Josh Bivens on Coronavirus Economics, Mandy Smithberger on Military Economics

Janine Jackson

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This week on CounterSpin: Coronavirus is above all a health story, of course. But healthcare plays out within societies, with economic structures and policies that have a lot to do with whether people get sick, and whether they get care, and where overall impacts are felt. We talk with Josh Bivens, research director at Economic Policy Institute, about what policy changes might mitigate the disruptive impact of coronavirus and better prepare us for the future.

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Also on the show: Economics may not be the most meaningful lens through which to look at US war-mongering. But Pentagon spending is a keyhole to the bigger crisis: a Defense Department that, in cahoots with military contractors, takes trillions of public dollars for endless war-making, with no meaningful check or even oversight. We talk about that with Mandy Smithberger, director of the Center for Defense Information at the Project on Government Oversight.

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Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at recent coverage of Bolivia and Michael Bloomberg.

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