How Washington Orthodoxy Fails the Middle Class - David Rohde - Business. Revitalizing the American middle class in a transformed global economy is a staggeringly complex task.
And neither Democrats nor Republicans alone have the answer. Reuters On Tuesday, Barack Obama declared the debate over how to restore growth, balance, and fairness to the American economy the "defining issue of our time. " Chairman Bernanke Should Listen to Professor Bernanke. Bernanke was and is a fine economist.
More than that, before joining the Fed, he wrote extensively, in academic studies of both the Great Depression and modern Japan, about the exact problems he would confront at the end of 2008. He argued forcefully for an aggressive response, castigating the Bank of Japan, the Fed’s counterpart, for its passivity. Presumably, the Fed under his leadership would be different. Instead, while the Fed went to great lengths to rescue the financial system, it has done far less to rescue workers.
The U.S. economy remains deeply depressed, with long-term unemployment in particular still disastrously high, a point Bernanke himself has recently emphasized. The Bernanke Conundrum — the divergence between what Professor Bernanke advocated and what Chairman Bernanke has actually done — can be reconciled in a few possible ways. How Shareholders Are Hurting America. Note: The Trade is not subject to our Creative Commons license.
It's a bedrock principle of our era: Companies should be run for the sole purpose of increasing their stock prices, or returning "value" to shareholders, the ultimate "owners. " To Lynn A. Washington Mutual WaMu collapse: The Lost Bank by Kirsten Grind, reviewed. Illustration by Dan Zettwoch.
Barely 10 pages into the first chapter of Kirsten Grind's The Lost Bank comes the first of many elaborate musical interludes. The year is 1987, the theme is a modified Wizard of Oz, and the occasion is the 63rd birthday of the bank’s universally beloved, unbelievably benevolent and comprehensively folksy CEO Lou Pepper. "You'll want to go to the land of corporate values! GDP Needs Help: Let's Build a Second Measure of Economic Strength - Umair Haque - Business. If the crowning achievement of 20th-century economics was constructing a national income statement, the crowning achievement of 21st-century economics should be a national balance sheet Reuters.
Why Innovation Can't Fix America's Classrooms - Marc Tucker - National. Forget charter schools and grade-by-grade testing.
It's time to look at the best-performing countries and pragmatically adapt their solutions. Reuters Most Atlantic readers know that, although the U.S. spends more per student on K-12 education than any other nation except Luxembourg, students in a growing number of nations outperform our own. But think about this: Among the consistent top performers are not only developed nations (Japan, Finland, Canada), but developing countries and mega-cities such as South Korea, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. Go Forth and Multiply - By Charles Kenny. There's been a lot of hand-wringing of late regarding the imminent demise of America's global economic dominance as China's gross domectic product (GDP) outstrips that of the United States.
Those concerns are overwrought -- aggregate output and average quality of life in a country are two very different things. But if you really want to preserve America's top spot in the GDP rankings, there's only one way to do it. You've got to make more Americans. Depending on whom you ask and how you measure, the United States either already has a smaller economy than China, will have a smaller economy than China in the next few years, or will fall behind sometime in the next half-century.
What seems widely agreed upon is that American economic dominance will end. Supercomputers Can Save U.S. Manufacturing. The U.S. used to be a powerhouse in manufacturing.
In the past quarter of a century we have relinquished this leadership position, in large part because we made a decision—consciously or unconsciously—that the service and financial sectors are sufficient to sustain our economy. Look South, Not East - By Parag Khanna. With Barack Obama's administration pivoting toward Asia and with the U.S. president now off to Hawaii for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit (and then to Australia and Indonesia), let's remember that the most important trip of his time in office was not east but south.
In March, in the midst of the fallout from Japan's tsunami and nuclear meltdown and the brutal escalation in Libya, Obama made an international trip the Western media almost entirely ignored. His destination: Brazil, Chile, and El Salvador. There was pressure to cancel the visits, and photos and media reports revealed that Obama was accompanied by his military advisors and was getting constant updates on both crises from a secure camouflage tent. Business - David Rohde - How the Global Middle Class Can Save the American Middle Class. Here's the game plan: Hire over here, sell over there.
More companies are creating jobs by taking advantage of rising global wealth -- and we should be cheering them on. Reuters. Unleash the Entrepreneurs by Edward L. Glaeser, City Journal Autumn 2011. Edward L. Glaeser Bad policies are holding back the ultimate job creators. Albert Harlingue/Roger-Viollet/The Image Works The entrepreneurial Henry Ford helped create an industry in Detroit that employed hundreds of thousands. Three years have passed since the financial crisis of 2008, and unemployment rates remain painfully high.
