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joehardy's review against another edition
4.0
Strong, believable argument that inequality is bad from both a moral and economic perspective. Stieglitz contends that the high level of inequality in the United States prevents us from achieving a higher level of economic output and thus makes life worse for people of all income levels.
My only qualm is that he spends relatively little time addressing the way the fact that inequality impacts different racial and gender groups dissimilarity and is often worse or more concentrated in nonwhite, non male communities.
My only qualm is that he spends relatively little time addressing the way the fact that inequality impacts different racial and gender groups dissimilarity and is often worse or more concentrated in nonwhite, non male communities.
guido_the_nature_guide's review against another edition
3.0
A brilliant economist Stiglitz may be, but a great communicator he is not. Don't get me wrong - this book deserves to be read and it analyzes the accelerating wealth inequity that should be slapping in the face every non-comatose American by now. Stiglitz himself recognizes the limits of writing a "popularization" for general readers. Nevertheless the prose rambles from dryly pedantic to conclusions without premises to (completely warranted) righteous indignation. Compounding the problem is that, like the Baiji river dolphin, competent editors have suffered extinction; another symptom of global warming or the reliance upon machines (software) rather than humans to detect missing words and incorrect homonyms? For the prose, this book probably merits only two stars, but its ideas certainly earn it another.
madden1706's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.25
happylilkt's review against another edition
I attended Joseph Stiglitz's 'tech talk' at Google and was really looking forward to reading this as I enjoyed his summary of the book and thought his ideas were spot on (for the most part). Unfortunately, the book is very boring because of Stiglitz's poor writing and obvious political bias. There were even typos in the book, which reflects more on the publisher than Stiglitz. But seriously? "United Sstates"? That should be caught with spell check... I get the impression that they simply wanted to push this out due to it being election year, especially since Stiglitz takes a stab at Romney in the first chapter. I expected better writing and less political bias from a Nobel prize winning economist, so that is the only explanation I can come up with.
Read a summary article or watch/listen to Stiglitz speak rather than read this. Better yet, read Larry Lessig's book [b:Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--and a Plan to Stop It|11814478|Republic, Lost How Money Corrupts Congress--and a Plan to Stop It|Lawrence Lessig|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1344271730l/11814478._SY75_.jpg|16768310] as it focuses on what is causing inequality rather than just lamenting its existence. Added bonus: Lessig (unlike Stiglitz) acknowledges his political beliefs while still presenting them in a balanced way.
Read a summary article or watch/listen to Stiglitz speak rather than read this. Better yet, read Larry Lessig's book [b:Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--and a Plan to Stop It|11814478|Republic, Lost How Money Corrupts Congress--and a Plan to Stop It|Lawrence Lessig|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1344271730l/11814478._SY75_.jpg|16768310] as it focuses on what is causing inequality rather than just lamenting its existence. Added bonus: Lessig (unlike Stiglitz) acknowledges his political beliefs while still presenting them in a balanced way.
diacritics's review against another edition
1.0
A stereotypical "rich people bad, poor people good" kind of book.
Lacks a balanced account and only panders to the poor working class, all that while being devoid of any enlightening analysis or data, even for a mainstream book. To be perfectly honest, I hesitate to call this an Economics book.
Don't read this if you know anything about Economics or have a sliver of interest in politics, it would only waste your time. It's even more disappointing if you consider who the author is.
Lacks a balanced account and only panders to the poor working class, all that while being devoid of any enlightening analysis or data, even for a mainstream book. To be perfectly honest, I hesitate to call this an Economics book.
Don't read this if you know anything about Economics or have a sliver of interest in politics, it would only waste your time. It's even more disappointing if you consider who the author is.
duckymcduckerson's review against another edition
4.0
i just wanna say, this book is dry. May I say this book drier than cali in a heatwave dry. Although, its very informative, and aggravating to know that the government just lets giant corporations trample over them so easily. Tbh, this book was published almost a decade ago, i really feel worse because we've only incurred more debt and have done nothing. :/