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• Related Materials

  • Question Marks Over Future of U.S.-Japan Alliance
    By Weston S. Konishi, International Affairs Fellow
    Op-Ed
    April 16, 2008

  • Tibetan Monks May Hold Clue to Dollar's Future
    By Amity Shlaes, Senior Fellow for Economic History
    Op-Ed
    April 9, 2008

  • Herbert Hoover's Ghost Haunts Markets, Democrats
    By Amity Shlaes, Senior Fellow for Economic History
    Op-Ed
    March 19, 2008

  • A 'Teachable' John McCain Is One Laughable Idea
    By Amity Shlaes, Senior Fellow for Economic History
    Op-Ed
    February 7, 2008

  • Bernanke Battles Wrong Ghost in Deflation Specter
    By Amity Shlaes, Senior Fellow for Economic History
    Op-Ed
    January 23, 2008

  See Also

  United States, Japan, Economics

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  Stop Bush, Democrats Before They Save our Economy

  Author:	Amity Shlaes, Senior Fellow for Economic History

  January 16, 2008
  Bloomberg.com

  One reason the White House, Congress and the presidential candidates are talking so easily nowadays about tinkering with the U.S. economy is that economic experts have already endorsed the concept of such short-term measures.

  Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers has suggested a number for how much would be required to soften a potential recession. Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz has spoken about tax rebates.  President George W. Bush, briefed by experts, may take up the stimulus concept as early as this week.  In coming months, the candidates will lean hard on the experts as they battle over questions such as whether the next middle-class tax credit should be refundable (Democrats), or not (Republicans).

  This is perverse.  The real question about tinkering should not be “how?” but “why?”  The persistence of the stimulus habit, and the endorsements by experts, makes it worthwhile to review such previous interventions and their consequences.

  Back in the early 1990s, great economies confronted trouble.  The savings-and-loan crisis, a recession and disappointing productivity numbers all darkened the U.S. future.  In Japan, banks were foundering, and the real estate bubble had popped.  The Nikkei stock index was plunging.

  Under the advice of economists such as Labor Secretary Bob Reich, a new U.S. president, Bill Clinton, was considering short-term action, both for his own country and for Japan.  Clinton staffers talked about a $10 billion or $15 billion outlay, or maybe a little more.

  View full text of article

• 

  New CFR Books

  

  In The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State, Noah Feldman tells the story behind the increasingly popular call for the establishment of the sharia—the law of the traditional Islamic state—in the modern Muslim world.

  

  In Regional Monetary Integration, Peter B. Kenen poses an important question: Should various country groups follow the lead of the European Monetary Union and form similar full-fledged monetary unions?

  

  Walter Russell Mead recounts the story of the centuries-long rivalry between the English- speaking peoples and their enemies in God and Gold.

  Complete list of CFR Books.

  

  

  New from the Council: Policy Options Papers

  Kenya

  In this POP, Adjunct Fellow Michelle D. Gavin suggests steps the Bush administration could take to promote political and ethnic reconciliation and to restore the viability of Kenya’s governing institutions.

  Pakistan

  In this paper, Senior Fellow Daniel Markey poses a set of recommendations for the United States to consider in response to Pakistan’s ongoing political crisis.

  

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