Jump-Starting America
How Breakthrough Science Can Revive Economic Growth and the American Dream
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Jump-Starting America
Narrated by:
Robert Fass
Buy Now for $26.99
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Narrated by:
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Robert Fass
About this listen
The American economy glitters on the outside, but the reality is quite different. Job opportunities and economic growth are increasingly concentrated in a few crowded coastal enclaves. Corporations and investors are disproportionately developing technologies that benefit the wealthiest Americans in the most prosperous areas -- and destroying middle class jobs elsewhere. To turn this tide, we must look to a brilliant and all-but-forgotten American success story and embark on a plan that will create the industries of the future -- and the jobs that go with them.
Beginning in 1940, massive public investment generated breakthroughs in science and technology that first helped win WWII and then created the most successful economy the world has ever seen. Private enterprise then built on these breakthroughs to create new industries -- such as radar, jet engines, digital computers, mobile telecommunications, life-saving medicines, and the internet-- that became the catalyst for broader economic growth that generated millions of good jobs. We lifted almost all boats, not just the yachts.
Jonathan Gruber and Simon Johnson tell the story of this first American growth engine and provide the blueprint for a second. It's a visionary, pragmatic, sure-to-be controversial plan that will lead to job growth and a new American economy in places now left behind.
Critic Reviews
"Something has gone profoundly wrong with the US economy over the last two decades. Economic growth has been disappointing, and the little of it we have witnessed has benefited the already rich and left everybody else behind. This wonderfully readable book by two leading scholars explains why and what to do about it. It is a powerful call for action for the government to get involved, encourage innovation in local clusters, and help the economy get back to creating good jobs for ordinary Americans. A must read."—Daron Acemoglu, coauthor of WhyNations Fail, and Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics, MIT
"In this meticulously researched, highly readable, and exquisitely timed book, Jonathan Gruber and Simon Johnson of MIT propose a new, national plan, rooted in expanded scientific research, for accelerating US growth, reducing inequality, and jump-starting regions of America which have been falling behind. And, they show the funding mechanisms, federal and local decision-making processes, and actual areas of new research which would undergird it. It is brilliant at historical, economic, and political levels."—Roger Altman, former deputy secretary of the Treasury, founder andsenior chairman of Evercore
"This brilliant book brings together economic history, urban economics, and the design of incentives to build an ambitious proposal to jump-start growth across geographies and mitigate inequality."—SusanAthey, Economics of Technology Professor and director, Initiative for SharedProsperity and Innovation, Stanford University
"Opportunities for technological breakthroughs have never been greater, but America is fumbling its historic leadership. Gruber and Johnson explain with clarity, authority and insight how America can regain its innovation mojo."—ErikBrynjolfsson, director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, and coauthorof The Second Machine Age
"What has been missing from our ongoing debate about inequality and bringing the fruits of prosperity to a much wider segment of people is an approach to make it happen in a way that is familiar to American society, tradition, and historical political success. Jon Gruber and Simon Johnson provide that missing link by demonstrating how smart public investment in science will build the capabilities and infrastructure that is the sine qua non for the investment that will generate returns in the form of new products, services, and other benefits that employ millions and are widespread geographically."—Ellen Dulberger, member of the Board on Science, Technology, andEconomic Policy, the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine
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