Charles Gaba & Elections!

29 February 2016 – This week, we talked Iranian, Irish, and Scottish elections. I discussed Labour’s demise in Scotland, and talked about how they’ve never recovered from the death of Donald Dewar. It looks as if Labour is heading for yet another defeat in the upcoming Holyrood elections.

Arliss went over some banking terms (I know! What could possibly be more exciting?) because the jargon of the financial industry is a language of obfuscation. In order for us to understand what the heck these people are talking about, we need to learn what is essentially a separate language. That’s by design. If nobody can understand the words Banksters use to describe what they’re doing, then nobody can legislate against them. This is the first of a multi-part series which will get deeply into the weeds of banking reform.

Following that, we had a fantastic conversation with Charles Gaba (aka Brainwrap) of acasignups.net, who talked about the massive entity that is the US healthcare system and some of the options available for healthcare reform. He explained to us how even minor changes in theory become sweeping changes in practice, and we discussed in detail how Marco Rubio and the GOP killed even the modest Co-Op non-profit options that we sought to create when the Public Option was blocked.

Thanks for listening, everyone, and we’ll see you next time!

–Will

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DeRay Mckesson, GDP, Puerto Rico and Umberto Eco

22 February 2016 – This week Will and I ended up with so much to say that we did the whole show ourselves. I open with an update on the economic crisis in Puerto Rico and I follow that with a quick take on economic canaries, Maersk and CSX.

Will follows me with news about the terrific campaign of DeRay Mckesson in the mayoral race in Baltimore. DeRay has released spectacular position papers and proposals and is running the kind of campaign which deserves to draw support from progressives across the nation.

I’m up next with answers to listener questions relating to the article, “It’s Not About the Debt,” by Chad Stone. I get into some detail about why using debt-to-GDP ratio as a metric  makes no logical sense. As part of my explanation I draw from the excellent Levy Economics Institute Working Paper (Number 603), “Does Excessive Sovereign Debt Really Hurt Growth? A Critique of This Time It’s Different, by Reinhart and Rogoff.”

We also mark the passing of the gifted author and thinker, Umberto Eco. Both Will and I have been deeply impressed by his works and given the bent of the current US elections many of Eco’s literary themes seem inordinately timely.

In Extra Mad I venture out into the weeds of GDP; what it is, what it isn’t, what’s wrong with it and the various options. If you listen to the podcast version of the show I’m betting you will be surprised by relevancy of this topic.

We do have new interstitial music this week from Bua, the great traditional Irish band. Check out their website and support their music. Traditional music artists have an especially challenging road and artists as fluent and musically astute as Bua are rare.Bua Cover

 

As always, Hopping Mad is available here as a download as well as on Stitcher and iTunes. We are on Twitter and Facebook as IMHoppingMad. We LOVE receiving your feedback, questions and corrections. Spring is coming! – Carrots! Arliss

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2016 Politics with Jesse LaGreca

8 February 2016 – I love political detail. The nitty gritty, pixel level parts that combine to render something one can only see fully by stepping back. Jesse LaGreca (@JesseLaGreca on Twitter and MinistryOfTruth on Daily Kos) gave us some excellent, granular information on the seats most likely to help Democrats to flip the Senate. He also got into gerrymandering, the GOP Presidential nominees and why running away from Obama and the word “liberal” doesn’t fly with the Democratic Party base.

Will reminded us that Trayvon Martin would have turned 21 this week. Will also gave a nod to the Sanders campaign for policing their Reddit and banning attacks on Hillary. Will then goes on to compare the Scottish YES campaign to the current Sanders campaign. (“You say you want a revolution….”)

I start out the show with an update on the rapid changes coming for the Iranian economy and the real challenges faced by Iranian banks. Later in the show I try to answer listener Peter’s questions about how to talk about deficits and taxes.

We love hearing from you here and via Twitter @IMHoppingMad. You can always catch our podcasts on Stitcher and iTunes or download there here.  – Carrots! Arliss

[Note:  if you are interested in the behind the lettuce leaf scoop about why we have not been on the air consistently since mid-December, check out the previous blog post. We should be much more steady for the foreseeable future.]

