La crisi americana: appunti di viaggio

This paper comments an invited opinion on the American crisis in the New York Times by Professor Casey Mulligan, University of Chicago. Accord-ing to Mulligan, the crisis is no more than a financial fluctuation, banks should not be bailed out, other financial actors can finance business in-vestments, the delay of investment and consumption is non a big problem, public intervention is unhelpful. This paper argues instead that the current crisis is not mainly of a financial nature, but it originates form a sustained shock that affected income distribution. The share of labour declined, while the share of capital increased. To sustain the returns to capital it was neces-sary to force lending to consumers. In the short term both monetary and fis-cal policy are needed, but in the mid-to-long run it is necessary to go back to a more balanced income distribution.