Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy

US: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010. Very Good. A copy that has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. The New York Times bestseller: "A lucid account" (New York Times) of the re cent financial crisis and the way forward by the Nobel Prize-winning econom ist, with a new afterword. The Great Recession, as it has come to be called , has impacted more people worldwide than any crisis since the Great Depres sion. Flawed government policy and unscrupulous personal and corporate beha vior in the United States created the current financial meltdown, which was exported across the globe with devastating consequences. The crisis has sp arked an essential debate about America's economic missteps, the soundness of this country's economy, and even the appropriate shape of a capitalist s ystem. Few are more qualified to comment during this turbulent time than Joseph E. Stiglitz. Winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics, Stiglitz is "an ins anely great economist, in ways you can't really appreciate unless you're de ep into the field" (Paul Krugman, New York Times). In Freefall, Stiglitz tr aces the origins of the Great Recession, eschewing easy answers and demolis hing the contention that America needs more billion-dollar bailouts and fre e passes to those "too big to fail," while also outlining the alternatives and revealing that even now there are choices ahead that can make a differe nce. The system is broken, and we can only fix it by examining the underlyi ng theories that have led us into this new "bubble capitalism." Ranging across a host of topics that bear on the crisis, Stiglitz argues convincin.