2008 Articles

The Fall of Wall Street

Stiglitz, Joseph E.

Globalization may not be coming apart at the seams--yet--but the seams are ever more apparent. Rising fuel prices challenge a model of global transportation based on cheap energy, reinforcing the possibility of decoupling through great regionalization of trade. Already, 50 percent of trade among ASEAN plus China and Japan is among each other. The Wall Street meltdown has spread a lack of confidence in the American financial system and the model of deregulation which stimulated rapid globalization of capital flows. Along with other developments, all this raises the question of whether the United States is prepared to operate successfully in a world it no longer dominates. An anti-globalization leader, a former US labor secretary, a top American intellectual and a Nobel laureate address these issues.