Truthdigger of the Week: Joseph Stiglitz

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/truthdigger_of_the_week_joseph_stiglitz_20110408/

This week we tip our hat to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, who once helped calculate the true cost of the Iraq War, and more recently has been calling attention to the radical redistribution of wealth from middle- and working-class Americans to the richest among us.

Stiglitz writes in his new Vanity Fair article titled “Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%” that, in terms of income inequality, the U.S. now ranks up there with Russia and Iran, while Europe has become the new land of opportunity. Thus he gives the lie to the time-honored myth of the American meritocracy, which seems to come in handy whenever the powerful elite want to justify their vastly disproportionate share of the nation’s wealth.

Stiglitz’s careful and forceful refutation of the so-called “marginal-productivity theory,” or the idea that higher incomes are somehow directly correlated with “higher productivity and a greater contribution to society,” as he puts it, deserves to be restated in full here:

It is a theory that has always been cherished by the rich. Evidence for its validity, however, remains thin. The corporate executives who helped bring on the recession of the past three years—whose contribution to our society, and to their own companies, has been massively negative—went on to receive large bonuses. In some cases, companies were so embarrassed about calling such rewards “performance bonuses” that they felt compelled to change the name to “retention bonuses” (even if the only thing being retained was bad performance). Those who have contributed great positive innovations to our society, from the pioneers of genetic understanding to the pioneers of the Information Age, have received a pittance compared with those responsible for the financial innovations that brought our global economy to the brink of ruin.

More at the link --

[rurallib]

1. hard to believe a progressive president couldn't find a place in his cabinet

for some like Stiglitz.

[FiveGoodMen]

2. What makes you think a progressive president wouldn't have found a place for Stiglitz?

[prairierose]

3. Exactly......n/t

[MH1]

4. Would Stiglitz have wanted to be in a political administration?

I have enormous respect for Stiglitz. One of his initiatives is promoting a measure of a nation's financial health by more accurate measures than GDP. Some call it a 'happiness index'. I forget if he goes for that or some other name. But anyway that is SO important. as long as we measure financial 'health' by GDP we are on the wrong track.

That said, I know Stiglitz is involved in a lot of things that would probably have to have been backburnered if he served in the administration. I would not be surprised at all if Obama offered and Stiglitz simply refused, and they both felt it was better to leave it private. I also would not be surprised if Obama didn't ask, because as much as I like Stiglitz and his ideas, I am painfully aware that they would be considered 'radical' by a large segment of our ignorant, woefully undereducated society.

Either way, I don't think Stiglitz is a fit for any president's administration at this time in American history. He's too good for that.

(edited for typo.)