economics

If you are part of the 99% – and there is a 99% chance that you are – then you are one of the first generation in living memory who can expect to be poorer than your parents, even as the economy continues to grow.

The ‘Credit Crunch’ is not over. In fact, it has barely started

The world is now approaching the final death rattle of the greatest Ponzi scheme in history: a scheme by which the financial industry created a vast overhang of debt, a mountain of low quality assets – and laid the foundations for a disaster which will dwarf anything else in history.

.

[Cass's] core principle--a culture of respect for work of all kinds--can help close the gap dividing the two Americas....
- William A. Galston, The Brookings Institution

The American worker is in crisis. Wages have stagnated for more than a generation. Reliance on welfare programs has surged. Life expectancy is falling as substance abuse and obesity rates climb.

.

.

In this lively history of consumer debt in America, economic historian Louis Hyman demonstrates that today’s problems are not as new as we think.

.

.