Freefalling
Among the flood of new books analyzing our recent economic downturn is Freefall by Joseph Stiglitz. New this month, Stiglitz provides an up-to-date perspective on the ‘Great Recession’ of 2008/9. He reviews the flawed responses of both the Bush and Obama administrations, and he provides a global perspective on the crisis.
Auto and bank bailouts and their ungrateful management, banks that make their money when customers take out loans rather than when they pay them off , blind faith in financial deregulation, and a Wall Street culture that rewards gamblers and buck passers at the expense of people who actually make things – Stiglitz turns to each in turn.
Stiglitz is a Nobel Prize winning economist and he serves up a dash of optimism with his heavy dose of butt-chewing. While he thinks our political response to the crisis has been barely adequate, he believes that we can repair our economy and prevent future crises if we drop the cherished theories and assumptions that created this mess.
Chuck Leddy of the Boston Globe says, “Stiglitz brilliantly analyzes the economic reasons behind the banking collapse, but he goes much further, digging down to the wrongheaded national faith in the power of free markets to regulate themselves and provide wealth for all.”
Says Robert Kuttner of The American Prospect, “Stiglitz is the world’s leading scholarly expert on market failure, and this crisis vindicates his life’s work. There have been other broad-spectrum books on the genesis and dynamics of the collapse, but Freefall is the most comprehensive to date, grounded in both theory and factual detail…. the definitive critique to date of how the Summers-Geithner strategy fails, both as economics and as politics…. The tone of this book is good-humored and public-minded.”
Check out Freefall or one of the recent books on the economic crisis to fill in the blanks unanswered by the sound biters, news spinners and talking heads. They are available at your nearest SJCPL location.
This circa 1910 Valentine’s Day postcard shows that for at least 100 years couples have been celebrating this holiday through romantic, flowery messages. The look of cards past might be different from today’s, but it seems that people and their idea of romance has remained the same.
Last night the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards were held and you can click 
Recently, I was checking in books at the Tutt Branch when I noticed a book with an interesting cover. The cover featured a picture of a pair of flowery women’s underwear hanging on a clothesline. I looked closer only to find that they were the exact same pair of women’s briefs that were in my drawer at home. I thought this was pretty funny until I saw that the title of the book (there is also a 