We all sense that there is something wrong in American economic and geo-political policies, that they have not been good for the world, but most of the time we are unable to put our finger on precisely how. Stiglitz, Nobel prize winner and one-time chief economic at the World Bank, and economic advisor to American Presidents, spells out in detail what exactly is wrong with the received neo-liberal economics as laid out in the so-called Washington Consensus, pushed unthinkingly on many of the newly independent countries of Eastern Europe with disastrous consequences, and ultimately damaging to the Americans themselves, with their astronomical national debt and individual indebtedness, failing public welfare institutions like public hospitals, education, public safety and law and order, deteriorating race relations, deteriorating public infrastructure,and other manifestations of their cult of individualism. All this is supported by the author's intimate presence in the Presidential bodies during Clinton's time,as well as his wide knowledge of international relations and of course his academic brilliance. The writing, moreover, is transparent and direct, easy and pleasant to read through. ( )

Ottimo saggio economico sull'economia degli anni '90. Precisa analisi dei problemi e alcune indicazioni interessanti su come risolverli. Visione liberale sul ruolo sociale dellìamministrazione pubblica. ( )

How come we are deep in mountains of shit? What are the reason of the financial meltdown?
Here's some suggestions, from the roaring nineties of the new democrat bill clinton.
Stiglitz is smart indeed, but this book is somehow badly written. ( )

If only more people, in Washington and on Wall Street, had read this book when it was published; Stiglitz nails many of the deep root causes of the current economic malaise in this history of the 90's boom. His explanations can be pedantic, but are never overly steeped in theory. A great deal of his argument is common sense, but like a true academic (he is a Nobel Prize-winning economist) Stiglitz lays out lots of what's wrong with our current deregulated financial markets.

Stiglitz's arguements, so strong on the economy, are not helped by his uninspired attempts at an "inside baseball" look at economic policy-making in the Clinton White House. Quick to claim that his advice would have kept us out of the lurch, Stiglitz fails to offer much insight into how his seemingly great advice was so regularly turned down by decision-makers. If you read focused on the broad economic insight and not on the politics, this is a decent high-level survey of what went wrong in the boom economy of the late 90's. ( )