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James K. Galbraith
James K. Galbraith, a former executive director of the Joint Economic Committee, is Professor of Government and Chair in Government/Business Relations at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Inequality: What Everyone Needs to Know, and Welcome to the Poisoned Chalice: The Destruction of Greece and the Future of Europe.
The Federal Reserve’s planned interest rate increases show it has bowed to pressure from economists and financiers. Whether it is intentional or not, the US central bank’s war on inflation will in reality be a war on American workers and their interests.
The source of the chaos is the system being built with efficiency in mind rather than resilience. A supply chain requires all its parts to function smoothly all the time. Failures cannot be isolated or fixed with new techniques.
US prosperity is built on debt, and heavily reliant on global demand for advanced goods and consumer demand for frills, none of which is likely to bounce back as quickly as many wish.
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