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Despite what the debt and deficit hawks would have you believe, we can’t cut our way back to prosperity. No large economy has ever recovered from serious recession through austerity. But there is another factor holding our economy back: inequality. Any solution to today’s problems requires addressing the economy’s underlying weakness: a deficiency in aggregate ...

Despite what the debt and deficit hawks would have you believe, we can’t cut our way back to prosperity. No large economy has ever recovered from serious recession through austerity. But there is another factor holding our economy back: inequality. Any solution to today’s problems requires addressing the economy’s underlying weakness: a deficiency in aggregate ...

I WORK on retirement policy, so friends often want to talk about their own retirement plans and prospects. While I am happy to have these conversations, my friends usually walk away feeling worse — for good reason. Seventy-five percent of Americans nearing retirement age in 2010 had less than $30,000 in their retirement accounts. The specter of ...

WASHINGTON, DC – The financial crisis of 2008 has spurred a global debate on how much government regulation of markets – and what kind – is appropriate. In the United States, it is a key theme in the upcoming presidential election, and it is shaping politics in Europe and emerging markets as well. For starters, ...

On June 1, 2008, Timothy F. Geithner – then president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York – sent an e-mail to Mervyn A. King and Paul Tucker, then respectively governor and executive director of markets at the Bank of England. In his note, Mr. Geithner transmitted recommendations (dated May 27, 2008) from the ...

The U.S. manufacturing sector is and will remain vital to our nation’s economic prosperity. The rise of American industry made the United States the wealthiest and strongest nation on earth, provided the foundation for a strong middle class, and fueled critical breakthroughs in innovation and technology that transformed our lives and produced previously unimaginable achievements, ...

Sherlock Holmes famously solved a mystery by noting the significance of the dog that didn’t bark – the dog’s silence suggested that the murderer could not have been a stranger. Today, the “dog that didn’t bark” is the Supreme Court, which took no public action on the cert. petition in American Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. ...

As Europe struggles through its sovereign debt crisis, Germany is considered the strong arm of the region. But before the formation of the eurozone the country had quite the current account deficit, compared with Ireland, Italy and France. Stephanie Kelton, Associate professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, and Avraham Baranes, a Ph.D student, have ...

Yes, that is what Brooks told readers. His column today mourns the fact that Romney and Bain are being blasted for being capitalists. He then tells readers: “Romney is going to have to define a vision of modern capitalism. …. Let’s face it, he’s not a heroic entrepreneur. He’s an efficiency expert.” Brooks is certainly ...

For the second day in a row, not a single Senate Republican voted in favor of a procedural motion to merely debate the DISCLOSE Act.  The back and forth between Republicans and Democrats, not surprisingly, has been like two ships passing each other in the night.  The uphill fight against secret money influencing our elections, the fallout ...