As I've Often Said, You Can Shop

This Is A Serious Analysis Of A Ridiculous Subject, Which Is Of Course The Opposite Of What Is Usual In Economics.

The Economic Expansion That Began In 2001, While It Has Been Great For Corporate Profits, Has Yet To Produce Any Significant Gains For Ordinary Working Americans. And Now It Looks As If It Never Will.

To The Extent That Sacrifices Need To Be Made, Shouldn't The People Who've Made Out Like Bandits This Past Generation Be First In Line? The Problem With Getting Out Of The Slump Is That We Need To Spend More. It's Not That Somebody Needs To Spend Less. We Have Idle Workers Who Have The Skills And The Willingness To Work. We Have Idle Factories. Dealing With This Is Not About Saying Somebody Needs To Suffer. It's Saying That We Need To Be Prepared To Open The Taps.

In Our Country, Learned Ignorance Is On The Rise.

Our Popular Economics Writers, However, Are Not In The Business Of Giving Their Readers A Ringside Seat On The Research Action; With No Exception I Can Think Of, They Use Their Books To Do An End Run Around The Normal Structure Of Scholarship, To Preach Ideas That Few Serious Economists Share. Often, These Ideas Are Not Just At Odds With The Professional Consensus; They Are Demonstrably Wrong, And Sometimes Terminally Silly. But They Sound Good To The Unwary Reader.