Freefall : America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy

Translated into twenty languages, this New York Times bestseller remains supremely relevant as the effects of the 2008 financial meltdown persist. In this paperback edition, Joseph E. Stiglitz expounds on his forthright and convincing arguments with a new afterword that sifts through the latest wreckage of our Great Recession. As nations around the globe continue their recovery efforts, Stiglitz argues that now is the critical moment, not to enact regulations that prevent crises of the recent past, but to lay new tracks that guide us away from the crises of the future.

Stiglitz discusses the causes of the 2008 recession/depression and goes on to propose reforms needed to avoid a repetition of a similar crisis, advocating government intervention and regulation in a number of areas. Among the policy-makers he criticizes are George W. Bush, Larry Summers, and Barack Obama.

This textbook does not require an economics background in order to be of value to the reader. Rather it explains Stiglitz's views on the recent economic crisis in terms which make it relevant to the average homeowner, retirement investor, and voter in the United States. He explains how without fundamental changes in economic policy and regulation the position of the US in the world political and economic arena may deteriorate significantly.

Author Biography

Winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics for his study of the consequences of information asymmetries, Joseph E. Stiglitz is the best-selling author of Globalization and Its Discontents, Making Globalization Work, and, with Linda Bilmes, The Three Trillion Dollar War. He teaches at Columbia University and lives in New York City.