These were the parameters of the economic policy debate familiar since 2009 and long before. What they did not capture was the sense that a deeper and more serious problem was afflicting America’s economy and the society built on it. The hypothesis that Summers suggested to his audience at the IMF in November 2013 was disconcerting and unfamiliar; so jarring, in fact, that Summers, who is not given to either modesty or self-doubt, acknowledged, “[T]his may all be madness, and I may not have this right at all.” But in light of the data, the question had to be put: What if the inadequate
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