Engine of Inequality

Acknowledgments xi About the Author xiii Introduction xv Chapter 1 Inequality: Why It's So Much Worse and What to Do About It 1 What We Know about Inequality that Economists Don't 4 The Economic-Recovery Mirage 5 Why So Unequal So Fast? 7 Regulatory Wreckage 12 How to Fix Financial Policy 14 Chapter 2 How Unequal Are We? 18 Economic Inequality Fundamentals 19 Who Has How Much 22 What of Wealth? 24 The Inequality Engine 24 Worse Than That 25 The Most Inclusive Ever? 27 The Great Financial Crisis and Its Equality Aftermath 29 Chapter 3 What Makes Us So Unequal 32 The Mechanical Engineering of Economic Inequality 34 Death and Taxes 35 The Role of Transfer Payments 37 A Supply-Side Solution? 38 Public Wealth: A Sputtering Part in the Equality Engine 39 Is Education the Answer? 41 Is Trade Policy a Problem? 42 Global Policy Reform? 43 What to Do? 45 Chapter 4 Why Does Economic Inequality Matter So Much? 46 Inequality and Mortality 47 Political Polarization 49 Inequality's Eviscerating Cost 50 Inequality and the Long Recession 52 Financial-Crisis Risk 53 Chapter 5 Following the Money 55 How Central Banks Work 57 The Modern Monetary-Policy Construct 60 The Fed's Bailout Buckets 62 The Fed's Payment Powers 64 Rules of the Financial Road 65 Four Fundamental Financial-Policy Flaws 69 Chapter 6 How Monetary Policy Made Most of Us Poorer 73 The Fed's Heavy Hand 76 Why It's the Fed's Fault 77 How Ultra-Low Interest Rates Made America Still Less Equal and QE Still More Inequitable 80 The High Cost of Low-Rate Debt 83 The Low-Unemployment Myth 85 The Anti-Wealth Effect 87 Making Matters Still Worse 91 A Bigger Fed, Lower Rates, an Extreme Financial Crisis 93 Chapter 7 How to Make Monetary Policy Make Us More Equal 95 The Aggregate-Data Error 98 The Fed's Real Mandate 102 The Fourth Mandate 104 The Fed's Giant Faucet 105 Possible Solutions 108 Slowing the Inequality Engine 111 Chapter 8 Reckoning with Regulation 113 Consumer Finance Before the Crash 115 Are Debtors Just Deadbeats? 117 Are Banks to Blame? 118 The Businesses Banks Left Behind 120 Other Precursors of the Crash That Came 121 Capitalism and Capital Regulation 123 A Capital Cure 127 Going with the Flow 128 Death without Destruction 130 The Consumer-Protection Quagmire 131 An Unreadable Rulebook Thrown Only at Banks 133 The Bleak Outlook and a Better Future 134 Chapter 9 Remaking Money 137 What Money Is and Will Be 139 The Great Unequalizer 141 Turning Money into Data 143 What Makes Money Good Money 145 Crafting a Good Digital Dollar 146 How Money Moves 148 The Central-Bank Solution 151 Chapter 10 Rules to Equitably Live By 153 Why Not Just Deregulate? 156 Learning to Love Like-Kind Rules 158 The Specifics of Symmetric Regulation 161 Raising Up the Regulatory Playing Field 162 Building a New, Equality-Focused Banking System 165 Banking While Mailing 166 Establishing Equality Banks 168 New Money for a New Mission 170 Chapter 11 Financial Policy for an Equitable Future 175 Turning the Fed into a Force for Good 176 The Fed's Failings 178 The Fed's Equality Toolkit 178 The First Fix: Understanding America as It Is 180 The Second Fix: Set an Equality Plan and Say So 181 The Third Fix: A Far Smaller Fed Portfolio 183 The Fourth Fix: Normal, Moderate Interest Rates 187 The Final Fix: Ensuring Financial Stability 188 Ending the Doom Loop 190 The Future of Equitable Finance 192 Notes 193 Index 241