Piketty On Atkinson And A More Equal Society: How We Can Get There From Here

Piketty
(Wikipedia)

Most of you know of French economist Thomas Piketty and his by now famous Capital in the Twenty-First Century. (Warning: "famous" means "also not cheap" no matter what format or medium you choose.) This month, in the previous issue of the New York Review of Books (thanks, Barbara B!), the estimable Monsieur Piketty reviewed a book by economist, Oxford scholar and inequality expert Sir Anthony B. Atkinson titled Inequality: What Can Be Done, summarizing Atkinson's last several decades of work on that subject, both analysis and field work, concluding with some concrete proposals for a course of action.

Atkinson
(Wikipedia)

Tonight, with Stella's help (she gifted me some coupons she could obtain as part of her B&N membership), I actually got my hands on a copy of that book. B&N being what it is, and the book being from Harvard University, the list price was almost $30 and B&N's starting price was that very list price, so even allowing for Amazon shipping it would have been a couple dollars cheaper to order it online, but I was impatient and Stella, mindful of our approaching birthdays, was willing to help, so I can start skimming Atkinson's Inequality soon. It may be a while before it reaches the top of my serious reading list, but at least I don't have to wait for HPL to acquire a copy and then wait still longer on a hold list for my scant three weeks' visit with the book: this is clearly a book worth owning if you are an amateur economist or even a progressive political activist.

Inequality is fast becoming the issue of the day, and could serve as a significant wedge issue emphasizing the D/R difference in the 2016 elections. Stay tuned!

---

AFTERTHOUGHT: Perhaps it would be helpful to offer a sample of Piketty's review, so you can see for yourself how it tempted me to go to some lengths to obtain Atkinson's book (the bolds are my own):

To fully appreciate this book and its proposals, we should first place it in the larger setting of Atkinson’s career, for he has mainly produced the work of an infinitely cautious and rigorous scholar. Between 1966 and 2015, Atkinson published fifty or so books and more than 350 scholarly articles. They have brought about a profound transformation in the broader field of international studies of the distribution of wealth, inequality, and poverty. Since the 1970s, he has also written major theoretical papers, devoted in particular to the theory of optimal taxation, and these contributions alone would justify several Nobel Prizes. But Atkinson’s most important and profound work has to do with the historical and empirical analysis of inequality, carried out with respect to theoretical models that he deploys with impeccable mastery and utilizes with caution and moderation. With his distinctive approach, at once historical, empirical, and theoretical; with his extreme rigor and his unquestioned probity; with his ethical reconciliation of his roles as researcher in the social sciences and citizen of, respectively, the United Kingdom, Europe, and the world, Atkinson has himself for decades been a model for generations of students and young researchers.

[/Steve takes a deep breath] Then by all means, let him instruct and inspire me as well in my limited pursuit of economics. Politically, these are times as parlous as the world has ever known; I can use all the inspiration I can find, from Atkinson or any comparable scholar.

Ten A Dozen Essential Ideas For Fixing The American Economy — Robert Reich

Robert Reich has completed, not his scheduled ten, but an even dozen videos succinctly expressing the great ideas essential to making the American economy more robust for all its participants and transforming American society into one more committed to equality of treatment of all its members under the law.

The 12 Videos appear (in reverse order) in the right-hand column of Reich's blog, and each video runs about 2-3 minutes. I can't think of a better way for an adult or adolescent American to spend about a half hour than in watching these videos. (In addition to his insight, Reich has a great hand as a cartoonist, which he exercises along with voiceovers on the current topic. You'll have fun learning some excellently framed talking points!)

