Ray Boshara

Throughout our history, periods of unbounded market exuberance, like the one we recently experienced, have been followed by periods of far-reaching social and economic reform. The Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century gave way to the Populist and Progressive reforms of the early twentieth century, the Roaring Twenties to the New Deal, and the Eisenhower-Kennedy Nifty-Fifty bull market to the Great Society and the War on Poverty. From this cycle of great wealth creation (and abuse) followed by great… more

A novel solution to yawning inequality in America is on the horizon: widespread wealth creation. Usually, alarms of gaping inequality are met with calls for boosting the minimum wage, the earned-income tax credit, and unions (all good ideas), or redistributing wealth through higher taxes. But wealth creation has been a great idea for the U.S. historically, and now we just need to do it for the majority of Americans that have little or no wealth.

And it is a… more

Last week, in an annual autumn ritual, the Census Bureau released its latest statistics on poverty and income. After falling for four consecutive years, the poverty rate rose to 11.7 percent in 2001. But this figure, whether rising or declining, tells only part of the story about poverty in America: It measures only income. For a more complete picture -- and a more disheartening one -- it is necessary to measure the assets of the poor as well.

Between 1983… more

The Asset Building Program of the New America Foundation is pleased to host its first "Assets Roundtable" featuring authors of both the first and the latest books to emerge in the increasingly global asset building movement.

Michael Sherraden, author of the seminal Assets and the Poor (M.E. Sharpe) -- a book that revolutionized the way people in the U.S. and around the world understand and combat poverty -- will discuss his theory of assets, present new research… more

Please join us as Ray Boshara discusses the promise, prospects, and limits of the "assets paradigm" to combat poverty and inequality in the U.S. and abroad. Reflecting on 12 years of experience, Boshara will make the case for asset-based policies, summarize existing research, and discuss current legislative initiatives. He will also describe proposals in the U.K. and other countries to build assets.

Of course, the stock market's lost capitalization of about $4 trillion has diminished the… more