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This article discusses the economic philosophy of former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. Rubin has begun to discuss the troubles of income inequality, as well as globalization's impact on the stagnation of U.S. wages. Rubin is cited as a leading expert on economic policy, and as someone whose opinion should be followed.

Alan Greenspan is well loved among the governing elites and seldom criticized, because he convincingly plays the role of America's Dr. Pangloss. When the occasional upset occurs, the wise Federal [...]

John Kerry is borne aloft by party unity and the overriding imperative of defeating Bush, but the senator has entered a perilous zone where the outcome may depend more on [...]

The Democratic Party has come a long way from the 'lockbox' economics of 2000. Four years ago, Al Gore campaigned on a promise to maintain federal budget surpluses as far [...]

One of the first casualties of war may be those happy-talk forecasts of a robust recovery once the bombing starts in Iraq, but a far more momentous economic question accompanies [...]

The imperial ambitions of the Bush Administration, post-9/11, are founded on quicksand and are eventually sure to founder, but for fundamental reasons not currently under discussion. Bush's open-ended claims for [...]

An awakened sense of outrage has reporters and members of Congress playing a fierce game of hounds and hares with Enron executives and other bandits, which is most fortunate for [...]

At a time when the economy needs vast and purposeful help from the federal government, America faces a peculiar handicap: Neither political party really believes in liberal economic intervention or [...]

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the former senator, has a careerlong history of promoting bold new ideas for government, helping turn them into public policy and then explaining a few years later, [...]

Paul O'Neill was supposed to be the 'grownup' in the Bush Cabinet, the guy with government savvy from many years in Washington and the industrial-strength smarts of a successful CEO. [...]

Twenty years ago this season, when another new Republican President arrived in Washington to push for massive income-tax reductions, I was having breakfast every other Saturday morning with David Stockman, [...]

Paying off the national debt used to be an obsession of Calvinist fundamentalists on the fringes of the Republican Party, but this year it is the boldest banner held aloft [...]

On the morning after, people awoke to the drear prospect of 'gush and bore' for the next six months, and excitement flew out the window. No reason to despair-we can [...]

The giddy adoration of Alan Greenspan has come to resemble the stock market bubble itself and, when one phenomenon comes to its end, so will the other. Like day traders [...]

Offers a look at economic conditions in the United States and discusses the possibility for an economic recession. Lack of consumer confidence; Decline of consumer spending and personal incomes; Report that the collapse of New Orleans, Louisiana, due to Hurricane Katrina wiped out nearly 300,000 jobs; Discussion of the negative savings rate among U.S. households; Criticism of President George W. Bush's economic policy; Suggestion that price inflation would be better for the economy than recession; Need for the government to spend money in ways that would help struggling wage earners.

The article offers a look at former United States President Ronald Reagan, who died in June 2004. Whether you came to canonize the man or ridicule him, he was always great material. The major media, draped in mourning, are solemnly fictionalizing his presidency. What is left out? For one thing, a chilling meanness lurked at the core of Reagan's political agenda (always effectively concealed by the affability), and he used this meanness like a razor blade to advance his main purpose--delegitimizing the federal government. Race was one cutting edge, poverty was another. In case any white guys missed the point, Reagan opened his 1980 campaign in Neshoba County, Mississippi, where three civil rights workers had been murdered in the 1960s. Reagan was authentic in his convictions--he brought the flint-hearted libertarian doctrines to Washington and put a smiling face on the market orthodoxy of "every man for himself." Wealthy individuals, corporate and financial interests got extraordinary benefits (tax reductions and deregulation) while the bottom half got whacked whenever an opportunity arose. After my notorious account of Reagan's economic failure was published in the December 1981 Atlantic Monthly, Reagan likened me to John Hinckley, the would-be assassin who shot him.

The author explains why he supports Howard Dean for president. First, the rivals saw him as a McGovernite lefty from the 1960s. When that didn't take, they decided to depict him as a rightwing clone of Newt Gingrich who wants to dismantle Medicare and Social Security. Finally, opponents sold political reporters on the story of Mr. Malaprop, an oddball from tiny, liberal Vermont so insensitive to the nuances of American politics his mouth will destroy him. Howard Dean surged ahead through all this. The other candidates and witting collaborators in the press got him wrong every time. He is, I surmise, a tough and savvy politician of the old school--a shrewd, intuitive pol who develops his own sense of where the people are and where events are likely to take public opinion, then has the guts to act on his perceptions. The man also stands his ground in a fight. When someone jabs him, he jabs back. With issues, Dean is pretty much what he says: a middle-of-the-road moderate, neither left nor right, though middle in Vermont is liberal ground. Dean is opening the possibility of transforming politics--shaking up the tired, timid old order, inviting plain-wrapper citizens back into an active role--and that's why so many people, myself included, are for him.

This article focuses on the Economic Policy Institute's (EPI) comprehensive alternative--left-liberal--vision to stimulate and guide the progressive counterreformation, what they call the Agenda for Shared Prosperity. EPI won high regard for its meticulous research and powerful analysis of the economic realities in the U.S. Their agenda includes many policy proposals for confronting social and economic wounds, as the author says, generated by 25 years of conservative governance.

Reveals how the Federal Reserve Board misled President Bill Clinton about the part it would play in getting the country out of its recession. Clinton's $500 billion deficit-reduction plan, which would shrink the deficit by depressing the economy with tax increases and spending cuts; Fed chairman Alan Greenspan; The Fed's obsession with price inflation; The Fed's fear of run-up of prices in financial markets; More.