Der große Ausverkauf (2007)

Joseph Stiglitz: Self

Quotes 

• [first lines] 

  [Prof. Joseph E. Stiglitz is winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics 2001] 

  Joseph Stiglitz : I once made a comparison between certain aspects of the way economic policy is done and modern warfare. Modern warfare has tried to de-humanize, to take out the sympathetic element. So you drop bombs from 15,000 feet; you don't know who they are landing on, you don't see the damage. You are flying very high up, and it's almost like a video game. You talk about "body counts" - de-humanizing the whole process. Same thing in economics: you talk about statistics and don't think about the people behind those statistics.

• [Prof. Joseph E. Stiglitz is winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics 2001] 

  Joseph Stiglitz : Modern economic science has identified a huge number of instances were markets don't work. The old view that markets *necessarily always* lead to efficiency is just wrong. Sometimes the reason that the 'invisible hand' Adam Smith talked about seems invisible is that it's not there. The IMF has been wedded to this ideology, is wedded to a particular part of the political spectrum and certain special interests, and has taken a particular perspective that doesn't reflect modern economic science. But unfortunately it's trying to sell it as if it were economic science.