Right-Wing Ideology A ‘Shape-Shifter’ — Naomi Klein

In my ongoing (and probably never-ending) effort to ingest the complete works of Naomi Klein, more or less in reverse order (I finished reading This Changes Everything last month), I have begun the formidable task of absorbing The Shock Doctrine, Klein's work on how some governments, many corporations and some leaders both corporate and governmental leverage the public's response to major disasters... acts of terror, natural disasters such as storms or earthquakes, unconventional changes of government, etc. ... to exercise, even in a democracy, a far greater degree of executive and corporate control than previously possible. Klein's term for it is "disaster capitalism," and even a couple dozen pages into the book she makes a compelling case not only for the existence of such a phenomenon but also that the US (among many other nations) is experiencing it, from no later than 2001 forward, possibly from as early as the mid-20^th century.

What captured my attention at the moment was her observation about how the terminology changes to obscure what is really being done to us, and to the citizens of other nations (p. 14-15, first [hardcover] edition, 2007):

Naomi Klein

In the attempt to relate the history of the ideological crusade that has culminated in the radical privatization of war and disaster, one problem recurs: the ideology is a shape-shifter, forever changing its name and switching identities. [Milton] Friedman called himself a "liberal," but his U.S. followers, who associated liberals with high taxes and hippies, tended to identify as "conservatives," "classical economists," "free marketers," and, later, as believers in "Reaganomics" or "laissez-faire." In most of the world, their orthodoxy is known as "neoliberalism," but it is often called "free trade" or simply "globalization." Only since the mid-nineties has the intellectual movement, led by the right-wing think tanks with which Friedman had long associations — Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute and the American Enterprise Institute — called itself "neoconservative," a worldview that has harnessed the full force of the U.S. military machine in the service of a corporate agenda.

The ideology I grew up with at least through childhood and part of adolescence was unmistakably "liberal," no bloody "neo-" prepended, a direct descendant of the political and economic philosophies of FDR, JFK and (in some matters) LBJ. No shape-shifter I! May I add a cross-lingual pun to the terms listed in the previous paragraph: "laissez‑unfaire"?

Klein's book looks likely to prove a satisfying if massive read. Take a look, at least; it should be in your public library, now that it is no longer her most recently published book. Or do an excellent activist-writer a favor and buy it; we need to encourage such people to dedicate themselves to the serious issues of our day.

‘Justice Deferred [sic]’ And ‘Too Big To Jail’

First, let me offer my thanks to friends/neighbors George and Barbara B-not-Bush, who provided me unasked with their print copy of this month's New York Review of Books. And while I do not know the man face to face (perhaps fortunately, as that is because I have not confronted the federal bench), I have come to have great respect for Jed S. Rakoff, US District Judge for the Southern District of New York, writer for NY Review of occasional reviews of nontechnical legal books, such as the one this post focuses on, Brandon L. Garrett's Too Big to Jail: How Prosecutors Compromise with Corporations.

I don't think I need to explain to any of you why you should care about this matter, but here's the short of it: in the past couple of decades, Justice departments of presidents of both major political parties have worked out agreements with large corporations such that the corporation is not prosecuted and not punished for clearly illegal misdeeds... and the persons responsible, be they board members, upper-level managers, legal teams, professional investment staff, or anyone else employed by these corporations, are not prosecuted or retrained at all. In other words, crimes are committed and noted, slaps on wrists are administered, and the people who committed them are not so much as formally reprimanded, let alone charged. Needless to say, the frequency of such crimes is growing greatly; that's what happens when felonies are simply neglected without any attempt to punish their perpetrators or to repair the faulty corporate procedures that allow them... indeed, encourage them... to be committed.

Judge Rakoff outlines the contents of Mr. Garrett's book much better than I can. Please read the review at the link above.

(Aside: regrettably, HPL seems not to have even one copy of this book, though they have at least one other book by Garrett in their catalog. Too Big to Jail is not even an expensive book on Amazon; I may get one myself.)

Not To Be Too Piketty About The Matter...

Piketty: young man, endearing demeanor,
serious book — what's not to like?

... but about six months after I put myself on the hold list at Houston Public Library for French economist Thomas Piketty's book (in Arthur Goldhammer's English translation), Capital in the Twenty-First Century, I picked it up and held it in my hands today. It is no small book, let me tell you!

