title: Alice in Chains (album)

text: After the release of "Jar of Flies", vocalist Layne Staley entered rehab for heroin addiction. The band had been scheduled to tour during the summer of 1994 with Metallica, Suicidal Tendencies, Danzig and Fight, but while in rehearsal for the tour, Staley began using heroin again. Staley's condition prompted the other band members to cancel all scheduled dates one day before the start of the tour, putting the band on hiatus. They were replaced by Candlebox on the tour. While Alice in Chains was on hiatus, Staley joined the "grunge supergroup" Mad Season, while guitarist Jerry Cantrell worked on material originally intended for a solo album.


title: Alice in Chains (album)

text: In January 1995, Cantrell, bassist Mike Inez and drummer Sean Kinney began jamming on Cantrell's material. In the spring of 1995, Staley was invited back to join the band. Staley said that "we started to split apart and went different ways, and we felt like we were betraying each other."


title: Alice in Chains (album)

text: In April 1995, Alice in Chains entered Bad Animals Studio in Seattle with producer Toby Wright, who had previously worked with Corrosion of Conformity and Slayer. Few of the songs on the album had been written before the sessions began, so Cantrell's material was used as a starting point. The band would then give the demo tapes to Staley so he could write lyrics. The album was finished in August 1995. Cantrell said, "It was often depressing, and getting it done felt like pulling hair out, but it was the fucking coolest thing, and I'm glad to have gone through it. I will cherish the memory forever," while Staley added, "I'll cherish it forever, too, just because this one I can remember doing."


title: Alice in Chains (album)

text: During the recording of the album, Staley was severely addicted to heroin and was often late or absent for recording and rehearsal sessions. The band's manager Susan Silver said, "...It was a really painful session because it took so long. It was horrifying to see [Layne] in that condition. Yet, when he was cognizant, he was the sweetest, bright-eyed guy you'd ever want to meet. To be in a meeting with him and have him fall asleep in front of you was gut-wrenching."


title: Alice in Chains (album)

text: While in the studio, a rough mix of the song "Grind" was leaked to radio and received major airplay. On October 6, 1995, the band released the studio version of the song to radio via satellite uplink.


title: Alice in Chains (album)

text: Cantrell, in an interview with "Rolling Stone" around the release of the album, said, "Our music's kind of about taking something ugly and making it beautiful."


title: Alice in Chains (album)

text: With the exception of "Grind", "Heaven Beside You", and "Over Now", the lyrics are written entirely by Staley. Staley said, "I just wrote down whatever was on my mind...so a lot of the lyrics are really loose. If you asked me to sing the lyrics to probably any one of them right now, I couldn't do it. I'm not sure what they are because they're still that fresh." Staley added, "For a long time I let problems and sour relationships rule over me instead of letting the water roll off my back...I thought it was cool that I could write such dark, depressing music. But then instead of being therapeutic, it was starting to drag on and keep hurting. This time I just felt, 'Fuck it. I can write good music, and if I feel easy and I feel like laughing, I can laugh.' There's no huge, deep message in any of the songs. It was just what was going on in my head right then. We had good times, and we had bad times. We recorded a few months of being human."


title: Alice in Chains (album)

text: "Sludge Factory" was written about a call Staley and Wright received, while at the studio, from Columbia executives Don Ienner and Michele Anthony. Ienner and Anthony told them they had nine days to finish the record, because they had already taken a lot of studio time.


title: Alice in Chains (album)

text: Of the album's four singles, "Grind", "Heaven Beside You", "Again" and "Over Now", three feature Cantrell on lead vocals, with the exception being "Again". Cantrell also wrote the lyrics for the songs for which he sang lead vocals. Regarding "Grind", Cantrell said it was written "pretty much at the height of publicity about canceled tours, heroin, amputations, everything, thus it was another 'FUCK YOU for saying something about my life' song." "Heaven Beside You" was written by Cantrell after the end of a seven year relationship with his girlfriend. On the liner notes of Alice in Chains' "Music Bank" box set, Cantrell described the song as "Another attempt to reconcile the fact that my life and paths are tearing me apart from the person I love. All the things I write about her are a way for me to maybe speak to her, express things I could never express." Commenting on "Over Now", Cantrell said of the song: "A lot of deep shit in there, a big epic number. Plus you can get away with a hugely long tune near the end of a record." An acoustic version of "Over Now" was released as a single in 1996 as part of the band's "MTV Unplugged" album.


title: Alice in Chains (album)

text: The album is also known informally as "Tripod" or "Three-Legged Dog Album" due to a three-legged dog on the front cover and Frank Lentini on the back. The image of the dog on the cover was inspired by a three-legged dog named Tripod that used to terrorize drummer Sean Kinney and chase him around during his paper-work duty when he was a kid. Kinney also designed the artwork for the album.


title: Alice in Chains (album)

text: Rocky Schenck photographed a three-legged dog for the album cover at a playground near downtown Los Angeles on August 23, 1995. Schenck did a casting for three-legged dogs for the shoot, but the band ended up choosing a fax with the image of a three-legged dog as the cover art because they thought it looked grittier and Staley and Cantrell liked it better. Cantrell has stated that Kinney was "pissed" about that because they spent money for the photoshoot and did not use it for the album cover. A different three-legged dog named Sunshine was used for the "Grind" music video. The photo of the dog shot by Schenck at the playground was finally used years later on the 1999 box set "Music Bank". Contrary to rumor, none of the dogs used for the photoshoot, the album cover or the music video belonged to Jerry Cantrell. Cantrell has said in interviews that he did not know the owner of the dog.


title: Alice in Chains (album)

text: The CD was initially available in three versions: one with a transparent purple jewel case with a translucent yellow-green spine, one with the color scheme reversed and a predominantly monochrome version. The purple jewel case is currently out of print and the yellow-green edition is now a rarity. On the predominantly monochrome cover, the dog has yellow eyes. The cassette edition features a transparent purple cassette or transparent yellow-green case. It was also released on double vinyl with a purple label on the A-side and a yellow-green label on the B-side of both discs. Disc 1 featured tracks 1–6, disc 2 featured tracks 7–12, and both discs had 3 tracks per side.


title: Alice in Chains (album)

text: In Japan, the CD cover is replaced with a blank, white cover with the dark blue text "Alice In Chains" appearing inside of a dark blue border in the bottom-right corner. The image of Frank Lentini was also removed, showing a mostly white back cover. The CD was orange.


title: Alice in Chains (album)

text: On July 17, 2019, Schenck revealed on his Instagram account an alternative album cover featuring a three-legged dog and kids playing at a playground.


title: Alice in Chains (album)

text: To help promote the album, Columbia asked the band to do an EPK (Electronic Press Kit), a common marketing tool in the '90s in which they should talk about themselves, but they did not want to do that. The band took the money from the label and made the mockumentary "The Nona Tapes" instead. Directed by Rocky Schenck, it features Jerry Cantrell disguised as a female journalist, Nona Weisbaum, interviewing his bandmates playing fictionalized versions of themselves during a car ride in Seattle. The music video for "Grind" is also featured at the end. Columbia did not like "The Nona Tapes" at first and told the band they had wasted their money doing it. However, it became a cult hit and Columbia decided to sell it, but the band was against it. The video was eventually released on VHS in December 1995. In 2006, "The Nona Tapes" was released on DVD and came as a bonus with the compilation "The Essential Alice in Chains".


title: Alice in Chains (album)

text: Although not as successful as "Dirt", the album debuted at number one on the "Billboard" 200 and stayed on the chart for 46 weeks. It has since been certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for selling over 2 million copies in the United States, and over 3 million copies worldwide. The band opted not to tour in support of "Alice in Chains", adding to the rumors of drug abuse. When asked about the frustration of not touring to support the record, Cantrell provided some insight into how Staley's addictions led to repercussive tensions within the band: "Very frustrating, but we stuck it out. We rode the good times together, and we stuck together through the hard times. We never stabbed each other in the back and spilled our guts and do that kind of bullshit that you see happen a lot."


title: Alice in Chains (album)

text: It was noted for being a break away from the externally applied grunge label affixed to the group. "Rolling Stone" described the album as a "musical rebirth", and "The New York Times" remarked that in contrast to the raw distortions associated with grunge, "Alice in Chains"' sound was "cleanly delineated and meticulously layered." Jon Wiederhorn of "Rolling Stone" called the album "liberating and enlightening", noting that the songs "achieve a startling, staggering and palpable impact." In reviewing Alice in Chains's discography, Bill Adams of "Ground Control Magazine" wrote that, "If indeed "Jar of Flies" turned out to be the gateway that got so many more people hooked on Alice in Chains, it can only be said that the band's self-titled album implies withdrawals or a sense of significant unease or discomfort. The signs that something is just not right appear everywhere both on and in Alice in Chains; the front cover features a photo of a three-legged dog (one too few) while the back cover presents a picture of a three-legged mandolinist (one too many). The album's liner notes feature images of ghastly, contorted fairies with no flesh on their arms, sinister, personified bottles swimming through black oceans, cartoons of mutant animals standing on trial, synthetic limbs and more. They are images of turmoil, disease and discomfort, and it's difficult to look at them."


title: Alice in Chains (album)

text: "Alice in Chains" included the singles "Grind", "Heaven Beside You", and "Again", all of which had accompanying music videos. "Grind" and "Again" were nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance in 1996 and 1997, respectively. The music video for "Again" was nominated for Best Hard Rock Video at the 1996 MTV Video Music Awards.


