Accessible and, though of interest largely to fiscal policy wonks, a careful argument for balancing sound financial...
Who guards the guards? In the case of the Federal Reserve, a watchdog over the economy, that question has new meaning.
The Fed is all that shields us from fiscal chaos, right? No. According to Jacobs (Chair, Political Studies/Univ. of Minnesota; co-author: Who Governs?: Presidents, Public Opinion, and Manipulation, 2015, etc.) and King (American Government/Oxford Univ.; co-author: Sterilized by the State: Eugenics, Race, and the Population Scare in Twentieth-Century North America, 2013, etc.), the Fed introduces its own kind of chaos by implicating too much of the economy in the machinations of the financial sector, which itself is too large a part of the economy. The Fed, “a mutant institution of government,” has two fundamental charges: to keep prices stable and to maximize employment. It has taken to tending mostly to the former, “tweaking the economy during sharp downturns,” when inflation is low and short-term stimuli are efficacious. In the case of the last downturn and its long-tail aftermath, the response has been to lower the interest rate to almost nothing, which does not necessarily stabilize prices. The reliance of the Fed on financial markets and its usual strategy of buying and later selling Treasury bonds means that it has become a financial player—and that numbers game, write Jacobs and King, “produces winners and losers.” Given the institution’s autonomy—though “not immune from intervention,” the Fed successfully shook off controls imposed by Dodd-Frank—this risky behavior has become an unregulated norm. However, it was not always this way. The authors observe that public involvement in financial policy was once much greater, with widespread debate over such things as “the relatively arcane issue of whether gold or silver should backstop the dollar.” While cautioning that they are not libertarian enemies of the Fed per se, they add specific recommendations for regulatory reform.
Accessible and, though of interest largely to fiscal policy wonks, a careful argument for balancing sound financial management and the public interest.Pub Date: March 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-19-938896-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: Feb. 14, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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