From “The Next Panic,” which appeared in the May 1987 issue of Harper’s Magazine. The complete article—along with the magazine’s entire 174-year archive—is available online at harpers.org/archive. Early this year,…
September 15 will mark five years since the beginning of the economic slump that defines the world we live in. Disaster was in the air already by that day in…
It’s rare, in economics as in life, to get a second chance. Though economists are constantly learning lessons from past mistakes, seldom are there obvious opportunities to apply them. The…
It’s dangerous to express optimism about the economy these days. Europe’s financial markets remain fragile. China, which supports much of the world’s economy through imports, is too dependent on highly…
In the political contest now entering its final few weeks, there are numerous issues great and small being debated by the candidates. But there is only one Issue before the…
As economic adversity continues to spread, from Athens to Madrid, London to the Beltway, austerity has become a most dangerous idea. What now dominates the world is the popular theory…
Remember the moment when “the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal”? It was late in the spring of 2008, and that was one…