Then the net growth in world GDP from 1980 to 2010 would amount to 120 per cent, or about 2.7 per cent a year over this 30-year period. This allowed real per capita incomes to rise by almost 40 per cent even though world population grew by roughly 1.6 per cent a year over the same period.
That's all very nice but the authors do live in America and the 2007 median family income is the same as it was in 1999 despite productivity gains. We can be sure that this recession has decreased the median although I do not know by how much.
They go on to make this absurd statement:
The people who made mistakes lost, and many lost big.
Many, perhaps most, of the people who "made mistakes" did very well. We can start with the 5 investment banks, who paid out a total of $145 Billion in bonuses from 2003-07, during the creation of the bubble. They were helped by the credit ratings agencies and the mortgage brokers and let's also not forget the many speculators who made a killing and the developers who were eager to meet the demand.
This statement alone should disqualify them from ever voting again:
The focus on government solutions is particularly disappointing given its poor record in dealing with crises in the US and many other countries, such as the aftermath of hurricane Katrina and failure effectively to prosecute the war in Iraq.
If you leave government in the hands of hacks, you should expect failure and as Thomas Frank points out in The Wrecking Crew, some people who are ideological allies of Becker and Murphy actively work for government failure.
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