August 23 - Do Leftists Actually Like Losing?; The Little-Known $2 Billion Nuclear Accident; Investigating Trump's $650 Million Debt

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with Rutger Bregman, the author of “Utopia for Realists: The Case for a Universal Basic Income, Open Borders, and a 15-hour Workweek”. We will discuss his article at The Guardian “The Left needs fresh ideas and a new language if it is to win again” and his critique of underdog socialists who he sees as being against austerity, privatization and the establishment while it is not clear what they are for, and whether “leftists actually like losing as if the failure, doom and atrocities mainly serve to prove they were right all along while their activism is more about bolstering identity than achieving results”.

Part 2

Then following a front page story in Monday’s Los Angeles Times that investigated the consequences of a nuclear accident two years ago at W.I.P.P., the nuclear Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, we speak with Edwin Lyman, a Senior Scientist in the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists who specializes in nuclear power safety and security. We discuss the rising cost of this little-know nuclear accident that will likely cost $2 billion, more than the Three Mile Island cleanup, and the daunting problems associated with the disposal of nuclear waste from civilian power reactors and the nuclear weapons industry, that in spite of billions spent, remain largely unaddressed.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with William Cohan, the author of “Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World” and a columnist with The New York Times Dealbook section and a writer for Fortune Magazine. He joins us to discuss the New York Times investigation into Donald Trump’s finances that reveal he has at least $650 million of debt, twice the amount gleaned from public filings, and that while beating the drum on Hillary Clinton’s speaking fees from Goldman Sachs, he is in debt to Goldman Sachs for tens of millions along with the Bank of China, the state bank of a Communist country Trump regularly condemns.