Turning his attention to the United States, Stiglitz argues that much of what we understood about the prosperity of the 1990s is wrong. Although jobs were created, technology prospered, inflation fell and poverty was reduced, this book asserts that this decade actually laid the foundations for the economic problems we now face. Stiglitz argues that the theories that have been used to guide world leaders and anchor key business decisions were fundamentally outdated. Trapped in a near-ideological commitment to free markets, policymakers permitted accounting standards to slip, carried deregulation further than they should have, and pandered to corporate greed. These chickens, this book demonstrates, have now come home to roost.