The Great Equalizer ─ How Main Street Capitalism Can Create an Economy for Everyone

Smick’s The World is Curved (2008) was a reply to Thomas Friedman and one of the first books to argue that globalization had unleashed dangerous and damaging economic forces. In An Economy for Everyone, Smick focuses on the structural changes that are essential to prevent a follow-up crash to 2008 and to ensure that the US generates growth that will support businesses large and small, and not simply line the pockets of the too-big banks and the 1%.

Since 2010, both the world’s GDP growth and trade growth rates have been cut in half. Commodity prices have collapsed. Emerging markets led by China have massive levels of excess productive capacity, and they are exporting dangerous disinflationary pressure worldwide. Corporate debt held by emerging markets has more than doubled. China’s dangerous credit binge has been unprecedented. Europe is in long-term economic stagnation. Japan is falling back into deflation. Brazil is in severe economic crisis that could lead to default. The world’s total public debt has skyrocketed.

Bold American leadership that will protect Americans from this frightening global economic landscape has been missing from both mainstream political parties. Smick outlines a course of action that should guide the actions of the next president, whoever he or she may be. This is the agenda on which our prosperity and global standing will depend.

David Smick is a financial market consultant and a non-fiction author. He is the chairman and CEO of Johnson Smick International, an advisory firm in Washington, D.C and the publisher and the founding editor of the quarterly magazine International Economy. He also published widely, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post.