Smart Globalization Initiative

... In the 1990s economist Michael Mandell predicted cutting-edge industries like high-tech would create 2.8 million new jobs over 10 years. This turned out to be something of a pipe dream. According to a recent 2010 New America Foundation report, the information industry shed 68,000 jobs in the past decade. ...

Original article

"We know the solutions," said Leo Hindery, who heads the US Economy/Smart Globalization Initiative at the New America Foundation. "They're staring us in the face. They're timeworn by the women and men who preceded us ... including Eleanor and Franklin ...

The opening theme of the 2011 State of the Union address, and the theme that the President has carried forward since then, was his insistence that the nation has at long last emerged from economic crisis.  He said: “Two years after the worst recession most of us have ever known, the stock market has come roaring back.  Corporate profits are up.  The economy is growing again.  And after two years of job losses, we’ve added private-sector jobs for 12 straight months -- more than 1 million in all.”

The Great Recession has put enormous strain on the American social contract, exposing not only the many holes in our social safety net but also the weaknesses in its basic design and philosophy.

It has been widely reported that China has dramatically reduced its purchases of US Treasuries over the past year.  But it would be wrong to conclude that China has stopped intervening in currency markets or even that it is dumping the dollar.

The first step in treating a severe illness is making the correct diagnosis.  Since passing the stimulus package in early 2009, President Obama and his economics team have groped for a good explanation of why the economy remains stuck in a long-term slump, and in particular, why job growth has remained so slow.  The answers have variously been high health care costs, fiscal profligacy by the Bush administration, recklessness on Wall Street, excess dependence on foreign oil,  and a poor education system.

The single most important reason for the failure of the recovery to take hold thus far is that private credit markets are locked up, especially for small businesses.  Private business borrowing and lending is at a standstill, while private banks are holding an unprecedented $1.1 trillion in cash reserves in their Federal Reserve accounts.  In 2007, before the recession began, the banks held only $20 billion in reserves.  The 2007 figure was itself dangerously low.  But a nearly $1 trillion turnaround in bank reserve holdings is a new form of Wall Street excess.

Mr. President:

With hopes of a V- or U-shaped recovery fading, there is the increasing prospect of an L-shaped future of long stagnation, or even a W-shaped future in which W stands for something worse. The reason for this dismal outlook is economic policy is trapped by failed conventional thinking that can only deliver wage stagnation and prolonged mass unemployment.

Your administration’s current economic recovery program has been marked by four major failings:

He's current chairman of the US economy smart globalization initiative at the New America Foundation. Leo, welcome back to NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT. ...