The first part of this paper is an overview of projections of Social Security's future and an explanation of why the projections have led many to believe there is a looming financial crisis. We argue that any problems to be faced are far down the road and not severe enough to justify the use of...

A wave of revisionist work claims that "anti-competitive" New Deal legislation such as the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) and the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) greatly slowed the recovery from the Depression; in this new public policy brief, President Dimitri B. Papadimitriou and...

In this paper, the authors discuss Minsky's analysis of the evolution of one variety of capitalism-financial capitalism-which developed at the end of the nineteenth century and was the dominant form of capitalism in the developed countries after World War II. Minsky's approach, like those of...

Although the U.S. unemployment rate in 1998 was at its lowest level since the late 1960s, the nation's employment problem is still far from solved. Although many economists assume that unemployment tends toward a natural rate below which it cannot go without creating inflation, this paper asks...

Recent total government budget deficits, now running at about 3.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), have managed to partially rescue the U.S. economy from the full consequences of its long, debt-driven boom. But if we are to avoid a steep recession, much more will be needed

In this paper, we argue that the United States and the rest of the world's economies will not be able to achieve balanced growth and full employment unless they are able to agree upon and implement an entirely new way of running the global economy. The economic recovery plans currently under...

The paper argues in favor of significant budget deficits based on the understanding that the expansion of the 1990s was fueled by a great build-up of debt, and that this would eventually give way to a severe recession unless offset by a strong fiscal stimulus. In 2001, with the total government...

As we projected in the previous strategic analysis paper, the U.S. economy experienced growth rates higher than 4 percent in 2004. The question we want to raise in this new strategic analysis paper is whether these rates will persist or come back down. We believe that several signs point in the...

This study finds that while present monetary and fiscal policy stances are likely to lead to robust growth and improved employment, this would come only at the expense of high government deficits, record foreign deficits, and rising ratios of government and foreign debt relative to GDP. Even...

As shown in recent Federal Reserve flow-of-funds data, federal government liabilities rose sharply in 2008 . Who holds these new liabilities, and what effects will they have on the economy? Some economists and politicians warn of impending inflation. Below we focus on one positive effect - a...