title: The Titan (film)

text: The Titan is a 2018 science fiction thriller film directed by Lennart Ruff and starring Sam Worthington, Taylor Schilling and Tom Wilkinson. The screenplay was written by Max Hurwitz, with the story by Arash Amel. The story roughly follows the basic premise of Man Plus, by Frederick Pohl. The film is an international co-production between the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, and Spain.


title: The Titan (film)

text: "The Titan" was released for some countries by Netflix on March 30, 2018. It was released theatrically in the United Kingdom on April 13, 2018, by Signature Entertainment, and direct to video in Germany on May 8, 2018, by EuroVideo.


title: The Titan (film)

text: In 2048, on an Earth overpopulated and driven by violent conflicts, scientists are looking to Saturn's moon Titan as a new home for humanity, spearheaded by Professor Martin Collingwood.


title: The Titan (film)

text: Rick Janssen, a fighter pilot, volunteers to be a part of an experiment on 14 test subjects that forces human bodies to adapt to the super-cold methane liquids and the ultra-low oxygen atmosphere of Titan. He is joined by his wife Abigail, a medical researcher, and their son Lucas, at the Titan I research area. The initial results are promising. Rick becomes able to swim at incredible speeds and stay underwater for 42 minutes.


title: The Titan (film)

text: Rick's training becomes increasingly intense as he and the others adapt to increasingly Titan-like environments. Rick finds that some of his hair is falling out, and one of the team members starts convulsing and dies. Abigail notices the blood veins of all the test subjects becoming darker. Fellow volunteer Zane has a mental breakdown which causes him to attack his wife, Rayenne.


title: The Titan (film)

text: Rick takes a break by sitting at the bottom of their swimming pool, where large amounts of his skin are shed. Abigail's concern grows, and she begins experimentation on a sample of his blood, finding that it is indeed becoming darker. Rick undergoes corneal surgery to accommodate the low light on Titan. When he later has complications, Abigail confronts Collingwood about Rick's changes, but he divulges nothing.


title: The Titan (film)

text: Zane suffers another mental breakdown and throws Rayenne through a window, killing her instantly. He is shot and killed by military police. While visiting Rick in the medical facility, Abigail steals his key card and sneaks into Collingwood's office. She finds reports of autopsies of the numerous deceased test subjects, discovering that they were having their DNA infused with animal DNA in an attempt to create the next human species, "Homo titaniens".


title: The Titan (film)

text: During a meeting with NASA, Collingwood is chastised for doing forced evolutionary experimentation without proper evidence or ethical reasons, and is threatened with having his operation shut down. Abigail confronts him on the same issue, and he admits to her and Rick that he does not actually know what the surviving subjects will eventually become.


title: The Titan (film)

text: Rick willingly undergoes major surgery to adapt to his new senses and become fully ready for Titan. He and Tally, the only other surviving test subject, complete their training and finish their transformations into "Homo titaniens". Abigail is horrified when the significantly-transformed Rick loses the ability to talk, now communicating in a low frequency that is undetectable by normal human ears.


title: The Titan (film)

text: Tally kills her husband, later visiting Rick at his home. Abigail and Lucas hide while military police surround Tally and Rick. Tally kills a member of the police before she is killed, and then Rick easily kills many more. When Abigail and Lucas confront him, Rick flees, realizing what he has become. The military hunt for Rick, but it is Abigail who finds him on a hill they often jog to. The military arrives and arrests them.


title: The Titan (film)

text: Abigail wakes to find Rick in critical condition, due to his newly evolved incompatibility with Earth's atmosphere. Abigail is forced to give him a chemical solution that acts similarly to a lobotomy, erasing all of his memories. However, she actually gives him a harmless saline solution instead, allowing him to escape. Rick begins killing soldiers as Abigail and Lucas flee with Dr. Freya Upton, an assistant to Collingwood who disagrees with his methods.


title: The Titan (film)

text: The group find a heavily wounded Rick, giving him first aid. Collingwood arrives but his men disobey an order to fire upon Rick, Abigail, Lucas and Dr. Freya. The colonel, who has been vocally against Collingwood's experiments, soon arrests Collingwood for his treachery. Abigail and Dr. Freya become researchers at the Titan II facility, using more ethical methods than Collingwood had. Rick is shown exploring Titan, flying under his own power over a methane lake.


title: The Titan (film)

text: In August 2015, Sam Worthington, Ruth Wilson and Sofia Boutella signed on to star in the film to be directed by Lennart Ruff. Voltage Pictures would handle international rights sales while CAA would handle domestic sales. Producer Arash Amel spoke of his enthusiasm for the project:


title: The Titan (film)

text: In October 2015, Tom Wilkinson joined the cast with Voltage Pictures planning to sell international rights to the film at the 2016 American Film Market. In December 2015, Taylor Schilling signed on to replace Wilson, who, alongside Boutella, dropped out of the film. In January 2016, Diego Boneta, Aleksander Jovanovic and Agyness Deyn joined the cast. In February 2016, at AFM, Voltage Pictures managed to sell international distribution rights in multiple countries. However, in February 2018, it was reported that Netflix had picked up worldwide distribution rights to the film. The film has also been released on Blu-ray in several European countries including the United Kingdom. Principal production was slated to commence on January 18, 2016, in Europe but was pushed back to February 1, 2016, where shooting began in Gran Canaria.


title: The Titan (film)

text: On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, and an average rating of . On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 33 out of 100 based on four reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".


title: The Titan (film)

text: Jake Nevins from "The Guardian" gave the film only one out of five stars, criticizing its script and Worthington's performance:


title: Scott Michael Foster

text: Scott Michael Foster (born March 4, 1985) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Captain John Paul "Cappie" Jones in the ABC Family comedy-drama series "Greek" (2007–11), Leo Hendrie in the ABC Family drama "Chasing Life" (2014–15) and as Nathaniel Plimpton III in "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" (2017–19). Foster has also had recurring roles on "Californication" (2012), "Halt and Catch Fire" (2014), "Once Upon a Time" (2014), and "You" (2021).


title: Scott Michael Foster

text: Foster was born in Winfield, Illinois, at Central DuPage Hospital. He has two sisters. He later moved to Highland Village, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, where he became interested in acting as early as elementary school. He went to Briarhill Middle School, and later attended Edward S. Marcus High School where he was involved in theater until he graduated in 2003. He attended Collin College for one semester with a focus on acting, but soon left his studies to pursue a professional career in that field. He plays guitar and is the lead singer of his indie rock band "Siren's Eye". They released their first EP on iTunes, entitled "Red Room" on 15 December 2009.


title: Scott Michael Foster

text: Foster appeared in the small indie film "The Horrible Flowers", before landing the regular role in the ABC Family comedy-drama series, "Greek". The series ran from 2007 to 2011. During his days on "Greek", Foster also had the leading role in the independent film, "Teenage Dirtbag". He later guest-starred on "", "Melissa & Joey", "Friends with Benefits", "The Closer", and "Parenthood".


title: Scott Michael Foster

text: In 2012, Foster had recurring roles in the fifth season of Showtime comedy-drama series, "Californication", and short-lived ABC paranormal horror series, "The River". In 2013, he had the regular role in another short-lived ABC series, "Zero Hour" opposite Anthony Edwards and Carmen Ejogo. In 2014, Foster had recurring roles in AMC period drama, "Halt and Catch Fire", and later in that year began appearing in the ABC Family drama series, "Chasing Life" as a love interest for the lead character. Also in 2014, he played the role of Kristoff in the fourth season of ABC fantasy series, "Once Upon a Time".


title: Scott Michael Foster

text: In 2015, Foster began starring in the ABC prime time television soap opera, "Blood & Oil" alongside Don Johnson and Amber Valletta. In 2015, he was listed one of "Variety"’s "10 Actors to Watch".


title: Scott Michael Foster

text: In 2017, Foster began appearing as Nathaniel Plimpton III on the CW comedy-musical series "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend".


title: Scott Michael Foster

text: In January 2021, it was announced that Foster had been cast in the recurring role of Ryan Goodwin on the third season of the Netflix thriller series "You".


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Joseph Eugene Stiglitz (; born February 9, 1943) is an American New Keynesian economist, a public policy analyst, and a full professor at Columbia University. He is a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001) and the John Bates Clark Medal (1979). He is a former senior vice president and chief economist of the World Bank. He is also a former member and chairman of the (US president's) Council of Economic Advisers. He is known for his support of Georgist public finance theory and for his critical view of the management of globalization, of "laissez-faire" economists (whom he calls "free-market fundamentalists"), and of international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: In 2000, Stiglitz founded the Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD), a think tank on international development based at Columbia University. He has been a member of the Columbia faculty since 2001, and received the university's highest academic rank (university professor) in 2003. He was the founding chair of the university's Committee on Global Thought. He also chairs the University of Manchester's Brooks World Poverty Institute. He was a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. In 2009, the President of the United Nations General Assembly Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, appointed Stiglitz as the chairman of the U.N. Commission on Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial System, where he oversaw suggested proposals and commissioned a report on reforming the international monetary and financial system. He served as chair of the international Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, appointed by President Sarkozy of France, which issued its report in 2010, "Mismeasuring our Lives: Why GDP doesn't add up," and currently serves as co-chair of its successor, the High Level Expert Group on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress. From 2011 to 2014, Stiglitz was president of the International Economic Association (IEA). He presided over the organization of the IEA triennial world congress held near the Dead Sea in Jordan in June 2014.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Stiglitz has received more than 40 honorary degrees, including degrees from Cambridge and Harvard, and he has been decorated by several governments including Bolivia, South Korea, Colombia, Ecuador, and most recently France, where he was appointed as a member of the Legion of Honor, Officer.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: In 2011, Stiglitz was named by "Time" magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Stiglitz's work focuses on income distribution from a Georgist perspective, asset risk management, corporate governance, and international trade. He is the author of several books, the latest being "People, Power, and Profits" (2019), "The Euro: How a Common Currency Threatens the Future of Europe" (2016), "The Great Divide: Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About Them" (2015), "Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy: An Agenda for Growth and Shared Prosperity" (2015), and "Creating a Learning Society: A New Approach to Growth Development and Social Progress" (2014). He is also one of the 25 leading figures on the Information and Democracy Commission launched by Reporters Without Borders. According to the Open Syllabus Project, Stiglitz is the fifth most frequently cited author on college syllabi for economics courses.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Stiglitz was born in Gary, Indiana. His mother was Charlotte (née Fishman), a schoolteacher, and his father was Nathaniel David Stiglitz, an insurance salesman. Stiglitz attended Amherst College, where he was a National Merit Scholar, active on the debate team, and president of the student government. During his senior year at Amherst College, he studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he later pursued graduate work. In Summer 1965, he moved to the University of Chicago to do research under Hirofumi Uzawa who had received an NSF grant. He studied for his PhD from MIT from 1966 to 1967, during which time he also held an MIT assistant professorship. Stiglitz stated that the particular style of MIT economics suited him well, describing it as "simple and concrete models, directed at answering important and relevant questions."


