It’s strange that Judis (and Brenner?) never mention China, which also bought a lot of US government paper to keep its currency undervalued. More importantly, he (they?) ignore the increasingly rightward tilt of the distributions of income and wealth, which have created an “underconsumption undertow” which tends to pull down the economy, unless counteracted by such things as easy credit (Ninja loans, etc.)
The Case for Economic Doom and Gloom Why we’re not out of trouble yet--not even close. John B. Judis May 11, 2010 | 3:37 pm The American economy added 290,000 jobs in April, the biggest monthly increase in four years. Clearly, a recovery has taken hold. But how strong and buoyant will it be? Will we eventually get back to growth rates above 4 percent and to an unemployment rate of less than 5 percent? Or will this recovery sputter like the last one that began in 2002? The strongest case for gloom that I’ve read has been made by UCLA economic historian Robert Brenner in a new introduction that he wrote to the Spanish edition of his 2006 book, The Economics of Global Turbulence. New Republic readers will detect a similarity between Brenner’s views and my own, but his are grounded in a far greater knowledge of economic history than mine. His pessimism also outpaces mine.... -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
