Looking Ahead: Where America? Current Economic Path Will Take Us

Americans are in denial. The evidence in front of our eyes tells us that, even with a recovery from the current recession, average living standards by 2024 will be lower than they are today. But neither of our two parties have a plan for changing the country’s direction, and polls show that most voters are trapped in the illusion that, whatever happens to the country, they and their children will be fine.

They will not be fine. Globalization is relentlessly undercutting real incomes and is now off-shoring even professional occupations – from financial analysts to lawyers to medical diagnosticians. And it has cut the ties of a common future that historically united the interests of the rich and the middle class. One result is the new politics of austerity – an economic fairy tale that will put the next generation of American workers at an even greater competitive disadvantage in order to subsidize Wall Street speculators, military contractors and health insurance companies.

The first step to a better future is to honestly face where we are headed. The second step is to beat back the influence of money in politics – specifically by mobilizing to overturn the Supreme Court decisions that define corporations as people.

About Jeff Faux

Jeff Faux is the principal founder of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) of Washington, D.C. He was President of EPI from 1985 until August 2002, when he became the Institute’s first Distinguished Fellow. Under his leadership, EPI became America’s leading research organization on the economic conditions of workers and their families, with a global reputation for high-quality work and innovative ideas.

Mr. Faux’s newest book, The Servant Economy, will be published in June 2012 by John Wiley & Sons. His previous book, The Global Class War, (Wiley, 2006) has been translated into Spanish and Arabic. Other books include: The Party's Not Over and, New Hope for the Inner City. He is the co-author of Rebuilding America, The Star-Spangled Hustle and Reclaiming Prosperity.

Mr. Faux’s articles have appeared in a large number of magazines, newspapers and anthologies. He has been interviewed on television and radio many times in the US and abroad.

Among other honors, he received a Carnegie Scholar Award from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Weinberg Award from Wayne State University, a fellowship at the Institute of Politics at Harvard, and an honorary doctorate from the University of New England.

Mr. Faux has researched, written, and lectured on a wide variety of subjects from the global economy to neighborhood community development, from fiscal and budget policy to trade and the economics of public investment. He has consulted with governments at all levels, labor unions, business, community, and citizen organizations. He sits on the boards of directors of several national institutions and two national magazines, and had a presidential appointment to the National Advisory Council on Economic Opportunity.  He is also founder and steering committee member of the Global Policy Network – an international group of “think-tanks.”

Previously, he was the co-director of the Center for Economic Alternatives. His government experience includes being director of economic development for with the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity and an economist for the U.S. Departments of State, Commerce, and Labor. He has been a member of five different trade unions and has management experience in the finance industry. He has been a small-business man, a blueberry farmer, and a member of a municipal planning board in the state of Maine.

He has lectured before university, community, labor and business groups throughout the United States and in Canada, Mexico, South America, Europe and Asia.