Chapter 11: The Terrible Twos Summary and Analysis

Our government injected economic "steroids" into the economy so that Wall Street could do participate in more speculation and Main Street could do more home buying where millions of people were approved for houses they couldn't afford. The housing bubble was fueled by low interest rates and deficit spending. We forgot who we were and abandoned the five pillars of prosperity. The first decade of the twenty-first century has been the worst in modern history. Job growth and earnings have stagnated—except on Wall Street. The economic decline of America is due to the unethical and illegal activities conducted by Wall Street and America's failure to maintain and upgrade our formula for success.

In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, stated that America was ninth in the...