You say that a good way to balance the US budget and cut the national debt to zero, would be by applying a 10% tax on stocks and bonds of the ultra rich American population. Do you believe that the same could be applied in Greece as well, given that the two countries have huge differences in the rates of their economic growth and that Greece strives to attract investments?

Today’s capitalist crisis caps 30 years of divisive economic development in the United States. Real wages stagnated and are now roughly at the mid-1970s level. Over the same period, labor’s productivity soared, yielding employers’ record revenues and profits from 1980 to 2000. Income and wealth inequality returned to late 19th century levels. That divisive economic development generated the economic crisis. Now, the so-called “recovery” further deepens the inequalities and divisions.

The upcoming elections will be decided in large part based on what voters think about economics.  So Planet Money is looking into the economic thinking behind much of today's politics.

We're going to start today with socialism.

Now, with the notable exception of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, no major figure in American political life identifies as socialist. Certainly no serious contender for national office this November does.

After teaching both graduate and undergraduate economics since 1969 at Yale, at the City University of New York, and, since 1973, at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, I retired at the end of 2008. The economic crisis that exploded across the second half of 2008 had suddenly created exciting new opportunities for Marxian critiques of capitalism to reach large audiences. As usual, the economics profession was far behind the flow of events; most economists continued to celebrate the private enterprises and markets that were so spectacularly imploding all around them.