June 2018
COULD THE UNITED STATES EVER GO BANKRUPT?
Moderated by Warren Olney, Host, KCRW’s “To the Point” At $20 trillion, the national debt of the United States is already bigger than the American economy, and rising fast because of $1 trillion annual budget deficits. Political brinksmanship around government shutdowns and extending the country’s debt ceiling has greatly raised the risk of default. So what would happen if the U.S. actually went off the fiscal cliff, and was unable to pay its debts? To answer that question, we have…
Find out more »July 2018
Does Environmentalism Need to Make Peace with Capitalism?
Moderated by Warren Olney, Host, KCRW’s “To the Point” As they confront pollution and climate change, environmentalists have had to grapple with the demands of capitalism. Some see markets and corporations as obstacles to saving the planet, while others seek to weaken the capitalist system through government regulation, litigation, and appeals to the public to limit consumption. But so far, curbs on capitalism have had limited success in mitigating climate change, or producing transformational reversals of environmental damage. How can…
Find out more »September 2018
What Can Termites Teach Us About the Future of Technology?
Parents dress their children in bee costumes, and the ant has its own Hollywood movie franchise. But the lowly termite has long been best known for causing billions in annual property damages. That might now be changing. Around the world, as scientists try to figure out biology’s underlying rules and harness them to solve problems, they are looking to termites—and their guts, full of rare microorganisms—for guidance on how to transform the way we design new technologies. Can termites show…
Find out more »April 2019
Is America Ready for the Next Recession?
Moderated by Erica E. Phillips, Managing Editor, Los Angeles Business Journal “Economists have predicted nine out of the last five recessions,” Nobel-winning economist Paul Samuelson famously joked. But recessions do eventually arrive, and when the next one hits, the United States may not be well-positioned to fight back. Instead of building up surpluses that could stimulate the economy in a downturn, the federal government has cut taxes and run up trillion-dollar annual deficits and a $21 trillion national debt. The Federal Reserve is still…
Find out more »October 2019
Battling the Climate Crisis
Could 90,000 new trees help clean our toxic skies? Or tougher laws? Find out Tuesday, October 1, when Rachel Malarich, LA’s new City Forest Officer; Hilary Firestone, Senior Policy Advisor, Climate & Clean Energy Program, NRDC; and Wolfgang Busch, Associate Professor, Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, join KCRW’s Frances Anderton for a conversation about combatting LA’s dirty air. It takes place on the eve of California Clean Air Day at Gensler’s DTLA office. The LA-Long Beach metropolitan area has been ranked worst in the nation…
Find out more »How Are Immigrants Changing the Way Health Care Is Practiced?
No sector in the state of California relies more on immigrants than health care. One-quarter of the health workforce—from nurses to pharmacists to home health aides—and nearly one-third of all doctors and surgeons are foreign-born. And, according to some studies, patients of foreign-trained health providers actually do better than patients who rely on native-born Americans. How have immigrants working in health care changed the standards and culture of our hospitals and clinics? Do cardiologists from India handle patients with high…
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