Why should anyone but a professional economist read this book? There are at least a couple of reasons...

• One is that, in the year or so since its publication (Aug. 2013 in French; Apr. 2014 in English), it has consistently caused RWNJs to soil their pants and indulge in slinging that soil as only a RWNJ can sling... for some of us, that would probably be reason enough to examine the actual contents of the book. 
• Another is that Nobel-prizewinning economist Paul Krugman has written many columns and blog posts on Piketty and his (in)famous book. To read them, you can google "krugman on piketty"; that will get you many of Krugman's columns, his review at New York Review of Books, articles by many of Piketty's detractors (a list that overlaps heavily with Krugman's detractors), a few posts at certifiable right-wing sites that I, at least, don't spend much time at, and a handful of Krugman's articles debunking the debunkers.

I notice Piketty was born in 1971, the year I received my Master's degree. All I can say is, this young whippersnapper had better be as good as his reviews say he is...

The book is just shy of 700 pages; I'd better get started. I'll comment on it more as I absorb a bit about what Prof. Piketty has to say.

Paul Krugman, ‘Voodoo Time Machine’

Krugman on Republicans' reaction to "the sharp increase in American economic growth that, we now know, began last spring":

...

... So what would [Republicans] say?

Well, I didn’t see that one coming: They’re claiming credit. Never mind the fact that all of the good data refer to a period before the midterm elections. Mitch McConnell, the new Senate majority leader, says that he did it, that growth reflected “the expectation of a new Republican Congress.”

The response of the Democratic National Committee — “Hahahahahahaha” — seems appropriate. I mean, talk about voodoo economics: Mr. McConnell is claiming not just that he can create prosperity without, you know, actually passing any legislation, but that he can reach back in time and create prosperity before even taking power. But while Mr. McConnell’s self-aggrandizement is funny, it’s also scary, because it’s a symptom of his party’s epistemic closure. Republicans know many things that aren’t so, and no amount of contrary evidence will get them to change their minds.

At least Mr. McConnell didn’t do what many of his colleagues have done when faced with inconvenient facts: resort to conspiracy theories.

...

(Bolds mine. - SB)

Things Republicans Know

This is a fundamental difference between the D's and the R's. D's may occasionally claim a GOP policy is worse than in fact it is (an error that is more and more difficult to commit as the GOP evolves into a virtually dictatorial organization); R's, on the other hand, are absolutely certain that anything good that happens in America is a direct consequence of, and only of, their radical policies. "Epistemic closure" indeed... and on the whole, disgusting.

What Helps The American Worker The Most?

A lot of things help. A good union helps, in a particular craft or trade, or in an entire industry. A political climate favorable to fair negotiations between workers and their employers; it doesn't happen automatically... it must be aggressively pursued, in part through politics, whatever you may think of politics. And... this doesn't get mentioned nearly often enough: workers in an industry (or workers in a broad category of industries) need a good think tank analyzing every aspect of that industry with an eye toward improving the workers' status in the industry or category.

Who was that hirsute man?

I was introduced to EPI, the Economic Policy Institute, many years ago through the blogging of labor economist Max Sawicky. Then he vanished (not really) into some sort of employment which required him to abandon his blog MaxSpeak, dedicated to the substance of EPI, for... something else; I'm not quite sure what. In any case, as of last June, MaxSpeak reappeared, with Max as feisty and intolerant of (yet full of) bullshit as ever, exploring the relationship (effective or otherwise!) of EPI and current politics. Meanwhile, EPI itself never let up in its effort to analyze (using real facts; what a concept) and expose the good, the bad and, uh, whatever else it came across, usually from the perspective of labor, where "labor" was working people, joined and organized or otherwise. Here is EPI's own summary of its recent accomplishments... no mean list, IMHO.

