The Price of Inequality

The Price of Inequality

Adult nonfiction
"Three themes resonated around the world: that the markets
weren't working the way they were supposed to, for they were obviously
neither efficient nor stable; that the political system hadn't
corrected the market failures; and that the economic and political
systems are fundamentally unfair. While this book focuses on the
excessive inequality that marks the United States and some other
industrial countries today, it explains how the themes are intimately
interlinked: the inequality is cause and consequence of the failure
of the political system, and it contributes to the instability of our
economic system, which in turn contributes to increased inequality--a
vicious downward spiral into which we have descended, and from which
we can emerge only through concentrated policies I describe below."
If you are anything like me, you felt very angry when the ill-
conceived tax reform bill was rammed through Congress so quickly it's
impossible to believe its members had time enough to read and totally
comprehend what they were signing onto. Maybe you were bothered by
the give aways to corporations and the wealthy and apprehensive that
cuts to the safety nets for the rest of us would be sure to follow.
Maybe you had a sense that, trickle down economics never having worked
before, we hadn't just been put on the path to prosperity.
If you're anything like me, you probably wondered how to make
sense of the convoluted mess our country is in. How can we did
ourselves out? How can ordinary citizens participate in this process?
Given the timing of this debacle, so close to the holidays, what
to say to those Republican neighbors, colleagues, friends, and
relatives who were pratically breaking out into choruses of Happy Days
Are Here Again may have crossed your mind.
Joseph E. Stiglitz's The Price of Inequality: How Today's
Inequality Endangers Our Future is your go to guide for all this and
much more. If you read only one book this year (I do hope that you
read more) make this the one. It's a shade more challenging than most
of my recommendations. There is a slight gap between what a Nobel
Prize economist and what the rest of us consider general reading...
...but the cost of ignorance couldn't be greater, so I consider
it worth the extra effort.
On a personal note, I'm going to have to start posting reviews just
once a week one month early. I had no idea student workers would
become such a desirable commodity at dining services in August.
Something about a lot of peeps going on vaca. I hear from reliable
sources that the first part of the semester is hectic while more
student workers are hired and trained. Yikes! I am very glad I
learned a lot over the summer. But I have no idea if I'll be able to
even buy the glasses I'll need to read power points. I am getting
very nervous as school approaches.
A great big shout out goes out to that colorful, loveable, sometimes
exasperating dining services family I joined when I got my student job.
jules hathaway


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