Podcasts about runaway inequality

This week Howie is joined by author and labor historian Les Leopold for a discussion about the potential for an independent, working class party.Resources Shared on the StreamThe Labor Institute, https://www.thelaborinstitute.org/Runaway Inequality, https://runawayinequality.orgLes Leopold, "The Committee of One Million: A Petition to Support a Party of Working People,” Common Dreams, February 27, 2025, https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/petition-for-party-of-working-people​​Les Leopold, The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor: The Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2006).Les Leopold, Wall Street's War on Workers: How Mass Layoffs and Greed Are Destroying the Working Class and What to Do About It (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2024).Streamed on 5/10/25Watch the video at: https://youtube.com/live/4dtdzkMj254Green Socialist Notes is a weekly livestream/podcast hosted by 2020 Green Party/Socialist Party presidential nominee, Howie Hawkins.  Started as a weekly campaign livestream in the spring of 2020, the streams have continued post elections and are now under the umbrella of the Green Socialist Organizing Project, which grew out of the 2020 presidential campaign.  Green Socialist Notes seeks to provide both an independent Green Socialist perspective, as well as link listeners up with opportunities to get involved in building a real people-powered movement in their communities.Green Socialist Notes PodcastEvery Saturday at 3:00 PM EDT on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitch.Every Monday at 7:00 AM EDT on most major podcast outlets.Music by Gumbo le FunqueIntro: She Taught UsOutro: #PowerLoveFreedom

Mass layoffs have become a routine corporate strategy—not because companies are struggling, but because Wall Street demands it. In Wall Street's War on Workers, labor educator and author Les Leopold exposes how stock buybacks, deregulation, and financialized capitalism have made job cuts a tool for enriching CEOs and hedge funds at the expense of workers and communities. He joins Nick and Goldy this week to explain how this happened, why both political parties have failed to stop it, and what we can do to fight back. Les Leopold is a labor educator, author, and co-founder of the Labor Institute, where he has spent decades advocating for economic justice and worker rights. He is the author of several books, including Runaway Inequality and Wall Street's War on Workers, which exposes how financial elites have rigged the economy in their favor. Social Media: @les_leopold Further reading:  Wall Street's War on Workers: How Mass Layoffs and Greed Are Destroying the Working Class and What to Do about It Corporate Bullsh*t: Exposing the Lies and Half-Truths That Protect Profit, Power, and Wealth in America Les Leopold's Substack Civic Ventures Produced Comic on Stock Buybacks: Trillion Dollar Heist Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Threads: pitchforkeconomics Bluesky: @pitchforkeconomics.bsky.social Twitter: @PitchforkEcon, @NickHanauer, @civicaction YouTube: @pitchforkeconomics LinkedIn: Pitchfork Economics Substack: The Pitch

On today's show, we listen in on a very timely community conversation hosted on January 14th, 2025 with the Oberlin Club of Washington, DC, focused on the question: "Why is the working-class leaving the Democratic Party?" The conversation featured remarks by Les Leopold, Executive Director of The Labor Institute, and a 1969 graduate of Oberlin College. You can watch the full event and see the slides at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThOll28AuYY In assessing the 2024 elections, many voters are asking: has the working-class abandoned the Democratic Party? If so, why? What does that tell us about the views of working people and what does that suggest about the Party and its future? There are two major theories to account for the extensive working-class shift to the Republicans since 1996. One argument rooted in social issues is that working-class resentment against women, immigrants, LBGTQ+ communities and other ""woke"" concerns has resulted in an embrace of right-wing candidates whose supporters Hillary Clinton once termed "a basket of deplorables". The other theory is that economic issues like job insecurity, stagnant wages and declining prospects for the future have pushed workers away from the Democrats. What does the data reveal? Les Leopold offers an assessment based on findings in his latest book "Wall Street's War on Workers: How Mass Layoffs and Greed Are Destroying the Working Class and What to Do About It." Les Leopold co-founded and currently directs The Labor Institute, a non-profit organization that designs research and educational programs on occupational safety and health, the environment and economics for unions, workers centers and community organizations. In addition to "Wall Street's War on Workers," he is the author of "Defiant German, Defiant Jew"; "Runaway Inequality"; "How to Make a Million Dollars an Hour: Why Financial Elites get away with siphoning off America's Wealth"; "The Looting of America: How Wall Street's Game of Fantasy Finance destroyed our Jobs, Pensions and Prosperity, and What We Can Do About It"; and "The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor: The Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi." Les graduated from Oberlin with a degree in Government and earned an MPA from Princeton University's School of Public and International Affairs. On Truth to Power each week, we gather people from around the community to discuss the state of the world, the nation, the state, and the city! It's a community conversation like you won't hear anywhere else! Truth to Power airs every Friday at 9pm, Saturday at 11am, and Sunday at 4pm on Louisville's grassroots, community radio station, Forward Radio 106.5fm WFMP and live streams at https://forwardradio.org

