It shouldn’t, of course, come as a big surprise that some of the wealthiest Americans are promoting an economic fantasy in which their further enrichment benefits everyone. It is, perhaps, a surprise...
Democracy, we now know, is more than periodic elections in some countries, such elections have been used to legitimize essentially authoritarian regimes and deprive large parts of the citizenry of bas...
As medical care has improved, life expectancy has increased—on average, in the United States, by some two years between 1990 and 2000. But for the poorest group of Americans there has been no progress...
Aunque la economía de goteo hacia abajo no funciona, la economía de goteo hacia arriba sí puede funcionar: todo el mundo —incluso los de arriba— podría beneficiarse dando más a los de abajo y a los de...
University of California professor Emmanuel Saez, Thomas Piketty of the Paris School of Economics, and Stefanie Stantcheva of the MIT Department of Economics, carefully taking into account the incenti...
There is another way for moneyed interests to get what they want out of government: convince the 99 percent that they have shared interests. This strategy requires an impressive sleight of hand; in ma...
The irony is that just as markets started delivering more unequal outcomes, tax policy asked less of the top. The top marginal tax rate was lowered from 70 percent under Carter to 28 percent under Rea...
The facts shouldn’t get in the way of a pleasant fantasy.
The U.S. incarceration rate is the world’s highest and some nine to ten times that of many European countries. Almost 1 in 100 American adults is behind bars.61 Some U.S. states spend as much on their...
Looking back at that belief during hearings this fall on Capitol Hill, Alan Greenspan said out loud, I have found a flaw. Congressman Henry Waxman pushed him, responding, In other words, you found tha...
Individuals say they are working so hard for the family, but as they work so hard there is less and less time for the family, and family life deteriorates. Somehow, the means prove inconsistent with t...
If our economic system leads to so many people without jobs, or with jobs that do not pay a livable wage, dependent on the government for food, it means that our economic system has not worked in the...
If one group’s economic opportunities leave it much poorer than other groups, then the interactions of the first group with people from other groups will be limited, and it is likely to develop a diff...
Ensuring that we have a well-informed public citizenry is important for a well-functioning democracy, and that in turn requires an active and diverse media.
End corporate welfare—including hidden subsidies. We explained in earlier chapters how the government too often, rather than helping people who need assistance, spends its valuable money helping corpo...
A lo largo de la historia, las economías que han florecido son aquellas en las que los acuerdos se sellan con un apretón de manos. Sin confianza, los tratos de negocios basados en el consenso de que l...
While it is not always clear what is fair, and people’s judgments of fairness can be biased by their self-interest, there is a growing sense that the present disparity in wages is unfair. When executi...
Throughout its history, America has struggled with inequality. But with the tax policies and regulations that existed in the post–World War II war period—and the heavy investments in education, like t...
This is an idea called trickle-down economics. It has a long pedigree—and has long been discredited. As we’ve seen, higher inequality has not led to more growth, and most Americans have actually seen...
The success of an economy can be assessed only by looking at what is happening to the living standards—broadly defined—of most citizens over a sustained period of time.