Host Per Fagereng speaks with Hedrick Smith, Pulitzer Prize-winning former New York Times reporter and editor and Emmy award-winning producer/correspondent whose career spans fifty years. His new book Who Stole The American Dream? is an account of how, over the past four decades, we have become two Americas. Smith takes us across America to show how seismic changes, sparked by a sequence of landmark political and economic decisions, have transformed America. He starts with Lewis Powell’s provocative memo that triggered a political rebellion that dramatically altered the landscape of power in Washington from then until today.
Other issues Smith covers are the accidental beginnings of the 401(k) plan, with disastrous economic consequences for many; the major policy changes that began under Jimmy Carter; how the New Economy disrupted America’s engine of shared prosperity, the “virtuous circle” of growth; and how America lost the title of “Land of Opportunity.” Smith documents the transfer of $6 trillion in middle-class wealth from home- owners to banks even before the housing boom went bust, and how the U.S. policy tilt favoring the rich is stunting America’s economic growth.