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: From 1966 to 1970 he was a research fellow at the University of Cambridge. Stiglitz initially arrived at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge as a Fulbright Scholar in 1965, and he later won a Tapp Junior Research Fellowship at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge which was instrumental in shaping his understanding of Keynes and macroeconomic theory. In subsequent years, he held academic positions at Yale, Stanford, Oxford - where he was Drummond Professor of Political Economy - and Princeton. Since 2001, Stiglitz has been a professor at Columbia University, with appointments at the Business School, the Department of Economics and the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), and is editor of "The Economists' Voice" journal with J. Bradford DeLong and Aaron Edlin.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: He also gives classes for a double-degree program between Sciences Po Paris and École Polytechnique in 'Economics and Public Policy'. He has chaired The Brooks World Poverty Institute at the University of Manchester since 2005. Stiglitz is widely considered a New-Keynesian economist, although at least one economics journalist says his work cannot be so clearly categorised.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Stiglitz has played a number of policy roles throughout his career. He served in the Clinton administration as the chair of the President's Council of Economic Advisers (1995–1997). At the World Bank, he served as senior vice-president and chief economist from 1997 to 2000. He was fired by the World Bank for expressing dissent with its policies.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Stiglitz has advised American president Barack Obama, but has criticized the Obama Administration's financial-industry rescue plan. He said whoever designed the Obama administration's bank rescue plan is "either in the pocket of the banks or they're incompetent."


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: In October 2008, he was asked by the President of the United Nations General Assembly to chair a commission drafting a report on the reasons for and solutions to the financial crisis. In response, the commission produced the Stiglitz Report.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: On July 25, 2011, Stiglitz participated in the "I Foro Social del 15M" organized in Madrid, expressing his support to 15M Movement protestors.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: On September 27, 2015, the United Kingdom Labour Party announced that Stiglitz was to sit on its Economic Advisory Committee along with five other world-leading economists.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: After the 2018 mid-term elections in the United States he wrote a statement about the importance of economic justice to the survival of democracy worldwide.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: After getting his Ph.D. from M.I.T. in 1967, Stiglitz co-authored one of his first papers with Michael Rothschild for the Journal of Economic Theory in 1970. Stiglitz and Rothschild built upon works by economists such as Robert Solow on the concept of risk aversion. Stiglitz and Rothschild showed three plausible definitions of a variable X being 'more variable' than a variable Y were all equivalent - Y being equal to X plus noise, every risk-averse agent preferring Y to X, and Y having more weight in its tails, and that none of these were always consistent with X having a higher statistical variance than Y - a commonly used definition at the time. In a second paper, they analyzed the theoretical consequences of risk aversion in various circumstances, such as an individual's savings decisions and a firm's production decisions.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Stiglitz made early contributions to a theory of public finance stating that an optimal supply of local public goods can be funded entirely through capture of the land rents generated by those goods (when population distributions are optimal). Stiglitz dubbed this the 'Henry George theorem' in reference to the radical classical economist Henry George who famously advocated for land value tax. The explanation behind Stiglitz's finding is that rivalry for public goods takes place geographically, so competition for access to any beneficial public good will increase land values by at least as much as its outlay cost. Furthermore, Stiglitz shows that a single tax on rents is necessary to provide the optimal supply of local public investment. Stiglitz also shows how the theorem could be used to find the optimal size of a city or firm.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Stiglitz's most famous research was on screening, a technique used by one economic agent to extract otherwise private information from another. It was for this contribution to the theory of information asymmetry that he shared the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 2001 "for laying the foundations for the theory of markets with asymmetric information" with George A. Akerlof and A. Michael Spence.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Much of Stiglitz's work on information economics demonstrates situations in which incomplete information prevents markets from achieving social efficiency. His paper with Andrew Weiss showed that if banks use interest rates to infer information about borrowers' types (adverse selection effect), or to encourage their actions following borrowing (incentive effect), then credit will be rationed below the optimal level, even in a competitive market. Stiglitz and Rothschild showed that in an insurance market, firms have an incentive to undermine a 'pooling equilibrium', where all agents are offered the same full-insurance policy, by offering cheaper partial insurance that would only be attractive to the low-risk types, meaning that a competitive market can only achieve partial coverage of agents. Stiglitz and Grossman showed that trivially small information acquisition costs prevent financial markets from achieving complete informational efficiency, since agents will have an incentive to free-ride on others' information acquisition, and acquire this information indirectly by observing market prices.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Stiglitz, together with Avinash Dixit, created a tractable model of monopolistic competition that was an alternative to traditional perfect-competition models of general equilibrium. They showed that in the presence of increasing returns to scale, the entry of firms is socially too small. The model was extended to show that when consumers have a preference for diversity, entry can be socially too large. The modeling approach was also influential in the fields of trade theory, and industrial organization, and was used by Paul Krugman in his analysis of non-comparative advantage trading patterns.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Stiglitz also did research on efficiency wages, and helped create what became known as the "Shapiro–Stiglitz model" to explain why there is unemployment even in equilibrium, why wages are not bid down sufficiently by job seekers (in the absence of minimum wages) so that everyone who wants a job finds one, and to question whether the neoclassical paradigm could explain involuntary unemployment. An answer to these puzzles was proposed by Shapiro and Stiglitz in 1984: "Unemployment is driven by the information structure of employment". Two basic observations undergird their analysis:


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: A full description of this model can be found at the links provided. Some key implications of this model are:


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: The practical implications of Stiglitz's work in political economy and their economic policy implications have been subject to debate. Stiglitz himself has evolved his political-economic discourse over time.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Objections to the adoption of positions suggested by Stiglitz's do not come from economics itself , but mostly from political scientists, especially in the field of sociology . As David L. Prychitko discusses in his "critique" to "Whither Socialism?" (see below), although Stiglitz's main economic insight seems generally correct , it still leaves open great constitutional questions such as how the coercive institutions of the government should be constrained and what the relation is between the government and civil society.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Stiglitz joined the Clinton Administration in 1993, serving first as a member during 1993–1995, and was then appointed Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers on June 28, 1995, in which capacity he also served as a member of the cabinet. He became deeply involved in environmental issues, which included serving on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and helping draft a new law for toxic wastes (which was never passed).


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Stiglitz's most important contribution in this period was helping define a new economic philosophy, a "third way", which postulated the important, but limited, role of government, that unfettered markets often did not work well, but that government was not always able to correct the limitations of markets. The academic research that he had been conducting over the preceding 25 years provided the intellectual foundations for this "third way".


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: When President Bill Clinton was re-elected, he asked Stiglitz to continue to serve as Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers for another term. But he had already been approached by the World Bank to be its senior vice president for development policy and its chief economist, and he assumed that position after his CEA successor was confirmed on February 13, 1997.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: As the World Bank began its ten-year review of the transition of the former Communist countries to the market economy it unveiled the failures of the countries that had followed the International Monetary Fund (IMF) shock therapy policies both in terms of the declines in GDP and increases in poverty that were even worse than the worst that most of its critics had envisioned at the onset of the transition. Clear links existed between the dismal performances and the policies that the IMF had advocated, such as the voucher privatization schemes and excessive monetary stringency. Meanwhile, the success of a few countries that had followed quite different strategies suggested that there were alternatives that could have been followed. The US Treasury had put enormous pressure on the World Bank to silence his criticisms of the policies which they and the IMF had pursued.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Stiglitz always had a poor relationship with Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers. In 2000, Summers successfully petitioned for Stiglitz's removal, supposedly in exchange for World Bank President James Wolfensohn's re-appointment an exchange that Wolfensohn denies took place. Whether Summers ever made such a blunt demand is questionable Wolfensohn claims he would "have told him to *** himself".


