Uploaded December 2023 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Linda Bilmes (@HarvardKennedySchool) explains the unprecedented shift in how the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were financed, contrasting sharply with historical norms. From reliance on debt to the minimal oversight of emergency spending, discover how these critical decisions shaped the nation's economic landscape and potentially prolonged conflicts.
Professor Linda Bilmes is an expert on budgeting and public finance. She is a full-time faculty member at the Harvard Kennedy School and a former Assistant Secretary and Chief Financial Officer of the US Department of Commerce. She has co-authored multiple books and book chapters, including the international bestseller The Three Trillion Dollar War and has written extensively on the cost of war, veterans’ issues, national parks, municipal budgeting and financial topics. She has featured in several films, including Charles’ Ferguson’s award-winning documentary No End In Sight. She serves as the sole US member of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Public Administration. Her research has been published in the New York Times, Financial Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, Barron’s, and other media. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and holds a BA and MBA from Harvard University and a D.Phil. from the University of Oxford.
Learn more at https://scholar.harvard.edu/lbilmes/home
Linda Bilmes (@HarvardKennedySchool) explains the unprecedented shift in how the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were financed, contrasting sharply with historical norms. From reliance on debt to the minimal oversight of emergency spending, discover how these critical decisions shaped the nation's economic landscape and potentially prolonged conflicts.
Professor Linda Bilmes is an expert on budgeting and public finance. She is a full-time faculty member at the Harvard Kennedy School and a former Assistant Secretary and Chief Financial Officer of the US Department of Commerce. She has co-authored multiple books and book chapters, including the international bestseller The Three Trillion Dollar War and has written extensively on the cost of war, veterans’ issues, national parks, municipal budgeting and financial topics. She has featured in several films, including Charles’ Ferguson’s award-winning documentary No End In Sight. She serves as the sole US member of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Public Administration. Her research has been published in the New York Times, Financial Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, Barron’s, and other media. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and holds a BA and MBA from Harvard University and a D.Phil. from the University of Oxford.
Learn more at https://scholar.harvard.edu/lbilmes/home
![Intellectual Property Is Broken [Dean Baker]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/cJJZUgt8kVM/mqdefault.jpg "Intellectual Property Is Broken [Dean Baker]
Why are we incentivizing wealth at the expense of health?
Dean Baker (@cepr) breaks down why our intellectual property system is in desperate need of reform.
Produced by Matthew Kulvicki & Nick Alpha")
![System Change - [ECO]NOMICS Part 4](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/eT0tp3OfF64/mqdefault.jpg "System Change - [ECO]NOMICS Part 4
Encouraged by economists, current mainstream policy on climate change has been too focused on green growth, and reliant on market-based solutions, which have proven inadequate to the challenge. Professor Juliet Shor emphasizes it is time to reject business as usual and build a new economy.
In this fourth and last part of [ECO]NOMICS, Prof. Schor explores the structural changes necessary to live within planetary boundaries.
For starters, we need to improve our understanding of human well-being. Public policy has focused on a single flawed number - GDP - ignoring that higher quality of life can be achieved on other dimensions, like fewer working hours. While growth is essential for poor countries to achieve decent standards of living, after a certain threshold, the incremental benefits of increasing GDP are fewer and unequally distributed. Prof. Schor shows it is both economically and technically feasible to achieve high levels of well-being without fossil fuels.
Climate policy should jettison the growth imperative, but it cannot overlook the equality imperative. We are in a climate crisis because of inequalities of power and resources, both within countries and globally. Prof. Schor outlines what needs to be done to address climate destabilization successfully and efficiently: mandate shifts to clean renewable energy, democratic control of investment flows, and a just transition with equity at its core. The State needs to be at the center of this response. But Prof. Schor warns that concentrations of wealth often translate into control of the State and policy inaction, so we need to also address the distribution of power and democratization. In light of recent tendencies, a large and vigorous social movement may be necessary to spur our governments to act.
Learn more at https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/videos/eco-nomics
Credits: Juliet Schor, Matthew Kulvicki, Nick Alpha, Gonçalo Fonseca, Kurt Semm")
