Notes:
On the one hand, the FDA’s foot-dragging on approving new (coronavirus) tests
The first round of tests were not very accurate. Some that did get approved were withdrawn within months.
As of 1940 only 6 percent of young Americans had college degrees, but by 1980 the figure had quadrupled to 24 percent. Put these together, and average years of educational attainment for American workers rose from 9.01 in 1940 to 12.46 in 1980 – for an average increase of 0.81 percent a year. Since then, however, the growth motor of rising educational attainment has stalled. Between 1980 and 2005, the rate of increase was only 0.33 percent a year, and since then average years of schooling have been more or less flat.
About half the new graduates with college degrees end up in jobs that don't require them. College has hit the point of diminishing returns.
The resources consumed by the financial sector have almost doubled.
Good point. Finance is supposed to be a support function. It's assumed far too much importance in the US.
For any agenda to improve conditions for inclusive economic growth, monetary policy is a logical starting point because its effects are so pervasive. Mess it up, and that failure alone will sabotage everything else you do right.
Maybe. US policy people over-focus on monetary policy because it is one of the things governments can control. But it has little effect on what gets emphasized in the economy.
The US has shied away from industrial policy. China and all the "Asian tigers" got to where they are through industrial policy, emphasizing specific sectors of the economy. Britain tried that, though, and ended up with "lemon socialism" - the government was operating all the losers - coal, railroads, etc.
Nominal GDP... or, if real GDP doesn't go up, print money to force inflation. That needs more justification than they provide.
Once-vibrant regions across the United States are grappling with deindustrialization, population decline, and shrinking tax bases. Meanwhile, prosperous cities have failed to properly absorb newcomers in search of opportunity, driving up rents and exacerbating urban inequality. These seemingly distinct issues may have quite different short-run policy implications, but what if they are two sides of the same phenomenon?
Yet their solution involves higher density housing in the more popular cities.