Recently declassified information shows that the military presented President Kennedy with a plan for a surprise nuclear attack on the Soviet Union in the early 1960s.
James K. Galbraith
James K. Galbraith holds the Lloyd M. Bentsen, Jr. Chair in Government/Business Relations at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, the University of Texas at Austin. He is a member of the Lincean Academy and author most recently of Inequality: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press, 2016).
Posted inEconomic Policy
Self-Fulfilling Prophets: Inflated Zeal at the Federal Reserve
Greenspan’s rate increases needlessly threaten to abort the recovery. A more accountable central bank is long overdue.
Posted inEconomic Policy
The New Dialectic
Modern economic life crosses national boundaries to form a web of intricate association that retards aggressive and regressive nationalism. Trade, investment, enterprise, technology, communications, and travel are today relentlessly transnational. Yet this same globalism undermines the capacity of the nation-state to stabilize its economy. From this paradox comes the first of the dialectics of our […]
Posted inEconomic Policy
The Joys of Recession
Economics as a subject matter and, in its more than slightly fragile way, as a science, has two notable features. There is a plausible characteristic of the economy, well supported by both analysis and experience, that gets relatively little mention. And there is a related aspect of the economic system that is wholly proscribed in […]
Posted inEconomic Policy
Keynes, Einstein, and Scientific Revolution
Economics follows the wrong model of physics. Keynes appreciated that jobs, savings, and growth are all relative.
Posted inEconomic Policy
The Coming Budget Battle
T he passage of President Clinton’s budget, marked by its one-half trillion in deficit reduction, is already restoring respect for the administration. Clinton will be tempted to move on to other issues. The urgent need to make good on health care reform and the generally sour nature of budget discussions will add to this impulse. […]
Posted inEconomic Policy
Who’s Bashing Tyson?
L aura D’Andrea Tyson’s appointment to chair the Council of Economic Advisers received savage treatment from some of her professional colleagues. According to Peter Passell of the New York Times, “jaws dropped” in academe at the announcement. Passell went on to describe Tyson as “trendy” and a “polemicist.” And the addition of Princeton’s Alan Blinder […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Life After Tight Money
The conservative experiment with tight money has failed. Popular monetary prescriptions—low interest rates and a more accountable Federal Reserve—are steps in the right direction. But they must go hand in hand with structural reforms to get the econo
Posted inWorking in America
A New Picture of The American Economy
What really ails the American economy? Many economists blame stalled productivity—without understanding it. A new analysis suggests that prosperity depends on success in key industries significant in international trade.
