What about everyone else?
 | By Jyoti Thottam Business and Economics Editor, Opinion |
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If it were up to you to save the American economy, what would you do? It’s not an easy task. Do too little, and you risk turning a recession into a doom spiral. And it isn’t enough to just spend a lot. The Bush and Obama administrations saved the financial system after the 2008 crisis, but their decisions to focus on “too big to fail” banks have had deep and lasting consequences. |
Are we making the same mistakes again? Congress has spent trillions of dollars since the pandemic shut down the economy. Many Americans are once again angry about how much of that money has gone to keeping big corporations and wealthy investors afloat. But it isn’t just about the money. What big businesses have gotten is some certainty about the future — and that is what the rest of America needs, too. |
That’s the argument made by Tim Wu, a contributing Opinion writer, in his article on the “rich man’s recovery.” Tim is a law professor, and one of the rare academics who can make legal theory about corporations and technology accessible to a wide audience. (That makes him a huge asset to me, as the editor who oversees Times Opinion coverage of business, economics and technology.) He coined the term “net neutrality” and his book on the “attention economy” changed the way many people think about all the time we spend on social media. |
So when Tim wanted to write about what Congress could do better, I was eager to hear what he had to say. In recent weeks, we’ve commissioned pieces on the Fed’s moral hazard, the need for a federal jobs guarantee and the case for payroll support. I hope you find those pieces as illuminating as I did — and if you have ideas for how to fix the economy, please let us know. |
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