How We Got Here With the Economy and How to Get Out

by Robert Freeman

It’s easy to get fixated with small-bore issues on the economy, even if they don’t seem so small-bore at the time. Stimulus packages. Bailouts. Debt ceilings. Deficit commissions. Payroll tax-cut extensions. They seem like life and death issues while they’re being fought out.

But, in fact, they are distractions from the one real question that dominates all others, which is this: for whom should the economy be run? Should it be operated “to promote the general welfare” of 297 million people, the 99 percent? Or should it be run to benefit 3 million, the one percent?