Tim Taylor, also reviewing Summers on China, makes a few excellent points. Growth comes from within. Trade is not conquest.

In Part I of this essay, I tried to make the case that I do not deserve the standard of living I currently enjoy, particularly compared to the woman, Bianca, who shined my shoes the other day. Yes, I have more marketable skills than she has, but as I wrote before, that does not mean I deserve a higher standard of living in any fundamental sense. So a legitimate argument can be made that even though I pay a substantial amount of tax on my income and Bianca almost surely receives some benefits from government programs, a substantially higher tax can be justified on grounds of justice.

In the years leading up to the financial crisis that began in 2007, the core of the financial system was vulnerable to major shocks emanating from any of a variety of sources. This presentation reviews the lessons from the crisis.

Today, there is suggestive evidence that policies during the recession failed to promote labor market adjustment, leading to permanently lower worker hours.