On September 15, the Federal Reserve convened 14 large credit derivatives-dealer banks to an unusual meeting (Beales 2005b). The last such meeting occurred on September 16, 1998, in secret. At that time, a major financial institution was melting down and threatening to take some large banks with...

In the mid to late 1980s, the U.S. economy simultaneously producedÑfor the first time in the postwar periodÑhuge federal budget deficits as well as large current account deficits, together known as the Òtwin deficitsÓ (Blecker 1992; Rock1991). This generated much debate and hand-wringing, most...

Many papers published by the Levy Institute during the last few years have emphasized that the U.S. economy has relied too much on the growth of lending to the private sector, most particularly to the personal sector, to offset the negative effect on aggregate demand of the growing current...

Demographers and economists agree that we are aging--individually and collectively, nationally and globally. An aging population results from the twin demographic forces of fewer children per family and longer lives. Most experts recognize the burden that aging causes as the number of retirees...

The latest batch of numbers from the United States makes for a disturbing read. The growth rate of GDP has been adequate, but the current account deficit was 6.3 percent of GDP in the fourth quarter of 2004, and the terrible trade figures for January and February promise an even bigger deficit...

Social Security turned 70 on August 14, although no national celebration marked the occasion. Rather, our top policymakers in Washington continue to suggest that the system is "unsustainable." While our nation's most successful social program, and among its longest lived, has allowed generations...

Is it sufficiently realized how intractable those U.S. imbalances -- and how dangerous their potential consequences at home and abroadÑhave now become?

For seven decades, the far right has never veered from its avowed mission to gut America's most comprehensive, successful, and popular safety net: Social Security. While it had won a few small battles (most notably, the Greenspan Commission's huge 1983 payroll tax hikes and two-year increase in...

The job numbers in the United States and around the globe continue to look bleak. Not only are the absolute numbers dismal, but also job growth has dragged on with no hope for a substantial change in prospects. This situation supports the view that we are facing a long-term problem that requires...

A massive fiscal stimulus and, until recently, aggressive monetary easing have been successful in raising bond and real estate prices to unprecedented levels, inducing a credit boom that has prevented private consumption from falling. While it might still be too early to say that it worked, the...