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Most poor people earn more than minimum wage when they are working their problem is not low wages. The problem comes when they are not working.

Joseph Stiglitz

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Joseph Stiglitz
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: February 9
Critic
Economist
Non-Fiction Writer
Professor
Science Writer
University Teacher
Writer
Gary
Indiana
Joseph Eugene Stiglitz
Joseph Stiglitz
Minimum
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Poor
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People
Wages

More quotes by Joseph Stiglitz

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One has to always ask the question: Where can one be most effective in helping shape policies? It is always difficult when you're inside because you're very constrained.
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Most people think the Iraq war has increased the probability of an attack. However, it's difficult to put this aspect into financial terms.
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They [political leaders ] thought the only problem was the banking system, and if they fixed the banking system, all would be fine. But the banking system and the mortgage problem were symptomatic of some deeper problems, and evidently they still haven't recognized those deeper problems.
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Moreover, because we chose to finance the way by borrowing, our deficits and debt has soared, and this means we have less room for maneuver, less money available to stimulate the eocnomy in the way needed.
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Certainly, the poverty, the discrimination, the episodic unemployment could not but strike an inquiring youngster: why did these exist, and what could we do about them.
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In the early 1990s, there was a debate among economists over shock therapy versus a gradualism strategy for Russia. The people in Russia who believed in shock therapy were Bolsheviks a few people at the top that rammed it down everybody's throat. They viewed the democratic process as a real impediment to reform.
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The national debt will have increased by approximately 50% in just eight years! We will have created a new unfunded entitlement - disability and health care benefits for the huge number of disabled veterans returning from the Iraq war.
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I think what they've been doing is largely almost in firefighting mode without a good conceptual framework - either at the micro or the macro level. Micro, you would ask: What kind of financial or banking system do we want? Macro, you would say: What are the underlying problems in the structure of our economy?
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Climate change is a reality.
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American inequality didn't just happen. It was created.
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Any society has to delegate the responsibility to maintain a certain kind of order. Enforcing regulations, making sure people stop at stoplights. We can’t function as a society without rules and regulations, and the enforcement mechanism of those rules and regulations.
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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.
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In a globally integrated economy, the biggest challenge is to make sure there is adequate global aggregate demand, achieved through spending, when countries like China feel they must save high levels of dollar reserves to protect against international currency volatility.
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The only surprise about the economic crisis of 2008 was that it came as a surprise to so many.
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The budgetary cost to the UK of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through 2010 will total more than £18 billion. If we include the social costs the total impact will exceed £20 billion.
Joseph Stiglitz
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Anybody who knows about capitalism knows that bankruptcy is an essential part of capitalism.
Joseph Stiglitz
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The problem with NAFTA was with what we wanted. And there, the agenda had been set by our corporations. So what is true is that workers in the United States and workers in the developing countries were often disadvantaged. They were worse off. The big winners were our corporations.
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Amherst was pivotal in my broad intellectual development MIT in my development as a professional economist.
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I think that for the developing world there are many versions of capitalism, and countries have to choose one that's appropriate.
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No one would look just at a firm's revenues to assess how well it was doing. Far more relevant is the balance sheet, which shows assets and liability. That is also true for a country.
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