Economic Growth Program

Regular Harpers and Financial Times contributor Barry C. Lynn paints a genuinely alarming picture: most of our public debates about globalization, competitiveness, creative destruction, and risky finance are nothing more than a cover for the widespread consolidation of power in nearly every imaginable sector of the American economy.

The current state of the "shadow banking system," rising unemployment rates, the sinking value of the dollar, and the lasting mortgage crisis demonstrate the need for long-view reform. The Next Stage will consider the larger implications of the new administration's economic policy on the economy and the international financial and monetary system.  Featured speakers include James K. Galbraith, Stephany Griffith-Jones, Jan Kregel, Robert Johnson, and others. 

The 650,000 jobs created or saved by the stimulus package so far make up only a small step toward correcting the gap between the tens of millions of unemployed people and the few openings that those people are fighting over.

Even the administration's goal of creating 3.5 million jobs is far below what the economy really needs. With an official unemployment rate of 10.2 percent, the gap between the number of full-time job openings and the number of people who are unemployed has widened.

Joining us is Phillip Longman, Senior Research Fellow at the New America Foundation and author of “The Next Progressive Era: A Blueprint for Broad ...

Where are tomorrow's jobs going to come from? The question is more urgent than ever, with official unemployment hovering around 10 percent and with nearly one in five Americans unemployed, if you count part-time workers who want full-time jobs and people so desperate that they have given up looking for work entirely.

Over the last several weeks, the dollar's depreciation against the euro and yen has grabbed global attention. In a normal world, the dollar's weakening would be welcome, as it would help the United States come to grips with its unsustainable trade deficit.

But, in a world where China links its currency to the dollar at an undervalued parity, the dollar's depreciation risks major global economic damage that will further complicate recovery from the current worldwide recession.

The New America Foundation recently estimated that America needs to create nearly a million jobs a year just to keep pace with population growth, ...

What will take the place of the American consumer is the biggest question hanging over the world economy. For the past decade and a half, U.S. consumption has been the principal driver of world economic growth, supplying demand for the fast-growing export economies of Asia, whose growth in turn increased demand for capital goods from Europe and Asia and for oil and commodities from Latin America, Africa, and the Persian Gulf. From 1997 to 2008, personal consumption as… more

Here's the latest bold new idea for reconciling the costs of national defense with the need to avoid adding to federal deficits or raising taxes. A bipartisan coalition of "New Democrats" and moderate Republicans has proposed buying weapons for the U.S. military through the IRS rather than the Pentagon. Here's how it would work. Instead of being paid to deliver planes, missiles and tanks, defense contractors would receive "weapon supply tax credits" (WSTC). The defense contractors would be

On Tuesday, White House economist Jared Bernstein took a more upbeat position in a talk before the New America Foundation. While he called the lack of job ...