An ongoing war of ideas over the most effective type of capitalist system, as well as a rebalancing of global economic power, is shaping that order. America as a nation faces huge challenges-in health care, energy, the environment, education, and manufacturing-and Stiglitz penetratingly addresses each in light of the newly emerging global economic order. Ranging across a host of topics that bear on the crisis, Stiglitz argues convincingly for a restoration of the balance between government and markets.

The system is broken, and we can only fix it by examining the underlying theories that have led us into this new bubble capitalism. In Freefall, Stiglitz traces the origins of the Great Recession, eschewing easy answers and demolishing the contention that America needs more billion-dollar bailouts and free passes to those too big to fail, while also outlining the alternatives and revealing that even now there are choices ahead that can make a difference. Winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics, Stiglitz is an insanely great economist, in ways you can't really appreciate unless you're deep into the field (Paul Krugman, New York Times). The crisis has sparked an essential debate about America's economic missteps, the soundness of this country's economy, and even the appropriate shape of a capitalist system.įew are more qualified to comment during this turbulent time than Joseph E. Flawed government policy and unscrupulous personal and corporate behavior in the United States created the current financial meltdown, which was exported across the globe with devastating consequences. The Great Recession, as it has come to be called, has impacted more people worldwide than any crisis since the Great Depression.

Freefall by Joseph E. Stiglitz