Burned by Billionaires, with Chuck Collins

Burned by Billionaires, with Chuck Collins

Author: Post Carbon Institute October 8, 2025 Duration: 44:46

Billionaires. They should be objects of scorn rather than envy. While they ride around in their super-yachts and private jets, producing the climate-damaging pollution of entire nations, they’re doing things to extract even more wealth, harm your health, diminish democracy, and rig the whole system in their favor. How did this happen? Why do we tolerate it? How can we stop the billionaires? And can we get a hold of our own super-yacht for Crazy Town pleasure cruises? Chuck Collins returns to Crazy Town to offer insights from his new book, Burned by Billionaires: How Concentrated Wealth and Power Are Ruining Our Lives and Planet. Originally recorded on 10/3/25.

Sources/Links/Notes:

  • Chuck Collins, Burned by Billionaires: How Concentrated Wealth and Power Are Ruining Our Lives and Planet, The New Press, October 2025.
  • Chuck Collins, Born on Third Base: A One Percenter Makes the Case for Tackling Inequality, Bringing Wealth Home, and Committing to the Common Good, Chelsea Green Publishing, September 2016.
  • Chuck Collins, The Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires Pay Millions to Hide Trillions, Polity, January 2022.

Related episode(s) of Crazy Town:

  • Episode 10, "Tackling Inequality, One Pair of Lederhosen at a Time"
  • Episode 43, "Overproduction of Elites and Political Upheaval, or... the Story of Rich People Doing Stupid Things"


Trying to make sense of a world that often feels like it's lost the plot? That's the space where Crazy Town lives. Hosted by Asher, Rob, and Jason from the Post Carbon Institute, this fortnightly conversation navigates the disorienting headlines and deeper systemic crises-from climate chaos and ecological overshoot to the relentless engine of runaway capitalism-with a necessary blend of sharp analysis and dark humor. They’re not just diagnosing the "Great Unraveling" of our social and environmental fabric; they’re actively exploring what a transition to a genuinely sustainable and equitable society could look like, all while trying to keep their own wits about them. This podcast is for anyone who looks at the status quo and senses the profound delusions holding it together, offering listeners a mix of grounded understanding and candid discussion that’s as engaging as it is urgent. Tune in for conversations that are both a reality check and a search for a viable path forward.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 165

Crazy Town
Podcast Episodes
Announcement: Power Podcast with Richard Heinberg [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:41
Please check out our newest podcast, Power: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival featuring Richard Heinberg. How have humans become powerful enough to disrupt the world's climate, trigger the sixth mass extinction, an…
Bonus: Boys and Oil with Taylor Brorby [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 47:16
Taylor Brorby has written one hell of a memoir. It covers many critical topics that come up in Crazy Town, from fracking to civil disobedience to that most inept of policies: aiming for infinite economic growth on a fini…
Bonus: The Stench of Neoliberalism with Noam Chomsky [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 44:29
As a follow-up to Episode 61 of the Crazy Town podcast, Noam Chomsky, the well-known linguist, author, and social critic, joins Asher Miller in Crazy Town to discuss the failures and dominance of neoliberalism -- which C…
Skyrocketing Population and Carbon Dioxide: Watershed Moments Wrap-up [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:03:37
The astute listener will recognize the trends in population and greenhouse gas emissions over the course of our chronologically arranged episodes on watershed moments in history. Describing these trends in one word: grow…