Joseph Stiglitz: To Solve Crisis We Must Understand Its Origins

Slate:

As the economic slump that began in 2007 continues, the question persists: Why? Unless we have a better understanding of the causes of the crisis, we can’t implement an effective recovery strategy. So far, we have neither.

Read the whole story: Slate

Comments

[Ramiro Ray Guerrero]

12:56 PM on 10/05/2011

One step to the left, one step to the right; one step to the left, one, two steps to the right; one step to the left, one, two, three steps to the right. Where will we end up? I hope this comment doesn't get me arrested; I've already lost my job and my home.

[TheFriendlyAtheist]

10:58 AM on 10/05/2011

Excellent post Joseph. The most telling point in your article is that before the crashing of the economy the working class was spending 10% more each year than it was taking in; which means that we were, and still are, a nation that is kept financially afloat on debt. The stagnation of the wages of the working class over the last 30 years is one of the major reasons we find ourselves in this mess. Wages used to track productivity; when worker productivity rose wages followed in kind. But there has been a complete paradigm shift over the last three decades that has led to corporate executives hording for themselves all the wealth created by the workers productivity.

[TexasHurricane]

11:53 PM on 10/04/2011

You must be kidding. His brain must have been starved for oxygen.

[MRITechnologist]

10:44 AM on 10/04/2011

As long as we allow our govt to be bought then our tax dollars will never be spent where it is most beneficial to the nation as a whole.

[Sundialsvc4]

09:59 AM on 10/04/2011

The "origins" of this "crisis" are not difficult to understand:

They are ... High CRIME.

As a very simple example, let's take the actions of the most prominent and easily-recognized political operative on the field right now: the President of the United States. (You can fetch any name from any House of Congress regardless of party, and the results would be the same. But for convenience, let's pick on Barak right now.)

The talk was fast, and thick, and .. cheap and worthless. "Change we need" was an empty slogan. The warmth of his palm upon his family Bible had not yet cooled before the betrayals began. "Health Care Reform," pushed by people who cannot afford insurance, transmogrified before our at-first disbelieving eyes into a mandate to purchase insurance from the private companies who ... are the original problem. The companies in question, having built palatial monuments to themselves overlooking Chattanooga, Tennessee (although they call themselves "non-profit"), contributed (sic...) over $400 million dollars so-far in joyous celebration of their business achievements.

Barak now turns to the Supreme Court to cement this betrayal in stone. How much cash would 5 more people demand, as they conceal their blood-soaked hands beneath their black robes?

Here's your crisis: a government that doesn't exist. A group of 650-odd people who are so utterly corrupt that they fight against 312 million others with their pens.

[Sundialsvc4]

10:12 AM on 10/04/2011

The origins of this "crisis" are therefore very well-understood by the millions and billions of people who are actually bearing the criminal consequences day-to-day. And, in spite of a certain billionaire's efforts to coalesce this discontent behind the vaporous banner of "Tea Party, Incorporated, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Grand Old Party, Incorporated," or at the very least to contain it within "The Democratic Party, Incorporated" ...

... there they are.

Just below Wall Street. And in cities throughout the nation. In cities throughout the world.

They don't have hundred-million dollar war chests.

They aren't making specific demands. But their numbers are growing.

The hundreds of thousands of posts just like this one are growing in number, too. Hundreds of thousands.

Perhaps the less than seven hundred fifty people who are oh so confident that they have all the power, that they have all the answers, and that they can corral hundreds of millions or even billions of their fellow Earth-occupants like just so many sheep, should finally stop and reconsider their position.

Oh, no. I'm not talking about violence. "Violence" is something that these wicked people know of only too well, having started firestorms of war throughout the world just to toast their own marshmallows. I'm talking about freedom of speech, "the consent of the Governed," and the Due Process of something these people know nothing of: the Law.

[Chubbster]

09:36 AM on 10/04/2011

BANKS ARE LYING ABOUT ASSET VALUES AND EXPOSURE WHILE BOTH SIDES OF THE POLITICAL AISLE ARE TOO BUSY PERFORMING INDECENT ACTS ON THE BANKSTERS, PONTIFICATING ON HOW "IMPORTANT" THEY ARE TO "AMERICAN COMPETITIVENESS", TO PUT A STOP TO THIS CRAP.

Sorry about the CAPS....

[Countess]

09:22 AM on 10/04/2011

The sad fact is that people like Joseph Stiglitz will never be in government because they are not corrupt and compromised enough to earn a place within the rotten system. Imagine if he and others like him were in power at the beginning of the Obama administration instead of Summers, Geithner and company.

[sillygames]

09:56 AM on 10/04/2011

@ Countess,

Your remark "at the beginning of the Obama administration instead of Summers, Geithner and company". Summers WAS saying the same thing as Stiglitz, to SPEND and STIMULATE the economy. Summers and Stiglitz are both University professors. Your comment bleeds FAUX NEWS.

[tck29]

10:30 AM on 10/04/2011

Summers is a supply-sider who needs to go. Now.

[Sally1952]

10:43 AM on 10/04/2011

The Dems wanted a bigger stimulus and the Repubs were screaming. I guess the Dems were right. We need a huge, huge stimulus package now and the Repubs don't want to pass Obama's modest jobs bill.

[jacqueduvall]

10:54 AM on 10/04/2011

The DEMS got everything thing they wanted, at the time the Republicans didn't even have the power to filibuster.

On top of the stimulus Package, half the money loaned by Bush with Tarp had been repaid by June 2009, along with $16B in interest and $7B in sold Bank warrants. Obama turned it into a gaint slush fund, spent the remaining $350 Billion, alonbg with the $197B paid back and the $16B in interest.

And the spending didn't help at all.

Europe has cut some spending and it needs to cut more. The UK cut spending in a big way and it is recoverying.

The US has yet to cut spending and has contimued the downward slide.

[uneeda]

11:55 PM on 10/04/2011

You're absolutely correct......the jobs bill is way too small to make a difference,and won't even get passed.The reality is that we need 2-3 trillion invested in renewal of infrastructure,which would be a bargain as to cost and would remove millions from the dole, and which would initiate a spider- like multiplying demand into the economy.But it's not happening,which means a continuation of this morbid economy.