Yiddish Beyond Its Boundaries

...I think this is more accurately a reflection of Japan's political and diplomatic shortcomings, however...

...Rather, it gathered momentum almost exclusively from the demand side, adding further testimony to the ultimate validity of Keynesianism...

...A key factor was the simultaneous skyrocketing of unemployment and inflation...

...But even the Japanese economic success has been a failure, he contends, for it has clashed with the slower growth rates of the country's trading partners and consequently has itself become a source of friction...

...Whatever the case, because Wilson is at his weakest in defining the basic problems confronting the five economies, the course he would have them follow is at the minimum fuzzy...

...President Reagan is fond of the saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it...

...Granted, these might help smooth out the rough spots and create steadier, if not stronger, growth rates than the U. S. experienced in the previous decade...

...Oneex-ample he cites is Europe's soaring unemployment rates...

...Yet the '70s were not all that erratic, either...

...At the close of his final analytical chapter the author advises: " Reducing the budget deficit, lowering interest rates through more expansive money supply, and alio wing the value of the dollar to return to more normal levels would go a long way in solving our industrial-development problems...

...In fact, it compares favorably, and frequently surpasses, earlier decades of supposed strength...

...In spotlighting what he sees as the inadequacies of the five different approaches he is considering, Wilson presents an especially effective argument regarding the United States...

...Once the baby boom and theoPEC oil stranglehold are taken into account, Wilson rightly points out, the depressing decade looks very different with respect to unemployment, real income and industrial production increases...

...But in his opening chapter, Wilson deftly demonstrates that neither signified a faltering economy, as was widely thought at the time...

...Given these circumstances, Wilson maintains the best remedy is a combination of free trade, industrial policies suited to each country's environment and strengths, and economic coordination among the five nations...

...After lucidly detailing the theory and application of both Keynesian and supply-side economics, he shows how the present economic recovery has had little to do with the supply-side philosophy...

...Reviewed by John E. Schwarz Professor of Political Science, University of Arizona...

...In this book John Oliver Wilson, senior vice president and chief economist of the Bank of America, offers a perspective that he hopes will put the practitioners of the "dismal science" back on the right track...

...A doubling of the prior rates of job creation, which the '70s managed to accomplish, could not absorb the new seekers...

...During the '70s, he finds, the U.S...

...Double-digit inflation occurred in the United States only in the oil-shock years, as did the two recessions of the '70s...

...economy as a whole performed much better than is commonly recognized, and industrial production expanded 40 per cent...

...Britain's monetarism and privatization, West Germany's industrial targeting amid a free-market economy, and France's Socialist experiment under Francois Mitterrand have similarly left very vital issues unremedied, indeed nearly untouched, says Wilson...

...Byre-vealing the true economic performance of the 1970s, The Power Economy inspires the provocative insight that the President has failed to heed his own advice, and at a staggering cost to the nation...

...author, "America's Hidden Success: A Reassessment of Twenty Years of Public Policy" Not all that long ago, economists appeared to have a handle on their subject...

...The unemployment was largely triggered by the confluence of the baby-boomer tidal wave and the rapid increase of female participation in the labor force...

...The Power Economy examines the logic behind the economic policies of five major industrial nations—the United States, Japan, West Germany, the United Kingdom, and France...

...Initially, he notes that at the end of the 1970s, "the global economy appeared to be involved in a period of long-term stagnation—of low growth and high inflation...

...Further, all of Wilson's proposals put together, by his account, would produce an average after-inflation GNP growth rate of 3 per cent or more annually...

...Meanwhile, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' (opec) price hikes exacerbated the unemployment situation and, more spectacularly, sent inflation soaring...

...We are told throughout a good deal of the book, too, that the stagnation resulted largely from industrial sluggishness in most of the nations...

...Unfortunately, Wilson observes, although essentially Keynesian, the post-1980 policies went to extremes: Through substantially reduced taxes and increased defense spending, they produced soaring budget deficits, record-high real interest rates, and mushrooming foreign trade deficits that have mortgaged our own and our children's futures and are a serious threat to the world economy as well...

...It is less persuasive as a study of the problems these economies face that will determine how they are likely to fare in coming decades, yet even here the analysis contains implications of great significance for anyone concerned with economic trends...

...Still, Wilson emphasizes the need for some form of industrial policy and for economic coordination among the five...

...And The Power Economy does suggest that many of today's industrial problems could be resolved by returning to the policies in place before Reaganomics...

...Accordingly, this radical form of Keynesianism posing in supply-side clothes, otherwise known as Reaganom-ics, has created far worse problems than it has solved and failed to provide a real cure for the economic troubles of the 1970s...

...Over the allegedly dormant period 1970-80, real American GNP rose 37 per cent, roughly matching the optimum he holds out as possible...

...Clearly, in the light of the objective evidence, the proper path to take would seem to be the one that helped realize those '70s growth rates...

...As a description of recent strategies, it issuperb...

...Now, almost daily, reality seems to fly in the face of the best projections of our finest analysts...

...The author's analysis, though, leads in addition to an unexpected, somewhat contradictory conclusion...

...Except for the '60s and World War II, the economic recoveries between recessions lasted considerably longer than in any other 10-year span since World War I. What, then, gave rise to the false impression that the 1970s were a time of poor and unstable economic performance...