Every Wednesday at 6 PM ET, Jen Pan, Ariella Thornhill, and Paul Prescod host a new episode of The Jacobin Show, offering socialist perspectives on class and capitalism in the twenty-first century, the failures of liberalism, and the prospects of rebuilding a left labor movement in the US. This is the podcast version of the show from May 5, 2021, hosted by Jen and Paul. Do we need the internet to build a working-class movement? We discuss the perks and the pitfalls of using YouTube, Twitter, and other online platforms for socialist organizing. Later, Les Leopold, director of the Labor Institute, joins us to talk about his Runaway Inequality workshops and organizing working people around demands for economic justice. Subscribe to Jacobin for just $10: https://jacobinmag.com/subscribe/?cod... Music provided by Zonkey: https://linktr.ee/zonkey Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/jacobinmag

What has gone wrong with capitalism? It seems it has taken a wrong turn. But how? Staring at the scenes of the redundant workers leaving Lehman Brothers in 2008 – followed by all the subsequent carnage - started, for me, a decade of thinking and research and that's yet to complete -seeking Humane Economics. Like millions of other people I knew then, in my gut, that something had gone wrong. That we're working harder and longer – yet increasingly ordinary people have trouble making ends meet, and many more live in fear that their jobs could disappear at any moment. The anger over the bank bailouts was palpable. And it's not going away. My guest today is Les Leopold, his book Runaway Inequality was, for me, something of a revelation not only putting flesh onto the bones I have been discovering but giving scale to the enormity of the situation we find ourselves in post COVID. Because he not only documents, from public sources, how this inequality has been growing since the 1980s, but how that it continues to accelerate to this day – and why. He also lays bare the mechanisms that explain why the assumption that market forces will reassert balance has proved to be wrong. The mechanisms behind the accelerating inequalities that means that in that time the average CEO has moved from being able to own the equivalent of 45 homes, and his workers 1, to being able to own the equivalent of 829 – while his workers increasingly have little or no chance of own one. That last statistic – the ‘Generation Rent’ one – is the most crucial one of course! Condemning a generation to a lifetime of housing and financial insecurity, given that, due to this process of financialisaton, rents continue to level-up consuming all available income, making saving near impossible. The book explains not only why capitalism is out of balance but also will continue to accelerate inequality. Until we do something about it! You can find his book at https://runawayinequality.org/buy-the-book/  Watch the video interview at https://youtu.be/HyVUqi1sFwA  See HumaneEconomics.co for more and to join the linear-conference and network.   

Gordon Zurn, Financial Secretary for USW Local 12-591, & Les Leopold, Director of The Labor Institute and author of Runaway Inequality, Part 2 Interview by Ken Winkes: Gordon and Les discuss how to fix inequality. For more information on ‘Runaway Inequality,’ go to https://runawayinequality.org/. We Do The Work Comments: > General James Mattis sounds the alarm about Trump. > Trump is full of generosity with taxpayers’ money. #LaborRadioPod

Gordon Zurn, Financial Secretary for USW Local 12-591, & Les Leopold, Director of The Labor Institute and author of Runaway Inequality, Part 1 Interview by Ken Winkes: Gordon and Les discuss what inequality is, how it happened, and what to do about it. For more information on ‘Runaway Inequality,’ go to https://runawayinequality.org/ We Do The Work Comment: > Trump’s trade policies are a disaster for workers. #LaborRadioPod

Les Leopold, author of "Runaway Inequality," executive director of The Labor Institute discusses programs and workshops to build a coherent mass movement promoting economic, social and environmental justice.

Les Leopold, Labor Institute, author of Runaway Inequality a curriculum for a movement to bring an all-inclusive justice to working people, explores tax cuts, stock buybacks, and more, contributing to the gap between the super-rich and the rest of us.

Why do we have extreme economic inequality in the richest country in the world? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we talk to Les Leopold about his new book, […] The post A Plan to Put the Brakes on Runaway Inequality and Countering Hate without Feeding The Trolls appeared first on KKFI.

Les Leopold, "Runaway Inequality: An Activist's Guide to Economic Justice" and 3 other publications, executive director of the Labor Institute continues to discuss the "revolt against neo-liberalism" and the enormous inequality that will not just go away.

Les Leopold, author of "Runaway Inequality: An Activist's Guide to Economic Justice," presents an intriguing analysis of the 2016 Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns and interesting suggestions for future action.

Bob Herbert's Op-Ed.TV welcomes Les Leopold, Executive Director of The Labor Institute, and author of the new book "Runaway Inequality," detailing the growing issue of income inequality in the U.S.

This episode will be insightful, much needed look at economic inquality in the US. Author, Les Leopold will be on the show to talk his new book, Runaway Inequality: An Activist’s Guide to Economic Justice, Les Leopold. He will explain how the present economic system undermines the working class and poor in this country, and how in the long run it's destroying the economy. Runaway Inequality is indeed an activist handback, becuase it explains how capitalist economic system works in laymen's terms, and why there's such a huge economic gap that makes it extremely difficult for most people to reach their fullest potentional. 

Les Leopold's book "Runaway Inequality" explains how economic inequality developed, what it is doing to us-to our families and to our country, illustrating how virtually all the key issues we face, are ultimately connected to rising economic inequality.