According to a report by Moody’s Analytics, nearly two dollars out of every ten that came into Americans’ wallets last year were payments like jobless benefits, food stamps, social security and disability. So what happens when state and federal benefits run out later this year? Economist and radio host Richard Wolff explains.  

This summer (2011) the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Department of Economics (www.umass.edu/economics) will offer, for the first time, an online course in Marxian Economics (Econ 305). Professor Stephen Resnick will teach this course which he prepared based on the popular undergraduate course in Marxian Economics that was developed by Professor Resnick together with Professor Richard Wolff and taught by both of them over the last 25 years.

For tonight's "Conversations with Great Minds" Thom Hartmann is joined by an economist Richard Wolff whose many books and more than four decades of teaching have focused on Marxian economics, economic methodology and class analysis. He is professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts - Amherst and is currently a visiting professor in the Graduate Program of International Affairs at the New School University in New York City. His latest book is Capitalism Hits the Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What to Do About It.

The details of the compromise that finally kept the government open and made deep cuts to the federal budget for fiscal year 2011 are finally beginning to emerge--and they're not pretty. Millions and even billions from education, labor, the EPA--all for what economist Richard Wolff says is a negligible impact on the actual deficit.