Myths That Built Trickle-Down Economics: Productivity Doesn’t Trickle Down (with Preston Mui)

The Good Life Economy (with Elizabeth Wilkins)

What is the economy for — GDP, corporate profits, or people? This week, Nick and Goldy talk with Elizabeth Wilkins, President and CEO of the Roosevelt Institute, about Roosevelt’s new Good Life Agenda and why so many old assumptions about markets, government, and growth are suddenly up for grabs. It’s a conversation about human flourishing, public power, and what democracy has to deliver if people are going to believe in it again. Elizabeth Wilkins is the President and CEO of the Roosevelt Institute.She previously served as Chief of Staff to the Chair and Director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission. She has also held senior roles in the White House and the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, clerked for Justice Elena Kagan and then-Judge Merrick Garland. She began her career as a labor organizer with SEIU 32BJ. She is one of the authors of Roosevelt’s new report, The Good Life: An Agenda for Fuller Lives, a Stronger Economy, and Renewed Trust [https://rooseveltinstitute.org/publications/the-good-life-agenda/]. Social Media: @elizabethwwilkins.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/elizabethwwilkins.bsky.social] @ewwilkins [https://x.com/ewwilkins] Further reading:  The Good Life: An Agenda for Fuller Lives, a Stronger Economy, and Renewed Trust [https://rooseveltinstitute.org/publications/the-good-life-agenda/]. Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com [http://pitchforkeconomics.com/] Facebook: Pitchfork Economics Podcast [https://www.facebook.com/pitchforkeconomics] Bluesky: @pitchforkeconomics.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/pitchforkeconomics.bsky.social] Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics [https://www.instagram.com/pitchforkeconomics/?hl=en] Threads: pitchforkeconomics [https://www.threads.net/@pitchforkeconomics] TikTok: @pitchfork_econ [https://www.tiktok.com/@pitchfork_econ] YouTube: @pitchforkeconomics [https://www.youtube.com/@pitchforkeconomics] LinkedIn: Pitchfork Economics [https://www.linkedin.com/company/pitchfork-economics/] Twitter: @PitchforkEcon [https://twitter.com/PitchforkEcon], @NickHanauer [https://twitter.com/nickhanauer?lang=en] Substack: The Pitch [https://civicventures.substack.com/]

Myths That Built Trickle-Down Economics: Productivity Doesn’t Trickle Down (with Preston Mui)

Some of the world’s richest executives are selling AI as the engine of a yet-to-be realized “historic” productivity boom — while warning that it will also eliminate millions of jobs. But if workers absorb the disruption while the gains flow upward, that isn’t shared prosperity. It’s trickle-down economics with better software. In the final installment of Myths That Built Trickle-Down Economics archive miniseries, we’re returning to Nick and Goldy’s conversation with economist Preston Mui about why productivity is a policy choice. Mui explains how full employment, sustained public investment, resilient supply chains, and affordable essentials create the conditions for workers and businesses to produce more value. Technology may help us build a more productive economy. Policy will determine who benefits from it. This episode originally aired April 2, 2024 [https://pitchforkeconomics.com/episode/productivity-is-a-policy-choice-with-preston-mui/].  Preston Mui is a senior economist at Employ America specializing in macroeconomics, labor economics, productivity, and Federal Reserve policy. Social Media: @prestonmui.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/prestonmui.bsky.social] @PrestonMui [https://x.com/PrestonMui] Further reading:  Post-ECI note: The Supply-side May Spoil Warsh's Productivity Story [https://www.employamerica.org/productivity-analysis/post-eci-note-the-supply-side-may-spoil-warshs-productivity-story/] The Dream of the 90s is Slipping Away in 2025 [https://www.employamerica.org/productivity-analysis/the-dream-of-the-90s-is-slipping-away-in-2025/] Early Estimates of the Impact of AI [https://www.bea.gov/sites/default/files/papers/BEA-WP2026-3.pdf] Within BEA’s Industry Economic Accounts [https://www.bea.gov/sites/default/files/papers/BEA-WP2026-3.pdf] Our Mission In An Age Of Turbulence: Creating A New Economic Policy Toolkit [https://www.employamerica.org/expanding-the-toolkit/our-mission-in-an-age-of-turbulence-creating-a-new-economic-policy-toolkit/] Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com [http://pitchforkeconomics.com/] Facebook: Pitchfork Economics Podcast [https://www.facebook.com/pitchforkeconomics] Bluesky: @pitchforkeconomics.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/pitchforkeconomics.bsky.social] Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics [https://www.instagram.com/pitchforkeconomics/?hl=en] Threads: pitchforkeconomics [https://www.threads.net/@pitchforkeconomics] TikTok: @pitchfork_econ [https://www.tiktok.com/@pitchfork_econ] YouTube: @pitchforkeconomics [https://www.youtube.com/@pitchforkeconomics] LinkedIn: Pitchfork Economics [https://www.linkedin.com/company/pitchfork-economics/] Twitter: @PitchforkEcon [https://twitter.com/PitchforkEcon], @NickHanauer [https://twitter.com/nickhanauer?lang=en] Substack: The Pitch [https://civicventures.substack.com/]

