's Socialist Majority Caucus talks to Matt about her article "The Bernie Advantage" [available at https://socialistmajority.com/2019/02/08/the-bernie-advantage/] on why DSA should feel the Bern. We're on the fence, so if any DSA members arguing the other way want to discuss their points on the next episode of the podcast, they should contact Matt.
In this episode, we speak with Emma Caterine, a law graduate and writer with more than a decade of experience working within economic justice, feminist, LGBTQ, and racial justice movements. We talk Democratic Socialists of America, MMT, the advantages of a federal jobs guarantee over a universal basic income, the place for sex work in a jobs guarantee program. Emma's Medium page: https://medium.com/@EmmaCaterine Heads up: The Second International Conference for Modern Monetary Theory is set to take place September 28 - 30, 2018 at The New School in New York City. Details here: http://www.mmtconference.org
Our guest canceled so Jamie picked up a rando at the DSA convention to fill in. Thanks for being such a good sport, rando! Jamie and the rando — whose name, it turns out, is Andrew Callaway — recap a bit of what went down at the convention, including a "turn-to-industry" proposal and a spicy debate around Bernie 2020. The gang tackles the van attack in Toronto, the "incel rebellion" and why dudes who can't get laid and complain about it online are a kind of hate group. The political economy of angry young misogynists and what to do with them. How to keep those on the fence from turning into Pepes? Jamie's personal story of educating someone. The impact of technology on sex and dating (Sean shows his age). Why everyone will have better sex under socialism. Some social reproduction and historical materialism talk, because why not? Check out the podcast Andrew produces, 'Benjamen Walker's Theory of Everything' at theoryofeverythingpodcast.com REMINDER: Only 82 more patrons to go until we release the first episode of our nonsensical cooking show, 'Acid Kitchen'! Support the show at Patreon.com/theantifada. If you're in New York, check out the DSA Community Healthcare Fair Jamie helped put together! The panel (featuring m4a activist Tim Faust, Soc Fem WG's Emma Caterine, and State Senate candidate Julia Salazar w/ moderation by Michael Brooks) will be live streamed for those who can't make it. facebook.com/events/1888194218137462
HEAR YE HEAR YE DO U LIKE LAWS? NO?! NEITHER DO WE LOLL. Jk sort of - But this week 4 real we have the most incredible guests: Meghsha Barner, a member of the National Lawyers Guild, and Emma Caterine, a member of DSA Legal. THEY ARE SLINGING HOT TAKES on what it means to be involved in the legal system as a leftist. U DO NOT WANT TO MISS THESE FIREY HOT TAKES. No music this week because we had SO MUCH TO TALK ABOUT OMG. Thx to Brandon Payton-Carrillo as always for that theme music.
Wherein we are joined by Emma Caterine, 2L at CUNY School of Law, to discuss bankruptcy and gender discrimination in her article "A Fresh Start for a Women's Economy," as well as Kurt Eichenwald's hentai collection, and more on the experience of navigating law school while Marxist. https://twitter.com/EmmaCaterine https://habeasquaestus.com/2016/04/30/for-trans-women-considering-law-school/ https://emmacaterine.com