Downside Up CNN

The American economy revolves around credit. We use credit cards for everyday purchases like gas and groceries, but we also take out major loans to pay for school, homes and automobiles. But what if we lived in a world without credit? How would this affect our financial system and our daily lives? Would it reshape human history? On the last episode of this season of Downside Up, Chris Cillizza considers these questions with sociologists Sarah Quinn and Monica Prasad, and New York Times business reporter Emily Flitter.
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Eighty years ago, Congress formalized a 40 hour work week in the United States. That policy hasn’t changed since then, even though today’s workforce looks very different than it did in the 1940s. With so many people working from home these days or dropping out of the workforce altogether, is it time we rethink our employment laws? What if we worked four days a week instead of five? Would it completely upend our work culture? This week on Downside Up, Chris Cillizza is joined by Anne Helen Petersen, author of “Out of Office;” Angela Garbes, author of “Essential Labor;” and Charlotte Lockhart, founder of the nonprofit 4 Day Week - Global, to explore what the world would look if everyone works fewer hours.
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Sneaker culture is a multibillion dollar business. It’s long shaped the way we think about sports, music and fashion. And today the sneakers we choose to wear define who we are as people. Somewhere in the last hundred years, a shoe that was designed exclusively for exercise was transformed into a status symbol and a work of art. How did this come to be? And what would our world look like if sneaker culture didn’t exist as it does today? This week on Downside Up, Chris Cillizza considers these questions with fashion historian Elizabeth Semmelhack and Sneakerheads Jacques Slade and Nick Engvall. 
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College sports is big business in America. Thanks to TV contracts, sponsorships and merchandise deals, the NCAA has grown into a multi-billion dollar brand. And for most of the last century, the league also controlled who had access to those dollars. Until recently, college athletes could not make any money from their talent. Now things are starting to change, which could put the National Collegiate Athletic Association on a path to obsolescence. This week on Downside Up, Chris Cillizza is joined by player rights attorney Tim Nevius, professional tennis player Brittany Collens, and ESPN personalities Jay Bilas and Paul Finebaum to discuss what the world might look like if the NCAA didn’t exist.
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California is the fifth largest economy in the world. But could it survive as its own country? And could the rest of the United States survive without California? This week on Downside Up, Chris Cillizza is joined by UCLA economist Dr. Lee Ohanian, President of the California National Party Sean Forbes, and Richard Kreitner, author of “Break it Up,” a book about the history of secession efforts in America. They help us consider a loaded question: What if California seceded from the United States?
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Plastics are everywhere. They’re in our shoes and clothes. They’re in our cars, our airplanes and our cellphones. They’re in our hospitals and schools. They’re also in our bodies and in our oceans. The invention of this versatile material radically changed our world. But what if plastic didn’t exist? What would our world look like today? This week on Downside Up, Chris Cillizza is joined by Allison Cobb, author “Plastic: An Autobiograpy,” Erica Cirino, author of “Thicker Than Water: The Quest for Solutions to the Plastic Crisis,” and Winnie Lau who studies plastics with the Pew Charitable Trusts, to reimagine the world without plastics.
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