The Roaring Nineties
Why We're Paying the Price for the Greediest Decade in History
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
From the author of Globalization and its Discontents, Joseph Stiglitz's The Roaring Nineties: Why We're Paying the Price for the Greediest Decade in History blows the whistle on the devastation wrought by the free market mania of the nineties.
This is the explosive story of how capitalism US-style got its comeuppance: how excessive deregulation, government pandering to big business and exorbitant CEO salaries all fed the bubble that burst so dramatically amid corporate scandal and anti-globalization protest.
As chief economic advisor to the president at the time, Stiglitz exposes the inside of what went wrong, but also reveals how Bush's administration is now making things worse - much worse - for the economy, the US and the rest of the world. Stiglitz takes us one step further, showing how a more balanced approach to the market and government can lead not only to a better economy, but a better society.
'A searing critique of Dubyanomics ... the nobel laureate who took on the IMF is now turning his guns on the American president. Stiglitz knows when to pick a fight'
Observer
'One of the most important economic and political thinkers of our time'
Independent on Sunday
'Stiglitz has become a hero to the anti-globalization movement'
Economist
'An iconic figure ... Stiglitz's book will encourage those who wish to halt the partial Americanization that has already taken place in Europe'
Daily Telegraph
Joseph Stiglitz was Chief Economist at the World Bank until January 2000. He is currently University Professor of the Columbia Business School and Chair of the Management Board and Director of Graduate Summer Programs, Brooks World Poverty Institute, University of Manchester. He won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2001 and is the author of the best-selling Globalization and Its Discontents, Making Globalization Work, Freefall and The Price of Inequality, all published by Penguin.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
As an economic adviser to President Clinton and a World Bank official, Nobel Prize winner Stiglitz (Globalization and Its Discontents) had a front-row seat for the financial boom of the 1990s. He discusses how, contrary to all theory, reducing the national deficit led to the economic upswing, but his interest lies not in how the bubble happened but in those qualities that eventually led to its collapse. One of his chief arguments is that although efficient markets depend upon the free flow of information, deregulation enabled corporations like Enron to present distorted financial data, "stealing money from their unwary shareholders" in the process. Financial analysts also withheld frank assessments from investors to maintain their insider status, and the "conflicts of interest gone out of control" inevitably led to disaster. The book suggests Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan could have slowed things down, but failed to back up tentative public remarks with firm action. The Clinton administration also comes in for some of the blame for pressuring foreign countries to adopt policies it wouldn't apply to its own economy. But the largest portion of the blame is doled out to George W. Bush for mishandling the initial stages of the recession, allowing it to spiral dangerously in the name of free markets. Instead, Stiglitz calls for just enough regulation to promote what he dubs "Democratic Idealism," a fairly standard liberal platform of social justice and economic reform. Whatever one thinks of his long-term goals, the straightforward and well-reasoned summation of the last decade's market trends has a convincing ring of truth. Correction: In our review of Edwin Black's War Against the Weak (Forecasts, Aug. 25), the phrase "dirty little secret," describing the American eugenics movement, appeared to be attributed to Black. In fact, the phrase is the publisher's, and has not been used by the author.