This book lays out not only the course of the financial crisis which began in 2007, but its underlying causes, and shows why much more radical reforms are needed than are currently being contemplated if we are to avoid similar 'systemic' crises in the future. It shows why the bailout has been only marginally effective and how it could have been much more so, and outlines the enormous opportunity - not yet taken - to design a new global financial architecture. It is highly critical of many of the actions not only of George Bush's administration, but also of Barack Obama's. It shows why the bulk of the cost of recovery should be borne by those in the financial sector - not just for reasons of natural justice, but also for compelling economic reasons.
Reviews
The Financial Times
John Kay
"This is the best book so far on the financial crisis. Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel prize-winning economist, is knowledgeable about the historical background, immersed in the policy debate and a pioneer of the economic theories needed to understand the origins of the problems. Although the material is necessarily difficult at times, the book is also easy to read. It is therefore indispensable not just for those who (like me) are broadly sympathetic to the Stiglitz position but for those who would rebut these charges."
30/01/2010
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The New Statesman
Paul Mason
"...in the end, despite Freefall's brilliance, Joe doesn't quite get it. He remains locked in a doctrine that says the market will always be more dynamic than the state-led economy. Yet he intuits - far more clearly than in his work in the 1990s on the Russian transition or the Asian crisis - that the state-led economy is exactly what we're about to get."
21/01/2010
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The New York Times
Michiko Kakutani
"Some of the suggestions that Mr. Stiglitz makes in these pages for reconfiguring the American economy (and American society) stray far from the realm of practical policy recommendations that actually have a chance of winning broad public support or being enacted by Congress ... Such remarks not only give ammunition to conservative critics who want to dismiss Mr. Stiglitz as a European-style liberal, but they also have the unfortunate effect of diverting the reader’s attention from the many shrewd assessments that he makes in “Freefall” about the causes and consequences of the great financial meltdown of 2008."
18/01/2010
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The New York Times
Devin Leonard
"[A] powerful book… These may all be worthy ideas. But at times, Mr. Stiglitz’s call for a new economic order seems a bit fanciful. Can you imagine President Obama going before the American people and telling them they need to emulate Sweden? Imagine the fun Glenn Beck would have with that."
30/01/2010
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The Guardian
Larry Elliott
"…Freefall is the wrong title for this book. It was clearly commissioned and conceived about a year ago, when the charts showed industrial production and trade collapsing at the same pace as they had in the early 30s… Having dished it out, Stiglitz can expect to cop it from his opponents if, as looks entirely possible, 2010 is a year of recovery. But his underlying analysis is correct. The global economy was – and remains – seriously unbalanced between debtor and creditor nations."
30/01/2010
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The Washington Post
Carl Hartman
"Some of his ideas are tougher going for the amateur economist to follow but Stiglitz - a ranking professor at New York's Columbia University - adds touches of academic humor. He mocks bankers and other financial professionals as misusing mathematical models to justify risky ventures. "According to the standard models," he says, "the kind of stock market crash which occurred on Oct. 19, 1987, could have occurred only on(c)e in every 20 billion years, a length of time longer than the life of the universe.""
22/01/2010
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The Literary Review
Allister Heath
"There can be no doubt that Joseph Stiglitz’s essay on the financial crisis will be an instant bestseller. It is the most sophisticated book-length analysis from a left-liberal perspective yet to have hit the shelves; and most of its claims and explanations will therefore become the received wisdom, especially in Washington and London. This is a shame. Stiglitz, whose analysis throughout the book is lucid and occasionally brilliant, is unable to depict fairly the arguments of those with whom he disagrees; and while his relentlessly angry tone, sarcastic asides, sweeping dismissals and polemical style will go down a treat with those of his readers keen to see their prejudices confirmed, it won’t satisfy those of a more dispassionate persuasion."
01/02/2010
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The Sunday Times
David Smith
"Stiglitz acknowledges that his book was written “midstream”, while the crisis was still playing out. Some of it reads that way... Stiglitz’s call for a second big fiscal stimulus by America may come good, but for the moment looks much less relevant. Most of all, his view that the crisis revealed deep-seated problems, and that there can be no going back to the world as it was before, is, for an intellectual firebrand, disturbingly mainstream."
24/01/2010
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