Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Mass layoffs have become a routine corporate strategy—not because companies are struggling, but because Wall Street demands it. In Wall Street’s War on Workers, labor educator and author Les Leopold exposes how stock buybacks, deregulation, and financialized capitalism have made job cuts a tool for enriching CEOs and hedge funds at the expense of workers and communities. He joins Nick and Goldy this week to explain how this happened, why both political parties have failed to stop it, and what we can do to fight back.

Les Leopold is a labor educator, author, and co-founder of the Labor Institute, where he has spent decades advocating for economic justice and worker rights. He is the author of several books, including Runaway Inequality and Wall Street’s War on Workers, which exposes how financial elites have rigged the economy in their favor.

Social Media:

@les_leopold

Further reading:

Wall Street's War on Workers: How Mass Layoffs and Greed Are Destroying the Working Class and What to Do about It

Corporate Bullsh*t: Exposing the Lies and Half-Truths That Protect Profit, Power, and Wealth in America

Les Leopold’s Substack

Civic Ventures Produced Comic on Stock Buybacks: Trillion Dollar Heist

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