“If you’d asked me five years ago what would happen if the U.S. had unemployment in excess of 9% and every prospect of unemployment at incredibly high levels for some years to come, I’d have said there’d be overwhelming political demand for government to do something. In fact there isn’t. What’s happened is we’ve had a near collapse of the idea that government can do anything about this.”
Paul Krugman
Phi Beta Iota: MIT–as with other “establishment” organizations including the US military–just cannot bring itself to acknowledge that the US Government is corrupt, as articulated so ably by Matt Taibi of Rolling Stone in Griftopia–Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America. See also: (DVD): Inside Job.
Economic Policy Challenges: Macroeconomics and Fiscal Policy
January 27, 2011
These economists, MIT PhDs all, ponder what remains in the macroeconomist’s toolkit to pull the U.S., and much of the developed world, out of recession. They discuss aspects of fiscal and monetary policy that may prove useful in spurring recovery, as well as the complicating matter of politics.
Moderator
Ricardo Caballero PhD '88
Ford International Professor of Economics and Department Head, MIT
Event Host