6/30/2023 0 Comments Freefall by joseph stiglitz![]() ![]() There is more, though, to Freefall than sheer gloating – however justified. It was Summers, incensed by the constant criticism of the Washington consensus, who orchestrated Stiglitz's departure from the World Bank. Stiglitz says Summers was too accommodating to the demands of Wall Street in the 90s and is making the same mistake now. Larry Summers, formerly Bill Clinton's treasury secretary and now chief economic adviser to Barack Obama, is a particular hate figure. But he also finds time for some personal revenge. Some of the targets are obvious enough – corporate welfare for Wall Street, George Bush's tax breaks for the rich, the failed nostrums from the Chicago school of free-market economists. Stiglitz has waited a long time for his views to be vindicated and was not going to spurn the opportunity to settle some scores. In the circumstances, it is hardly surprising that Freefall reeks of "I told you so". The warnings of Stiglitz and a handful of other dissident voices were ignored, as a naïve belief in the self-correcting nature of markets allowed the conditions to develop for the biggest financial and economic shock since the great depression in the 1930s. Problems that first surfaced on the periphery of the global economy gradually worked their way to its core – the United States. The Asian crisis of 1997-98 was merely the warm-up act for the events of the past two and a half years. ![]()
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