Rating: 
Summary: Flawed and self-aggrandizing
Review: Although Stieglitz has been lauded and showered in accolades, this book is nothing more than a re-statement of his mainstream left-wing economics. If you want a really mind-blowing, easy to understand book about the way economies work and why capitalism is not only good but essential for the downtrodden, check out Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman.
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Summary: More Clinton Spin
Review: Another book of many written by those in the Clinton administration to spin their failed legacy.
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Summary: Fascinating but difficult for the novice
Review: Before Stiglitz won his Nobel Prize, he was on the Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton administration. The council had a great deal to do with determining Clinton's economic policy, and Stiglitz was in prime position to direct the thinking behind the decisions made during the former president's tenure. As such, he describes the reasons behind Clinton's economic policy decisions, getting rid of the deficit was chief among them, and also does his share of criticizing policy decisions made by Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II. Considering Stiglitz was one of the president's closest advisers, you may suspect that the book is heavily biased toward
Clinton and against Republicans, but he in fact does his share of criticizing many of the decisions made by the Clinton administration. The prime focus of this book, however, is the explanation of the factors that led to the tech bubble expansion and bursting of the 90's. Stiglitz received his Nobel for his research on asymmetric information in economics. He uses this concept to explain how the bubble was a result of the average shareholder having less information than the insiders. The average shareholder was unaware of shady accounting practices, the overzealous use of stock options to compensate CEOs, and even phantom corporations created to avoid paying taxes. These and a host of other factors resulted in the overvaluation of company profits and consequently stock prices. Of course, we know how the story ended, and Stiglitz does a good job in describing how the bubble exploded. I had a difficult time understanding many parts of this book because my background in economics is weak, so be warned that you'll be expected to understand some basic macroeconomic principles before you can really grasp the author's arguments.
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Summary: "New History" = "Rewritten History"
Review: Don't be fooled by the title! I bought this book thinking that it would be an insightful analysis of the "boom" of the 1990's and the largely resultant "bust" that followed. Instead, I got a carefully constructed rewrite of history from the 1980's to the present. This book's primary motivation is to blame all of the world's current economic problems on political conservatives. It is wrought with inconsistencies and ommisions, in classic Clinton Adminstration fashion. Do not be fooled into thinking the author's has an objective viewpoint.
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Summary: Dissapointed
Review: I looked forward to a thoughtful economic analysis from a professional economist, but quickly realized this book is intended as a political diatribe. It was difficult reading as I felt nearly each paragraph was riddled with half truths and sour grapes. I shoudn't be surprised, however, as Mr. Stiglitz' career is almost entirely academic and government work - little experience in the "real world" and it shows.
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Summary: Another fine mess we've gotten ourselves into...
Review: I profited just as much as the next person from the booming business in the 90's. I also was one of its victims. We all were and, as usual, there we're federal policies, greedy individuals and corporations and dishonesty that when mixed in with the prosperity helped undermine it. Certainly there are always periods of booms and busts--it's how we deal with aftermath and the excesses that matter. Stiglitz's well written book examines the process of creation and the decay and corruption that can help undo these bursts of economic activity. Stiglitz doesn't point the finger at any one group of individuals more than another--he feels comfortable doling out the blame where it belongs and Washington is just as much a target as corporate America. Without the political stilts to support economic circus we all participate in, it would never happen. As a reflection on what's wrong (and occasionally right) with America's political and economic system, The Roaring Nineties is unstinting look at the harshness and ugliness underneath the system. It's also a book that argues for reform in a way to keep the economy moving without allowing criminal profiteering.
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Summary: Enjoyable but flawed analysis
Review: I read and very much enjoyed Stiglitz's book on Globalization, however many of the arguments presented in this offering are somewhat less convincing when applied to the World's greatest Superpower. The analysis is flawed mainly because there is no excuse for poorly managed (inflationary) fiscal and monetary policy in a well developed economy. I find it impossible to see how the fed acted in an overly restrictive way, as claimed by the author, when under Greenspan the Fed has facilitated more liquidity and created over 1 trillion dollars of "new money" . Unfortunately he fails ,along with many economists (even Noble winners!), to understand the meaning and cause of inflation. Before you dimiss me as a prat please read on.:-) Inflation is an increase in the supply of money nothing more. Everything else is largely irrelevant, there is no need to complicate the issue with discussions about NAIRU etc. By facilitating easy credit through the lowering of the reserve requirements to practically zero coupled with the technique of overnight "sweeping". The fed have emnbarked in the most gross inflation of the US dollar in its history. He is right that we have sown the seeds of destruction but fails to truly address why this is so. If you do not believe me when I say that the fed has conciously decided to embark on inflation, please read our good friend Mr Greenspan's essay that he wrote about Gold, moreover check out Bernake (is that how you spell it? ) and the "dollars from helicopters" comment. I still enjoyed much of the analysis though and the book is especially useful in pointing out the fact that economic policy does not operate in a vacum. If nothing else is gained from these pages this book students of the markets can obsereve how closely entwined economics and politics are at the heart of most nations governance structures. Decisions are taken with political goals often when the best economic policy is diametrically opposed to the course of action pursued. in conclusion Enjoyable but flawed analysis
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Summary: Understanding Fiduciary Responsibility
Review: I take issue with the analysis Mr. Stiglitz offers in the section titled "How pension 'reform' increased economic vulnerability" (pp. 185-8). Accept for the moment Mr. Stiglitz' premise: the reason why corporate pension trusts are underfunded is because unrealistic, overly optimistic assumptions were made about future returns on investment; namely, it was assumed that investments would return 9-10% instead of 4-5%. The question presents itself: Who made these unrealistic assumptions? Well, corporate financial officers, to start with. And yet, corporate officers are not the only interested parties when it comes to pension trust funds. These trusts are negotiated on behalf of pension beneficiaries (union workers) by their union officers.
