Tag: economy

Background Briefing: July 13, 2022

 

What Will Biden Gain From Meetings With Middle East Leaders Who Want Trump Back?

We begin with an assessment of what Biden can gain from his trip to the Middle East by announcing a US-Israel Strategic Partnership which will not win votes from the American right or the progressive left. Then after meeting with the Saudi Crown Prince who along with Netanyahu and other Gulf leaders want Trump back, if Biden does not get MBS to pump more oil which is likely, coming home empty handed after bowing before a sociopathic punk will not help his sinking poll numbers. Joining us is Jon Hoffman, a Ph.D. candidate at George Mason University specializing in Middle East geopolitics and political Islam. His work has been featured in Middle East Policy, Open Democracy, The Cipher Brief and Foreign Policy Magazine where his latest article is “The United States Doesn’t Need to Recommit to the Middle East.”

 

Could Alarm Over Inflation Trigger a Recession?

Then with inflation numbers for the month of June at 9.1%, the worst in 40 years, we will examine whether the growing alarm over inflation will cause the Fed to trigger a recession which many economists argue is not the solution to fight inflation. Joining us is Dean Baker, senior economist and co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a progressive economic think-tank based in Washington DC. He is the author of Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer, and he writes the popular economics blog, “Beat the Press” where his latest article is “Can we have a wage price spiral with slowing wage growth?

 

Texas Officials More Concerned Over the Leak of a Video Than Holding Police to Account

Then finally, with Texas officials more concerned about the leak of a video showing police doing nothing for one hour and 22 minutes outside the schoolroom in which 19 children and 2 adults were systematically shot dead, than holding law enforcement to account for their outrageous failures, we speak with Monica Muñoz Martinez, an award-winning author, educator and public historian. She was born and raised in Uvalde, Texas and is a Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin and a founding member of the non-profit organization Refusing to Forget and is currently at work on Mapping Violence, a digital research project that recovers histories of racial violence in Texas. Her latest book is The Injustice Never Leaves You: Anti-Mexican Violence in Texas and we discuss her article at The Texas Monthly, “Leaders Blamed the Uvalde Shooting on a Mental Health Crisis. Gun Violence Is Making That Crisis Worse.”