American Economic Liberties Project

I'm speaking with two of the most astute observers of this situation, Ed Zitron, a former tech industry PR guy turned tech critic, who's the CEO of Easy Primary Research and who writes a terrific newsletter about AI that I read religiously.

And we're gonna talk to Matt Stoller of the American Economic Liberties Project.

I have a lot of questions for Ed and Matt.

How afraid should we actually be of AI agents going rogue, going out of control, taking over the internet, destroying infrastructure, and killing us all? Are the safety concerns overstated, or are they just a way to run cover for something else that the tech oligarchs actually want? Answer to those questions and more are coming up on today's episode of Lever Time.

And it's like, it's very frustrating because the whole AI safety conversation is being had about a technology that doesn't exist.

Joining us next is Matt Stoller.

He's the research director at the American Economic Liberties Project, and he's the author of the big newsletter.

And he's been on this podcast a lot.

Wanda Culp of the group Tongass Women for Forests, who talks about her lifelong struggle to defend forests as the Trump regime once again attempts to repeal the Clinton-era Roadless Rule that protects the nation's wilderness.

And Lori Wallach, director of the Rethink Trade program at the American Economic Liberties Project, who examines Donald Trump's trade war with Canada that she describes as the most stupid trade fight in history.

But first, we begin with a summary of some of the week's underreported news stories.

During a high-profile state election in eastern Germany, the far-right party Alternative for Deutschland won nearly forty-four percent of votes cast in the small state of Saxony-Anhalt, three votes short of an absolute majority in the state parliament.

The confrontation escalated sharply in July when Trump imposed a 50% tariff on nearly $28 billion worth of Canadian goods.

After talks with Ottawa collapsed in late August, Canada retaliated dollar for dollar, imposing a similar set of tariffs on US imports effective on September 8th.

Here, a reporter spoke with Lori Wallach, director of the Rethink Trade program at the American Economic Liberties Project.

Here, she examines Donald Trump's trade war with Canada that she describes as the most stupid trade fight in history.

A new report raises concerns about the number of single-family homes in the valley that are owned by institutional investors.

The paper from the American Economic Liberties Project find Phoenix is behind only Atlanta in terms of the number of properties that are owned by these groups.

Estimates range from 33,000 to 72,000 single-family rental homes owned by institutional investors in the valley.

The paper also finds Phoenix is the top market in the country for build-to-rent homes.

As the name suggests, these are units that are built specifically to rent out to tenants.

This trend started in the late 2010s, but the report says these issues affect potential buyers as well as renters.

Laurel Kilgore is research manager at the American Economic Liberties Project and an author of this report.

She joins me.

Then in the second half of our program, we'll move from hot wars to trade wars and talk about the escalations in the conflict between Donald Trump and Canada.

We'll speak to Lori Wallach, who's director of the Rethink Trade program at the American Economic Liberties Project.

All that and more coming up next after the news.

I'm Max Pringle with these headlines.

And again, it's not all the aluminum and steel.

It's still relatively small amounts, so let us keep our fingers crossed.

Lori Wallach is director of the Rethink Trade program at the American Economic Liberties Project, also senior advisor to the Citizens Trade Campaign.

That takes us to 7:53 in the morning.

You get a desperate one.

Could breaking up big medicine put $6,000 back in your pocket? The American Economic Liberties Project put out a report this week with a number that sticks.

Break up the health care conglomerates and American families would save $795 billion a year.

That's more than $6,000 per household.

Uh, we have, uh, we've learned so much just again on the anti-monopoly, um, front.

There's organiz- organization, again, another, another citizens organization called the American Economic Liberties Project.

Yeah.

And they have one guy by the, by the name of Matt Stoller-

My pleasure

... at the American Economic Liberties Project.

Tonight's eleventh hour is done.

Tomorrow starts right now.