Public Economics

In the graveyard of economic ideology, dead ideas still stalk the land. The recent financial crisis laid bare many of the assumptions behind market liberalism--the theory that market-based solutions are always best, regardless of the problem. For decades, their advocates dominated mainstream economics, and their influence created a system where an unthinking faith in markets led many to view speculative investments as fundamentally safe.

Spanning nine countries, filled with heroic tales of bold decisions and self-sacrifice, and probing vast historical undercurrents, "The Miracle" takes readers inside private boardroom meetings, heated business negotiations, factory floors, and presidential cabinet sessions for a behind-the-scenes look at the events that shaped Asia's economic ascent - and will shape the world in the century to come.

The second volume of William T. Vollmann's epic book about the factors and human actions that have led to global warming begins in the coal fields of West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky. Over the course of four years, Vollmann finds hollowed out towns with coal-polluted streams and acidified drinking water; makes covert visits to mountaintop removal mines; and offers documented accounts of unpaid fines for federal health and safety violations and of miners who died because their bosses cut corners to make more money.

Conventional wisdom says income inequality is rising and harmful to nearly everyone, and the rich are to blame. But as Ed Conard shows, anyone who can produce a product valued by the entire economy will find his or her income growing faster than those who are limited by the number of customers they can serve, such as schoolteachers, plumbers, doctors, and lawyers.

In his best-selling The Russians, Hedrick Smith took millions of readers inside the Soviet Union. In The Power Game, he took us inside Washington’s corridors of power. Now Smith takes us across America to show how seismic changes, sparked by a sequence of landmark political and economic decisions, have transformed America. As only a veteran reporter can, Smith fits the puzzle together, starting with Lewis Powell’s provocative memo that triggered a political rebellion that dramatically altered the landscape of power from then until today.

The "Godfather of Trumpmania", Michael Savage, examines the initial appointments, speeches, tweets, and history of Donald Trump and offers his insights and analysis. The man many consider to be the determining factor in driving Trump over the finish line by motivating millions of undecideds and the "Deplorables", who would have otherwise sat out the election, provides a crucial first look at the early direction of the Trump presidency.

Did Wall Street cause the mess we are in? Should Washington place stronger regulations on the financial industry? Can we lower unemployment rates by controlling the free market? Answer: no. Not only is free-market capitalism good for the economy, it is our only hope for recovery. As the nation’s longest-serving CEO of one of the top 25 financial institutions, John Allison has had a unique inside view of the events leading up to the financial crisis.

Like all of us, though few so visibly, Alan Greenspan was forced by the financial crisis of 2008 to question some fundamental assumptions about risk management and economic forecasting. No one with any meaningful role in economic decision making in the world saw beforehand the storm for what it was. How had our models so utterly failed us? To answer this question, Alan Greenspan embarked on a rigorous and far-reaching multiyear examination of how Homo economicus predicts the economic future, and how it can predict it better.

Born in Italy, University of Chicago economist Luigi Zingales witnessed firsthand the consequences of high inflation and unemployment - paired with rampant nepotism and cronyism - on a country’s economy. This experience profoundly shaped his professional interests, and in 1988 he arrived in the United States, armed with a political passion and the belief that economists should not merely interpret the world, but should change it for the better.

While certainly flawed in many aspects - the New Deal was implemented by a Democratic Party still beholden to the segregationist South for its majorities in Congress and the Electoral College - the New Deal was instated at a time of mass unemployment and the rise of fascistic government models and functioned as a bulwark of American democracy in hard times. This book looks at how this legacy, both for good and ill, informs the current debates around governmental responses to crises.

Enough of the imbalance that is causing the degradation of our environment, the demise of our democracies, and the denigration of ourselves. Enough of the pendulum politics of left and right and paralysis in the political center. We require an unprecedented form of radical renewal. In this book Henry Mintzberg offers a new understanding of the root of our current crisis and a strategy for restoring the balance so vital to the survival of our progeny and our planet.

Charles H. Ferguson, who electrified the world with his Oscar-winning documentary Inside Job, now explains how a predator elite took over the country, step by step, and he exposes the networks of academic, financial, and political influence, in all recent administrations, that prepared the predators' path to conquest. Over the last several decades, the United States has undergone one of the most radical social and economic transformations in its history.

In a Winners Take All meets This Town narrative, a New York Times best-selling author tells the story of the creation of a massive tax break, in which political and economic elites attend to the care and feeding of the super-rich, and inequality compounds.

The growing wealth inequality continues to dominate headlines. The divide between the haves and have nots in America is increasingly political and tensions are rising. On one side, the wealthy wield power and advantage, keeping the system operating in their favor, all while retreating into enclaves that separate them further and further from the poor and working class.

Not since the Great Depression have so many Americans questioned the fundamental tenets of capitalism and expressed openness to a socialist alternative. We Own the Future: Democratic Socialism-American Style offers a road map to making this alternative a reality, giving listeners a practical vision of a future that is more democratic, egalitarian, inclusive, and environmentally sustainable.

In the 1930s, battered and humbled by the Great Depression, the US financial sector struck a grand bargain with the federal government. Bankers gained a safety net in exchange for certain curbs on their freedom: transparency rules, record-keeping and anti-fraud measures, and fiduciary responsibilities. By the free-market era of the 1980s and 90s, however, Wall Street argued that rules embodied in New Deal-era regulations to protect consumers and ultimately taxpayers were no longer needed - and government agreed.

The last century saw a revolution in life expectancy. Whether you are male or female, born in the global south or north, the chances are that you can expect to live much longer than previous generations. But instead of seeing this as a precious gift of extra life, we see it as a burden, with ageing populations dogged by infirmity, dependent on an ever-decreasing number of young people to support them. Andrew Scott argues it doesn't have to be like that.

In Dreams of the Overworked, Christine M. Beckman and Melissa Mazmanian offer vivid sketches of daily life for nine families, capturing what it means to live, work, and parent in a world of impossible expectations, now amplified unlike ever before by smart devices. We are invited into homes and offices, where we recognize the crushing pressure of unraveling plans, and the healing warmth of being together. Moreover, we witness the constant planning that goes into a "good" day, often with the aid of phones and apps.

America faces a new culture war. It is not a war about guns, abortions, or gays; rather it is a war against the creeping changes to our entrepreneurial culture, the true bedrock of who we are as a people. The new culture war is a battle between free enterprise and social democracy. Many Americans have forgotten the evils of socialism and the predations of the American Great Society's welfare-state programs.

Thirty years ago, “greed is good” and “maximizing shareholder value” became the new mantras woven into the fabric of our business culture, economy, and politics. Although, around the world, free-market capitalism has lifted more than a billion people from poverty, in the US, most of the benefits of economic growth have been captured by the richest 10 percent, along with providing justification for squeezing workers, cheating customers, avoiding taxes, and leaving communities in the lurch. As a result, Americans are losing faith that a free-market economy is the best system.