Global Economic Strategy

On June 22, 2009 Yermolai Solzhenitsyn, Lenny Mendonca, Toby Gati, and Douglas Rediker gathered with Steve Clemons at the New America Foundation to discuss Russia’s economy and the newly released McKinsey Global Institute paper, Lean Russia: Sustaining Economic Growth Through Improved Productivity. This report asserts that future growth within Russia is contingent on new and increased investment and productivity.

This speech was delivered at The New School on May 19, 2009.

Views on the U.S. economy

The following speech was given by Douglas Rediker for the Truman National Security Project in Washington, DC on May 1, 2009. 

Green-shoots and optimism aside, let's agree that no one really knows how the economic crisis will play out or when it will end.  There are those who believe that we have reached the bottom and others who believe that we have only reached a "temporary bottom."

The Iraq War is a testament to the great damage a foreign policy based on myths, lies and distortions can do to our nation’s security and well-being. As the election draws near, a new set of myths and fallacies as misleading as those that led the Senate to support George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq have become embedded in our foreign policy discourse. Many of them are being perpetuated by the very same political forces that peddled the myth of mushroom clouds coming from Saddam Hussein’s… more

The new fund, assuming it is approved by Congress, could pull the United States deeper into a form of capitalism in which the most powerful financial entities are not risk-happy investment banks, but more cautious state-sponsored entities. While not necessarily a third economic way, this general approach presumes that the government -- in addition to the private sector -- plays a crucial role in deciding how best to deploy a nation’s investment capital.

“This gets to the point of state capitalism and defining what the role of the… more

Chairman, Oberstar, Representative Mica, and Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to testify today on the question of "financing infrastructure investments."

Over the past several decades, we have accumulated a sizeable public infrastructure deficit. As a result, a variety of infrastructure bottlenecks-traffic congested roads, clogged ports, and an antiquated air traffic system, to mention just a few-have begun to undercut our economy's efficiency and undermine our quality of life.

...Two new books – The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria and The Second World by Parag Khanna – argue that the new global economy power will be more dispersed and multipolar.

"Mr. Zakaria believes we are experiencing modern history's third great power shift, after the rise of the West from the 15th century on, and the rise of the U.S. in the 19th century. But he argues that this latest transition is not so much about the decline of America as… more

The debate between hard, soft and smart power is meaningless unless the United States employs a sophistcated, global economic strategy--rooted in prosperity at home. This has been a fundamental tenet of American strategy since 1933.

In a dangerous shift, the United States' macroeconomic strategy now focuses on preservation instead of innovation. As a nation, we have chosen to defend an economic engine that is starved of modern infrastructure, hamstrung by policies that… more