BARRY SUSSMAN Unsung Hero of History
https://vimeo.com/804059020/0a93cadc22 Check out this link to Larry’s song about Barry Sussman the unsung hero of Watergate Give it a listen
EP 637 Should You Buy Cryptocurrency?
Cryptocurrency has been in the news recently and not in a good way. The chicanery of Sam Bankman-Fried and the FTX Exchange now stands in league with other great financial swindles, like Bernie Madoff’s. There are large questions that need to be addressed both about the economic utility of this relatively new asset class and …
EP 636 An ‘Imperial Supreme Court’ Asserts Its Power
The conventional criticism of the current make up of the U.S. Supreme Court is that it is populated by a majority of rabid right wing partisans, overturning precedents in order to achieve political objectives. And that its decisions are out of step with a majority of Americans. Our guest, Mark Lemley, Professor of Law at …
EP 635 Why Do We Have a Teacher Shortage in America? There Are Many Reasons
The American public education system, K-12, is plagued with problems at this moment. On the heels of a pandemic that turned teaching from one of the most impactful, personal professions into one in which remote exchanges were dominant, this just begins to scratch the surface. We find an inability to recruit enough qualified college graduates …
EP 634 Architect Whose Firm Designed New Sandy Hook Elementary School Describes Changes
While the community’s shock over what happened in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School can never be erased, the new school built nearby is meant to refocus thoughts to the future and designed to make it less susceptible to anything like it ever happening again. There is no way to harden a school beyond the …
EP 633 The Federal Debt: A Problem With No Easy Answers
Some Congressional leaders say that all we have to do to get control of our raging national debt is to cut out waste, fraud and abuse. Scour the voluminous federal budget and you will not find line items with those designations. Were it so easy. Mind you we’re over $31 trillion in the hole now …
EP 632 Mental Health Care in the Spotlight as Need Grows
It was only a few years ago when mention of mental health concerns was done in whispered tones. Today, perhaps owing to the pandemic and its after effects, people openly share their anxiety, sleeplessness and other manifestations of mental anguish in these uncertain times. All this has been exacerbated by economic and political worries. Chuck …
EP 631 Do We Really Consider Frontline Workers as “Essential”?
We put up signs and cheered and serenaded from rooftops and labelled “heroes,” healthcare workers, teachers, grocery clerks. delivery drivers, food processors, and we gave them a new label “essential”, when the COVID-19 pandemic swept across America. Before this event, we had spent the better part of forty years ignoring the worsening plight of working …
EP 630 Can You Trust China to Tell You How Well Its Economy is Really Doing?
When we read about China’s miracle economy, in large part, it is a myth. Politics, Communist style, trumps economics and the growth numbers you see heralding its economic output are likely unrealiable, partial or distorted for political purposes. Private business ownership as we know it does not exist there. The banks and major industries are …
EP 629 Free Speech First Amendment Right Is Not Absolute
The First Amendment and freedom of speech allow us to say what we want, but: we can’t yell “fire!” in a crowded theater; we can’t incite a riot; and since the nation’s founding, there have always been some types of political and obscene speech that could send you to jail. Professor Dennis Baron’s timely new …