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Stiglitz resigned from the World Bank in January 2000, a month before his term expired. The Bank's president, James Wolfensohn, announced Stiglitz's resignation in November 1999 and also announced that Stiglitz would stay on as Special Advisor to the President, and would chair the search committee for a successor.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: In this role, he continued criticism of the IMF, and, by implication, the US Treasury Department. In April 2000, in an article for "The New Republic", he wrote:


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: The article was published a week before the annual meetings of the World Bank and IMF and provoked a strong response. It proved too strong for Summers and, yet more lethally, Stiglitz's protector-of-sorts at the World Bank, Wolfensohn. Wolfensohn had privately empathised with Stiglitz's views, but this time was worried for his second term, which Summers had threatened to veto. Stanley Fischer, deputy managing director of the IMF, called a special staff meeting and informed at that gathering that Wolfensohn had agreed to fire Stiglitz. Meanwhile, the Bank's External Affairs department told the press that Stiglitz had not been fired, his post had merely been abolished.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: In a September 19, 2008 radio interview, with Aimee Allison and Philip Maldari on Pacifica Radio's KPFA 94.1 FM in Berkeley, US, Stiglitz implied that President Clinton and his economic advisors would not have backed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) had they been aware of stealth provisions, inserted by lobbyists, that they overlooked.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: In July 2000, Stiglitz founded the Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD), with the support of the Ford, Rockefeller, McArthur, and Mott Foundations and the Canadian and Swedish governments, to enhance democratic processes for decision-making in developing countries and to ensure that a broader range of alternatives are on the table and more stakeholders are at the table.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: At the beginning of 2008, Stiglitz chaired the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, also known as the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Commission, initiated by President Sarkozy of France. The Commission held its first plenary meeting on April 22–23, 2008, in Paris. Its final report was made public on September 14, 2009.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: In 2009, Stiglitz chaired the Commission of Experts on Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial System which was convened by the President of the United Nations General Assembly "to review the workings of the global financial system, including major bodies such as the World Bank and the IMF, and to suggest steps to be taken by Member States to secure a more sustainable and just global economic order". Its final report was released on September 21, 2009.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: In 2010, Professor Stiglitz acted as an advisor to the Greek government during the Greek debt crisis. He appeared on Bloomberg TV for an interview on the risks of Greece defaulting, in which he stated that he was very confident that Greece would not default. He went on to say that Greece was under "speculative attack" and though it had "short-term liquidity problems ... and would benefit from Solidarity Bonds", the country was "on track to meet its obligations".


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: The next day, during a BBC interview, Stiglitz stated that "there's no problem of Greece or Spain meeting their interest payments". He argued nonetheless, that it would be desirable and needed for all of Europe to make a clear statement of belief in social solidarity and that they "stand behind Greece". Confronted with the statement: "Greece's difficulty is that the magnitude of debt is far greater than the capacity of the economy to service", Stiglitz replied, "That's rather absurd".


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Since March 2012, Stiglitz has been a member of the Scottish Government's Fiscal Commission Working Group, which oversees the work to establish a fiscal and macroeconomic framework for an independent Scotland on behalf of the Scottish Council of Economic Advisers.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Together with Professors Andrew Hughes Hallett, Sir James Mirrlees and Frances Ruane, Stiglitz will "advise on the establishment of a credible Fiscal Commission which entrenches financial responsibility and ensures market confidence".


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: In July 2015, Stiglitz endorsed Jeremy Corbyn's campaign in the Labour Party leadership election. He said: "I am not surprised at all that there is a demand for a strong anti-austerity movement around increased concern about inequality. The promises of New Labour in the UK and of the Clintonites in the US have been a disappointment."


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: On September 27, 2015, it was announced that he had been appointed to the British Labour Party's Economic Advisory Committee, convened by Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell and reporting to Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn, although he reportedly failed to attend the first meeting.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: For Stiglitz, there is no such thing as an invisible hand, in the sense that free markets lead to efficiency as if guided by unseen forces. According to Stiglitz:


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: The preceding claim is based on Stiglitz's 1986 paper, "Externalities in Economies with Imperfect Information and Incomplete Markets", which describes a general methodology to deal with externalities and for calculating optimal corrective taxes in a general equilibrium context. In the opening remarks for his prize acceptance at Aula Magna, Stiglitz said:


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: On July 25, 2011, Stiglitz participated in the "I Foro Social del 15M" organized in Madrid (Spain) expressing his support for the anti-austerity movement in Spain. During an informal speech, he made a brief review of some of the problems in Europe and in the United States, the serious unemployment rate and the situation in Greece. "This is an opportunity for economic contribution social measures", argued Stiglitz, who made a critical speech about the way authorities are handling the political exit to the crisis. He encouraged those present to respond to the bad ideas, not with indifference, but with good ideas. "This does not work, you have to change it", he said.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Stiglitz has been critical of rating agencies, describing them as the "key culprit" in the financial crisis, noting "they were the party that performed the alchemy that converted the securities from F-rated to A-rated. The banks could not have done what they did without the complicity of the rating agencies."


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Stiglitz co-authored a paper with Peter Orszag in 2002 titled "Implications of the New Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Risk-Based Capital Standard" where they stated "on the basis of historical experience, the risk to the government from a potential default on GSE debt is effectively zero." However, "the risk-based capital standard ... may fail to reflect the probability of another Great Depression-like scenario."


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Stiglitz warned that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) presented "grave risks" and it "serves the interests of the wealthiest."


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Stiglitz also opposed the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) trade deal between the European Union (EU) and the United States, and has argued that the United Kingdom should consider its withdrawal from the EU in the 2016 referendum on the matter if TTIP passes, saying that "the strictures imposed by TTIP would be sufficiently averse to the functioning of government that it would make me think over again about whether membership of the EU was a good idea".


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Stiglitz argues that relying solely on business self-interest as the means of achieving the well-being of society and economic efficiency is misleading, and that instead "What is needed is stronger norms, clearer understandings of what is acceptable and what is not and stronger laws and regulations to ensure that those that do not behave in ways that are consistent with these norms are held accountable".


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Stiglitz argues that land value tax would improve the efficiency and equity of agricultural economies. Stiglitz believes that societies should rely on a generalized Henry George principle to finance public goods, protect natural resources, improve land use, and reduce the burden of rents and taxes on the poor while increasing productive capital formation. Stiglitz advocates taxing "natural resource rents at as close to 100 percent as possible" and that a corollary of this principle is that polluters should be taxed for "activities that generate negative externalities." Stiglitz therefore asserts that land value taxation is even better than its famous advocate Henry George thought.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: In a September 2016 interview Stiglitz stated that "the cost of keeping the Eurozone together probably exceeds the cost of breaking it up."


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: In the 1990s, he wrote that ""countries in North America and Europe should eliminate all tariffs and quotas" (protectionist measures)". He now advises the eurozone countries to control their trade balance with Germany by means of export/import certificates or "trade chits" (a protectionist measure).


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Citing Keynesian theory, he explains that trade surpluses are harmful: ""John Maynard Keynes pointed out that surpluses lead to weak global aggregate demand – countries running surpluses exert a "negative externality" on trading partners. Indeed, Keynes believed it was surplus countries, far more than those in deficit, that posed a threat to global prosperity; he went so far as to advocate a tax on surplus countries"". Indeed, from the beginning of 1930, Keynes stopped believing in free trade, denounced the theory of comparative advantage (the basis of free trade) and definitively adhered to protectionism.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Stiglitz writes: ""Germany's surplus means that the rest of Europe is in deficit. And the fact that these countries import more than they export contributes to the weakness of their economies"". He thinks that surplus countries are getting richer at the expense of deficit countries. He notes that the euro is the cause of this deficit and that as the trade deficit declines GDP would rise and unemployment would fall: ""The euro system means that Germany's exchange rate cannot increase compared to other euro area members. If the exchange rate were to rise, Germany would have more difficulty exporting and its economic model, based on strong exports, would cease. At the same time, the rest of Europe would export more, GDP would rise and unemployment would fall"".


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: He also thinks that the rest of the world should impose a carbon-adjustment tax (a protectionist measure) on American exports that do not comply with global standard.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Contrary to Keynesian theory and these analyses on the Eurozone, he argues that the United States should not rebalance the trade account, and that the country can no longer apply protectionist measures to protect or recreate the well-paying manufacturing jobs, saying: "The very Americans who have been among the losers of globalization stand to be among the losers of a reversal of globalization. History cannot be put into reverse".


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: On the other hand, he admits that as trade deficit declines, "GDP would rise and unemployment would fall", further stating: "...the fact that these countries are importing more than they are exporting contributes to their weak economies." He also notes that trade deficit is correlated with loss of manufacturing jobs: the increase in the "value of the dollar will lead to larger trade deficits and fewer manufacturing jobs".


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Contrary to most economics historians, who argue that tariffs played only a minor if any role in the Great Depression, Stiglitz thinks that tariffs would be harmful to the United States economy today because it contributed to the Great Depression: "Following that, U.S. exports fell by some 50 percent—contributing to our Great Depression".


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: He denounces the "trickle-down" policies of liberalism and neoliberalism ("laissez-faire") However, he calls for lowering trade barriers and promoting free trade (policy of deregulation of foreign trade which is part of the "laissez-faire" economic model).


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: According to him, it is not China (which has a large trade surplus) that makes "trade war", but the United States (which has a large trade deficit). He advises China to take sanctions against the United States. He warns that China could hit back at the U.S. "where hurts economically and politically" if the United States tries to raise tariffs, saying: "For example, cutbacks in purchases by China will lead to more unemployment in congressional districts that are vulnerable, influential, or both. ... China can retaliate anywhere it chooses, such as by using trade restrictions to target jobs in the congressional districts of those who support US tariffs. ... China may be more effective in targeting its retaliation to cause acute political pain. ... It's anybody's guess who can stand the pain better. Will it be the US, where ordinary citizens have already suffered for so long, or China, which, despite troubled times, has managed to generate growth in excess of 6%?"


