In Search of Monsters — You Can’t Fix Systemic Problems at the Unit Level

The news this Fourth of July week is not encouraging: consumer “sentiment,” according to the Wall Street Journal, is as low as it’s been since the recovery from World War II; the world’s biggest economy is slowing down, inflation spiking to a 40 year peak, interest rates on mortgages heading up, sure to slow construction and home sales. What is to be made of these developments and what does it portend for the future of America’s economic well-being?

In this final installment of the first season of In Search of Monsters, host Chris Lydon speaks witih Mark Blyth, professor of political economy at Brown University. Additionally, Chis is joined by Brendan Greeley, who has just stepped away from finance journalism to pursue his Ph.D. in economics at Princeton.

Listen to the full episode here:

Additionally, check out these related resources:

Spending Unlimited – QI Senior Research Fellow William Hartung and Julia Gledhill’s piece in TomDispatch, September 11, 2022.

•  ‘Inflation’: the Trojan horse for runaway military spending – Andrew Lautz in Responsible Statecraft, June 10, 2022.

How the politics of prosecco explain what took the fizz out of the Democrats – Mark Blyth in The Guardian, December 31, 2021.