When union leaders are negotiating a collective bargaining agreement with management, they are in the same position a loan officer is in when trying to decide whether to grant a loan to an applicant. The loan officer has a fiduciary responsibility to depositors to make sure that the applicant will be able to pay off the loan. In like manner, union leaders have a fiduciary responsibility to union members to make sure that management will be able to pay promised pension and healthcare benefits. If the loan officers don't follow this discipline, the bank will make lots of bad loans. If the union leaders don't follow this discipline, the unions will accept promises in collective bargaining agreements that management will not be able to keep. In the case of massive bad loans, the bank becomes insolvent and the FSLIC steps in to guarantee deposits (as happened in the S&L debacle). In the case of unions accepting promises that management can't keep, the pension fund becomes insolvent and the PBGC steps in to guarantee the pension benefits of the members.
So, either BOTH corporate executives AND union officials should be faulted for making overly optimistic assumptions about pension funding, or NEITHER should be faulted. It is quite possible that no moral fault is to be assigned to either side in this case. A plausible explanation is that executives and union leaders were acting in good faith and with best knowledge at the time the obligations were agreed on, but that the situation has changed so dramatically that the actuarial assumptions originally used to calculate funding adequacy are simply no longer valid. Instead, Mr. Stiglitz chooses to transform the pension crisis into another morality tale from the "Roaring Nineties." Unfortunate.
Even so, "The Roaring Nineties," like so many other of Mr. Stiglitz' writings, is not to be missed. We must appreciate a passionate and brilliant author who thinks seriously about so wide a range of issues.
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Summary: A Political Tract that Seeks to Revitalize Liberalism
Review: If you buy this book because you're looking to read something along the lines of Paul Krugman's early popular work, you will be disappointed. There is little economic analysis here, even of the popular variety that Krugman once excelled at. Instead, "The Roaring Nineties" is little more than a political tract that seeks to convince its readers, by morally haranguing them, that European-style market capitalism should be the model for the U.S. economy. Stiglitz does this by revisiting the economic history of the 1990s - some of which he helped to make as a member of the Council of Economic Advisers from 1993 to 1997 - and tearing it apart. His main targets are "free market ideologues", but it's clear that the actions of members of his own team (the Clinton administration - including Mickey Kantor, Robert Rubin, and President Clinton himself) distress him the most. While Stiglitz is often polite towards these men, occasionally saying nice things about what they accomplished during the nineties, he's also clearly disappointed with their lack of vision. Stiglitz's primary concern throughout the entire book is that Americans put too much faith in free markets, but he focuses on deregulation, globalization, and corporate favoritism (questionable accounting practices and tax breaks, etc.). While his book is suppose to be about the 1990s, he has plenty to say about George W. Bush and none of it is kind. Stiglitz ends his book by calling for a new Democratic Idealism that rescues Americans from the worst aspects of the free market. As a Nobel Prize winner in economics, Stiglitz almost certainly can back up what he says about the 1990s economy. But he doesn't. This is critical. There is a good deal of heat here, but not much light. And what starts as a book on the 1990s economy, ends up trashing Bush for all kinds of reasons- several of which have nothing to do with economics (including pulling out of a strategic arms treaty and shunning the International Criminal Court, for example). Stiglitz's politics are not for me, but I bought the book because I'm willing to read different points of views so long as I learn something from them. Krugman's early popular work (such as "Peddling Prosperity") was valuable to me in that regard. But Joseph Stiglitz is no Paul Krugman.
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Summary: Essential reading now...
Review: if you want to know what's happening in the economy. Excellent, non-partisan job of showing what went right and what went wrong in the '90's, and what we need to think about as we move into the 21st century. In particular it is helpful for thinking about how economics and politics interconnect. There are many value judgements that need to be made, politically, that cannot be determined purely economically.
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