Shultz explains the "real spendable average weekly earnings, nonagricultural production or nonsupervisory workers" index. This calculation shows what is really happening to the average ability of workers to buy goods and services. Since 1971 workers have been getting more in spendable terms, and prices are starting to decline. Shultz explains how this came to occur, and calls for holding back the flood of government spending.

Shultz's biography includes: US secretary of labor, 1969-70; US secretary of the treasury, 1972-74; US secretary of state, 1982-89; Jack Steele Parker Professor of international economics, Graduate School of Business, and distinguished fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, 1989- ; Chairman, Governor of California's Economic Advisory Board; Economist; Co-author, Putting Our House in Order: A Guide to Social Security and Health Care Reform.