Myths That Built Trickle-Down Economics: Austerity Politics (with Clara Mattei)

This week, we’re continuing our archive miniseries, Myths That Built Trickle-Down Economics, with the myth that austerity is responsible economic policy. We’re revisiting this conversation now because the austerity playbook is still very much alive. The Trump administration and DOGE have cut federal agencies, pushed out public servants, and treated public infrastructure like waste — even though those are the systems we need most during a crisis. And if the economy turns downward, politicians will almost certainly reach for the same old answer: slash public support, make working people pay the price, and call it responsibility. Nick and Goldy talk with professor and political economist Clara Mattei, author of The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism [https://bookshop.org/a/101360/9780226836744], about how austerity became one of the most powerful myths of modern capitalism, how economists helped sell it as common sense, and why it has always been about more than budgets. Clara Mattei is a professor of economics at the University of Tulsa, Founding President of FREE: Forum for Real Economic Emancipation, and author of The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism [https://bookshop.org/a/101360/9780226836744] and Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention. [https://bookshop.org/a/101360/9781668085141] This episode originally aired on December 12, 2023 [https://pitchforkeconomics.com/episode/how-economists-invented-austerity-and-paved-the-way-to-fascism-with-clara-mattei/].  Social Media: @claraemattei [https://x.com/claraemattei] Further reading:  The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism [https://bookshop.org/a/101360/9780226836744] U.S. Treasury: The U.S. Economic Recovery in International Context [https://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/the-us-economic-recovery-in-international-context-2023] CBPP: Robust COVID Relief Bolstered Economy and Reduced Hardship for Millions [https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/robust-covid-relief-bolstered-economy-and-reduced-hardship-for] GAO: Federal Agency Workforce Changes [https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-26-108583] Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com [http://pitchforkeconomics.com/] Facebook: Pitchfork Economics Podcast [https://www.facebook.com/pitchforkeconomics] Bluesky: @pitchforkeconomics.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/pitchforkeconomics.bsky.social] Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics [https://www.instagram.com/pitchforkeconomics/?hl=en] Threads: pitchforkeconomics [https://www.threads.net/@pitchforkeconomics] TikTok: @pitchfork_econ [https://www.tiktok.com/@pitchfork_econ] YouTube: @pitchforkeconomics [https://www.youtube.com/@pitchforkeconomics] LinkedIn: Pitchfork Economics [https://www.linkedin.com/company/pitchfork-economics/] Twitter: @PitchforkEcon [https://twitter.com/PitchforkEcon], @NickHanauer [https://twitter.com/nickhanauer?lang=en] Substack: The Pitch [https://civicventures.substack.com/]

Myths That Built Trickle-Down Economics: Zombie Economics (with Paul Krugman)