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Stiglitz does not want the United States to stop free trade. According to him, if China limits globalization, it will not hurt them, but if the United States stops with the process of free trade, it will be harmful. About China, according to him, if China depends less on economic globalization, it will not be negative for the country. He writes that the decline in exports from China to the U.S. may not "hurt them more than it hurt us" because "China’s government has far more control over the country’s economy than our government has over ours; and it is moving from export dependence to a model of growth driven by domestic demand." Regarding the United States, he writes the opposite and advice to apply the opposite of the Keynesian theory of trade deficits seen earlier: "Walking away from globalization may reduce our imports, but it will also reduce exports in tandem. And, almost surely, jobs will be destroyed faster than they will be created: there may even be fewer net manufacturing jobs". "[The] erection of barriers to trade and the movement of people and ideas more likely than not will be one in which the U.S. almost surely will lose."


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: In early 2017, he wrote that "the American middle class is indeed the loser of globalization" (the diminution of international trade regulations as well as tariffs, taxes) and "China, with its large emerging middle class, is among the big beneficiaries of globalization". "Thanks to globalisation, in terms of purchasing-power parity, China actually has already become the largest economy in the world in September 2015". However, contrary to what he wrote earlier, he later argued in February 2017 that the fall in wages and the disappearance of well-paid jobs in the United States, are not due to free trade or globalisation, but rather are inevitable collateral damage to the march of economic progress and technological innovation: "The United States can only push for advanced manufacturing, which requires higher skill sets and employs fewer people. Rising inequality, meanwhile, will continue ...". In addition, in December 5 2017,contrary to what he wrote earlier, he wrote that the drop in wages in the United States is due to the actions of multinational companies rather than the globalisation and the trade account imbalances between countries caused by free trade: "It was an agenda written by and for large multinational companies, at the expense of workers".


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: In 2016, he said he believes that the economic situation of the United States is critical: "As the economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton showed in their study published in December 2015, life expectancy among middle-age white Americans is declining, as rates of suicides, drug use, and alcoholism increase. A year later, the National Center for Health Statistics reported that life expectancy for the country as a whole has declined for the first time in more than 20 years." ... With the incomes of the bottom 90% having stagnated for close to a third of a century (and declining for a significant proportion), the health data simply confirmed that things were not going well for swaths of the country". ?".


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Stiglitz has called for a transition to a green economy. He supported the Green New Deal. In 2019, he wrote that "The Green New Deal would stimulate demand, ensuring that all available resources were used; and the transition to the green economy would likely usher in a new boom. Trump’s focus on the industries of the past, like coal, is strangling the much more sensible move to wind and solar power. More jobs by far will be created in renewable energy than will be lost in coal." Stiglitz described the climate crisis as humanity's World War III.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Along with his technical economic publications (over 300 technical articles), Stiglitz is the author of books on issues from patent law to abuses in international trade.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: "Whither Socialism?" is based on Stiglitz's Wicksell Lectures, presented at the Stockholm School of Economics in 1990 and presents a summary of information economics and the theory of markets with imperfect information and imperfect competition, as well as being a critique of both free market and market socialist approaches (see Roemer critique, op. cit.). Stiglitz explains how the neoclassical, or Walrasian model ("Walrasian economics" refers to the result of the process which has given birth to a formal representation of Adam Smith's notion of the "invisible hand", along the lines put forward by Léon Walras and encapsulated in the general equilibrium model of Arrow–Debreu), may have wrongly encouraged the belief that market socialism could work. Stiglitz proposes an alternative model, based on the information economics established by the Greenwald–Stiglitz theorems.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: One of the reasons Stiglitz sees for the critical failing in the standard neoclassical model, on which market socialism was built, is its failure to consider the problems that arise from lack of perfect information and from the costs of acquiring information. He also identifies problems arising from its assumptions concerning completeness.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: In "Globalization and Its Discontents", Stiglitz argues that what are often called "developing economies" are, in fact, not developing at all, and puts much of the blame on the IMF.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Stiglitz bases his argument on the themes that his decades of theoretical work have emphasized: namely, what happens when people lack the key information that bears on the decisions they have to make, or when markets for important kinds of transactions are inadequate or don't exist, or when other institutions that standard economic thinking takes for granted are absent or flawed. Stiglitz stresses the point: "Recent advances in economic theory" (in part referring to his own work) "have shown that whenever information is imperfect and markets incomplete, which is to say always, and especially in developing countries, then the invisible hand works most imperfectly." As a result, Stiglitz continues, governments can improve the outcome by well-chosen interventions. Stiglitz argues that when families and firms seek to buy too little compared to what the economy can produce, governments can fight recessions and depressions by using expansionary monetary and fiscal policies to spur the demand for goods and services. At the microeconomic level, governments can regulate banks and other financial institutions to keep them sound. They can also use tax policy to steer investment into more productive industries and trade policies to allow new industries to mature to the point at which they can survive foreign competition. And governments can use a variety of devices, ranging from job creation to manpower training to welfare assistance, to put unemployed labor back to work and cushion human hardship.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Stiglitz argues that the IMF has done great damage through the economic policies it has prescribed that countries must follow in order to qualify for IMF loans, or for loans from banks and other private-sector lenders that look to the IMF to indicate whether a borrower is creditworthy. The organization and its officials, he argues, have ignored the implications of incomplete information, inadequate markets, and unworkable institutions all of which are especially characteristic of newly developing countries. As a result, Stiglitz argues, the IMF has often called for policies that conform to textbook economics but do not make sense for the countries to which the IMF is recommending them. Stiglitz seeks to show that these policies have been disastrous for the countries that have followed them.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: "The Roaring Nineties" is Stiglitz's analysis of the boom and bust of the 1990s. Presented from an insider's point of view, firstly as chair of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisors, and later as chief economist of the World Bank, it continues his argument on how misplaced faith in free-market ideology led to the global economic issues of today, with a perceptive focus on US policies.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: In "Fair Trade for All", authors Stiglitz and Andrew Charlton argue that it is important to make the trading world more development friendly. The idea is put forth that the present regime of tariffs and agricultural subsidies is dominated by the interests of former colonial powers and needs to change. The removal of the bias toward the developed world will be beneficial to both developing and developed nations. The developing world is in need of assistance, and this can only be achieved when developed nations abandon mercantilist based priorities and work towards a more liberal world trade regime.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: "Making Globalization Work" surveys the inequities of the global economy, and the mechanisms by which developed countries exert an excessive influence over developing nations. Dr. Stiglitz argues that through tariffs, subsidies, an over-complex patent system and pollution, the world is being both economically and politically destabilised. Stiglitz argues that strong, transparent institutions are needed to address these problems. He shows how an examination of incomplete markets can make corrective government policies desirable.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Stiglitz is an exception to the general pro-globalisation view of professional economists, according to economist Martin Wolf. Stiglitz argues that economic opportunities are not widely enough available, that financial crises are too costly and too frequent, and that the rich countries have done too little to address these problems. "Making Globalization Work" has sold more than two million copies.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: In "Stability with Growth: Macroeconomics, Liberalization and Development", Stiglitz, José Antonio Ocampo (United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, until 2007), Shari Spiegel (Managing Director, Initiative for Policy Dialogue IPD), Ricardo Ffrench-Davis (Main Adviser, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean ECLAC) and Deepak Nayyar (Vice Chancellor, University of Delhi) discuss the current debates on macroeconomics, capital market liberalization and development, and develop a new framework within which one can assess alternative policies. They explain their belief that the Washington Consensus has advocated narrow goals for development (with a focus on price stability) and prescribed too few policy instruments (emphasizing monetary and fiscal policies), and places unwarranted faith in the role of markets. The new framework focuses on real stability and long-term sustainable and equitable growth, offers a variety of non-standard ways to stabilize the economy and promote growth, and accepts that market imperfections necessitate government interventions. Policy-makers have pursued stabilization goals with little concern for growth consequences, while trying to increase growth through structural reforms focused on improving economic efficiency. Moreover, structural policies, such as capital market liberalization, have had major consequences for economic stability. This book challenges these policies by arguing that stabilization policy has important consequences for long-term growth and has often been implemented with adverse consequences. The first part of the book introduces the key questions and looks at the objectives of economic policy from different perspectives. The third part presents a similar analysis for capital market liberalization.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: "The Three Trillion Dollar War" (co-authored with Linda Bilmes) examines the full cost of the Iraq War, including many hidden costs. The book also discusses the extent to which these costs will be imposed for many years to come, paying special attention to the enormous expenditures that will be required to care for very large numbers of wounded veterans. Stiglitz was openly critical of George W. Bush at the time the book was released.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: In "Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy", Stiglitz discusses the causes of the 2008 recession/depression and goes on to propose reforms needed to avoid a repetition of a similar crisis, advocating government intervention and regulation in a number of areas. Among the policy-makers he criticises are George W. Bush, Larry Summers, and Barack Obama.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: From the jacket: As those at the top continue to enjoy the best health care, education, and benefits of wealth, they often fail to realize that, as Joseph E. Stiglitz highlights, "their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live ... It does not have to be this way. In "The Price of Inequality" Stiglitz lays out a comprehensive agenda to create a more dynamic economy and fairer and more equal society"


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: The book received the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights 2013 Book Award, given annually to the book that "most faithfully and forcefully reflects Robert Kennedy's purposes his concern for the poor and the powerless, his struggle for honest and even-handed justice, his conviction that a decent society must assure all young people a fair chance, and his faith that a free democracy can act to remedy disparities of power and opportunity."


