Here are some of Joseph Stiglitz's current thoughts:
"Second-quarter growth plummeted to 2.1%.
Average hours worked in manufacturing in July sank to the lowest level since 2011.
Real wages are only slightly above their level a decade ago, before the Great Recession.
Real investment as a percentage of GDP is well below levels in the late 1990s, despite a tax cut allegedly intended to spur business spending, but which was used mainly to finance share buybacks instead."
"America should be in a boom, with three enormous fiscal-stimulus measures in the past three years. The 2017 tax cut, which mainly benefited billionaires and corporations, added some $1.5-2 trillion to the ten-year deficit. An almost $300 billion increase in expenditures over two years averted a government shutdown in 2018. And at the end of July, a new agreement to avoid another shutdown added another $320 billion of spending. If it takes trillion-dollar annual deficits to keep the US economy going in good times, what will it take when things are not so rosy?"
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