Such policies ignore a simple but vital truth: job growth comes from entrepreneurs—and public spending projects are as likely to crowd out entrepreneurship as to encourage it. Technology in America. Why are Americans addicted to technology? The question has a distinctly contemporary ring, and we might be tempted to think it could only have been articulated within the last decade or two. Could we, after all, have known anything about technology addiction before the advent of the Blackberry? The Book of Jobs. What this transition meant, however, is that jobs and livelihoods on the farm were being destroyed. Because of accelerating productivity, output was increasing faster than demand, and prices fell sharply. It was this, more than anything else, that led to rapidly declining incomes.
Farmers then (like workers now) borrowed heavily to sustain living standards and production. Adulthood, Delayed: What Has the Recession Done to Millennials? - Derek Thompson - Business. The Great Recession didn't just postpone financial independence for millions of young Americans. It also changed our attitudes about what it means to be an adult. Flickr image: Scarleth White Generations are social constructs. There is no chemical or biological difference between Gen-Xers and Millennials, but we talk about them as if they were different species. United States' economy: Over-regulated America. American Airlines, Bankruptcy, and the Housing Bubble. We normally say that a company “went bankrupt,” implying that it had no choice. But when, recently, American Airlines filed for bankruptcy, it did so deliberately.
The airline had four billion dollars in the bank and could have kept paying its bills. But it has been losing money for a while, and its board decided that it was foolish to keep throwing good money after bad. Declaring bankruptcy will trim American’s debt load and allow it to break its union contracts, so that it can slim down and cut costs.
American wasn’t stigmatized for the move. What If Lehman Happened Today? - Michael Hirsh and Stacy Kaper. The Age of Double Standards. How Blue America Subsidizes Red America. A very neat Aaron Carroll chart shows that, on average, conservative states feature more "dependency" on federal programs than do liberal ones. Ayn Rand: the Tea Party’s Miscast Matriarch. Business - Jack A. Goldstone - It's Worse Than You Think: Halftime Between Two Lost Decades. The recovery feels extraordinarily slow because we face an extraordinary three-part crisis: a financial shock compounded by a global slowdown and a demographic time bomb. "The American Recovery" by Mohamed A El-Erian. Exit from comment view mode.
A Nation of Spoiled Brats - Interview by David Rothkopf. Americans Suffered Record Decline In Wealth During Recession: Report. (In 3rd paragraph, corrects median net worth to $77,300 in 2010, not $77.3 trillion, and corrects to $126,000 in 2007, not $126 trillion.) Punching Above their Weight - By James Manyika, Jaana Remes, and Javier Orellana. "Are US Multinationals Abandoning America?" by Laura Tyson. Exit from comment view mode. Click to hide this space BERKELEY – At a recent conference in Washington, DC, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers said that US policymakers should focus on productive activities that take place in the United States and employ American workers, not on corporations that are legally registered in the US but locate production elsewhere. If You Extend the Visa Waiver Program, They Will Come. The Corruption Law that Scares the Bejesus Out of Corporate America - Jordan Weissmann - Business. Gray Nation: The Very Real Economic Dangers of an Aging America - Derek Thompson - Business.
Living the DREAM: Undocumented Youth Build Lives in America - Julia Lurie - National. Can Radical Efficiency Revive U.S. Manufacturing? "The Energy Deficit" by Michael Spence. What Export-Oriented America Means - Tyler Cowen. Food's Biggest Scam: The Great Kobe Beef Lie. Kobe Beef Scam, Part 3: Why the U.S. Government Wants You To Buy Fake Foods. Food's Biggest Scam, Part 2: "Domestic" Kobe And Wagyu Beef. Food deserts, Alice Waters, and dietary class warfare. 50 Amazing Numbers About Today's Economy (AAPL, GOOG, MSFT, PFE, WMT)
"That Old Tax Magic" by Simon Johnson. Income Inequality Is Killing the Economy, Obama Says—Is He Wrong? - Derek Thompson - Business. This Year's Fight Over Taxing the Middle Class—And the Rich - Linda Killian - Politics. "The Economy and the Presidency" by Martin Feldstein. Stephen King: Tax Me, for F@%&’s Sake! How We Pay Taxes: 11 Charts - Derek Thompson - Business.
The Poor Are Getting Poorer. Is It Time to Raise the Minimum Wage? - Jordan Weissmann - Business. The Sharp, Sudden Decline of America's Middle Class. Business - Derek Thompson - Who Killed American Unions? The Surprising Truths About Income Inequality in America: Big Issues. Connecticut's Ribbon of Hardship. Grandmothers' Social Security Garnished for Student Loans? Time to Fix the Broken Student Debt System. Poverty rates: Most U.S. counties see increasing poverty rates.
All the President's Central Bankers. Getting Away with It by Paul Krugman and Robin Wells. "The Great American Mirage" by Stephen S. Roach. "Tea Party: Vote Obama to Reduce the Federal Budget Deficit" by Steven Strauss. "Obama versus Romney on Jobs" by Laura Tyson.