Here is our monthly installment of Joseph E. Stiglitz’s Unconventional Economic Wisdom column from the Project Syndicate news series. Stiglitz is a professor of economics at Columbia University, and recipient of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics, is co-author, with Linda Bilmes, of The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Costs of the Iraq Conflict.
The Dismal Economist’s Joyless Triumph
by Joseph E. Stiglitz
– Joseph E. Stiglitz, professor of economics at Columbia University, and recipient of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics, is co-author, with Linda Bilmes, of The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Costs of the Iraq Conflict.
NEW YORK – I have long been forecasting that it was only a matter of time before America’s housing bubble – which began in the early days of this decade, supported by a flood of liquidity and lax regulation – would pop. The longer the bubble expanded, the larger the explosion and the greater (and more global) the resulting downturn would be.
Economists are good at identifying underlying forces, but they are not so good at timing. The dynamics are, however, much as anticipated. America is still on a downward trajectory for 2009 – with grave consequences for the world as a whole.