Michael Strain: Against Economic Pessimism

Conversations with Bill Kristol

News, Society & Culture, Government, Politics

4.7 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 26 January 2019

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Michael Strain is a scholar and director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. In this Conversation, Strain challenges the increasingly widespread notion that America is in decline economically—and reflects on the enduring importance of innovation and dynamism in the American economy. Highlighting measures like social mobility and increases in living standards, Strain argues that America remains robust economically even as globalization, technology, and other factors have presented and will continue to present serious challenges to the status quo. Finally, Strain points to several policy goals that promote innovation and growth—including high-skilled immigration, renewed focus on STEM, and investment in research and development—that could increase America’s economic performance.

Transcript

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0:00.0	And the Hi, I'm Bill Crystal.
0:15.0	Welcome back to Conversations.
0:18.0	I'm very pleased to be joined today by Michael Strain,
0:20.0	the Director of Economic Policy Studies
0:22.0	at the American Enterprise Institute.
0:24.0	Excellent columnist for Bloomberg Weekly, right?
0:28.0	Yeah. Bloomberg View, is that what it's called?
0:29.0	Bloomberg Opinion now.
0:30.0	Bloomberg Opinion, I can keep track of this.
0:32.0	Yes, people should look that up.
0:33.0	Very rare to have an economist who can write well.
0:36.0	At least you can't, you have to accept that to accept this praise,
0:40.0	but now you'll alienate all your colleagues
0:42.0	when they see you nodding along. accept this
0:43.4	when they see you nodding along as I say this but very good to address very good
0:46.9	columns addressing current policy problems and what I want to talk to you
0:50.0	about today is how should we think about ourselves economically I mean I spoke to
0:55.2	some college students this morning we're speaking in what January of 2019 and I was
0:59.8	just amazed these were college students most in pretty good colleges, spending two weeks in Washington,
1:04.8	and they were so pessimistic both about the future and about the present, actually, and the
1:10.2	recent past.
1:11.2	So every question was kind of a, well of course the Republicans are going for Trump
	...

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