The economic crisis has created a host of problems for working people: collapsing wages, lost jobs, ruined pensions, and the anxiety that comes with not knowing what tomorrow willbring. Compounding all this is a lack of reliable information that speaks to the realities of workers. Commentators and pundits seem more confused than anyone, and economists the so-called "experts" still cling to bankrupt ideologies that failed to predict the crisis and offer nothing to explain it.

In this short, clear, and concise book, Fred Magdoff and Michael D. Yates explain the nature of the economic...