The raw deal
Subtitle: how myths and misinformation about deficits, inflation, and wealth impoverish America
By: Ellen Frank
Publisher: Beacon Press
Published: 2004
Place of publication: Boston
Language: eng
Number of pages: 241
ISBN-13: 9780807047262; 9780807047279
Subjects: Wealth; Statistieken; Money; Misleiding; Social justice; Indicatoren; Inflation (Finance); Budget deficits
Description: "Over the past twenty years, Americans have been fed a mash of confusing financial and economic information. Economist Ellen Frank's alternately enlightening and shocking volume shows us how what we've been taught to think about stocks, interest rates, personal opportunities, employment, government spending, and inflation distorts popular understanding of how the economy really operates. But public confusion serves a distinct political goal: to camouflage the transformation of economic policy from a tool for improving the living standards of all to a tool for securing privileges for the wealthy." "This combination of misleading rhetoric and misinformation implies, for instance, that it is possible for all of us to become wealthy by investing in the stock market: that 401(k) plans are better than pension plans because they give individuals responsibility and control over retirement savings, making us more responsible citizens; that low unemployment leads to inflation; and that rising inflation impedes progress and forces people into poverty."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 209-222) and index.
Table of contents: title: ch. 1.; title: Introduction --; title: Money illusion --; title: The real economy --; title: The raw deal -- -- ch. 2.; title: The great stock illusion --; title: The illusion of market democracy --; title: The illusion of market efficiency --; title: The illusion of public information --; title: The illusion of wealth creation --; title: The illusion of retirement security -- -- ch. 3.; title: Debt delusions --; title: The myth of the burdensome debt --; title: The death of the Keynesian consensus --; title: The crowding-out myth --; title: Deficit politics --; title: The myth of the Social Security Trust Fund --; title: The paradox of thrift -- -- ch. 4.; title: The inflation myth --; title: What's wrong with inflation? --; title: Sado-monetarism --; title: Greenspan and the myth of the NAIRU --; title: The triumph of central banking -- -- ch. 5.; title: The almighty dollar --; title: Freeing capital --; title: The dollar standard --; title: The debt trap --; title: Hot money --; title: The real debacle --; title: The convertibility catastrophe --; title: Bailouts --; title: Global deflation -- -- ch. 6.; title: A better deal --; title: Real well-being --; title: The revolt of the elites --; title: A better deal --; title: Notes --; title: Acknowledgments --; title: Index.