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MIA or Behind the Lettuce Leaf

7 February 2016 – We have not been producing shows steadily lately and I thought I should let you know why. Basically, it’s my fault. As I have mentioned several times on the show, I own a manufacturing company. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas we work flat out and beyond the holiday crunch it is also the end of the year and I have a number of responsibilities in terms of closing our our fiscal year. That being said, by the time my husband and I crawl our way to Christmas Eve, we are beyond exhausted. This year I had the clever idea of planning a vacation, which spanned from just before Christmas to after New Years, to an island with minimal internet. [When I say “minimal” I mean I have to buy lunch in a small restaurant and use the only decent internet on the island to get anything at all. They have incredible fish tacos but don’t look kindly on me taking up a table for an extended period of time. Also, of course, I can’t record a show there.] Further complicating matters, cell coverage essentially involves wearing a tin foil hat and praying to the Gods of cell towers. For me one of the very best things about this island is that it’s hard to reach me when I’m there. Obviously, for the show, this was not quite so advantageous.

Further complicating all that is that fact that my company attends a huge trade show every January. I go and shake hands with hundreds of people from, literally, all over the planet. They, in turn, have also been doing the same. Basically, between working hard at very high energy levels throughout the show and the inevitable virus’ which get passed around, I get sick. Every. Single. Year. Honestly, it gets old. This year I got something which completely destroyed my voice. I’ve had it for more than two weeks now. Last week I had no voice at all and, as you can hear on the 8 February podcast, this week my voice is still marginal. Fortunately, Will was able to get the awesome Landon Shroder to step in at the last minute and help him out last week so that there would be a show. Obviously, we need to get better at having contingency plans.

So now you know. – Carrots to you and yours! Arliss

Special Edition: Middle East Roundup with Landon Shroder

1 February 2016 – Arliss is ill this weekend, and yet another victim of what’s being called “Hell Plague 2016.” Having no voice, she was unable to join us this week.

Landon Shroder and I spent the hour discussing candidates positions, the Iranian perspective, and what comes after ISIS. We talked about ISIS’ own propaganda, and what we’re doing to counteract it.

Landon has a few articles you can read on the topic over at the fair observer, as well as a piece he penned for Vice.

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Space and Economics

18 January 2016 – This week, Will discussed the space industry in the UK, and why the new UK Space Agency should put their base in Scotland, while Arliss explained just what’s going on with the global economy. There’s the pegging of currency, the price of oil, Iran stepping into the global marketplace as sanctions are removed, and just much too much to talk about. But she managed anyway. We had to things a bit different, though, and devoted more time to Arliss’ block instead of having our usual interview section.

Unfortunately, other responsibilities mean that we’ll be off next week, but we’ll be back on February First.

Cheers all! – Will
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Jim Crow Never Died

11 January 2016 – Ever since the Black Lives Matter hashtag rose to prominence I have found myself on a steep learning curve. Our guest for this show is Dr. Lawrence Brown an Assistant Professor at Baltimore’s  Morgan State University School of Community Health and Policy. Dr. Brown is a rising national voice spreading the word that Jim Crow never died and the kind of hyper-segregation seen in Black communities, like that in Baltimore, has shocking and far reaching public health and societal consequences far more pervasive than are initially apparent. Dr. Brown clearly conveys the implications of policies, both historical and current, which have been imposed on Black communities.

In doing my pre-show research I read many of Dr. Brown’s articles but the one that really knocked me back is one I recommend that you read as well. Down to the Wire: Displacement and Disinvestment in Baltimore City encapsulates many of Dr. Brown’s points and should be required reading for everyone seeking greater understanding of the underlying causes behind the current racial crisis. Really. Read it. This is what you will be talking about for a long time after you make the investment.

We open the show with Will talking about polls in the Democratic race and I try to put the precipitous drop in the Chinese stock market (and ours) into perspective. Then Will goes on to talk about policing as it relates to terrorism and I get deeper into the way money flows through the US economy.

It’s good to be back! Carrots! – Arliss

On another note, three polls were published AFTER we recorded this, putting Bernie neck-and-neck with Hillary in Iowa. So my analysis in the first five needs amendment. All polls in Iowa now put Clinton and Sanders within the margin of error of each other, so it’s anyone’s guess. It just goes to show you how fast things can change. I’m excited to see what happens next, and I’m looking forward to the general election. – Will

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Roundtable of Podcasters

14 December 2015 – We were so fortunate this week. Instead of our usual show, we decided to invite some other lefty podcasters to join us and we just opened it cup for a free-range discussion. JM Bell, of The LEFT Show, was with us from Utah along with Travis Rosen and Rachel Hutcheson, from Irreverent Testimony. The LEFT Show and Irreverent Testimony are both podcasts I never miss and are wildly different from one another. Please check them out as they are examples of smart, well-informed and funny people doing good work.

