December 12 – A Swedish Diplomat on Ukraine’s Kleptocratic President; Cronyism in the Fire Sale of the Post Office; An Economic Analysis of Cutting Unemployment Benefits

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.