Jeff Faux
- : Jeff Faux founded the Economic Policy Institute in 1986, and made it into the country's leading "think-tank" on the political and economic issues that face working Americans. In 2003, he stepped down as EPI's president, and is now the Institute's Distinguished Fellow. Faux has studied, taught and published on a wide variety of economic and political issues from the global economy to neighborhood community development, from monetary policy to political strategy. He is the author or co-author of five books, the latest being, The Global Class War (Wiley, 2006). He has now started a new book on America's future. Faux worked as an economist in the Departments of State, Labor and Commerce, a manager in the finance industry, a blueberry farmer and a member of a municipal planning board in the State of Maine. He's been an advisor to governments, trade unions, businesses, political campaigns and community organizations. He's lectured in Europe, Latin America and Asia, and sits on the boards of several of non-profit institutions and magazines.
The Perils of Deregulation
Kevin Phillips' description of the Ponzi pyramid seems about right. I'd add that at the bottom was the growing gap between the 25 year slowdown in wages and middle class incomes and the intensified pressures of a "shop-til-we-drop" culture....more »
Posted on April 16, 2008 2:26 PM
Why Not Amend the Constitution?
Mark Schmitt is right “that the most fundamental problem to be addressed in American politics is the extent to which radical economic inequality reinforces and in turn is reinforced by inequality in the political system.” He and others who have...more »
Posted on March 19, 2007 10:14 AM
Back to Substance
OK Mark, back to substance. Good deals are better than no deals. No deals are better than bad deals. So if the choice is to keep reproducing trade agreements that undercut workers bargaining power across borders and no more agreements,...more »
Posted on March 3, 2007 1:52 PM
Answering Mark
Mark, you raise two questions. One is about the effectiveness of a moratorium on trade agreements. The other is about the integrity of my arguments. I’ll start with the first. Yes, the point of the moratorium is to force Davos...more »
Posted on March 2, 2007 7:22 PM
Which World is the Real One?
Brad DeLong is right that he and I live – or at least think we live -- in two different worlds. The question is: which is closer to reality? Brad says that Jeff Faux lives in a world in which...more »
Posted on March 2, 2007 11:32 AM
Dodging the Question
Brad DeLong brings us the startling news that there are a lot of poor people in China, that the Chinese rich are not as wealthy as Bill Gates, and that incomes are up since the cultural revolution. Wow! Stop the...more »
Posted on March 1, 2007 10:38 AM
Moving on to globalization’s central political question
Nathan Newman’s comment gives us some traction that might move this conversation out of the tiresome rut that defines globalization as an issue of free trade vs. protectionism. The central questions are: what rules should guide the global social contract...more »
Posted on February 28, 2007 10:11 AM
Two Thin Reeds
Brad DeLong says America workers making $30,000 a year ought to be willing to cut their living standards in order to help China’s economy. He gives us two reasons. First, DeLong guesses that there aren’t many commissars turned capitalists, anyway....more »
Posted on February 28, 2007 7:07 AM
Missing the Point #2
Brad Delong asks: Is there a way to interpret Jeff other than as a call to keep China a society of poor subsistence rice farmers as long as possible--keep them poor, barefoot, uneducated, and by no means allow them to...more »
Posted on February 27, 2007 9:03 AM
Missing the Point #1
OK Greg. I’m on plenty of records as a fervid supporter of universal health insurance. Let’s stipulate that it would help – although certainly not cure – eroding US competitiveness. But as many of you got, neither competitiveness nor trade...more »
Posted on February 27, 2007 8:16 AM
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Thanks Tom Wright. Maybe I wasn't clear enough for Destor. The point about the savings rate is that when wages were rising with productivity, people saved, but when wage stagnation began, personal savings fell. This seems to suggests to me that the problem of excessive debt is mainly one of inadequate income -- as Destor says.
That said, there is something in the story that does have to do with the culture -- at the very least with the accelerated intrusion of more and more sophisticated advertising in our lives. Before the Neo Cons and Neo Libs took over the debate on economic policy in the Age of Reagan, there was a respected view that "wants" could be manufactured by advertising. A point that most anyone over the age of 12 understands. But such thoughts are beyond the pale of proper policy discussion today.
Ellen, you're right that bailouts lead to bailouts. But without regulation, bailouts are inevitable. After 1929, no government is going to risk a financial meltdown. So either you try to head them off with rules that restrain the irrational exuberance or you accept that the taxpayer will ante up. Speculative bubbles existed long before government bailouts. The average investor, it turns out, isn't any more rational than kids in the candy store.
Posted at April 16, 2008 5:09 PM in response to The Perils of Deregulation
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No,I was making a political point. The depression was the event that discredited unregulated capitalism and provided the political leverage for the New Deal. The captains of big business accepted it, grudgingly, because they had no place to go. America was where they produced, sold and made their profits.
Neo-liberal style globalization has given them a way to undermine social democracy and to excape its constraints.
Posted at March 2, 2007 2:32 PM in response to Which World is the Real One?
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Take a look at my original post and also the penultimate post ("Moving on...") You may not agree with my proposals, but they are addressed to the problem of getting from A to B.
Posted at March 1, 2007 12:15 PM in response to Dodging the Question
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Greg – We’re talking apples and oranges. My proposal is a stab at the problem you say you recognize: global economic elites who are disconnecting themselves from the rest of us, but who dominate Washington policy and have created a global economy with the rules and values of the robber baron era.
Of course we need universal health care, but it is not going to solve the problem of global corporatepower(which is at the core of the question of how to govern the global economy) any more than it is going to solve the problem of global warming. Or Iraq, for that matter. Should we stop thinking about anything else?
We’re not setting next week’s legislative priorities for Nancy Pelosi here. We can, if we try, walk and chew gum at the same time.
Posted at February 28, 2007 7:03 AM in response to Missing the Point #1
