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Fulfillment: A Conversation on Amazon and Regional Inequality with Alec MacGillis

Fulfillment author Alec MacGillis joins American Compass research director Wells King for a conversation exploring what the growth of Amazon means for the future of inequality in the U.S., the pros and cons of “one-click America,” and how policymakers and consumers should respond.

The Fed’s Most Harmful Statistics Error

The United States is not producing 24,881% more computers than it was in 1980, and is likely producing significantly fewer because of offshoring.

Small Business Boards: How to Help Small And Medium Businesses Compete

Large numbers of American workers are trapped in low-wage jobs in low-tech, low-profit industries in the nontraded domestic service sector, including leisure and hospitality, retail and child and elder care.

When Farmers Are Not Farmers and Shepherds Are Not Shepherds

For too long we have let memories we cherish—of farms and farmers, of homesteads and pioneers, of cowboys on the range and Native Americans hunting the great herds—disguise how much we have lost and abandoned.

Buy American: The Key to Reshoring and Restoring American Prosperity

Americans have seen their wages shrivel as manufacturing has been repeatedly outsourced to low-cost jurisdictions such as China, Bangladesh and Vietnam.  Much of the prevailing conventional wisdom over the past few decades has been that manufacturing is not a necessary part of a wealthy nation, that we live in a “post-industrial” world, that is, one in which we don’t have to do much, if any, manufacturing in the United States.

The Biden Team Wants To Transform the Economy. Really.

Noam Scheiber cites American Compass’s Oren Cass in a feature on industrial policy and the Biden administration’s attempts to revive U.S. manufacturing.

It’s neither the Investor Class nor the Middle Class: It’s the Producer Class, Stupid!

If one believes that ideas matter, then the person who has surely done the most harm to humanity is Karl Marx, as his writings led to Communism, with its repression and tens of millions of deaths (as well the rise of Nazi Germany).

Before COVID, the Economy Was Already Sick from Washington Groupthink

When it comes to the economy, the Biden administration will have to focus on three things: COVID, a recovery package, and China. Everyone understands we have to get vaccines in the arms of as many Americans as possible as soon as possible. And hopefully the Senate can agree on an economic recovery package.

Why It Will Be So Hard to Roll Back Trump’s Trade Agenda

Henry Olsen highlights American Compass’s conversation with former U.S. Trade Representative Robert E. Lighthizer in a discussion of the future of American trade policy.

Should the U.S. Adopt an Industrial Policy?

At the Soho Forum, American Compass’s Oren Cass and Cato Institute’s Scott Lincicome debate whether the U.S. should adopt an industrial policy.

National Developmentalism ≠ Critical Theory Radicalism

After years of dismissing the rise of critical theory-inspired identity politics, many conservatives have become “woke” to just how divisive this movement is. The problem, however, is that some free market fundamentalists see both radical intersectionalists and Hamiltonian supporters of national developmentalism as desecrators of the Founding Father’s principles.

Industrial Policy Must Account for Worker Attitudes

n a recent post about the relationship between family trends and the skills gap I noted that for some of the young adults my husband David and I interviewed in southwestern Ohio, trauma and addiction make it difficult to take advantage of the employment opportunities that do exist.

Potato Chips, Computer Chips: Yes, There Is a Difference

After a half century of neoclassical economics dominance, it has become a truism among most economists and policy makers that a nation’s sectoral composition doesn’t matter.

Is There a Way of Doing Bipartisan National Industrial Policy?

The likely configuration of the new Senate represents a potential obstacle toward some of the grander Democratic Party policy visions outlined in President-elect Biden’s program. 

America May Be Back, but Let’s Not Bring Back the Old Normal

As President-elect Joe Biden has been announcing members of his new team, he has been equally prone to pass on the message to the rest of the world that “America is back”. 

Industrial Policy May Have Finally Arrived: But For What?

Ever since the concept of a national industrial policy was proposed in the 1970s, it has received scorn from most neo-classical economists, with those advocating it treated as the economic equivalent of chiropractors.

Industrial Policy, the U.S. Constitution and the Supreme Court

Now that the Supreme Court is in the news, with President Donald Trump’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to succeed the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, it is worth reflecting on what kind of constitutional system is best for a national industrial strategy of the kind favored by a growing number of Americans on the left, right and center, in the aftermath of the catastrophic failure of a half century of neoliberal deregulation and globalization.

I Finally Agree with Krugman

I never thought I would find myself in wholehearted agreement with Paul Krugman.

Left, Right, and Center Discuss Federal Industrial Policies

American Compass’s research director Wells King shares key insights from the “Moving the Chains” policy symposium on the inaugural panel for the Industry Studies Association’s new webinar series.

Financialization in America

In this episode, Washington Free Beacon editor Aaron Sibarium and small business investor Sam Long discuss the financialization of American business culture and its impacts on our economy and society.

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