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: "Creating a Learning Society" (co-authored with Bruce C. Greenwald) casts light on the significance of this insight for economic theory and policy. Taking as a starting point Kenneth J. Arrow's 1962 paper "Learning by Doing", they explain why the production of knowledge differs from that of other goods and why market economies alone typically do not produce and transmit knowledge efficiently. Closing knowledge gaps and helping laggards learn are central to growth and development. But creating a learning society is equally crucial if we are to sustain improved living standards in advanced countries.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: From the jacket: In "The Great Divide", Joseph E. Stiglitz expands on the diagnosis he offered in his best-selling book "The Price of Inequality" and suggests ways to counter America's growing problem. Stiglitz argues that inequality is a choice the cumulative result of unjust policies and misguided priorities.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: From the description: "Stiglitz dismantles the prevailing consensus around what ails Europe, demolishing the champions of austerity while offering a series of plans that can rescue the continent--and the world--from further devastation." According to book review aggregator Literary Hub, it received pan reviews.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: From the description: "We all have the sense that the American economy―and its government―tilts toward big business, but as Joseph E. Stiglitz explains in his new book, People, Power, and Profits, the situation is dire. A few corporations have come to dominate entire sectors of the economy, contributing to skyrocketing inequality and slow growth. This is how the financial industry has managed to write its own regulations, tech companies have accumulated reams of personal data with little oversight, and our government has negotiated trade deals that fail to represent the best interests of workers. Too many have made their wealth through exploitation of others rather than through wealth creation. If something isn’t done, new technologies may make matters worse, increasing inequality and unemployment. Stiglitz identifies the true sources of wealth and of increases in standards of living, based on learning, advances in science and technology, and the rule of law. He shows that the assault on the judiciary, universities, and the media undermines the very institutions that have long been the foundation of America’s economic might and its democracy. Helpless though we may feel today, we are far from powerless. In fact, the economic solutions are often quite clear. We need to exploit the benefits of markets while taming their excesses, making sure that markets work for us―the U.S. citizens―and not the other way around. If enough citizens rally behind the agenda for change outlined in this book, it may not be too late to create a progressive capitalism that will recreate a shared prosperity. Stiglitz shows how a middle-class life can once again be attainable by all. An authoritative account of the predictable dangers of free market fundamentalism and the foundations of progressive capitalism, People, Power, and Profits shows us an America in crisis, but also lights a path through this challenging time."


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Stiglitz and his co-authors point out that the interrelated crises of environmental degradation and human suffering of our current age demonstrate that "something is fundamentally wrong with the way we assess economic performance and social progress." They argue that using GDP as the chief measure of our economic health does not provide an accurate assessment of the economy or the state of the world and the people living in it.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Stiglitz wrote a series of papers and held a series of conferences explaining how such information uncertainties may have influence on everything from unemployment to lending shortages. As the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the first term of the Clinton Administration and former chief economist at the World Bank, Stiglitz was able to put some of his views into action. For example, he was an outspoken critic of quickly opening up financial markets in developing countries. These markets rely on access to good financial data and sound bankruptcy laws, but he argued that many of these countries didn't have the regulatory institutions needed to ensure that the markets would operate soundly.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: In July 2020, Stiglitz alongside Hamid Rashid, the chief of Global Economic Monitoring at the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, published a report, pointing out that the quantitative easing policy implemented by the US after the 2008 financial crisis, had "basically exported a debt bubble to developing countries".


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: In addition to being awarded the Nobel Memorial prize, Stiglitz has over 40 honorary doctorates and at least eight honorary professorships as well as an honorary deanship.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Stiglitz was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1983, the National Academy of Sciences in 1988, and the American Philosophical Society in 1997.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: In 2009, he received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member Archbishop Desmond Tutu at an awards ceremony at St. George's Cathedral in Cape Town, South Africa.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: He received the 2010 Gerald Loeb Awards for Commentary for "Capitalist Fools and Wall Street's Toxic Message".


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: In 2011, he was named by "Foreign Policy" magazine on its list of top global thinkers. In February 2012, he was awarded the Legion of Honor, in the rank of Officer, by the French ambassador in the United States François Delattre. Stiglitz was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 2009. Stiglitz was awarded the 2018 Sydney Peace Prize.


title: Joseph Stiglitz

text: Stiglitz married Jane Hannaway in 1978 but the couple later divorced. He married for the third time on October 28, 2004 to Anya Schiffrin, who works at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He has four children and three grandchildren.


title: Meher Baba

text: Meher Baba (born Merwan Sheriar Irani; 25 February 1894  – 31 January 1969) was an Indian spiritual master who said he was the Avatar, or God in human form, of the age. A major spiritual figure of the 20th century, he had a following of hundreds of thousands of people, mostly in India, but with a significant number in the United States, Europe and Australia.


title: Meher Baba

text: Meher Baba's map of consciousness has been described as "a unique amalgam of Sufi, Vedic, and Yogic terminology". He taught that the goal of all beings was to gain consciousness of their own divinity, and to realise the absolute oneness of God.


title: Meher Baba

text: At the age of 19, Meher Baba began a seven-year period of spiritual transformation, during which he had encounters with Hazrat Babajan, Upasni Maharaj, Sai Baba of Shirdi, Tajuddin Baba, and Narayan Maharaj. In 1925, he began a 44-year period of observed silence, during which he communicated first using an alphabet board, and by 1954, entirely through hand gestures using an interpreter. He died in 1969, and was buried in Meherabad. His tomb has become a place of pilgrimage for his followers, often known as "Baba lovers".


title: Meher Baba

text: Meher Baba's teachings concerned the nature and purpose of life. He described the phenomenal world as illusory, and presented the idea that the Universe is imagination. He taught that God alone exists, and each soul is God passing through imagination in order to realize its own divinity. He presented advice to followers wishing to attain God-realization, and thereby escape the wheel of birth and death. His other teachings included discussion of Perfect Masters, the Avatar, and those on the various stages of the spiritual path which he termed involution. The works by him regarded as most important were his books "God Speaks" and "Discourses".


title: Meher Baba

text: For decades, he declined to speak, and, later, also refrained from communicating via written language. This practice of abstinence has remained a topic of discussion among some of his followers.


title: Meher Baba

text: His legacy includes the Avatar Meher Baba Charitable Trust he established in India, a handful of centers for information and pilgrimage. He has had influence on pop culture creators and introduced the common phrase "Don't worry; be happy". This was used in Bobby McFerrin's hit 1988 song of the same name. Among his followers were well-known musicians like Melanie Safka and Pete Townshend, as well as journalists like Sir Tom Hopkinson.


title: Meher Baba

text: In 1971, Baba's following in the United States was estimated at 7,000. However, other commentators have suggested that the size of the movement has been underestimated because public proselytising is uncommon among Baba's followers, and that in 1975, the movement was larger than the more visible Hare Krishna movement. He was a self-identified Sufi, and considered a leader of the Californian branch of Western Sufism, though his version of Sufism shared very few similarities with the Sufi Movement, apart from universalism and anti-dogmatism.


title: Meher Baba

text: Regardless, Baba's Sufi influence is said to have drawn from Sai Baba of Shirdi, and it was he who designated Sai Baba with the specifically Sufi status of "Qutb".


title: Meher Baba

text: Baba was born to Irani Zoroastrian parents in 1894 in Pune, India. He was named Merwan Sheriar Irani, the second son of Sheriar Irani and Shireen Irani. Sheriar Irani was a Persian Zoroastrian from Khorramshahr who had spent years wandering in search of spiritual experience before settling in Poona (today known as Pune).


title: Meher Baba

text: As a boy, Baba formed the Cosmopolitan Club, which was dedicated to remaining informed on world affairs and donating money to charity. He was a multi-instrumentalist and poet. Fluent in several languages, he was especially fond of the poetry of Hafez, William Shakespeare, and Percy Bysshe Shelley.


title: Meher Baba

text: His spiritual transformation began when he was 19 years old and lasted for seven years. At 19, he met Hazrat Babajan, an elderly Muslim saint. He was cycling past a tree that she had made her abode, when she called to him. When he approached her, she kissed him on the forehead, causing him to enter a nine month-long trance which he described as "divine bliss", with a lack of consciousness of his body. Babajan predicted that he would become a spiritual leader. He then encountered Upasni Maharaj, who he later said helped him to integrate his mystical experiences with ordinary consciousness, thus enabling him to function in the world without diminishing his experience of God-realization.


title: Meher Baba

text: Over the next several years, he encountered other spiritual figures, namely Tajuddin Baba, Narayan Maharaj, and Sai Baba of Shirdi, who, along with Babajan and Upasni Maharaj, Baba later said were the five "Perfect Masters" of the age. By early 1922, at the age of 27, Baba began gathering his own disciples. They gave him the name "Meher Baba", which meant "compassionate father".


title: Meher Baba

text: In 1922, Meher Baba and his followers established Manzil-e-Meem (House of the Master) in Bombay (now called Mumbai). There, Baba commenced his practice of demanding strict discipline and obedience from his disciples. A year later, Baba and his mandali moved to an area a few miles outside Ahmednagar that he named Meherabad (Garden of Blessing). This ashram would become the center for his work. During the 1920s, Meher Baba opened a school, hospital, and dispensary at Meherabad, all three free and open to all castes and faiths.


title: Meher Baba

text: From 10 July 1925 until the end of his life, Meher Baba maintained silence. With his "mandali" (circle of disciples), he spent long periods in seclusion, during which time he often fasted. He also traveled widely, held public gatherings, and engaged in works of charity with lepers and the poor. He now communicated first through chalk and slate, then by an alphabet board, and later via a repertoire of gestures unique to him. On 1 December 1926, he wrote his last message, and began relying on an alphabet board.


