Seven Bad Ideas

JEFF MADRICK, a former economics columnist for Harper's and The New York Times, is a contributing editor for Harper's, a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, and editor of Challenge Magazine. He is visiting professor of humanities at The Cooper Union, and director of the Bernard L. Schwartz Rediscovering Government Initiative at the Roosevelt Institute. His books include Age of Greed, The End of Affluence, and Taking America. He has also written for The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Institutional Investor, The Nation, The American Prospect, The Boston Globe, and Newsday. He lives in New York City.