American labor has suffered from a large dose of St. Ronald Reagan, who was as ready as any other "conservative" to manufacture whatever "facts" were required to espouse whatever position he and other self-proclaimed conservatives had already decided to promulgate, mostly to the detriment of working folk. For workers, having an analytical association of economists not wholly owned by The Powers That Be proved utterly essential to survival among the lies served up to the public by people for whom "Keynes" rhymes with "pains" and not much else. Today there are several such think tanks; EPI is one of the oldest and is an aggressive survivor. If you're not familiar with them, Mother Google is your friend leading you to some initial points. Go. Explore. Dig through the accretions of piles of bullshit; find out what's really going on. Maybe it isn't all hopeless after all!

How ‘Trickle Down Economics’ Really Works

(H/T Avedon.)

That Voodoo That You Do Like Hell

Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman examines the unfortunately very real possibility that if Republicans retake the Senate and retain the House, they will be able, by tweaking the formulas used by the Congressional Budget Office ("heretofore a nonpartisan referee on policy proposals" as Krugman describes it), to reinstitute... you guessed it... what the elder George Bush and many of us even less fond of Ronald Reagan than he was called "voodoo economics."

"Poppy" Bush

Voodoo economics, in brief, is cutting taxes to promote economic growth, the formula used aggressively by Saint Ronald to wreck the American economy from about 1980 for about the rest of my natural life. It never really worked to promote genuine economic growth: it was, and is, a signature of allegedly conservative economic policy which has one measurable effect, namely, to make the rich richer and send the rest of us to economic hell. Since its aggressive promotion in 1980, the world's economists have had almost 35 years to examine voodoo economics in its American incarnation and in a number of other countries where variants of it were tried (see Krugman), and to people willing to accept the evidence rather than the ideology, it is manifestly a catastrophe for everyone except those so wealthy that the economic context of the market in which they operate has no effect on their acquisition of wealth. In other words, as one old song has it, "the rich get rich and the poor get poorer." Ain't we got fun.

I am to a point at which I find it increasingly difficult to advocate empowering the Democratic Party. But the Republican Party is nothing but a fast ride straight to hell, especially for the middle class, who are America's last, best hope of avoiding that steep descent.

"Boy" Paul

In November, you can vote for the disappointing Democrats. Or you can vote for a party full of people like Rand Paul, whom Krugman quotes as follows:

When is the last time in our country we created millions of jobs? It was under Ronald Reagan.

Right. Bill Clinton never existed, and he is now invisible.

Vote for Republicans at your peril.

Study: State Laws To Enhance Business Growth Widen Wealth Inequality

I suppose the results presented by DSWright at FDL should not be surprising:

Who beggars whom?

When state governments try to create a better business climate they run the risk of encouraging a more stratified society, according to a new study by David Neumark and Jennifer Muz of the University of California. The study compares two different policy approaches to improve the business climate of a state – those that attempt to increase growth by lowering business costs and those that work to improve the quality of life.

There was little exacerbation of wealth inequality when states enacted policies to improve their quality of life to create a better business climate, but when the method was lowering business costs to augment growth the wealth gap widened.

...

(NOTE: the "new study" link above is to a summary of the study. If you want more, downloading the full paper will cost you $5 unless your receiving email address is connected with an "appropriate" institution. Oh, irony! The CityLab link is free, and has more general info about the relationship of business climate to wealth inequality.)

This suggests to me that when business conditions improve, the businesses that benefit do not use any significant portion of their enhanced profits to pay their employees more, let alone to hire more people. This indifference to including employees in the gains reflects what I saw over my working life: my own increased productivity never significantly increased my salary. This result is part of what led to my becoming a full-time contractor (a solution which had its own set of problems for the worker who chooses it).

As far as I can see, there is no simple modification of what passes for capitalism in America that would benefit both employers and employees. All the "job creation" that Mitt Rmoney bragged about is exclusively at the discretion of, and largely to the benefit of, the employer. And states and cities that try to buy into the benefits on behalf of their working citizens by lavishing expensive benefits on the business community are wasting their time... and to a large extent their money.

