Last week, Paul and Eli gave themselves the challenge of finding six typical pieces of CheapShow tat in just a few hours, in the charity shops of Watford High Street. This week… they are going to share and review their findings. It’s a little more random than usual as the items range from the mundane to the bizarre. Along the way, they’ll bounce from toy cars to kitsch porcelain statues, via 1980s light entertainers and cheesy dance party albums. After an exhausting day of CheapShowing, the cheap chaps are finding it hard to find the right words, so they decide to invent a load of new ones instead! Who got the best tat, who failed the task? You decide! (But you don’t really decide. Just listen in.) It’s time for Tat Hunt: Watford High Street Part Two.

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Ep 422: Tat Hunt: Scrumptious Tat

https://thecommunists.org/2025/02/04/news/life-and-crimes-john-two-jags-prescott-labour-imperialism/

The life and crimes of John 'Two Jags' Prescott

If you ever find yourself asking “What’s left?” you’re in good company. Today’s left is often indistinguishable from neoliberal centrism. 

Steve’s guests are Simon Winlow and Steve Hall, authors of the book, The Death of the Left: Why We Must Begin from the Beginning Again. They talk about the historical shifts that have led to ideological collapse, disconnection from the working class and the embrace of individualism over collective action.  

The conversation emphasizes the urgent need for a revival of working-class politics that transcend identity divisions and focus on collective struggles against economic neoliberalism and austerity. 

Simon Winlow is Professor of Social Sciences at Northumbria University, UK. A fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, his work is particularly well known in the fields of criminology, sociology and contemporary political analysis. He is the author or co-author of the following books: Badfellas (Berg, 2001); Bouncers (Oxford University Press, 2003); Violent Night (Berg, 2006); Criminal Identities and Consumer Culture (Willan, 2008); Rethinking Social Exclusion (Sage, 2012); Riots and Political Protest (Routledge, 2015); Revitalizing Criminological Theory (Routledge, 2015); Rise of the Right (Policy, 2017); Death of the Left (Policy, 2022), and The Politics of Nostalgia (Emerald, 2025). 

@winlow_s 

Steve Hall is Emeritus Professor of Criminology at the University of Teesside. He is a polymath who has published in the fields of criminology, sociology, anthropology, history, economic history, political theory and philosophy. He is also co-author of Violent Night (Berg 2006, with Simon Winlow), Rethinking Social Exclusion (Sage 2013, with Simon Winlow), Riots and Political Protest (Routledge 2015, with Simon Winlow, James Treadwell and Daniel Briggs), Revitalizing Criminological Theory (Routledge 2015, with Simon Winlow), The Rise of the Right (with Simon Winlow and James Treadwell) and The Death of the Left (with Simon Winlow). He is co-editor of New Directions in Criminological Theory (Routledge 2012, with Simon Winlow). In 2017 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the international Extreme Anthropology Research Network at the University of Vienna. 

@ProfHall1955 

The Death of the Left? with Simon Winlow & Steve Hall

https://thecommunists.org/2025/02/05/news/lafires/

LA fires fuelled by imperialism, corruption, exploitation and injustice

Bea, Artie, and Phil discuss the pervasive, perennial myth that the Medicare and Social Security trust funds are on the brink of imminent collapse, a myth that feeds austerity in policymaking and false panic that the programs "won't be around" when younger generations grow old--and that Trump and Musk's DOGE are currently taking advantage of to press for cuts.

This episode was originally released for patrons on April 17, 2023, as Artie explains in a brief note at the top of the show. To support the show and help make episodes like this one possible, become a patron at www.patreon.com/deathpanelpod

Find our book Health Communism here: www.versobooks.com/books/4081-health-communism

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Death Panel

Death Panel 425 Trust Falls

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Trust Falls

Near the start of this episode, Yeva Nersisyan talks with Steve about leftist economists who are still wedded to the belief that government spending relies on taxpayer money. She says if an academic on the left uses the ‘taxpayer dollar’ framing, then you cannot be surprised when the right uses it too – to say they’re saving taxpayer money, cutting wastefulness, cutting inefficiency. It’s why being consistent is so important. If one side can use it, the other side can too.

“It leads to the Elon Musks of the world using this taxpayer money trope to basically take a sledgehammer or a chainsaw to the public sector.”

Yeva and Steve revisit some basics of MMT, including the understanding that a government is not like a household.

Our own spending doesn’t really affect our own income. We’ll still get our wages, we will still have that, and then we will continue consuming, but consuming less and therefore end up with more savings.

But it doesn’t work for the economy as a whole. Because for the economy as a whole, if spending goes down, that means there is now less income, and less income means someone somewhere is earning less and therefore they have to cut their consumption and they also have to cut their saving. And it becomes this cycle where, okay, someone cut their consumption, now someone else is earning less or the grocery store is earning less, right? And now they have to fire their workers. Now their workers don’t have income and they are spending less, and so on and so forth.

Yeva and Steve go into other insights of MMT, including sectoral balances and the reality of the so-called national debt.

They unravel the absurd dynamics of current economic policy and look at the implications of proposed spending cuts by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Fallout from the government’s ruthless abandonment of social programs will be disastrous.

Yeva Nersisyan is an associate professor of economics at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, PA. She received her B.A. in economics from Yerevan State University in Armenia, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in economics and mathematics from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She is a macroeconomist working in the Modern Money Theory, Post-Keynesian, and Institutionalist traditions. Her research interests include banking and financial instability, and fiscal and monetary theory and policy. She has published a number of papers on the topics of shadow banking, fiscal policy, government deficits and debt, and the Green New Deal. Nersisyan is currently coediting the Elgar Companion to Modern Money Theory with L. Randall Wray.

