The outstanding economist Hyman Minsky was always skeptical of Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty. It assumed, he wrote, that economic growth itself would be adequate to eliminate poverty. But Minsky believed that there were structural problems that always left too many people without jobs or with...

This economist thinks that private debt got too far out of hand in the 1990s to make a recovery and economic expansion easy to achieve. He wants the federal government, among other things, to bail out the states and perhaps loosen its fiscal posture well beyond the short run.

Many economists, journalists, and public policy officials have argued that speculation has had little to do with the recent rapid run-up in the price of oil. If true, a case for regulation of oil markets would be more difficult to make. But the author examines the evidence in detail and finds it...

The ownership society won';t level the playing field in the United States. It will make it more unequal.

This student of Hyman Minsky uses the late economist's analysis to document the history of the current credit crisis. It amounts to a strong case against deregulation and a thorough understanding of the limits of markets. The author presents recommendations for future public policy.