R. Glenn Hubbard - Seeds of Destruction: Why the Path to Economic Ruin Runs Through Washington, and How to Reclaim American Prosperity

Hubbard and Navarro provide a cogent analysis of Americas dangerous economic decline as well as a carefully thought out plan for recovery based on a manufacturing renaissance.

Clyde Prestowitz , Founder and President
of the Economic Strategy Institute, and author
of The Betrayal of American Prosperity
and Three Billion New Capitalists

A well-arguedand exceedingly timelycall to action for the White House and Congress to end partisan political bickering and move the American economy back to sound principles like free markets, entrepreneurship, and a renewed manufacturing base that will restore our nations greatness. Hubbard and Navarro focus a bipartisan perspective on practical policy reform.

Larry M. Wortzel , Ph.D., Commissioner
and former Chairman of the U.S.China
Economic and Security Review Commission

It is time for a clean sheet of paper that creates the ultimate focus on creating real jobs and driving the success of our private sector by significantly improving our global competitiveness and not further eroding it. Kudos to Glenn Hubbard and Peter Navarro for doing just that!

Dan DiMicco , Chairman, President,
and CEO, Nucor Corporation

Seeds of Destruction is everything that Washington policymaking is not: sober, lucid, reasoned, timely, bipartisan, and constructive. The United States is on a path to greater danger and diminished aspirations. Hubbard and Navarro illuminate the path to fulfilling this generations obligation to leave behind a nation with greater freedom and prosperity than it inherited.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin , President of the American
Action Forum, and former Director of the
Congressional Budget Office (20032005)

Glenn Hubbard and Peter Navarro combine their unique experiences in government and politics with their crystal-clear economic insights to produce a lively and compelling account of the origins of the financial crisis and the problems now plaguing the American economy. The book convincingly explains how government policy planted the seeds of destruction and how a change in government policy can root them out and plant the seeds of prosperity. Their diagnoses and remedies should be read, studied carefully, and applied.

John B. Taylor , Mary and Robert Raymond
Professor of Economics at Stanford University, and former
Undersecretary of the Treasury for International Finance

A thoughtful and politically provocative diagnosis of Americas economic ills.

Kenneth S. Rogoff , coauthor of This Time is Different ,
and Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy,
Harvard University

This book is a must-read for all persons who are concerned about our economic future. It shows the disastrous folly of our current economic policies and, more important, it lays out the proper policies to achieve a sound and prosperous economic future.

John Cogan , Leonard and Shirley Ely Fellow, Hoover Institution,
and Professor of Public Policy Program, Stanford University;
former Deputy Director of the Office of Management
and Budget, Reagan administration

Why the Path to Economic Ruin Runs Through Washington, and How to Reclaim American Prosperity

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Printed in the United States of America

First Printing August 2010

ISBN-10: 0-13-702773-7
ISBN-13: 978-0-13-702773-6

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Hubbard, R. Glenn.
Seeds of destruction : why the path to economic ruin runs through Washington, and how
to reclaim American prosperity / Glenn Hubbard, Peter Navarro. 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-13-702773-6 (alk. paper)
1. United StatesEconomic policy2009- 2. Free enterpriseUnited States. I.
Navarro, Peter. II. Title.
HC106.84.H83 2010
330.973dc22
2010018952

To the youth of Americaand their children. We write this book in the hopes that, through sensible and timely reforms, our generation will not impose a crushing economic and tax burden on them.

Additional Bonus Material for eVersion Only:

Republicans want to go back and live in the 1950s. Democrats want to go back and work there.

Thats the joke circulating about the American attitude toward our current economy, our past, and our prospects.

Its a short joke, but one that captures Americans dark suspicions about our future. In the 1950s, jobs were available and pay was high. Americans found they were able to work fewer hours than before and buy better cars and appliances. Mortgages were low. Education was available and universities were good. The Midwest drew workers rather than sent them away. When someone lost a job, he found another. Teenagers went joyriding in their parents cars. It all looked easy at the time. But today no one seems to be putting forward a plan that can take us to a 1950s level of broadly shared prosperity.

No one, that is, until these authors. In this dramatic nonpartisan book, Glenn Hubbard and Peter Navarro lay out the true roots of the current troubles. They then open their hands and show seeds of prosperity, a new set of policies that can, if planted, make the economic garden grow even more dramatically than it did in the past.

No pair of authors is more qualified than these to undertake this. While he was Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers at the White House in the early part of the nought decade, Glenn Hubbard wrote the soundest components in the 2001 and 2003 tax laws. As a scholar and dean of Columbia Business School, Hubbard has identified those changes in tax and regulatory law that can yield the most efficacious growth. Peter Navarro, a noted speaker and teacher, is author of numerous prescient and insightful books, including