An Extraordinary Time

Author: Marc Levinson

The Annual GDP growth for the US has dropped from a high of 5% in the sixties to around 1.5% currently.  If you look at China or India, they are roughly in the 7% range in the current times. But it wasn’t always like this. If you are curious to learn about the ups and downs of the world economies starting from World War 2, Marc has a wealth of knowledge that he shares with us in his perspective of the economic journey of the major parts of the world after the war.

In a nutshell, his thesis is that the first twenty five years after the war saw an unprecedented growth in the economy. It was the classic postwar boom and economic growth in the Western World reached its peak around 1970. There were plenty of high paid manufacturing jobs in the US that brought overall prosperity to the nation.  After 1970 productivity slowed down. Labor Unions got powerful and demanded higher wages and perks. Furthermore the inefficiencies of government regulation and large state run industries (coal, steel, transportation, etc.) started to weigh heavily on the economy. 

The transportation system in US was highly regulated in the 70s. Airline routes are a good example of how the government limited the number of airlines on any given route and that allowed them to charge high prices. They made a good profit despite the fact that many planes had tons of empty seats.  Compare that with the disruption caused by Uber today with Taxis. They have opened the market up not only deregulated the taxi industry, but have gone further and made it incredibly easy for an individual to offer you a transportation service for a fee. 

Marc takes a heavy subject like world economics and narrates many of these events in a story-like manner that makes the book enjoyable. I marveled at how many of the changes like privatization, seemed to be trends that spread from one country to another.  If you are remotely interested in economics, I highly recommend this book.