Sam sits down with historian Christopher W. Shaw, to discuss his recent book First Class: The U.S. Postal Service, Democracy, and the Corporate Threat, on the rise of one of the most popular public services, and its precarious state in an era of privatization. They begin in the 18th century, with the beginnings of the postal […]

Sam hosts historian and policy analyst Christopher Shaw (@chris_w_shaw) to discuss his new book Money, Power, and the People: The American Struggle to Make Banking Democratic on how early 20th century finance shaped politics and grassroots mobilization. On today’s show: The Progressive era as a response to the (first) Gilded Age. The role the labor movement played in […]

Mehrsa Baradaran a Professor at the University of Georgia Law School and author of the new book How the Other Half Banks: Exclusion, Exploitation, and the Threat to Democracy explains the history of the banking sector in America and the split between Hamilton and Jefferson. (11:50) -The change in banking beginning in the early 1980’s. Community banks […]

Journalist David Dayen explains how the Post Office could offer financial services, how the poor are exploited by predatory lenders and service providers, why the Post Office is a perfect place to provide basic financial services, how banking could save the artificial postal crisis imposed by Congress, how the Post Office could offer financial services […]