Skip to Main Content (Press Enter)
Crunch by Jared Bernstein
Add Crunch to bookshelf
Add to Bookshelf

Crunch

Best Seller
Crunch by Jared Bernstein
Hardcover $26.95
Apr 14, 2008 | ISBN 9781576754771

Buy from Other Retailers:

  • $26.95

    Apr 14, 2008 | ISBN 9781576754771

    Buy from Other Retailers:

Product Details

Praise

“Jared Bernstein—the rare economist who writes lucid English—has a gift for making difficult topics easy to grasp without dumbing them down. Bernstein’s latest superbly timed book, Crunch, is a must-read guide to the economy's current slide and its effect on us all."
Robert Kuttner, Founding Co-Editor, The American Prospect

“Jared Bernstein’s new book is a must-read for everyone who cares about restoring economic fairness in an America with the greatest income inequality since the Great Depression.  Drawing on everyday examples, Crunch is an accessible explanation of economic principles presented with equal parts of insight, humor, and stimulation.  In the process, Bernstein explains how we got to where we are, what to do to fix it, and why fighting for a fair society is so important”
—Senator John Edwards

“The sprightliest writer working in the dismal science since the heyday of John Kenneth Galbraith.”
—Harold Meyerson, Washington Post columnist

“Jared Bernstein has written a fun, user-friendly primer that tells you everything you need to know about the economy. I liked it, you’ll like it, and if you read it you can stop feeling guilty that you forgot everything you learned in that freshman econ course.”
—Jonathan Chait, Senior Editor, The New Republic, and author of The Big Con: The True Story of How Washington Got Hoodwinked and Hijacked by Crackpot Economics

Crunch is a dangerous book.  Anyone who reads it will be armed with new ideas to start kicking back at the false economic theories that have ensnared this country.  The book is witty, irreverent, and easy to read, but don’t let that fool you.  It’s powerful.”
—Elizabeth Warren, Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law, Harvard Law School and coauthor of All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan  

Table Of Contents

Preface
Introduction: So What Is Economics, Anyway?
Chapter 1–The Big Squeeze
If the Economy’s Doing So Well, Why Do I Feel So Squeezed?
Econ-Noir
All Is Not As It Appears: Measuring Economic Outcomes
Whatever Happened to the Cleavers?
The Health Care Squeeze
The Medical Industrial Complex
Health Care Reform
Poverty Amid Plenty: The Whats
Poverty Amid Plenty: The Whys
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
The ABCs of Worker Pay
What’s So Bad About Inequality?
All Education, All the Time
Chapter 2–Don’t Know Much About GDP
Gross Domestic Product
Unemployment: Wall Street vs. Main Street
Underemployment
Making Better Doughnuts
Inflation
What’s a Recession?
Blowing Bubbles
The Night of the Living Wage (and Other Scary Stories)
Your Textbook Got It Wrong
Chapter 3–Political Economy 202
Social Insecurity
Economists in Chief
The Fed
The Budget Deficit (Part 1)
The Budget Deficit (Part 2, in Which a Nobelist Agrees with Me)
The Economy and the Military
Guns or Butter
A New WPA?
“Please Remain on the Line”
Chapter 4–The World Ain’t Flat As All That
What’s Right and Wrong About Globalization?
Outsourcing
The Conscience of a Shopper
World Trade
Globalization and Greed
How the Capitalists Killed Capitalism
Undocumented Workers
The Not-So-Great Immigration Debate
What’s So Bad About a Labor Shortage?
The Mighty Dollar
Can Economists Save the Planet?
Chapter 5–The Reconnection Agenda
Easing the Squeeze
Health Care
Immigration
Education
Globalization
What’s Left?
Conclusion: The Lesson of the Rink
Notes
Acknowledgments
About the Author

Looking for More Great Reads?
21 Books You’ve Been Meaning to Read
Back to Top