Table of Contents

PART I. LOSING OUR ECONOMIC BEARINGS

Chapter 1. Is Our Economy Fundamentally Sound?

Our Economic Fundamentals

Our Top Eight Fundamental Problems

An Unsustainable Economic Course

Chapter 2. What Went Wrong?

No more Lean and Mean

Wasting Our Resources

Our Shrinking Manufacturing Base

The American Economic System

PART II. SIX CATACLYSMIC EVENTS

Chapter 3. Depression and War

The Great Depression

World War II

Employer-Based Healthcare Insurance

Summary and Conclusion

Chapter 4. Suburbanization

The Great Suburban Migration after World War II

Suburban Sprawl

Public Transportation in the Suburbs

Our Wasteful Suburban Lifestyle

The Consequence of Suburbanization

The Abandonment of Our Cities

Summary and Conclusion

Chapter 5. The Cold War

The Emerging Soviet Threat

Fighting World Communism

The Economic War

De-Escalation and Victory

The Cost of Victory

Summary and Conclusion

Chapter 6. Globalization and Global Warming

Globalization

Global Warming

PART III. THE DEINDUSTRIALIZATION OF AMERICA

Chapter 7. The Rise and Fall of American Industrial Power

The Rise of American Industrial Power

The Age of the Industrial Capitalist

From the Turn of the Century to the Great Depression

Wartime and Postwar Prosperity

The Fall of American Industrial Power

Last Word

Chapter 8. Innovation, Infrastructure, and Industrial Policy

How We Lost Our Innovative Edge

The Erosion of Our Innovative Capacity

The Growing Technical Proficiency of Our Global Competitors

Our Crumbling Infrastructure

Industrial Policy

Solutions

PART IV. JOBS, WAGES, AND THE JOB SHORTAGE

Chapter 9. Jobs and Wages

The Good Old Postwar Years

The Process of Creative Destruction

The Loss of Manufacturing Jobs

Measuring the Effect of Offshore and Automation on the Loss of Manufacturing Jobs

The Next Ten Years

The Decline of Organized Labor

The Working-Class Job Squeeze

Is Wal-Mart Creating Bad Jobs and Destroying Good Ones?

The Two-Tier Wage System

Outsourcing vs. Offshoring

Offshoring and Wages

The Effects of Automation

Stagnation in Real Wages

Chapter 10. The Job Shortage

Jobs for High School Graduates

Jobs for College Graduates

Conclusion

PART V. WASTING OUR RESOURCES BY USING THEM INEFFICIENTLY

Chapter 11. Our Wasteful Transportation System

The Way We Were

The Shift from Public to Private Transportation

Bigger, but Not Better

The Advantages of Public Transportation

Cars, Trains, Planes, Buses, and Trucks

The Cost of Our Wasteful Transportation System

Solutions

Chapter 12. Our Failing Public Schools

What Are the Causes of Our Educational Decline?

Five Major Problems

Education and Poverty

Separate, but Still Unequal

Finding a Decent School for Your Child

Our Community Colleges and Career Schools

The Cost of Our Wasteful Public Education System

How Our Public Education System Can Be Fixed

Fixing What Doesn’t Work

Chapter 13. Our Sick Healthcare System

Rising Healthcare Spending

Healthcare Financing

Seven Factors Pushing Up the Cost of Healthcare

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010

The Cost of Our Bloated Healthcare System

Solutions

A Comprehensive Solution

PART VI. WASTING OUR RESOURCES BY OVERPRODUCING

Chapter 14. The Military-Industrial Complex

The Economic Cost of Supporting a Huge Military Establishment

The All-Volunteer Army

Our Perpetual War Machine

The High Cost of Projecting American Military Power

Fighting the War on Terror

The Cost of Wasting Resources on Defense

Solutions

Chapter 15. The Criminal Justice Establishment

The Young Black and Hispanic Criminal

Incarcerating the Mentally Ill

Our Prison Population

The High Cost of Crime

Solutions

Summing Up

Chapter 16. Our Bloated Financial Sector

The Economic Role of Banking

Deregulation

The Financial Crisis of 2008

Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act

The Financialization of the American Economy

The Economic Effects of Financialization

Financial Predators

The Real Estate Industry

The Insurance Industry

Summing Up

Solutions

Conclusion

PART VII. WASTING OUR RESOURCES BY PRODUCING USELESS GOODS AND SERVICES

Chapter 17. The Internal Revenue Code and the Tax Preparation Industry

The Cost of Compliance

Who Gains from a Complicated Tax Code?

Low Tax Rates

The Cost of Complying with the Internal Revenue Code

Sharing the Tax Burden

Solutions

Chapter 18. Telemarketers, Ambulance Chaser, and Other Make-Work Occupations

Phone Work

The Healthcare Sector

Sales Reps

Our Best and Our Brightest

The Government Sector

Solutions

PART VIII. THE ECONOMIC, SOCIAL, AND POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF WASTING OUR RESOURCES

Chapter 19. The Economic Consequences of Wasting Our Resources

Our Wasteful Suburban Lifestyle

The Transportation Sector

The Public Education Sector

The Healthcare Sector

The Military-Industrial Complex

The Criminal Justice Sector

The Financial Sector

The Internal Revenue Code and Make-Work Sector

Summing Up

Chapter 20. Our Twin Deficits

The Federal Budget Deficit

The Foreign Trade Deficit

Last Word: Cause and Effect

Chapter 21. Our Unraveling Social Contracts

The New Deal

The Postwar Labor-Management Social Contract

The GI Bill of Rights

Making African Americans a Party to the Social Contract

The Great Society Program

The Unraveling of the Social Contract

Entitlement Spending

Cutting Entitlements

Cutting Government Subsidies

Conclusions

Chapter 22. Growing Income Inequality and the Shrinking Middle Class

The Great Compression and the Great Divergence

The Poor

The Middle Class

The Rich

Income Inequality Before and After Taxes and Government Spending

The Consequences of Income Inequality

Last Word

Chapter 23. Poverty and the Growing Permanent Underclass

The Urban Ghettoes before and after Suburbanization

Defining Poverty and Counting the Poor

Three Different Poverty Groups

The Growing Permanent American Underclass

Child Poverty

Last Word

PART IX. RESTORING THE AMERICAN ECONOMY

Chapter 24. How We Are Wasting Our Resources: The Big Picture

Our Top Eight Fundamental Economic Problems

A Holistic Approach: How Our Economic Problems Impact Upon Each Other

Chapter 25. Solving Our Economic Problems and Saving the American Economy

Solving Our Eight Fundamental Economic Problems

Last Word

Chapter 26. The Great Job Switch: Placing Tens of Millions of Americans in Useful Jobs

The Big Four

Other Major Economic Sectors

The Make-Work Sector

Private and Public Bureaucrats

Putting the Permanent Underclass Back to Work

My Person Wish List of Jobs

Matching Job Applicants with Job Openings

Let’s Do the Math

Getting People to Switch Jobs

War and Peace

A Word about Bernie Sander’s Presidential Campaign Platform

Chapter 27. A Long-Term Strategy to Save the American Economy

Ask the Experts

Presidential Commissions

BRAC

In Time of Economic Crisis

Shovel-Ready Projects

Summing Up Our Basic Economic Problem

Last Word

Acknowledgements

Notes

Index


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