Drawing on material from his book, The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath: The Past and Future of American Affluence, and an essay—"Rethinking the Great Recession"—in the Winter 2011 Wilson Quarterly, Robert J. Samuelson discusses the future economic prospects of the United States. He foresees a gloomy future, with great potential for downward mobility, especially among new workers, as the staggering national debt, coupled with the growing numbers of Americans drawing Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, creates increasing economic instability. As Samuelson notes, "just as there has never been a war to end all wars, there has yet to be an economic theory that can end all serious instability."