This article originally appeared on on Truthout's website

This crisis is not going away. Officially begun late in 2007, nearly five years later, no end is in sight. Trillions in government-funded bailouts and interventions failed to do the trick. The private sector's hyped resilience disappeared. "Recoveries" proved weak, uneven and short-lived. The president who rode the crisis into power risks being ridden out by its persistence.

Whatever electoral calculations drove Mitt Romney to choose Paul Ryan as his vice-presidential running mate, the choice also has a deeper meaning.

The economic crisis of the past five years has caused a lot of people around the world to question the very foundations of our system -- is capitalism really the best way to do things? One of the biggest problems, though, is that there seems to be no other way to run an economy. Communism has been discredited—the Soviet Union failed, and China has moved to a strange hybrid that at times seems to take the worst of both communism and capitalism—and no one's got an alternative.   Dr. Richard D. Wolff has spent the better part of his life as a critic of capitalism.

Updates on extremes in Spain's crisis, Paul Ryan as VP candidate, US Justice Dept drops case against Goldman-Sachs, college costs crisis, and fast-rising food prices. Interview with Prof. Carles Muntaner on how deeply social and economic conditions shape health and on the implications of that shaping. Question answered on requiring workers in Workers Self-Directed Enterprises to all participate in directing enterprises.

Updates on Europe's ongoing crisis, real US tax history, bank tycoon admits "mistakes", food price inflation again. Major analyses: economics of Medicaid and AFL-CIO closes National Labor College. Responses to questions on "planned obsolescence" and what individuals can do in crisis times.

On Economic Update with Professor Richard Wolff, Wolff and guests will discuss the current state of the economy, both locally and globally in relation to the economic crisis.

The latest employment report (for July 2012) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in Washington documents the utter failure of the political establishment to respond effectively to the crisis that began in December 2007. Unemployment remains over 8 %, more than 50% higher than it was in 2007. The U-6 figure published by the BLS that adds to these unemployed the numbers of marginal workers (those who gave up looking for work) and the part-timers who want full-time work has returned to 15% of the labor force, nearly 20 million Americans.

After 5 years of crisis - with no end in sight - it’s time to evaluate what happened, why, and what needs to be done. One key cause of this crisis, missed by most mainstream analyses, is the class structure of capitalist enterprises. By that I mean enterprises’ internal organization pitting workers against corporate boards of directors and major shareholders. Those boards seek first to maximize corporate profits and growth. That means maximizing the difference between the value added by workers’ labor and the value paid to workers in wages.

 

    A sure sign of the changing counsciousness and a growing presence of an economic analysis systemically counter to the mainstream. I joined David Harvey in speaking with Charlie Rose this week.

Updates include Capital One Bank's misdeeds, French socialists' new policies, taxing churches in Spain, Walton family's immense wealth, strike at Caterpillar, and taxing private wealth. Major discussions of huge corporate cash hoards and vast private wealth hidden from view and from taxes in tax-havens. Responses to questions on reorganizing banking and on Marx's surplus value theory.

Professor Wolff on recent unemployment rates and what they mean. Clip from April Monthly Update at the Brecht Forum in New York. Full video here.