Home

Joseph StiglitzSyndicate content

Austerity kills: Conservative cure worst thing for what ails the economy says Stiglitz

By Armine Yalnizyan
| October 31, 2011

Governments around the world are heading down a path to economic suicide.

So said Nobel Prize-winning former chief economist of the World Bank, Joseph Stiglitz, to hundreds of well-heeled financiers and decision-makers who paid a bundle to hear him in Toronto.

With a voice as gruff as gravel, and an energy bristling with urgency, he told governments in Canada and the rest of the world now is the moment to address unmet needs, and use underutilized resources. Failure to do so would unnecessarily prolong the tough times.

Addressing the 5th Toronto Forum on Global Cities, Stiglitz challenged leaders who say it is time for government to get their fiscal houses in order by cutting.

Read more
Columnists

Pay bonanza continues for bankers

Some people were outraged last week by a report that a member of the kitchen staff of bailed-out Wall Street firm AIG had received a $7,700 bonus.

Surely that was far less outrageous than the million-dollar bonuses paid to others at AIG who actually carried out the firm's financial business.

After all, the kitchen helper produced something that at least could be eaten. Apart from perhaps overcooking the Chateaubriand or leaving spots on the champagne glasses, what harm could the kitchen helper have done -- compared to driving the world economy over a cliff?

Tags:
Economics financial crisis income inequality business corruption greed wealth distribution AIG elite Joseph Stiglitz

Related items

related_item1

How much is a bank CEO worth?

related_item1_desc

It's probably a while still before we see bank CEOs on street corners selling the homeless news.

related_item2

All of them must go

related_item2_desc

As cities around the world are rocked with protests, it's clear governments that respond to economic crisis with the discredited free-market agenda will not survive.

related_item3

babble: Continued world financial crisis fallout

related_item3_desc

A good place to chronicle the world wide worker reaction to the global financial crisis.

Weekly Audit: Why the current stimulus plan isn't enough

By The Media Consortium
| April 7, 2009

by Zach Carter, TMC MediaWire Blogger

The U.S. economy just keeps getting worse. Given the absolute pummeling the job market has taken over the past five months, we're going to need some much stronger medicine than policymakers are currently proposing. It's increasingly clear that President Obama's stimulus plan was devised for a far milder downturn, and this week we received further evidence of the recession's high human cost.

Read more
Syndicate content