Geithner's ‘Wall Of Money’

Geithner

Matt Stoller, in his article “The Con‑Artist Wing of the Democratic Party,” attempts to follow Tim Geithner's attempt to explain why he did what he did... the bank bailout, unrestrained... in the supposed saving of the American economy with which he is credited and/or for which he is blamed. Stoller finds, unsurprisingly, that most people in America dislike Geithner, and his book, Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises, wins scant praise as well.

According to Geithner, the expression "wall of money" is a reference to some visible sign banks must use (e.g., stacks of paper money in bank windows) to reassure customers that the bank is solvent and they (the customers) need not participate in a bank run.

Of course, in a financial crisis, such a display is a con game, which means the Democratic Party has followed the GOP into blatant conning of Americans regarding their financial system. That doesn't exactly project confidence, does it?

(H/T DSWright at FDL.)

America: Land Of Opportunity? Maybe With Some Changes, Says Robert Reich; Right Now, Not So Much

Robert Reich's blog has four recent posts that are essential reading for anyone who considers him- or herself progressive:

• How to Shrink Inequality (long)
• How the Right Wing is Killing Women
• Tim Geithner and the Wall Street Bailout Redux
• The Practical Choice: Not American Capitalism or “Welfare State Socialism” but an Economy That’s Working for a Few or Many

If this man would run for president, I'd get out and walk blocks for him... even though walking, even a major grocery shopping run, is a challenge for me these days!

The Enemy Of My Enemy — Can A Left-Right Populist Alliance Overthrow The Parties And The Wall Street Establishment?

The Parties are over broken

Robert Reich thinks it's possible. In a post titled "The Six Principles of the New Populism (and the Establishment’s Nightmare)" Reich asserts that there are at least six items on which the Tea Party and the increasingly disempowered progressive wing of the Democratic Party can agree, items which might serve as a basis for an active populism that would save America from its ongoing and apparently never-ending economic recession. (When can we stop being polite and call it a depression, which seems a more accurate name to me?)

The six items are big enough (break up the big banks; resurrect Glass-Steagall; end corporate welfare; rein in the NSA; put brakes on America's overseas interventions; stop corporate-crafted trade agreements), and Reich offers evidence of support for them from left-wing populists and right-wing populists.

I would love to see this work. What a concept... a popular takeover of an aging, failing democracy! But of course I have some cautionary words:

• Left populists and right populists share no goals, only means. Any such alliance would be temporary at best, and the aftermath of the breakup may be difficult to say the least.
• Right populists cannot be trusted. Will they follow through on their promises? only as far as those freely made promises further their goals, which are not the same goals... see above.
• Establishment parties and related institutions have ways of getting what they want in the face of all sorts of adversity. One of the main ways they have is money. In this respect, there is less difference than you might think between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. The Dems have done absolutely nothing to support their left-leaning progressives, and the Tea Party appears to be supported primarily by obscenely wealthy individuals whose goals overlap those of the membership only as far as they serve the interests of the wealthy supporters.

In other words, it's a great idea, but how can it be pulled off for an extended enough period to make any real dent in establishment institutions and ambitions?

Moyers Interviews Krugman On Piketty

There is nothing I can, or need to, add to this dialogue. Think long and hard about whether this is where you wanted your country to go over the past 30‑40 years... and the evidence is that it's going to get worse for decades to come. Inequality will come to define us as we head into the 21^st century with such unimaginable inequalities of wealth and income, quite possibly the greatest ever in recorded history. I cannot help thinking most Americans cannot justify this to themselves... not even Republicans. (Then again, I've thought that before, and been wrong about what GOPers are willing to inflict on the rest of America. The difference this time is that Democrats are playing the oligarchy game too, seeking campaign funding from a handful of wealthy donors who expect to get what they pay for.)



My next task: find a copy of Piketty's book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, either at the library or on sale at a serious discount. After all, I am not among the 1%...

