James K. Galbraith, Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. Chair in Government/Business Relations and professor of government, presents a lecture based on his book, "The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too".
Robert Kuttner, distinguished senior fellow at Demos and co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect, acts as respondent- The New School
Bio
James K. Galbraith
James K. Galbraith teaches economics and a variety of other subjects at University of Texas' LBJ School of Public Affairs. He holds degrees from Harvard and Yale.
Galbraith studied economics as a Marshall Scholar at King's College, Cambridge in 1974-1975, and then served in several positions on the staff of the U.S. Congress, including Executive Director of the Joint Economic Committee. He was a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution in 1985. He directed the LBJ School's Ph.D. Program in Public Policy from 1995 to 1997. He directs the University of Texas Inequality Project, an informal research group based at the LBJ School.
Galbraith has co-authored two textbooks, The Economic Problem with the late Robert L. Heilbroner and Macroeconomics with William Darity, Jr. He is the author of Balancing Acts: Technology, Finance and the American Future and Created Unequal: The Crisis in American Pay. His latest book The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too was published in 2008.
Galbraith serves as a Senior Scholar of the Levy Economics Institute and as Chair of the Board of Economists for Peace and Security. He writes a column called "Econoclast" for Mother Jones, and occasional commentary in many other publications, including The Texas Observer, The American Prospect, and The Nation. He is an occasional commentator for Public Radio International's Marketplace.
Robert Kuttner
Robert Kuttner is co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect. He writes regularly for the magazine on political and economic issues.
Bob has just completed a book, to be published in 2007, on the connection between political and economic inequality and systemic risks facing the economy. He is pursuing these issues as a distinguished senior fellow at Demos.
Bob is the author of six previous books: Everything for Sale: The Virtues and Limits of Markets (1997); The End of Laissez-Faire (1991); The Life of the Party (1987); The Economic Illusion (1984); Revolt of the Haves (1980); and Family Re-union (2002), co-authored with his late wife, Sharland Trotter. His syndicated weekly editorial column originates in The Boston Globe and appears Mondays on the Prospect website.
He is also one of five co-founders of the Economic Policy Institute, and currently serves on its board of directors.
Bernard Schwartz
Bernard Schwartz is Chairman and CEO of BLS Investments, LLC and retired Chairman and CEO of Loral Space and Communications.
Measures employed by governments to stabilize the economy, specifically by adjusting the levels and allocations of taxes and government expenditures. When the economy is sluggish, the government may cut taxes, leaving taxpayers with extra cash to spend and thereby increasing levels of consumption. An increase in public-works spending may likewise pump cash into the economy, having an expansionary effect. Conversely, a decrease in government spending or an increase in taxes tends to cause the economy to contract. Fiscal policy is often used in tandem with monetary policy. Until the 1930s, fiscal policy aimed at maintaining a balanced budget; since then it has been used “countercyclically,” as recommended by John Maynard Keynes, to offset the cycle of expansion and contraction in the economy. Fiscal policy is more effective at stimulating a flagging economy than at cooling an inflationary one, partly because spending cuts and tax increases are unpopular and partly because of the work of economic stabilizers. See alsobusiness cycle.
Big Brother is always taking care of us, the sane one, or the sadistic, insane one. Now is not the time to parrot the right-wing ideology that put us in this toilet along with floating Bush-turds.
WOW, sounds like Big Brother should be taking care of us. That's not the role of the federal government! FDR made the small depression into the BIG depression. Let's not do that again.
In the Q&A, both economist offer what appears to be, on the surface, a devastating critique of David Walker. If their arguments are sound, then this is a huge story that is not getting out there!
member. 
