Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Liberalization, privatization, and bailouts. Déjà vu all over again

Today countries around the world view with cynicism the economic ideas we were trying to export. They came to believe that our push for liberalization and privatization was guided in no small measure by our own corporate and financial interests. Our bailout plans, which provided billions of dollars to help repay banks but denied millions of dollars in food and fuel subsidies for the very poor, only confirmed this impression.
You know what is really interesting about this excerpt? The "today" mentioned here is not in the context of the current economic crisis and the trillion-dollar bailout plans. No sir. This is from an essay that the Nobel-prize-winner Joesph Stiglitz wrote in the Atlantic in October 2002! In this essay, Stiglitz was reflecting on the "roaring nineties" during which he was at various times the chief economist for the World Bank, and chaired Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers.

Well, here he is explaining the current global economic crisis:

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