title: Meher Baba

text: Beginning in 1931, Meher Baba made the first of many visits to the West. Throughout that decade, Meher Baba began a period of extensive world travel and took several trips to Europe and the United States. It was during this period that he established contact with his first close group of Western disciples. He traveled on a Persian passport, as he had given up writing, as well as speaking, and would not sign the forms required by the British government of India. Here, he attracted more followers. Throughout most of the 1940s, Meher Baba worked with a category of spiritual aspirants called "masts", who he said are entranced or spellbound by internal spiritual experiences. Starting in 1949, along with selected "mandali", he traveled incognito about India in an enigmatic and still largely unexplained period he called the "New Life".


title: Meher Baba

text: On his first trip to England in 1931, he traveled on the "SS Rajputana", at the same time as Mahatma Gandhi, who was sailing to the second Round Table Conference in London. Baba and Gandhi met thrice on board. One of these exchanges lasted for three hours. The British press publicized these meetings, but an aide to Gandhi said, "You may say emphatically that Gandhi never asked Meher Baba for help or for spiritual or other advice."


title: Meher Baba

text: In the West, Meher Baba met with a number of celebrities and artists, amongst them Gary Cooper, Charles Laughton, Tallulah Bankhead, Boris Karloff, Tom Mix, Maurice Chevalier, and Ernst Lubitsch. On 1 June 1932, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. held a reception for Baba at Pickfair at which he delivered a message to Hollywood. As a result, says Robert S. Ellwood, Meher Baba emerged as "one of the enthusiasms of the '30s".


title: Meher Baba

text: In 1934, after announcing that he would break his self-imposed silence in the Hollywood Bowl, Baba changed his plans abruptly, boarded the RMS "Empress of Canada", and sailed to Hong Kong without explanation. The Associated Press reported that "Baba had decided to postpone the word-fast-breaking until next February because 'conditions are not yet ripe'." He returned to England in 1936 but did not return to the United States again until the early 1950s.


title: Meher Baba

text: In the late 1930s, Meher Baba invited a group of Western women to join him in India, where he arranged a series of trips throughout India and British Ceylon that became known as the Blue Bus Tours. When the tour returned home, many newspapers treated their journey as an occasion for scandal. "Time Magazine"'s 1936 review of "God is my Adventure" describes the US's fascination with the "long-haired, silky-mustached Parsee named Shri Sadgaru [sic] Meher Baba" four years earlier.


title: Meher Baba

text: In the 1930s and 1940s, Meher Baba worked extensively with masts, or those "intoxicated with God". According to Baba, these individuals are disabled by their enchanting experience of the higher spiritual planes. Although outwardly masts may appear irrational or insane, Baba claimed that their spiritual status was elevated, and that by meeting with them he helped them to move forward spiritually while enlisting their aid in his spiritual work. One of the best known of these masts, known as Mohammed Mast, lived at Meher Baba's encampment at Meherabad until his death in 2003.


title: Meher Baba

text: During his journey in 1946, he went to Sehwan Sharif to meet a well known sufi saint and a successor of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, Murshid Nadir Ali Shah, whom Baba called an advanced pilgrim.


title: Meher Baba

text: In 1949 Baba began an enigmatic period that he called the New Life. Following a series of questions on their readiness to obey even the most difficult of his requests, Baba selected 20 companions to join him in a life of complete "hopelessness and helplessness".


title: Meher Baba

text: He made provisions for those dependent on him, after which he and his companions otherwise gave up nearly all property and financial responsibilities. They traveled about India incognito while begging for food and carrying out Baba's instructions in accordance with a strict set of "conditions of the New Life". These included absolute acceptance of any circumstance and consistent good cheer in the face of any difficulty. Companions who failed to comply were sent away.


title: Meher Baba

text: This New Life is endless, and even after my physical death it will be kept alive by those who live the life of complete renunciation of falsehood, lies, hatred, anger, greed and lust; and who, to accomplish all this, do no lustful actions, do no harm to anyone, do no backbiting, do not seek material possessions or power, who accept no homage, neither covet honor nor shun disgrace, and fear no one and nothing; by those who rely wholly and solely on God, and who love God purely for the sake of loving; who believe in the lovers of God and in the reality of Manifestation, and yet do not expect any spiritual or material reward; who do not let go the hand of Truth, and who, without being upset by calamities, bravely and wholeheartedly face all hardships with one hundred percent cheerfulness, and give no importance to caste, creed and religious ceremonies. This New Life will live by itself eternally, even if there is no one to live it.


title: Meher Baba

text: Meher Baba ended the New Life in February 1952 and once again began a round of public appearances throughout India and the West.


title: Meher Baba

text: After being injured as a passenger in two serious automobile accidents, one near Prague, Oklahoma in the United States in 1952 and one in India in 1956, Meher Baba's ability to walk became limited.


title: Meher Baba

text: In the 1950s, Baba established two centers outside of India, namely the Meher Spiritual Center in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina in the United States and Avatar's Abode near Brisbane, Australia. He inaugurated the Meher Spiritual Center in April 1952. On 24 May 1952, en route from the Spiritual Center to Meher Mount in Ojai, California, the car in which he was a passenger was struck head-on near Prague, Oklahoma. He and his companions were thrown from the vehicle and suffered many injuries. Baba's leg was severely broken and he sustained facial injuries including a broken nose. The injured were treated at Duke Hospital in Durham, North Carolina, after which they returned to Myrtle Beach to recuperate. While recuperating at Youpon Dunes, a home owned by Elizabeth Patterson, in Myrtle Beach, he worked on the charter for a group of Sufis, which he named Sufism Reoriented.


title: Meher Baba

text: Meher Baba began dictating his major book, "God Speaks, The Theme of Creation and Its Purpose", using an alphabet board in Dehradun, August 1953. In September 1954, Meher Baba gave a men-only sahavas at Meherabad that later became known as the Three Incredible Weeks. During this time Baba issued a declaration, "Meher Baba's Call", wherein he once again affirmed his Avatarhood "irrespective of the doubts and convictions" of others. At the end of this sahavas, Meher Baba gave the completed manuscript of his book "God Speaks" to two members of Sufism Reoriented, Ludwig H. Dimpfl and Don E. Stevens, for editing and publication in America. The book was subsequently published by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year.


title: Meher Baba

text: On 30 September 1954 Meher Baba gave his Final Declaration message, in which he made enigmatic predictions.


title: Meher Baba

text: In October 1954, Meher Baba discarded his alphabet board and began using a unique set of hand gestures to communicate, which he used for the remainder of his life.


title: Meher Baba

text: On 2 December 1956, outside Satara, India, the car in which Baba was being driven went out of control and a second serious automobile accident occurred. Baba suffered a fractured pelvis and other severe injuries. Nilu, one of Baba's mandali, was killed. This collision seriously incapacitated Baba. Despite his physicians' predictions to the contrary, Baba began to walk again after great effort, but from that point on he was in constant pain and was severely limited in his ability to move. During his trip to the West in 1958, he often needed to be carried from venue to venue.


title: Meher Baba

text: In 1956, during his fifth visit to the US, Baba stayed at New York's Hotel Delmonico before traveling to the Meher Center at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. In July he traveled to Washington, D.C., and received friends and disciples at the home of Ivy Duce, wife of James Terry Duce, the vice-president of the Arabian American Oil Co. He then traveled to Meher Mount at Ojai, California before continuing on to Australia. His final visits to the United States and Australia were made in 1958.


title: Meher Baba

text: In 1962, Baba held one of his last public functions, a mass meeting called the East-West Gathering, held in India. At these meetings, at which his Western followers were invited to meet his Indian disciples, Baba gave darshan to many thousands, despite the physical strain this caused him. Despite deteriorating health, he continued what he called his "Universal Work", which included fasting and seclusion, until his death on 31 January 1969. His "samadhi" (shrine/tomb) in Meherabad, India, has become a place of international pilgrimage.


title: Meher Baba

text: In the mid-1960s Baba became concerned with the drug culture in the West and began correspondences with several Western academics, including Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert, in which he discouraged the use of hallucinogenic drugs for spiritual purposes. In 1966 Baba's responses to questions on drugs were published in a pamphlet titled "God in a Pill?" Meher Baba stated that drug use was spiritually damaging and that if enlightenment were possible through drugs then "God is not worthy of being God". Meher Baba instructed his young Western disciples to spread this message; in doing so, they increased awareness of Meher Baba's teachings. In an interview with Frederick Chapman, a Harvard graduate and Fulbright scholar who met Baba during a year of study in India, Baba described LSD as "harmful physically, mentally, and spiritually" and warned that "[its continued use] leads to madness or death".


title: Meher Baba

text: An anti-drug campaign was initiated by Baba lovers in the United States, Europe and Australia. The campaign was mostly futile, but won Baba new followers, and some of Baba's views found their way into academic debate on the merits and dangers of hallucinogens.


title: Meher Baba

text: From the East-West Gathering of 1962 onward, Baba's health deteriorated. Despite the physical toll it took on his body, he continued to undergo periods of seclusion and fasting. In late July 1968, Baba completed a particularly taxing period of seclusion and stated that by then his work was "completed 100% to my satisfaction". He was by then using a wheelchair. Within a few months, his condition had worsened and he was bedridden, wracked by muscle spasms that had no clear medical origin. Despite the care of several physicians, the spasms worsened.


title: Meher Baba

text: On 31 January 1969, Meher Baba died at his home in Meherabad, 25 days short of his 75th birthday. He conveyed by his last gestures, "Do not forget that I am God." In time, his devotees called the anniversary of his death "Amartithi" (deathless day). Meher Baba's body was placed at his samadhi at Meherabad, covered with roses and cooled by ice. His body was kept available to the public for one week before its final burial. Prior to his death, Meher Baba had made extensive preparations for a public darshan program to be held in Poona. His mandali decided to proceed with the arrangements despite the absence of the host. Several thousand attended this "Last Darshan," including many hundreds from the United States, Europe, and Australia.


