Saving For Americas Economic Future

Attempts to assess whether the United States is in economic decline. Appropriate to general readers as well as economics students and scholars, this book examines the fears of Americans about their economic future.

In Economic Parables and Policies: Saving for America's Economic Future, Second Edition, Laurence Seidman addresses important economic issues that will occupy center stage into the next century. Writing in an entertaining and conversational style, the author includes both microeconomic and macroeconomic topics, using parables to present economic lessons. Each chapter advocates a specific economic policy to illustrate the particular issue under discussion and to provide an opportunity for debate and reaction. Topics covered include taxation, social security, international trade, the environment, health care, education, investment, and other vital issues.

Longtime Brookings economist and former presidential adviser Barry Bosworth examines why saving rates in the United States have fallen so precipitously over the past quarter century, why the initial consequences were surprisingly benign, and how reduced saving will affect the future well-being of Americans. The Decline in Saving provides an extensive and unparalleled account of the complexity of present saving patterns, an issue made even more serious by the 2008–09 global economic and financial crises. It objectively examines saving at both the individual household and the aggregate economy levels to understand whether the U.S. decline in saving is truly a threat to American prosperity. Highlights from The Decline in Saving: "The magnitude of the two-decade-long fall in household saving has been truly astonishing; it is even more surprising in view of the fact that the large cohort of baby boomers should have been in their peak saving years." "If Americans save so little, why are they so rich? This divergence emerges because the conventional measure of saving excludes all forms of capital gains...." "Saving behavior appears to be influenced in important ways by country-specific institutional factors along with a few common determinants, such as income growth, demographic changes, and variations in private wealth." "In the aggregate, the United States has had a negative net national saving rate since the onset of the financial crisis, and it now relies on foreign resource inflows to finance all its capital accumulation and a portion of its consumption." "The optimistic projections of just a few years ago about the future well-being of retirees now seem seriously dated."

Many people mistakenly believe that Social Security (SS) will pay for all or most of their retire. needs, but the fact is, since its inception, SS has provided little protection. A comfortable retire. usually requires SS, pensions, personal savings & invest. The key tool for making a secure retire. a reality is financial planning. It will help clarify your retire. goals as well as other financial goals you want to ¿buy¿ along the way. It will show you how to manage your money so you can afford today¿s needs yet still fund tomorrow¿s. You¿ll learn how to save your money to make it work for you & how to protect it so it will be there when you need it. Explains how you can take the best advantage of retire. plans at work, & what to do if you¿re on your own. Illustrations.

Who could survive a fiscal crisis? This preemptive manual teaches how to protect against skyrocketing tax rates, drastically reduced health and retirement benefits, high inflation and a ruined currency.

Recounts the former Michigan governor's struggles to solve the problems of unemployment and budget deficits with the auto industry collapse and global financial crisis.

This book analyzes the way families fared in the turbulent economy of the 1970s and 1980s, and a guess about the way today's younger families will manage the next few decades. According to Levy and Michel, each generation of workers is on its own "income track." Initially incomes are heavily influenced by the size of the age group, but later average incomes are influenced by growth in overall business productivity, changes in unemployment rates, average education levels and, for workers who do not go to college, the availability of manufacturing jobs. The authors estimated these relationships for past generations, and project income growth for baby-boom males who entered the labor force in the mid-1970s. They offer familiar remedies to spur productivity growth: raising average skill levels, and increasing personal savings. ISBN 0-87766-486-2: $31.50.

Praise for EconAmerica "If you live in the real world, this book is a must-read. It is packed withusable insights into the future, the global economy, and what you and yourcompany need to know to be competitive now and in the future. Jeff Thredgold makes the dismal science a fun adventure to prepare you for not only what is coming, but how to take advantage of the great opportunities ahead." --Terry L. Brocksyndicated columnist, marketing coach, www.TerryBrock.com "In this insightful and practical book, Jeff Thredgold proves that 'interesting economist' isn't an oxymoron. Jeff takes the mystery out of economics and makes it easy to understand. If you want to know what's really going on in the American economy and the impact it has on your quality of living, read this book." --Mark Sanbornspeaker and bestselling author of The Fred Factor andYou Don't Need a Title to Be a Leader "With all the economic gloom and doom thrust upon us by the mediaand politicians, through econAmerica, Jeff Thredgold is a fresh breath ofeconomic hope--something that we all so desperately need today." --Ed RigsbeePresident of Rigsbee Research and author of PartnerShift "This account of history, economic data, and humanbehavior makes a compelling statement about how the Americaneconomy will prevail as globalization evolves." --Hazel J. PankeyDirector, Conference Programs, Industrial Asset Management Council "You continue to amaze us with your outstanding ability to present economic information in terms that everyone can understand, while also making it extremely interesting." --JOE BELEW President, Consumer Bankers Association

How America's high standard of living came to be and why future growth is under threat In the century after the Civil War, an economic revolution improved the American standard of living in ways previously unimaginable. Electric lighting, indoor plumbing, motor vehicles, air travel, and television transformed households and workplaces. But has that era of unprecedented growth come to an end? Weaving together a vivid narrative, historical anecdotes, and economic analysis, The Rise and Fall of American Growth challenges the view that economic growth will continue unabated, and demonstrates that the life-altering scale of innovations between 1870 and 1970 cannot be repeated. Gordon contends that the nation's productivity growth will be further held back by the headwinds of rising inequality, stagnating education, an aging population, and the rising debt of college students and the federal government, and that we must find new solutions. A critical voice in the most pressing debates of our time, The Rise and Fall of American Growth is at once a tribute to a century of radical change and a harbinger of tougher times to come.

Focuses on the meaning and use of a wide array of indicators of economic growth, employment, wages, productivity, investment, saving, and finance in assessing the current state of the U.S. economy and forecasting future developments. [publisher web site].