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The Great Equalizer: How Main Street Capitalism Can Create an Economy for Everyone
Smick’s The World is Curved (2008) was a reply to Thomas Friedman and one of the first books to argue that globalization had unleashed dangerous and damaging economic forces. In An Economy for Everyone, Smick focuses on the structural changes that are essential to prevent a follow-up crash to 2008 and to ensure that the US generates growth that will support businesses large and small, and not simply line the pockets of the too-big banks and the 1%.
Since 2010, both the world’s GDP growth and trade growth rates have been cut in half. Commodity prices have collapsed. Emerging markets led by China have massive levels of excess productive capacity, and they are exporting dangerous disinflationary pressure worldwide. Corporate debt held by emerging markets has more than doubled. China’s dangerous credit binge has been unprecedented. Europe is in long-term economic stagnation. Japan is falling back into deflation. Brazil is in severe economic crisis that could lead to default. The world’s total public debt has skyrocketed.
Bold American leadership that will protect Americans from this frightening global economic landscape has been missing from both mainstream political parties. Smick outlines a course of action that should guide the actions of the next president, whoever he or she may be. This is the agenda on which our prosperity and global standing will depend.
Since 2010, both the world’s GDP growth and trade growth rates have been cut in half. Commodity prices have collapsed. Emerging markets led by China have massive levels of excess productive capacity, and they are exporting dangerous disinflationary pressure worldwide. Corporate debt held by emerging markets has more than doubled. China’s dangerous credit binge has been unprecedented. Europe is in long-term economic stagnation. Japan is falling back into deflation. Brazil is in severe economic crisis that could lead to default. The world’s total public debt has skyrocketed.
Bold American leadership that will protect Americans from this frightening global economic landscape has been missing from both mainstream political parties. Smick outlines a course of action that should guide the actions of the next president, whoever he or she may be. This is the agenda on which our prosperity and global standing will depend.
272 pages, Hardcover
Published January 10, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 14, 2018
Smick received some acclaim a decade ago by writing a book that "predicted" the 2008 financial crisis. His pessimism is again on clear display in this work, although he tempers it with some useful thoughts on how things might improve. Smick's greatest burden is to demonstrate how 3.5%-4% growth will fix a lot of what ails us. Economists today seem resigned to anemic growth in the 1.5%-2% range, but settling for such low growth is unacceptable.
But how do we achieve the higher growth common to the post-war years? Smick's answer is "main street capitalism." That is, encouraging individuals to start small businesses. Smick sees the huge Wall Street banks and Silicon Valley-centric venture capital firms as stifling growth by ignoring middle America. The big players focus all of their time and attention on a few whales, all the while ignoring the broad swath of the country that in the past has provided consistent innovation.
Smick has other things to say regarding debt loads, currency manipulation, and what he calls "deglobalization," but he doesn't do a good job of tying them to his central thesis, beyond a general plea for whatever might encourage growth.
This book is not a barn-burner; nor is it superbly organized or clearly written. But it is still worth reading in order to encourage pursuit of ways to pursue broad-based growth that will greatly benefit the working and middle classes. Bernie Sanders and the left won't like it because it relies on hard work and capitalism, not stealing from the rich to fund handouts to the poor. But that's merely a strong point in Smick's favor.
But how do we achieve the higher growth common to the post-war years? Smick's answer is "main street capitalism." That is, encouraging individuals to start small businesses. Smick sees the huge Wall Street banks and Silicon Valley-centric venture capital firms as stifling growth by ignoring middle America. The big players focus all of their time and attention on a few whales, all the while ignoring the broad swath of the country that in the past has provided consistent innovation.
Smick has other things to say regarding debt loads, currency manipulation, and what he calls "deglobalization," but he doesn't do a good job of tying them to his central thesis, beyond a general plea for whatever might encourage growth.
This book is not a barn-burner; nor is it superbly organized or clearly written. But it is still worth reading in order to encourage pursuit of ways to pursue broad-based growth that will greatly benefit the working and middle classes. Bernie Sanders and the left won't like it because it relies on hard work and capitalism, not stealing from the rich to fund handouts to the poor. But that's merely a strong point in Smick's favor.
September 9, 2018
From the perspective of someone who has been at the top most of his life, Smick has a grounded take on the state of USA. But I find hime getting stuck with macroeconomic solutions even though he dedicates a whole chapter to entrepreneurship (businesses of any size) to help solve inequality and unemployment. He cannot draw the connection between supporting a social welfare system, altruism and profits. It's an intriguing book to read but not enough to spark "bottom-up" ideas. Read social entrepreneurship after this so it doesn't feel so helpless and unactionable.
June 7, 2017
Excellent. Good analysis and good remedies.
June 21, 2022
How to fix the United States economy in 14 not so easy steps. Interesting!
February 2, 2017
Main Street is the driving force of job creation. It is the only way to move forward
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March 30, 2017In a recent feature in The New York Times Book Review entitled “The Story Behind This Week’s Best Sellers,” Gregory Cowles notes that the word “macroeconomics” doesn’t turn up much on the best-seller lists. No surprise, he says, given that “the field isn’t exactly sexy.” But an exception to the rule emerged with the recent publication of David M. Smick’s The Great Equalizer: How Main Street Capitalism Can Create an Economy for Everyone, which entered the hardcover nonfiction list at No. 8. Smick, who calls himself a “global macroeconomic strategist,” eschews artful prose in the book as he delivers a practical discussion of economic policy seasoned with healthy doses of supply-side gospel, quotes from hundreds of clients and acquaintances, and no small amount of populist sympathy. The book seems to have arrived at a propitious time.
To understand why, we might go back to February 2016, when Lawrence Summers published in Foreign Affairs an article entitled, “The Age of Secular Stagnation: What It Is and What to Do About It.” The article explored how expansionary fiscal policy by the U.S. government can help overcome secular stagnation and get “growth,” as defined by the neoliberal elite, back on track. Aside from being a replay of some tired arguments about the efficacy of economic stimulus, the Summers case for fiscal spending was essentially a reprise of Francis Fukuyama’s “End of History” thesis promulgated in his famous 1989 essay in The National Interest.
In suggesting that the fascist and communist challenges to liberalism were dead, Fukuyama asked whether democratic capitalism, as practiced in the West, faced any possible ideological competitors. “Or put another way,” he wrote, “are there contradictions in liberal society beyond that of class that are not resolvable?” He saw two possibilities: “those of religion and nationalism.”
http://www.theamericanconservative.co...
To understand why, we might go back to February 2016, when Lawrence Summers published in Foreign Affairs an article entitled, “The Age of Secular Stagnation: What It Is and What to Do About It.” The article explored how expansionary fiscal policy by the U.S. government can help overcome secular stagnation and get “growth,” as defined by the neoliberal elite, back on track. Aside from being a replay of some tired arguments about the efficacy of economic stimulus, the Summers case for fiscal spending was essentially a reprise of Francis Fukuyama’s “End of History” thesis promulgated in his famous 1989 essay in The National Interest.
In suggesting that the fascist and communist challenges to liberalism were dead, Fukuyama asked whether democratic capitalism, as practiced in the West, faced any possible ideological competitors. “Or put another way,” he wrote, “are there contradictions in liberal society beyond that of class that are not resolvable?” He saw two possibilities: “those of religion and nationalism.”
http://www.theamericanconservative.co...
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews