The Roaring Nineties: A New History of the World's Most Prosperous Decade

The Roaring Nineties: A New History of the World's Most Prosperous Decade PDF Author: Joseph E. Stiglitz
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393078388
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 415

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Book Description
How one of the greatest economic expansions in history sowed the seeds of its own collapse. With his best-selling Globalization and Its Discontents, Joseph E. Stiglitz showed how a misplaced faith in free-market ideology led to many of the recent problems suffered by the developing nations. Here he turns the same light on the United States. The Roaring Nineties offers not only an insider's illuminating view of policymaking but also a compelling case that even the Clinton administration was too closely tied to the financial community—that along with enormous economic success in the nineties came the seeds of the destruction visited on the economy at the end of the decade. This groundbreaking work by the Nobel Prize-winning economist argues that much of what we understood about the 1990s' prosperity is wrong, that the theories that have been used to guide world leaders and anchor key business decisions were fundamentally outdated. Yes, jobs were created, technology prospered, inflation fell, and poverty was reduced. But at the same time the foundation was laid for the economic problems we face today. Trapped in a near-ideological commitment to free markets, policymakers permitted accounting standards to slip, carried deregulation further than they should have, and pandered to corporate greed. These chickens have now come home to roost. The paperback includes a new introduction that reviews the continued failure of the Bush administration's policies, which have taken a bad situation and made it worse.

Social Classes and Political Order in the Age of Data

Social Classes and Political Order in the Age of Data PDF Author: Georges Kotrotsios
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527589056
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
Our lives are changing today, but what is the single most important factor driving these changes? This question is crucial, because attempting to answer it can guide us to an understanding of the processes that are impacting our societies. The answer will, of course, come from the historians of the future, but there is already no doubt that the advent of data is behind a radical shake-up of our way of living. Monetary assets, infrastructure, equipment, and human labor all allow wealth to be created. Data does too, and it is reasonable to consider a new production factor in this regard: data capital. This book argues that this new production factor generates innumerable economic opportunities of a nature unthought of a mere twenty years ago. These opportunities have led to the creation of a new social class composed of two subclasses: data workers and data owners. The emergence of this new class repositions existing classes, including the traditional working class and the capitalist class, creating strong divergences that threaten social cohesion. What can we do to ensure cohesion and the proper functioning of society? The book argues for the establishment of a regulatory framework and the institutions necessary if we are to open data up and, where appropriate, exchange and trade it, all on a global scale. In this regard, the state—today still playing its traditional role of framework setter, and savior when crises loom—can become an active economic player, thus creating wealth for communities.

Growth Growth Growth

Growth Growth Growth PDF Author: Julian Cobbing
Publisher: African Books Collective
ISBN: 0986979198
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
Growth Growth Growth retells history as a succession of pivotal crises linked to economic growth. Beginning with agriculture ten thousand years ago, each crisis led to an impasse until human ingenuity devised a technical 'solution' to fix it. These solutions included the alphabet, paper, clocks, guns, the printing press, the steam engine, the petrol engine, electricity, nitrogen fertilizer, and the computer. Each solution, however, played a part in the next crisis. Growth-driven crises led to the world wars of the first half of the twentieth century, including the atrocities of Stalin, Hitler and Hiroshima. The brief 'golden age' of capitalism of the 1950s and 1960s gave way to the ultra-corporate capitalism that, in one variant or another, is now the global economic system. Julian Cobbing's lively account exposes the historical roots of our converging problems - the destruction of the environment, the massacre of other species, the running down of oil reserves, global heating, and the nuclear threat to all of us. This time there is no technical solution, since we are devouring the Earth's finite resources. Cobbing reminds us that we are just one species in a planetary life system which could dispense with us if we are not needed

Who Counts?

Who Counts? PDF Author: Diane M. Nelson
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822375079
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
In Who Counts? Diane M. Nelson explores the social life of numbers, teasing out the myriad roles math plays in Guatemalan state violence, economic exploitation, and disenfranchisement, as well as in Mayan revitalization and grassroots environmental struggles. In the aftermath of thirty-six years of civil war, to count—both numerically and in the sense of having value—is a contested and qualitative practice of complex calculations encompassing war losses, migration, debt, and competing understandings of progress. Nelson makes broad connections among seemingly divergent phenomena, such as debates over reparations for genocide victims, Ponzi schemes, and antimining movements. Challenging the presumed objectivity of Western mathematics, Nelson shows how it flattens social complexity and becomes a raced, classed, and gendered skill that colonial powers considered beyond the grasp of indigenous peoples. Yet the Classic Maya are famous for the precision of their mathematics, including conceptualizing zero long before Europeans. Nelson shows how Guatemala's indigenous population is increasingly returning to Mayan numeracy to critique systemic inequalities with the goal of being counted—in every sense of the word.

Working in the Service Sector

Working in the Service Sector PDF Author: Gerhard Bosch
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134456433
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 398

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Book Description
The rise to prominence of the service sector - heralded over half a century ago as the great hope for the twenty-first century - has come to fruition. In many cases, employment in the service sector now outnumbers that in manufacturing sectors, and it is accepted that in all developed countries, the service sector is the only one in which employment will grow in future. The reasons for this is the subject of much controversy and debate, the outcomes of which are not merely of academic interest but of decisive importance for economic policy and the quality of working and living conditions in future. In order to examine these various arguments, research teams from eight European countries worked together for three years on a comparative study of the evolution of service sector employment in EU member states. They also investigated working and employment conditions in five very different service industries (banking, retailing, hospitals, IT services and care of the elderly) in a number of countries, and the results of their research are presented in this informative new collection, of interest to students academics and researchers involved in all aspects of industrial economics.

State Transformations in OECD Countries

State Transformations in OECD Countries PDF Author: H. Rothgang
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137012420
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
The democratic nation state of the post-war era has undergone major transformations since the 1970s, and political authority has been both internationalized and privatized. The thirteen chapters of this edited collection deal with major transformations of governance arrangements and state responsibilities in the countries of the OECD world. A unified conceptual and explanatory framework is used to describe trajectories of state change, to explain the internationalization or privatization of responsibilities in the resource, law, legitimacy and welfare dimensions of the democratic nation state, and to probe the state's role in the today's post-national constellation of political authority. As the contributions show, an unravelling of state authority has indeed occurred, but the state nevertheless continues to play a key role in emerging governance arrangements. Hence it is not merely a 'victim' of globalization and other driving forces of change.

Markets in Higher Education

Markets in Higher Education PDF Author: Pedro Teixeira
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402028350
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
This volume presents the most comprehensive international discussion yet on the role of markets in higher education. It considers both the political and economic implications of the rising trend towards introducing market elements in higher education. The book draws together leading international scholars in higher education to explore different theoretical perspectives and present new empirical evidence on market mechanisms in higher education in several Western countries.

The Roaring Nineties

The Roaring Nineties PDF Author: Joseph E. Stiglitz
Publisher: Allan Lane
ISBN: 9780713997224
Category : Business cycles
Languages : en
Pages : 389

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Book Description
The 1990s promised prosperity for the world: a new ara of unprecedented economic growth, with capitalism American-style reigning supreme. So where did it all go wrong? As Chairman of Clinton's Council of Economic Advisors and Chief Economist at the World Bank, Joseph Stiglitz was uniquely placed to watch first-hand as the nineties unfolded. This definitive, shocking insider's account reveals the truth about that extraordinary decade of boom-and-bust. The Roaring Nineties claims that much of what we understand about the decade's prosperity is in fact wrong - that it was the US's mistaken economic policies of the time that paved the way for worldwide recession. Yes, jobs were created, technology prospered, productivity rose, inflation fell and new markets opened up everywhere. But at the same time the seeds were sown for the economic problems we face today.

1995

1995 PDF Author: W. Joseph Campbell
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 052095971X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
A hinge moment in recent American history, 1995 was an exceptional year. Drawing on interviews, oral histories, memoirs, archival collections, and news reports, W. Joseph Campbell presents a vivid, detail-rich portrait of those memorable twelve months. This book offers fresh interpretations of the decisive moments of 1995, including the emergence of the Internet and the World Wide Web in mainstream American life; the bombing at Oklahoma City, the deadliest attack of domestic terrorism in U.S. history; the sensational "Trial of the Century," at which O.J. Simpson faced charges of double murder; the U.S.-brokered negotiations at Dayton, Ohio, which ended the Bosnian War, Europe’s most vicious conflict since the Nazi era; and the first encounters at the White House between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, a liaison that culminated in a stunning scandal and the spectacle of the president’s impeachment and trial. As Campbell demonstrates in this absorbing chronicle, 1995 was a year of extraordinary events, a watershed at the turn of the millennium. The effects of that pivotal year reverberate still, marking the close of one century and the dawning of another.

The Great Divide

The Great Divide PDF Author: Joseph E. Stiglitz
Publisher: Viking
ISBN: 9780141981222
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Why has inequality increased in the Western world - and what can we do about it? In The Great Divide, Joseph E. Stiglitz expands on the diagnosis he offered in his best-selling book The Price of Inequality and suggests ways to counter this growing problem. With his characteristic blend of clarity and passion, Stiglitz argues that inequality is a choice - the cumulative result of unjust policies and misguided priorities. In these essays, articles and reflections, Stiglitz fully exposes the inequality - from its dimensions and its causes to its consequences for the world - that is afflicting America and other Western countries in thrall to neoliberalism. From Reagan-era policies to the Great Recession and its long aftermath, Stiglitz delves into the processes and irresponsible policies - deregulation, tax cuts for the rich, the corruption of the political process - that are leaving many people further and further behind and turning the dream of a socially mobile society into an ever more unachievable myth. With formidable yet accessible economic insight, he urges us to embrace real solutions: increasing taxes on corporations and the wealthy; investing in education, science, and infrastructure; helping homeowners instead of banks; and, most importantly, doing more to restore the economy to full employment. Stiglitz's analysis reaches beyond America - the inequality leader of the developed world - to draw lessons from Scandinavia, Singapore, and Japan, and he argues against the tide of unnecessary, destructive austerity that is sweeping across Europe. Ultimately, Stiglitz believes our choice is not between growth and fairness; with the right policies, we can choose both.