Episode

7/29 The Profit Seekers Between Government and The People w/ Anne Kim

July 29, 2024

Happy Monday! Sam and Emma speak with Anne Kim, contributing editor at Washington Monthly magazine, to discuss her recent book Poverty For Profit: How Corporations Get Rich off America’s Poor. First, Sam and Emma run through updates on Trump-Harris polling, the fight over Harris’ platform, continuing Israeli escalation in the Middle East, Russia’s offensive, Iowa’s abortion ban, Venezuela’s election, environmental crisis, and the passing of Lewis Lapham, before parsing a little deeper through the GOP’s panic over Trump’s VP Flub with JD Vance. Anne Kim then joins, diving right into the role of one Emanuel Savas in publishing and popularizing the drive to privatize government services in their totality, pushing the budding neoliberal belief in the efficiency of the market, and successfully pushing his ideology all the way to the White House with the election of Ronald Reagan, before stepping back to look at what these social services entail – everything from prison to air traffic to healthcare – and how much of the US economy they make up. Expanding on this, Kim explores how the privatization of these social services aimed at impoverished communities results in astounding failures on the supply side, using examples from earned income tax credits, job training and the Job Corps, Medicaid/Medicare and Dialysis, and Section 8 Housing to demonstrate how the privatization of these services allows for easy capture of the market by for-profit providers, and results in exploitative institutions that push bad products onto people with little to no other choice. After tackling some of the more devastating material impacts of these failures of neoliberalism, Kim, Sam, and Emma wrap up by tackling the major ideological shift that is needed in US politics to rethink how and why we provide social services.

And in the Fun Half: Sam and Emma unpack Israel’s continuing war crimes in Gaza, shifting rhetoric on Israel in the West, and Jimmy Dore’s insane take on why Trump is the true pro-Palestine candidate. They also dive deep into Biden’s new plan to reform the Supreme Court, and the GOP’s continuing struggle not to be obvious bigots about Kamala Harris. Barstool and Babylon Bee beef over JD Vance, enthusiasm for Harris is rising, plus, your calls and IMs!

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