Many Hoppy Carrots of the Season! – Arliss

Modern Policing, Climate Change & More on Taxes

7 December 2015 – We are back with an all new show including a first-rate interview with Police Chief David Hewitt. For eleven years Chief Hewitt has been running a small town, Midwest department which is known for its considered approach to law enforcement. His thinking on social justice, the militarization of policing, use of force and the pressures being placed on law enforcement to fill gaps which are not being met at the source are all well worth hearing. Listen to him saying “You can’t arrest your way to” a solution. If he could tell all departments across the nation one thing he said, “You can’t take that bullet back.” Every department is not Chicago or Ferguson. It’s important to hear from a Chief who thinks deeply about the challenges and solutions in modern policing.

Will reassures us that Turkey and Russia are very unlikely to go to war no matter what all the various talking heads are saying. These are nations which do not now and have not ever had an alignment of purpose but it is not in their interest to battle one another at this time. In his longer segment Will tries to make climate change more real to us all be describing what is happening in Florida already.

I continue on the subject of taxes. Though I usually pull from many sources while I cover a topic, this time I lifted virtually my entire presentation from one given by Dr. Stephanie Kelton (now the Chief Economist for the Minority, Senate Budget Committee). If you have time you can view her entire presentation here. I promise that it is an hour well spent. At the beginning of the show I briefly update the decision by the International Monetary Fund to include the Chinese renminbi as part of the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) currency basket. Since that will be entirely unintelligible to most people (and with good reason) I refer you back to a segment I did on The After Show on 6 August 2015. (My segment begins about half way through the show.) There I explain SDR, the basket and China’s desire for inclusion.

To all those who have been communicating with us via a variety of channels, we LOVE hearing from you. You push us and for that we are grateful. An extra big helping of thanks goes out to Peter who always listens so closely and asks wonderful questions. It will take me a few weeks to get through them all but I’m on it!

Carrots! – Arliss

 

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ISIS, Taxes & Strategy

23 November 2015 – The news just doesn’t ever seem to get any easier to watch, does it?  With the horror of terrorism and the insanity of our nation quaking in fear at the prospect of extending our hearts to the very people who have fled the terrorists we so despise, it has been a long week. So much for that whole “…home of the brave…” thing, right!  Maybe it’s just me but I do find it helps me to be able to cope when I can put it all into political, historical, economic and religious context. Middle East expert Landon Shroder (@LandonShroder on Twitter) is back again this week to help us with that. The on-air interview is just the beginning. There is more than an hour of additional insight in the Extra Mad (extended) podcast version. Having lived in Iraq for a number of years, Landon has lived with this war and his personal experience and expertise is exceptional.

This week, as promised, I am talking about taxes – how they work, what they can do and what they really, truly, factually do not do. I should provide a warning however. If you are into drinking games, please do not take a drink every time I say “drive” or some version thereof. I’ve had alcohol poisoning and the combination of the hospital bill and embarrassment are absolutely not worth it.

This week Will talked about how our enemies strategize to exploit our weaknesses and failures to hurt us. He began by highlighting the history of the British Empire’s maneuvering over slavery, first banning it, then later providing the Confederacy with warships. Will evidenced this as an example of long-game diplomacy. Then he compared that to how DAESH/ISIS/ISIL is doing the same thing when it comes to exploiting the poverty and racism which have harmed working class Muslims in France for decades.

At the top of the show I touch on the recently released Global Terrorism Index and Will covers the latest from…wait for it…Scotland. I know. Just when you thought you were out he pulled you back in – or something like that. (LOL.) We all know that Will’s heart is in Scotland and he watches developments there very closely but, frankly, the politics in Scotland and the UK really have been fascinating, especially these past two years, and I’m glad to have Will to keep me up to date on all the goings-on.

Due to the Thanksgiving holiday we will not be recording a show next week. We will be back bright eyed and fluffy tailed on Monday, 7 December. Carrots & Yams! – Arliss