Find her work at levyinstitute.org/publications/yeva-nersisyan

DOGE Ball: A True Oligarch Story with Yeva Nersisyan

Mubin speaks to Alison Garnham from Child Poverty Action Group about what can be done to reduce child poverty in the UK. They discuss how child poverty has been reduced in the past and how policy really can reduce child poverty.

The Trust has funded the following reports on child poverty:
Exploring the lived experiences of childcare for parents on Universal Credit
Financial stress and maternity leave
How to improve the system for people migrating from legacy benefits
Flexible affordable childcare solutions

24. How can we tackle child poverty?

This week’s episode comes from Steve’s recent appearance on The Tracy Show, where he was invited to talk about MMT with host Tracy Carson, who had some questions.  

Tracy: Okay, I’m going to tell you what I think I understand about Modern Monetary Theory or MMT. I’m just going to go with ‘MMT’. The federal government can pretty much generate money out of thin air. 

 Steve: It does. It’s the only way it works. Yes.  

Tracy: Okay. Okay, so I got that part right. [pause] Basically, that’s pretty much where I’m at in terms of my understanding. 

Actually, it wasn’t the only thing Tracy understood. She knew that states rely on taxes, unlike the federal government. She knew that federal budget deficits are not a crisis. And she knew that those simple facts have huge implications for the government’s ability to provide national health care, for example, while state-based health care is virtually impossible and propels a race to the bottom. In a nation that has spent $8 trillion on war, post 9/11, there is no excuse for poverty. There’s an explanation, but no excuse.

The conversation covers the destruction of essential services through deliberate under-funding, with austerity as a policy choice. They look at the illusion of the “national debt” at home as well as IMF manipulation of the global South. 

Many of us have experienced moments when we clearly recognize the truth yet lack the knowledge or language to explain it. In seeking the tools to fully articulate it, Tracy is actively moving herself beyond those moments. We should all be so motivated. Learning MMT is a process. Others will hear about it from her and begin their own journey.  When it comes to knowledge, there are no resource constraints. #EachOneTeachOne 

Tracy Carson is the host of The Tracy Show and an organizer of the March for Medicare for All in her home state of Indiana.  

Modern Money Awakenings with Tracy Carson

STEREO EDITION
When the sun is shining this brightly in the London sky, Paul and Eli refuse to stay cooped up inside CheapShow HQ… So, they are out and about (yes again!) to go on an aimless wander through another corner of London. This time they’ve decided, for no good reason, to explore Nunhead Cemetery, one of London’s “Magnificent 7” cemeteries. It’s a gothic, spooky, heavily wooded area packed with tombs, crypts, gravestones and unusually named deceased folk. As they stroll about, they’ll aim to be respectful but at some point, Eli will want to get the booze out and Paul will want to get the hell out of the place… And once they reach Peckham Rye Common, things will get a little bit more unhinged. In possibly one of CheapShow’s more directionless walkabout episodes, join the Cheap Chaps on one of the warmest and sunniest days of the year… in a ruddy graveyard!

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Ep 434: Cemetery Men (Stereo Edition)

Subscribe on Patreon and hear this week's full patron-exclusive episode here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/128245289

Beatrice speaks with Nathan Tankus to walk through an oral history of the early months of DOGE's ongoing infiltration of the Treasury payments system and Social Security, why the "Trump-Musk Payments Crisis" threatens a bigger fundamental threat of US economic breakdown than even Trump's tariffs, and why Nathan tried (and failed) to crash the stock market.

Runtime 2:36:28

Note: We're back! Thank you to everyone for all the well wishes and many kind messages during our parental leave. We have a lot coming together soon processing current events and reacting to some big developments that happened while we were away. As we ramp production back up we'll be prioritizing the patron feed first to make sure patrons get a full new episode every week.

Get Health Communism here: www.versobooks.com/books/4081-health-communism

Find Jules' new book here: https://www.versobooks.com/products/3054-a-short-history-of-trans-misogyny

Unlock full episode

Teaser - Nathan Tanks the Economy: An Oral History of 100 Days of DOGE w/ Nathan Tankus (05/05/25)

How can we improve financial fairness in the UK? We fund research, campaigning and policy work to tackle financial problems in the UK.

CheapShow is a comedy podcast all about getting the very best out of the worst! Be it Poundlands, Charity Shops, Car Boot Sales or Bargain Bins, hosts Paul Gannon & Eli Silverman poke around in the corners of the high streets and internet to find treasure in the trash.

One week it could be a studio based show, the next, a live comedy event. It could even be a location report or a scripted adventure! A few things it is, however, is rude, crude, silly and drizzled in pop culture, nostalgia and plenty of verbal violence!

It has guests, videos, songs, reviews, games and dares.  We apologise in advance!
www.thecheapshow.co.uk

Marxist analysis of current events and scientific socialist theoretical insights from the CPGB-ML. Get educated and get organised!

Politics, culture, and public policy from the left. Stay alive another week.

w/ Beatrice Adler-Bolton, Artie Vierkant, Phil Rocco and Jules Gill-Peterson. 

https://www.patreon.com/deathpanelpod

Macroeconomics has never been so ... delish!  Macro and Cheese explores the progressive movement through the lens of Modern Monetary Theory, with hot and irreverent political takes, spotlights in activism, and the razor sharp musings of Real Progressives Founder and host Steve Grumbine.  The cheese will flow as experts come in for a full, four course deep dive into the hot queso. 

Comfort Food for Thought!

New tracks tagged #Austerity