The Decline and Crash of the American Economy

Kurtzman, financial journalist for the New York Times, provides an intriguing but decidedly mixed bag of nostrums for what he sees as the failing American economy. He argues that the U.S. has been undergoing a slow economic decline since the eary 1970s. He believes that the much ballyhooed ``information and service economy'' is a ridiculous notion and blames much of our decline on the loss of high-paying manufacturing jobs to the Third World. He is an outspoken advocate of progress and excoriates the pessimism of the Club of Rome's The Limits to Growth report. His remedies for correcting our supposed decline range from Japanese and European-style economic planning to adopting the gold standard. His infatuation with European planning and subsidies causes him to ignore the fact that these policies have held European unemployment at around 10% for a decade. Nevertheless, Kurtzman's ideas are sure to spark debate. (May)