Question And Answer On American Economic Policy

Reading Stiglitz's The Price of Inequality, I came to the following realization:

Q: What does Superman have, that the Federal Reserve
     is in sore need of?
A: Supervision.

Here's how Stiglitz puts it:

... It is evident now [2012] that the Fed failed to maintain economic stability — and after the crisis, it failed to restore the economy to health; it is evident, too, that the economic doctrines on which its policies were based were badly flawed. No policy is without risk. But the policies chosen by the Fed forced the brunt of the risk to be borne by homeowners, workers, and taxpayers, while the upside was captured by the banks. There were other policies, with other risks, in which the rest of our society would have fared far better, and the banks worse. We need to recognize that a central bank's decisions are essentially political: they should not be delegated to technocrats, and they certainly can't be left to those who disproportionately represent one of the vested interests.

From The Price of Inequality, p.254.

Paul Krugman Debunks Paul Ryan's Poverty [Trap] Crap

Paul Krugman addresses the mysterious magic of Paul Ryan's "poverty trap." First, Paul Ryan:

...we don’t want to turn the safety net into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency, that drains them of their will and their incentive to make the most of their lives.

As if being given a hand up, being prevented (along with their spouse and kids) from starving to death, turns impoverished people into lazy louts who do nothing but sit around and live off government unemployment checks. Somehow, only poor people who get money from the government behave this way; members of the 1% as identified in Stiglitz's book (see post below) would never be lazy in exchange for the millions dished out to them through various mechanisms! (Read the book.) But as Ryan tells it, the poor are congenitally lazy, because the energetic and devoted workaholics are never poor, never mind the evidence to the contrary. And surely he's right, except for one thing...

It's all utterly political bullshit. All of it.

Krugman follows through, first with a table of annual hours worked by adults in various countries (the US blows away the other dozen nations in hours worked), and then with a chart that displays generational earnings elasticity (i.e., economic mobility between generations) versus income inequality within that nation's society:

Krugman's chart of inequality for the US and 12 other nations

Note where the US sits at the extremes of maximum inequality and minimum mobility. Note also that the many nations that offer their citizens better social welfare programs (equivalents of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, etc.) exhibit both less inequality and more intergenerational mobility.

So much for Rep. Ryan's truly stupid, ideologically driven conjecture about what social insurance programs do to willingness to work large numbers of hours and the possibility of a child's out-pacing a parent's economic class...

Joseph Stiglitz's The Price Of Inequality Is Required Reading

Joseph E. Stiglitz's recent (2012) book, The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future, is a book about America's and Americans' current economic status that all Americans ages, oh, 15-85 should read. As you'll find at the link, Amazon offers it in paperback for under a sawbuck. (Do you know what a sawbuck is? Look it up if you're too young to have heard the term.) Or if you're like me and want to spend even less on it, go to your public library: system-wide, HPL has 10 print copies and one audio CD; I placed a hold on one of the print editions and it came to me in under 2 days. 

Did I mention that this book is a must-read for every intelligent, caring adult American?

Stiglitz visits many topics related to inequality: how inequality across American society is no accident but rather a result of a set of conscious policy choices, choices which at least in principle could be made in ways that have more egalitarian results, but which probably won't be pursued, absent pressure from sources not yet clear to me about a third of the way through the book. Sources of inequality... corporate and individual rent-seeking, tax policies favoring the well-heeled, disguised government gifts in one form or another, government institutions' often misconceived responses to the various bubbles the American economy has encountered (housing, tech, etc.), globalization in various forms, and financial deregulation... are all examined in terms of their consequences for the top 1% and the rest of us. If you're like me, you've run across all of these in print at one point or another, but never all together in one place; let me tell you, they have a powerful impact in combination that no one of them packs singly.

Did I mention that this book is required reading?

