J Stiglitz Quotes & Sayings

I recognized that information was, in many respects, like a public good, and it was this insight that made it clear to me that it was unlikely that the private market would provide efficient resource allocations whenever information was endogenous. — Joseph Stiglitz

I became convinced that the advanced industrial countries, through international organizations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the World Bank, were not only not doing all that they could to help these [developing] countries but were sometimes making their life more difficult. IMF programs had clearly worsened the East Asian crisis, and the "shock therapy" they had pushed in the former Soviet Union and its satellites played an important role in the failure of the transition. — Joseph E. Stiglitz

Wall Street banks have used the same tactic that Bush used in the war on terror - fear - and they've basically said that if you don't do what we tell you, the sky will fall. If you don't do what we tell you, it will be the end of capitalism as we know it. The failure of Lehman Brothers lent some credence to those fears. — Joseph Stiglitz

The only people benefiting in Iraq war are George Bush's Jr. friends in the oil industry. He has done the American economy and the global economy an enormous disfavor, but his Texan friends couldn't be happier. — Joseph Stiglitz

There is a growing consensus that the European systems have worked better than the American: They have been able to deliver better health care to more people at lower cost. — Joseph Stiglitz

But while I loved all of these courses, there was an irresistible attraction of economics. — Joseph Stiglitz

Development is about transforming the lives of people, not just transforming economies. — Joseph E. Stiglitz

The life prospects of an American are more dependent on the income and education of his parents than in any of the other advanced industrial countries. — Joseph Stiglitz

In developing countries, lack of infrastructure is a far more serious barrier to trade than tariffs. — Joseph Stiglitz

Borrowers were told not to worry about paying the ever-mounting debt, because house prices would keep rising and they could refinance, taking out some of the capital gains to buy a car or pay for a vacation. — Joseph E. Stiglitz

The important lesson of the deficit is - and the national debt - is we have to be careful about how we're spending money. — Joseph Stiglitz

I went to public schools, and while Gary was, like most American cities, racially segregated, it was at least socially integrated - a cross section of children from families of all walks of life. — Joseph Stiglitz

I went to Amherst because my brother had gone there before me, and he went there because his guidance counselor thought that we would do better there than at a large university like Harvard. — Joseph Stiglitz

Misguided liberal Joseph Stiglitz.Columbia University professor and Nobel Prize winner, claims the American dream is dead. — Jedediah Bila

Not everybody is qualified to go to Stanford, but everybody should have access to the best qualify for which they are eligible. — Joseph Stiglitz

Americans all benefit from the physical and institutional infrastructure that has developed from the country's collective efforts over generations. — Joseph E. Stiglitz

Similarly, payments for a dead soldier amount to only $500,000, which is far less than standard estimates of the lifetime economic cost of a death. This statistical value of a life in the US amounts to circa $6.5 million. — Joseph Stiglitz

GDP tells you nothing about sustainability — Joseph Stiglitz

If the President asked you to help, I don't think anybody could refuse, unless one felt that one couldn't be effective. — Joseph Stiglitz

What's worrying is that those in the 1 percent, in attempting to claim for themselves an unjust proportion of the benefits of this system, may be willing to destroy the system itself to hold on to what they have. This — Joseph E. Stiglitz

My teachers helped guide and motivate me; but the responsibility of learning was left with me, an approach to learning which was later reinforced by my experiences at Amherst. — Joseph Stiglitz

Privatization, of course, is based on yet another myth: that government-run programs must be inefficient, and privatization accordingly must be better. In fact, as we noted in chapter 6, the transaction costs of Social Security and Medicare are much, much lower than those of private-sector firms providing comparable services. This should not come as a surprise. The objective of the private sector is to make profits - for private companies, transactions costs are a good thing; the difference between what they take in and what they pay out is what they want to maximize.31 — Joseph E. Stiglitz

Trickle-down economics is a myth. Enriching corporations - as the TPP would - will not necessarily help those in the middle, let alone those at the bottom. — Joseph Stiglitz

Even if Bush could be forgiven for taking America, and much of the rest of the world, to war on false pretenses, and for misrepresenting the cost of the venture, there is no excuse for how he chose to finance it. His was the first war in history paid for entirely on credit. As America went into battle, with deficits already soaring from his 2001 tax cut, Bush decided to plunge ahead with yet another round of tax relief for the wealthy. — Joseph Stiglitz

To put it baldly, there are two ways to become wealthy: to create wealth or to take wealth away from others. The former adds to society. The latter typically subtracts from it, for in the process of taking it away, wealth gets destroyed. A monopolist who overcharges for his product takes money from those whom he is overcharging and at the same time destroys value. To get his monopoly price, he has to restrict production. — Joseph E. Stiglitz

The striking thing about America is - it's historically, extraordinary unusual,I don't of any other instance - is that productivity of workers and wages have not moved in tandem. — Joseph Stiglitz

We are helping the people that [George W.]Bush says are evil. Teheran couldn't be happier about the high oil prices resulting from the Iraq war. — Joseph Stiglitz

I, like many members of my generation, was concerned with segregation and the repeated violation of civil rights. — Joseph Stiglitz

The military is focusing only on the short run costs. If they don't provide appropriate body armor, they save some money today, but the healthcare cost is going to be the future for some other president down the line. I view that as both fiscally and morally irresponsible. — Joseph Stiglitz

International lending banks need to focus on areas where private investment doesn't go, such as infrastructure projects, education and poverty relief. — Joseph Stiglitz