I’ve posted already a link to my critical review of Joseph Stiglitz’s 2024 book, The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society. As you can see, I’m not a fan.
Good to see more specifics on exactly how Stiglitz gets things wrong.
But when you say: "And, even though he doesn’t say it, Stiglitz appears to want the reader to think that financial deregulation was a main cause of the 2008 “meltdown.” That’s false. Backing my claim would take more time than I have right now." Perhaps just listing a key book &/or article on this topic, such as John Allison's "The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure" or the pamphlet "The House that Uncle Sam Built" by Peter Boettke, et al would be more helpful.
It’s also false to claim that it is the U.S. healthcare system that “results in the lowest life expectancy of any of the advanced countries.”
Most of the reasons for this ranking - higher rates of chronic diseases, obesity, suicides, murders, drug overdoses, higher numbers of relatively poor, low-skill immigrants from other countries - have little if anything to do with the U.S. healthcare system.
I was surprised you didn’t take on that particular Stiglitz claim, having mentioned it.
On a Sunday night in November 1973, I made a long-distance call from my dorm room in Knoxville, Tennessee, to someone in Tallahassee, Florida, during the time of day when long distance rates were cheapest. It cost me the equivalent today of nearly $200. If I made that call today, it would be at a zero marginal cost. But Joseph Stiglitz wants to claim that is a market failure, that somehow telecommunications was superior in a hyper-regulated state than it is now.
Don't forget that before passage of the Staggers Act in 1980, US freight railroads were approaching Third World status. Today, we have the best rail freight system in the world. Maybe Stiglitz wants us to believe that the current situation with rail freight is due to something else than ending the government cartelization of railroad, just as it ended the cartelization of trucking, telecommunications, and passenger air. I guess he could convince Paul Krugman or Brad DeLong that was the case, but it would be dishonesty.
It really is time to call out Stiglitz for what he is: an egotistical (Remember the removal of Clowers from the AER editorship because he rejected a Stiglitz paper?), second-rate economist. I say second-rate because the man cannot even discern the difference between a heavily-regulated industry and one where markets relatively prevail. That is basic stuff, people.
If not a second-rate economist, then I would say he is a dishonest one.
Thanks, Bill. Good comment. If we had had those rates in 1970 that we have now, there's a slight chance that my brother would not have committed suicide.
I knew about Clower's firing; he was, after all, one of my professors. I had no idea that he was fired over rejecting Stiglitz. Really? Where can I got to learn more?
Tom DiLorenzo told me about the Clower firing. He said that after Stiglitz had his paper rejected, he retaliated. Now, if Tom is wrong on it, then I'm wrong, too.
The real problem is that people like Stiglitz and Krugman really don't understand economics at all. It is a rare thing to read an economically literate sentence from either of these two men. That the economics profession heaps so much praise upon people like them and Thomas Piketty and Brad DeLong and Isabella Weber speaks volumes about just how intellectually and morally bankrupt academic economics has become.
I put Krugman in a different category than the others you name. He did do very good work up to about 2000, when he became a regular NY Times columnist. Although I beat him to a defense of "sweatshops" in poor countries (mine was in Fortune), he did a masterful job in Slate. It was so good that Charley Hooper and I quoted it in our book, Making Great Decisions in Business and Life.
I am 70 years old and remember the high prices of "long distance phone calls" and a thing call a "toll call." Communication is cheaper today then in the past.
Good to see more specifics on exactly how Stiglitz gets things wrong.
But when you say: "And, even though he doesn’t say it, Stiglitz appears to want the reader to think that financial deregulation was a main cause of the 2008 “meltdown.” That’s false. Backing my claim would take more time than I have right now." Perhaps just listing a key book &/or article on this topic, such as John Allison's "The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure" or the pamphlet "The House that Uncle Sam Built" by Peter Boettke, et al would be more helpful.
It’s also false to claim that it is the U.S. healthcare system that “results in the lowest life expectancy of any of the advanced countries.”
Most of the reasons for this ranking - higher rates of chronic diseases, obesity, suicides, murders, drug overdoses, higher numbers of relatively poor, low-skill immigrants from other countries - have little if anything to do with the U.S. healthcare system.
I was surprised you didn’t take on that particular Stiglitz claim, having mentioned it.
I agree. As I said, I didn't have time to take on everything.
On a Sunday night in November 1973, I made a long-distance call from my dorm room in Knoxville, Tennessee, to someone in Tallahassee, Florida, during the time of day when long distance rates were cheapest. It cost me the equivalent today of nearly $200. If I made that call today, it would be at a zero marginal cost. But Joseph Stiglitz wants to claim that is a market failure, that somehow telecommunications was superior in a hyper-regulated state than it is now.
Don't forget that before passage of the Staggers Act in 1980, US freight railroads were approaching Third World status. Today, we have the best rail freight system in the world. Maybe Stiglitz wants us to believe that the current situation with rail freight is due to something else than ending the government cartelization of railroad, just as it ended the cartelization of trucking, telecommunications, and passenger air. I guess he could convince Paul Krugman or Brad DeLong that was the case, but it would be dishonesty.
It really is time to call out Stiglitz for what he is: an egotistical (Remember the removal of Clowers from the AER editorship because he rejected a Stiglitz paper?), second-rate economist. I say second-rate because the man cannot even discern the difference between a heavily-regulated industry and one where markets relatively prevail. That is basic stuff, people.
If not a second-rate economist, then I would say he is a dishonest one.
Thanks, Bill. Good comment. If we had had those rates in 1970 that we have now, there's a slight chance that my brother would not have committed suicide.
I knew about Clower's firing; he was, after all, one of my professors. I had no idea that he was fired over rejecting Stiglitz. Really? Where can I got to learn more?
Tom DiLorenzo told me about the Clower firing. He said that after Stiglitz had his paper rejected, he retaliated. Now, if Tom is wrong on it, then I'm wrong, too.
The real problem is that people like Stiglitz and Krugman really don't understand economics at all. It is a rare thing to read an economically literate sentence from either of these two men. That the economics profession heaps so much praise upon people like them and Thomas Piketty and Brad DeLong and Isabella Weber speaks volumes about just how intellectually and morally bankrupt academic economics has become.
I put Krugman in a different category than the others you name. He did do very good work up to about 2000, when he became a regular NY Times columnist. Although I beat him to a defense of "sweatshops" in poor countries (mine was in Fortune), he did a masterful job in Slate. It was so good that Charley Hooper and I quoted it in our book, Making Great Decisions in Business and Life.
I am 70 years old and remember the high prices of "long distance phone calls" and a thing call a "toll call." Communication is cheaper today then in the past.