Interview with Economist Joseph Stiglitz 'The American Dream Has Become a Myth'

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http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/inequality-in-the-us-interview-with-economist-joseph-stiglitz-a-858906.html



At Columbia University, which is located just blocks from Harlem in Manhattan's West Side, wealth and poverty are closer together than they are in many places in New York City. This is where American economist and 2001 Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz works as a professor. The Gary, Indiana native has spent years examining social inequality. His first personal experience with the issue came when, as a young boy, he asked why his nanny wasn't caring for her own children. Later, as the World Bank's chief economist, he studied the phenomenon on a global level. In June, he published a book on the topic entitled "The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future," which has just been released in German as well. In a SPIEGEL interview, Stiglitz discusses how wealth disparity is dividing America and how Europe can best overcome the euro crisis.

SPIEGEL: Professor Stiglitz, how do you expect the next President of the United States to tackle the problem of unequal distribution of wealth?

Stiglitz: First, he has to recognize that there is a problem at all. Watching inequality grow is like watching the grass grow. You don't see it happening day by day, but over a period of time it becomes visible.

SPIEGEL: What is the scale this inequality?

Stiglitz: In the last decades, income and wealth disparity have grown dramatically in this country. Let me give you an example: In 2011, the six heirs to the Walmart empire commanded wealth of almost $70 billion, which is equivalent to the wealth of the entire bottom 30 percent of US society.

[fasttense]

1. No economy ever recovered from a downturn through austerity.

The best line of the interview.

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2. ...

[marmar]

3. k/r

[tama]

4. The American Mood

"Anyway, the frustration is still there. I'll tell you a story: I recently went to see Bertolt Brecht's "Threepenny Opera." When it came to the line, "What is the crime of robbing a bank compared with the crime of founding one?", the whole audience started clapping."

[Manifestor_of_Light]

10. Brecht and Weill were ahead of their time.

I love Kurt Weill's music. He wrote great stuff that is practically unknown today, with the possible exception of "Mack the Knife"


Lost in the Stars, by Kurt Weill & Maxwell Anderson. Performed by Samuel Ramey, the pride of Colby, Kansas:

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5. Great interview!

[Brigid]

6. Has Obama ever sat down and had a nice long chat with Mr Stiglitz?

If not, he should.

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7. +1

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8. In terms of recognizing our past,

And in terms of what we want for our future, this is an important article.

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9. But all of a sudden we had $150 billion to bail out AIG

Stiglitz: In 2008, President George W. Bush claimed that we did not have enough money for health insurance for poor American children, costing a few billion dollars a year. But all of a sudden we had $150 billion to bail out AIG , the insurance company. That shows that something is wrong with our political system. It is more akin to "one dollar, one vote" than to "one person, one vote."

Those Mother Fuckers...

Watch a kid starve so a billionaire won't lose a dime.

[PATRICK]

11. We can work, live, feed

house, produce, etc. When the money game hoards the money exchange into fortune forts to ensure it has power you must have people jobless, starving in place, doing nothing, not serving each other.

Because all that real value is supposedly locked away in otherwise meaningless digits of tyranny.

Hence the revolts in Iceland Spain against pretending they must live in mad system like like and sacrifice more lives, jobs and sit on their hands as the value of trillions of dollars of gambling money and hoards ahs any real world value.

Then when you don't have access to the real world you go in nigher debt to those hoards to try and live?