Robert Reich: 'The Real Job-Killers'

Reich:

House Speaker John Boehner says raising the minimum wage is “bad policy” because it will cause job losses.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce says a minimum wage increase would be a job killer. Republicans and the Chamber also say unions are job killers, workplace safety regulations are job killers, environmental regulations are job killers, and the Affordable Care Act is a job killer. The California Chamber of Commerce even publishes an annual list of “job killers,” including almost any measures that lift wages or protect workers and the environment.

Most of this is bunk.

...

Almost right: actually, ALL of it is bunk.

I often accuse Republicans of living in the last century, but this is proof that they live in the last decade of the 19th century. Why that particular decade, over a century before our own time?

Model T

That's easy. Henry Ford reincorporated a previous venture as Ford Motor Company in 1903. For all his personal failings (adamant opposition to unions, for example), Ford was smart enough to pioneer the five dollar workday, a wage vastly higher than other companies offered for similar work, a wage that enabled his employees to become his customers.

... and always low wages?

And in America's economy, that is the secret to a profitable enterprise: if every employer pays a living wage. In America as everywhere else, those closest to the bottom of the heap in income will take any increase in that income and promptly spend it on life's necessities. It was true for Ford Motor Company over a century ago. Why should it not be true of Wal‑Mart today? Rumor has it that even Wally‑World is considering the possibility that their workers are also their customers and should be paid more, though I'll believe it when I see it.

I am following Robert Reich's lead in emphasizing the only aspect Republicans seem to give a damn about— increased profits— rather than the humanitarian aspect of having a healthy, well-fed, well-paid workforce as the seed of a customer base. If you want more on that subject, please do as I am doing: read Joseph E. Stiglitz's The Price of Inequality. Even HPL has a couple dozen copies; you should be able to find it in your own local library. I have a feeling I'll be writing more about this book. For an excerpt published in Vanity Fair in 2012, see here.

A Fluent Society?

Galbraith

A few weeks ago, browsing one of my favorite used book stores, I happened upon an apparent first edition of John Kenneth Galbraith's The Affluent Society. Having never read it when it was published in 1958 (my excuse: I was 10 years old), and having hardly experienced affluence at any time in my life, I decided to find out what the good Professor Galbraith, truly a towering intellect (6' 8", say the biographies), had to say on the subject. I am about halfway through this fascinating book— fascinating if you like economics— and I am beginning to see why it is one of the also estimable Prof. Robert Reich's favorite books. Not that it's easy reading, oh no... but it is not aimed first and foremost at professional economists, and it is not in the least mathematically challenging. You might give it a look if you can find it.

Thelwell

Since the Deepwater Horizon event, I have wondered if instead we needed a book titled The Effluent Society, but it turns out the British political cartoonist Norman Thelwell beat me to that thought by more than 40 years. Have all the great ideas already been thought of?

Missing Workers And The Unemployment Rate

According to the Economic Policy Institute, I am a "missing worker". What is a missing worker? It is someone who is not only unemployed, but who, if jobs were readily available, would be actively seeking work. A missing worker has given up looking, and thus is not counted in the official unemployment rate.

Many Americans... I am one... have utterly given up looking for work. In my case, it didn't take long for me to realize that no company wants, in this economy, to hire an IT professional near or at retirement age. As long as demand is low (read, e.g., Krugman), they simply don't need so many workers that they would engage people as expensive to employ as the elderly inevitably are, no matter how good they may be at their trade or profession.

EPI seeks to remedy the omission of people like me from the official unemployment rate by adding a "missing workers" estimate. For details of how they do this, please follow the link above. As of their most recent update, Dec. 6, 2013, the official unemployment rate was 7.0% (in some states, considerably worse)... unless one accounts for missing workers; then the effective unemployment rate becomes 10.3% (and one presumes commensurately higher in high-unemployment states). On average, one in every 10 unemployed Americans is either looking for work or has given up looking because s/he cannot find a job.

I'm sorry, President Obama... that's not good enough. How about making it a priority? I mean, a real priority, not just an item in a speech?