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