As a result of exchanges I had over a number of years with my friend and fellow economist the late John Attarian, I became interested in the issue of economic policies in a sustainable world. As the following e-mail exchanges and published articles in the Social Contract illustrate, I have long had concerns about the state of economics as a discipline, which the realities of the Great Recession of 2008-2009 clearly showed were not unjustified.
My interest in voting reform to open up our political system to third parties stemmed from those concerns. It is clear that our two major parties and their representatives in the form of the candidates they offer the electorate have simply been incapable of grappling with the issues we face here.
If elected as Michigan’s next US Senator, I would be in a strong position to push for the Joint Economic Committee to grapple with the issues we face here. That is surely a necessary condition for getting a serious discussion of the economic issues we face going forward in the 21st Century.