Hernando de Soto - Hernando de Soto is President of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy, headquartered in Lima, Peru and considered by The Economist to be one of the two most important think tanks in the world.
Time and Forbes have chosen him as one of the leading innovators in the world, and more than 20,000 readers of Prospect and Foreign Policy ranked him as one of the world's top 13 public intellectuals.
He has served as President of the Executive Committee of the Copper Exporting Countries Organization, as CEO of Universal Engineering Corporation (one of Europe's largest consulting engineering firms), as a principal of the Swiss Bank Corporation Consultant Group, and as a governor of Peru's Central Reserve Bank. He is the author of several books and papers on economic policy, including the seminal work The Mystery of Capital.
David Harvey - David Harvey is a Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York (CUNY) and author of various books, articles, and lectures. He has been teaching Karl Marx's Capital for nearly 40 years.
Naomi Klein - Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist, author, and filmmaker. Her first book, the international bestseller No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, was translated into twenty-eight languages and called "a movement bible" by The New York Times.
She writes an internationally syndicated column for The Nation and The Guardian and reported from Iraq for Harper’s Magazine. In 2004, she released The Take, a feature documentary about Argentina's occupied factories, co-produced with director Avi Lewis.
She is a former Miliband Fellow at the London School of Economics and holds an honorary Doctor of Civil Laws degree from the University of King’s College, Nova Scotia.
Joseph E. Stiglitz - Joseph Stiglitz was chief economist at the World Bank until January 2000. Before that he was the chairman of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics in 2001. He is currently a finance and economics professor at Columbia University. He is the author of Globalization and Its Discontents and The Roaring Nineties.
What is the role of the U.S. in the disposition of the world's economic and environmental resources? How are financial markets best defended from economic shock? Does liberalization ensure prosperity?
Journalist Naomi Klein speaks with economists Joseph Stiglitz and Hernando de Soto in a conversation moderated by David Harvey, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center- City University of New York (CUNY)
I agree 100% with de Soto! The problem is not with partially free market capitalism but with the lack of information that underlines it. Though our current national policy of financial mercantilism is certainly no small contributor to the problem.
Sorry, but Soto sounds like an 18th century philosopher, providing us with a "theory of everything" that belongs in a museum, not in the real world. For example, cars are well documented as property, but "perfect" documentation of a car's identity and ownership still does not protect the system from "lemons" being introduced into the system and causing havoc. Moody's and S&P "fraudulantly" rated the sub-prime derivatives triple A? How can that narrowly be solved by Soto's precise system of property documentation? Stiglitz pointed out how CEO's have incentives that make them rich, but bankrupt the company, a corporate governance issue. Stiglitz didn't take Soto to school only because he was busy being charmed by beautiful Naomi.
Naomi Klein makes me gnash my teeth with her soppy non-sequiturs but Stieglitz and De Soto are worth listening to, David Harvey asks the right questions.
Naomi does reach with her broad, conclusionary statements from time to time, but overall I think she is more right than wrong. I appreciate the chances she takes and her provocative viewpoints are what we need more of.
My comment is more on the comments. These forums open up content for dialogue beyond the stage.
It is overwhelming trying to understand where we are financially. How we got here is impossible to see . It is to soon. I applaud these courageous challengers attempting to move the jigsawed pieces about.
No, it is really not very complicated. Soto is right only in a Zen manner, but then I could say that the financial crises stems from improper breathing. Proper breathing is the mark of and enlightened mind, whom would never have led us to this disaster. I am right just like Soto is right, but people like you are left thinking that this is a "complicated" subject. It is not. It is simple fraud and theft.
Naomi Klein is an embarrassment - her research is hysterically shoddy. And it's odd to see so many members of a credulous public falling for her pseudo-scholarship.
Here's Jonathan Chait of The New Republic breaking it all down. It doesn't matter how you feel about TNR or Chait - you can't read this and escape the conclusion that Klein doesn't have the first clue what she's talking about and that the "Shock Doctrine" is just a book-length exercise in politicized self-indulgence.