title: Meher Baba

text: From 10 July 1925, until his death in 1969, Meher Baba was silent. He communicated first by using an alphabet board and later by unique hand gestures which were interpreted and spoken out by one of his mandali, usually by his disciple Eruch Jessawala. Meher Baba said that his silence was not undertaken as a spiritual exercise but solely in connection with his universal work.


title: Meher Baba

text: Man's inability to live God's words makes the Avatar's teaching a mockery. Instead of practicing the compassion he taught, man has waged wars in his name. Instead of living the humility, purity, and truth of his words, man has given way to hatred, greed, and violence. Because man has been deaf to the principles and precepts laid down by God in the past, in this present Avataric form, I observe silence.


title: Meher Baba

text: Meher Baba often signaled the moment "that he would 'break' his silence by speaking the 'Word' in every heart, thereby giving a spiritual push forward to all living things".


title: Meher Baba

text: When I break My Silence, the impact of My Love will be universal and all life in creation will know, feel and receive of it. It will help every individual to break himself free from his own bondage in his own way. I am the Divine Beloved who loves you more than you can ever love yourself. The breaking of My Silence will help you to help yourself in knowing your real Self.


title: Meher Baba

text: According to him, the breaking of his silence would be a defining event in the spiritual evolution of the world.


title: Meher Baba

text: When I speak that Word, I shall lay the foundation for that which is to take place during the next seven hundred years.


title: Meher Baba

text: On many occasions Meher Baba promised to break his silence with an audible word before he died, often stating a specific time and place when this would occur, but according to all contemporary accounts, Meher Baba remained silent until his death. His failure to break his silence disappointed some of his followers, while others regarded these broken promises as a test of their faith. A number of his followers speculate that "the Word" will yet be "spoken" or that Meher Baba broke his silence in a spiritual rather than a physical way.


title: Meher Baba

text: Baba, for many years, asked his followers to undertake austerities on 10 July, the anniversary of the day his silence began, such as keeping silence, fasting, and praying. In his final Silence Day request to his followers in 1968, he asked only that they keep silent. Many followers continue to celebrate Silence Day by keeping silence in his honor.


title: Meher Baba

text: Meher Baba's teachings can roughly be divided into two main categories: his metaphysics on the nature of the soul and the Universe, and practical advice for the spiritual aspirant. The two are interrelated. His metaphysics is mostly found in his principal book on the subject, "God Speaks". It contains detailed statements on his cosmology and the purpose of life as well as the progression of the soul, while his elucidations on the practical spiritual life are mostly contained in "Discourses", although it also covers many metaphysical areas mirroring or amplifying "God Speaks".


title: Meher Baba

text: In "God Speaks", Meher Baba describes the journey of the soul from its original state of unconscious divinity to the ultimate attainment of conscious divinity. The whole journey is a journey of imagination, where the original indivisible state of God imagines becoming countless individualized souls which he likens to bubbles within an ocean of infinite size. Each soul, powered by the desire to become conscious, starts its journey in the most rudimentary form of consciousness. This limitation brings the need of a more developed form to advance it towards an increasingly conscious state. Consciousness grows in relation to the impressions each form is capable of gathering.


title: Meher Baba

text: According to Baba, each soul pursues conscious divinity by evolving, that is, experiencing itself in a succession of imagined forms through seven "kingdoms" of stone/metal, vegetable, worm, fish, bird, animal, and human. The soul identifies itself with each successive form, becoming thus tied to illusion. During this evolution of forms, the power of thought increases, until in human form thought becomes infinite. Although in human form, the soul is capable of conscious divinity, all the impressions that it has gathered during evolution are illusory ones that create a barrier against the soul knowing itself. For this barrier to be overcome, further births in human form are needed in a process known as reincarnation.


title: Meher Baba

text: The soul will reach a stage where its previously gathered impressions grow thin or weak enough that it enters a final stage called involution. This stage also requires a series of human births, during which the soul begins an inner journey, by which it realizes its true identity as God. Baba breaks this inner journey of Realization into seven stages he called "planes." The process culminates, at the seventh plane, with God-realization, at which the goal of life for the soul is reached.


title: Meher Baba

text: The "Discourses" are a collection of explanations and elucidations that Meher Baba has given on many topics that concern the advancement of the spiritual aspirant. Some of the most important topics treated are: sanskaras (mental impressions), Maya (the principle of illusion), the nature of the ego, reincarnation, karma, violence and non-violence, meditation, love, discipleship, and God-realization. His explanations often include stories from the lore of India and the Sufi culture. One such story, the wise man and the ghost, shows the power that superstitious beliefs can have on a person, while another, Majnun and Layla, show how selfless love, even in human relations, can lead one to discipleship.


title: Meher Baba

text: Thus Meher Baba offers many suggestions that keep one moving towards God-realization. These suggestions include putting theory into practice, the internal renunciation of desires, offering selfless service to humanity or the master, spontaneity, while avoiding actions that bind one to illusion. But rather than lay out moral rules, Baba offers an understanding as to why some actions bind the individual whereas some others help towards his emancipation. Many chapters offer a better understanding of the mechanisms by which consciousness gets caught up between the opposites of experience, such as pleasure and pain, good and evil, and point to a way of transcending them.


title: Meher Baba

text: Baba related that there are 56 incarnate God-realized souls on Earth at any given time. Of these souls there are always five who constitute the five Perfect Masters of their era. When one of the five Perfect Masters dies, according to Baba, another God-realized soul among the 56 would replace him or her at once.


title: Meher Baba

text: The Avatar, according to Baba, is a special Perfect Master, the first soul to achieve God-realization. This soul, the "original" Perfect Master, or Ancient One, never ceases to incarnate. Baba indicated that this particular soul personifies the state of God called Vishnu in Hinduism and Parvardigar in Sufism, i.e. the sustainer or preserver state of God. The Avatar, in Baba's testimony, appears on Earth every 700–1400 years and is "brought down" into human form by the five Perfect Masters of the time to aid in the process of moving creation in its never-ending journey toward Godhood. Baba claimed that in other ages this role had been fulfilled by Zoroaster, Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad.


title: Meher Baba

text: Baba described the Avatar as "a gauge against which man can measure what he is and what he may become. He trues the standard of human values by interpreting them in terms of divinely human life."


title: Meher Baba

text: The majority of Meher Baba's followers accept his claim of avatarhood, and he is said to be "revered by millions around the world as the Avatar of the age and a God-realized being".


title: Meher Baba

text: The Avatar Meher Baba Charitable Trust, established by Meher Baba in 1959, maintains his tomb and pilgrimage facilities, as well as a free school and dispensary, a cataract clinic, and a veterinary clinic. The Trust follows the charter left for it by Meher Baba in his lifetime, but does not act as spiritual authority over groups. Likewise, the Trust does not engage in propaganda, promote creeds or dogmas, or seek converts. Baba discouraged evangelizing, stating, "I need no propaganda or publicity." Rather, he encouraged his followers to "let your life itself be my message of love and truth to others" and to "spread my message of Love and Truth as far and wide as possible". Followers of Meher Baba have no established rituals. Many do, however, perform practices of choice such as pujas, aartis, prayers, music, plays, viewing films of Baba and so forth, but the choice is personal. The primary focus for followers is living a life Meher Baba would approve of, for example, refraining from the use of psychedelic drugs, including marijuana, and trying to remember God with love.


title: Meher Baba

text: Gatherings of Baba followers are generally informal. Special effort is made to gather together on Amartithi, the anniversary of Baba's death, and on his birthday. Many Baba followers keep silent on 10 July (Silence Day), observing the request Baba frequently made of his followers during his lifetime. Aarti is performed morning and evening at Baba's samadhi in India. Also at Meherabad, his followers maintain Baba's practice of lighting a dhuni fire on the 12th of each month.


title: Meher Baba

text: Baba had gained public attention in the West as early as 1932, as the result of contacts with contemporary celebrities of the time, and from the rather disillusioned account of Paul Brunton in his "A Search in Secret India" (1934). Baba received further attention posthumously via various mentions in western pop-culture.


title: Meher Baba

text: "Tommy" to him in the gatefold. The Who's 1971 song "Baba O'Riley" was named in part after Meher Baba, and Townshend recorded several Meher Baba tribute albums including "Happy Birthday", "I Am", "Who Came First", and "With Love".


title: Meher Baba

text: In 1970, Melanie Safka (stage name "Melanie") mentioned Baba in the spoken word intro to her song "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)". Listed as a standalone piece entitled "Candles In The Rain", the lyrics are "Meher Baba lives again".


title: Meher Baba

text: Bobby McFerrin's 1988 Grammy Award-winning song "Don't Worry, Be Happy" was inspired by Baba's adage, which has appeared on many posters and inspirational cards depicting him.


title: Meher Baba

text: Elements of Meher Baba's philosophy, as well as an unnamed character based upon him, have appeared in the works of comic book writer-screenwriter J. M. DeMatteis. Works particularly influenced by Baba include DeMatteis' scripts for "Doctor Fate" and DeMatteis creator-owned comic book "Seekers into the Mystery".


title: Meher Baba

text: In 2012, the feature film "Nema Aviona za Zagreb" premiered in the Netherlands with an exclusive interview with Meher Baba filmed in 1967. In the interview Baba explains the difference between God-realization and drug-induced hallucinations and the scene plays a pivotal role in the documentary's narrative.