This week, we’re continuing our archive miniseries, Myths That Built Trickle-Down Economics, with the myth that bad economic ideas die once the evidence proves them wrong. They don’t. They come back as zombie ideas: tax cuts for the rich sold as growth policy, safety-net cuts sold as responsibility, and market fundamentalism sold as common sense. These ideas have failed again and again, but they keep returning because they still serve the people and institutions with the most power. In this episode, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman joins Nick and Goldy to explain why zombie economics refuses to die, how bad assumptions infected mainstream economic thinking, and why defeating trickle-down economics requires more than better evidence — it requires naming the myths that keep shaping our politics. This episode originally aired on March 31, 2020 [https://pitchforkeconomics.com/episode/killing-zombie-ideas-with-paul-krugman/]. Paul Krugman is a Nobel Prize-winning economist, professor, author, and former New York Times columnist. His book Arguing with Zombies: Economics, Politics, and the Fight for a Better Future [https://bookshop.org/a/101360/9780393541328] examines the failed economic ideas that continue to dominate American policy debates. Social Media: @pkrugman.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/pkrugman.bsky.social] Paul Krugman on Substack [https://paulkrugman.substack.com/] Further reading:  Arguing with Zombies: Economics, Politics, and the Fight for a Better Future [https://bookshop.org/a/101360/9780393541328] CBO: Estimated Distributional Effects of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act [https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61367] KFF: Tracking Implementation of the 2025 Reconciliation Law: Medicaid Work Requirements [https://www.kff.org/medicaid/medicaid-work-requirements-tracker-overview/] CBPP: The 2017 Trump Tax Law Was Skewed to the Rich, Expensive, and Failed to Deliver [https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/the-2017-trump-tax-law-was-skewed-to-the-rich-expensive-and-failed-to-deliver] EPI: Setting High Standards for a Federal Minimum Wage [https://www.epi.org/publication/setting-high-standards-for-a-federal-minimum-wage-raising-the-wage-to-two-thirds-of-the-national-median-wage-would-lift-pay-for-nearly-40-million-workers/] Tax Foundation: Who Pays Tariffs? Americans Will Bear the Costs of Tariffs [https://taxfoundation.org/blog/who-pays-tariffs/] Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com [http://pitchforkeconomics.com/] Facebook: Pitchfork Economics Podcast [https://www.facebook.com/pitchforkeconomics] Bluesky: @pitchforkeconomics.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/pitchforkeconomics.bsky.social] Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics [https://www.instagram.com/pitchforkeconomics/?hl=en] Threads: pitchforkeconomics [https://www.threads.net/@pitchforkeconomics] TikTok: @pitchfork_econ [https://www.tiktok.com/@pitchfork_econ] YouTube: @pitchforkeconomics [https://www.youtube.com/@pitchforkeconomics] LinkedIn: Pitchfork Economics [https://www.linkedin.com/company/pitchfork-economics/] Twitter: @PitchforkEcon [https://twitter.com/PitchforkEcon], @NickHanauer [https://twitter.com/nickhanauer?lang=en] Substack: The Pitch [https://civicventures.substack.com/]

Myths That Built Trickle-Down Economics: Shareholder Value (with William Lazonick and Lenore Palladino)

This week, we’re continuing our archive miniseries, Myths That Built Trickle-Down Economics, with the myth that corporations exist to maximize shareholder value. For decades, Americans were sold the idea that if corporations focused on boosting stock prices and rewarding shareholders, prosperity would trickle down to workers, consumers, and communities. Instead, shareholder primacy helped justify stock buybacks, wage suppression, layoffs, and underinvestment — extracting wealth from the real economy and funneling it upward. In this episode, Nick and Goldy talk with William Lazonick and Lenore Palladino about how shareholder value became one of the core myths of trickle-down economics, why it has caused so much damage, and what it would mean to build corporations around workers, consumers, communities, and long-term prosperity instead. This episode originally aired on February 19, 2019. [https://pitchforkeconomics.com/episode/what-is-the-purpose-of-a-corporation/] Lenore Palladino is associate professor of economics and public policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, and author of Good Company: Economic Policy After Shareholder Primacy. [https://bookshop.org/a/101360/9780226836508] William Lazonick is professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and co-founder and president of the Academic-Industry Research Network. Social Media: @lenorepalladino.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/lenorepalladino.bsky.social] @Lazonick [https://x.com/Lazonick] Further reading:  Good Company: Economic Policy After Shareholder Primacy [https://bookshop.org/a/101360/9780226836508] Washington Center for Equitable Growth - To restore democracy, end shareholder primacy at U.S. corporations and on Wall Street  [https://equitablegrowth.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/To-restore-democracy-end-shareholder-primacy-at-U.S.-corporations-and-on-Wall-Street.pdf] Roosevelt Institute - Regulating Stock Buybacks: The $6.3 Trillion Question [https://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/RI_Stock-Buybacks_Working-Paper_202105.pdf] Roosevelt Institute - Ending Shareholder Primacy in Corporate Governance [https://rooseveltinstitute.org/publications/ending-shareholder-primacy-in-corporate-governance/] Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com [http://pitchforkeconomics.com/] Facebook: Pitchfork Economics Podcast [https://www.facebook.com/pitchforkeconomics] Bluesky: @pitchforkeconomics.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/pitchforkeconomics.bsky.social] Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics [https://www.instagram.com/pitchforkeconomics/?hl=en] Threads: pitchforkeconomics [https://www.threads.net/@pitchforkeconomics] TikTok: @pitchfork_econ [https://www.tiktok.com/@pitchfork_econ] YouTube: @pitchforkeconomics [https://www.youtube.com/@pitchforkeconomics] LinkedIn: Pitchfork Economics [https://www.linkedin.com/company/pitchfork-economics/] Twitter: @PitchforkEcon [https://twitter.com/PitchforkEcon], @NickHanauer [https://twitter.com/nickhanauer?lang=en] Substack: The Pitch [https://civicventures.substack.com/]