interview with The Guardian<\/a> \u2014 including an economic depression and unemployment that could reach 30%. And the U.S., Stiglitz laments, doesn\u2019t have the social safety net needed to address such economic conditions.<\/p>\n\u201cThe numbers turning to food banks are just enormous and beyond the capacity of them to supply,\u201d Stiglitz told The Guardian. \u201cIt is like a third world country. The public social safety net is not working.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the U.S., Stiglitz noted, coronavirus has been especially hard on those who are least able to cope it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe safety net is not adequate and is propagating the disease,\u201d Stiglitz warned. \u201cThere is very weak unemployment insurance, and people don\u2019t think they can rely on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Great Recession of the late 2000s and early 2010s was the worst economic downturn in the U.S. since the 1929 crash and the Great Depression of the 1930s. And Stiglitz believes that coronavirus and the GOP\u2019s disastrous response to it will bring on an economic event worse than the Great Recession.<\/p>\n
When The Guardian asked Stiglitz if he believes the U.S. is headed for \u201canother Great Depression,\u201d the economist responded, \u201cYes is the answer in short. If you leave it to Donald Trump and (Senate Majority Leader) Mitch McConnell, we will have a Great Depression. If we had the right policy structure in place, we could avoid it easily.\u201d<\/p>\n
But according to Stiglitz, many GOP policies will make the crisis much worse than it has to be \u2014 including the defunding of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Trump Administration deciding to close a White House office that focused on pandemics. And the Republican push to prematurely ease up on social distancing and stay-at-home orders will only make things worse by causing an increase in coronavirus-related deaths.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn those circumstances,\u201d Stiglitz told The Guardian, \u201cit won\u2019t be the government enforcing the lockdown \u2014 it will be fear. The concern is that people are not going to be spending on anything other than food, and that\u2019s the definition of a Great Depression.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stiglitz added, \u201cWe were unprepared, but even given the degree of unpreparedness, Trump\u2019s decision to make this about politics rather than about science has meant we have responded far more poorly.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Alex Henderson, AlterNet Robert Reich, former secretary of labor for the Clinton Administration, and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman aren\u2019t the only major economists who are highly critical of President Donald Trump\u2019s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Joseph Stiglitz is voicing his displeasure as well, and as the Nobel prize-winning economist sees it, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=778"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":779,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778\/revisions\/779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}