Lever Time - Premium

On this week’s episode of Lever Time Premium: David Sirota is joined by New York Times global economics correspondent Peter S. Goodman to explore why President Biden and the Democrats chose to side with railroad barons by forcing rail workers to accept a contract they had already rejected. They also dig into why the rail workers’ demand for additional paid sick days became such a sticking point in negotiations, and what a potential rail strike could mean for the U.S. economy (6:24).

Then, The Lever’s Julia Rock sits down with journalist and filmmaker Blake Zeff to discuss his new documentary Loan Wolves, which details the history of America’s student debt crisis, which politicians are to blame, and how student debt has impacted Americans across the country (30:24). 

Finally, for this week’s bonus segment, The Lever’s Joel Warner interviews journalist and author Joel Stein about his recent book In Defense of Elitism: Why I'm Better Than You and You are Better Than Someone Who Didn't Buy This Book — a humorous and self-deprecating defense of intellectual elitism and why it might actually be worth preserving (49:17). 

If you’d like to leave a tip for The Lever, click the following link. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism. levernews.com/tipjar

A rough transcript of this episode is available here.