What happens when you grow up with a father who lost everything in the Great Depression? For Howard Sherman, you spend the rest of your life studying the causes of devastating financial collapses and how nations can avoid them.
With 22 books and more than a hundred articles, Sherman — a Visiting Scholar at UCLA and former chair of the U.C. Riverside Economics Department — is still fighting the good fight. His latest volume is Principles of Macroeconomics: Activist vs. Austerity Policies, co-written with Michael Meeropol. While the title may be dry, Sherman is anything but. In a recent interview, he offered blunt assessments of President Obama’s economic policies and why the U.S. labor movement should make full employment its highest priority.
Frying Pan News: Why did you write this book?
Howard Sherman: The main issue in economics is the distribution of income between workers and owners.
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As our nation pauses to observe Labor Day this week, you have to wonder what the future holds for American workers. Rising income inequality, a dwindling middle class, the growth of low-wage jobs without benefits, and unemployment rates that remain uncomfortably high should make us wonder whether we’ve allowed the American Dream to become a mythic fairy tale.
While these realities are certainly dire and downright depressing, they are not insurmountable.
Last month, President Obama began laying out a plan to rebuild America’s manufacturing base and shore up job security with good wages in stable industries. He called for rewarding companies for keeping jobs at home or bringing them back to the U.S. And, he said that we can and must train workers — especially those left farthest behind by the economic downturn — to get on new career tracks that lead them to the middle class.
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