| | | http://www.alternet.org/economy/nobel-laureate-joseph-stiglitz-finance-industry-gobbling-money-belongs-our-pockets?akid=13614.266471.XvDCGq&rd=1&src=newsletter1044940&t=10
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Exactly. So, you know, take one example. Productivity of American workers has continued to grow pretty steadily. Historically, wages moved with productivity. You know, you do those two charts, they just move right together. Suddenly, around 1980, productivity continues to grow, but wages stagnate. This is really an unusual phenomenon. And that was one of the things that motivated writing the book. We said, "What’s going on?" And we said, what’s happened is, particularly in America, that we began to change the rules, rules of—labor rules, rules about the financial sector, rules about corporate governance, tax rules. You know, it wasn’t inevitable that you tax speculation at a lower rate than you tax people who are working for a living. That’s not inherent in a market economy. Actually, what we say is, this is a distortion of capitalism. This is a distortion of a market economy. And so— |
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