Bernie Sanders's economic platform is based on the concept of income inequality. As a socialist liberal, his main thesis is that the U.S. economy is producing wealth, but, at the same time, a large income inequality. His platform explores an interesting dichotomy, namely the fact that, despite the continuous increase in economic productivity over the years and despite the tremendous advances in technology, which should theoretically balance a reducing of economic disparities, workers have to work longer hours for the same or lower wages.
Sanders's approach is more complex than just emphasizing economic disparities. He is interested in building his platform around a transfer of wealth, not only on wealth disparities, between the middle class and the rich and very rich classes. As all know, the U.S. was built around the proliferation of a rich middle class, so this transfer should be of concern to potential voters. At the same time, when talking about poverty, Sanders emphasizes child poverty, where the U.S., according to him and UNICEF, has the highest child poverty rate among developed countries (32.2%, compared to the second in the list, the UK, with 25.6%).
So, Bernie Sanders's cornerstone of the economic platform is to revive the middle class. There are several ways it intends to do this, including major federal jobs programs, fueled by a strong investment in infrastructure, with an estimate that 1 trillion USD can provide as many as 13 million jobs. This is a return to the Keynesian type of economics, which was successfully used by F.D. Roosevelt during the New Deal. The idea is to finance from the Federal budget large infrastructure projects that would employ great number of employees, thus decreasing unemployment rates and doing a better job of reducing income disparities.
Along similar lines, B. Sanders has also pledged to increase the pay from $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour over the next years, up to 2020. This would be another attempt to reduce income disparities,...
Keynesian economics is an economic theory based on the ideas of John Maynard Keynes (Jackson 29). First published in 1936, Keynes's theory suggests that general trends may overwhelm the micro-level behavior of individuals. He stated," This book is chiefly addressed to my fellow economists ... I myself held with conviction for many years the theories which I now attack, and I am not, I think, ignorant of their strong points"
Economics The Keynesian economic theorists follow an economic model that considers three factors in macroeconomic growth. These are income distribution, savings, and investment functions. These factors are derived from the theory's determination of equilibrium in the economy as determined by the relationship between employment, prices, and gross-domestic-product (Padalkina 18). The theory suggests that the economy does not have full employment, autonomous demand-component affect rate of growth, and investment decisions are not
Even when forced to rework his model to allow for some private investment, he argued that it wasn't as efficient as government spending because private investors would be less likely to undertake/overpay for unnecessary works in hard economic times" (Beattie 2010). For the world to extricate itself from the Great Depression, said Keynes, the government must intervene in the market. Keynes' rationale is one reason that the current administration's stimulus
When there is no obvious solution to a particular problem, the recommended course was to extend the Neoclassical paradigm by incorporating new concepts into it that would make the subject matter amenable to economic analysis" ("The Chicago School," 2006, the New School) Recessions are short-term pain that can cause long-term gain, provided people 'wait them out' and provided the government has a minimal role in the economy, except to
Global Financial Crisis and Resurgence of Keynesian Economic Model The 2007-2008 global financial crises have been identified as the worst financial crisis apart from the 1930s Great Depression. The collapse of Lehman Brothers and two Bear Stearns in 2007 had been attributed to subprime mortgage crisis that led to the credit crunch, dry up of liquidity, bank failures, massive layoffs and private defaults. Moreover, the crisis threatens the collapse of
There are many potential actions that could have been taken to help prevent the closing of GM and the job losses, plant closings, and economic catastrophe that is likely to occur as the once unstoppable giant collapses (Wolff, 2009). The UAW won above subsistence level wages for GM employees, which should have theoretically had the same effect as an economic stimulus in the traditional Keynesian sense. However, rather than being
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