New World Notes - Economics and Inequality (Second of two parts)

This week on New World Notes: radio program #415, February 16, 2016, Tuesday from 12:00 to 12:30 p.m. (and on Wednesday from 8:30 to 9:00 p.m.), host Kenneth Dowst excerpts a talk by economist Joseph Stieglitz.

Stiglitz shows that economic inequality in the U.S. is bad, and it is getting worse. Likewise, inequality of opportunity. The causes of the problem--Stiglitz says--are the U.S.'s dysfunctional style of capitalism and a political system that increasingly serves only the economic elite, not "the 99%."

The situation is not only bad for democracy, it's even bad for capitalism, Stiglitz argues. (No socialist, Stiglitz wants to reform capitalism, not replace it.)

This talk is short of proposed solutions, but it is an excellent, lucid, and very listenable survey of the problems we face--and their causes.

Stiglitz's honors include the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He is former Chief Economist of the World Bank and former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors. He gave this talk, in Washington D.C., in 2012 on his tour supporting his book, The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future (Norton, 2012).

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "What, me worry?") of WWUH-FM, a community service of the University of Hartford.

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Series overview: Political and social commentary in a variety of genres. Exploring the gap between what we want--and what they're trying to make us settle for.

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