William Greider is an American journalist and author who writes primarily about economics.
His most recent (2009) book is
Come Home, America: The Rise and Fall (And Redeeming Promise) Of Our Country. Before that he published
Opening Paths to a Moral Economy, which explores the basis and history of the corporation and how people can influence further development of it. He is national affairs correspondent for
The Nation, a liberal political weekly. Prior to his work at
The Nation, he wrote for
Rolling Stone magazine during the 1980s and 1990s, and worked as an on-air correspondent for
Frontline on PBS.
Greider also wrote a major book on globalization --
One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism (1997) -- which described the underlying vulnerabilities and inequities of the global economy. The credibility of this work was heavily criticized by economist Paul Krugman, who claimed that Greider ignored the fallacies of composition that run rampant in the work, misinterpreted facts (some of which were incorrect), and misled readers with false assumptions - all possibly due to his lack of consultation with economists. In his latest,
Come Home, America (2009), Greider claims that Krugman has changed his views over the last decade to move closer to Greider's.
Greider's most powerful and far-reaching work is
Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country (1987), which chronicles the history of the Federal Reserve, and especially from 1979 to 1987 under the chairmanship of Paul Volcker, during the presidencies of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.
A former reporter and editor at the
Washington Post, Greider is credited with coining the term "Nader's Raiders" in a
Post article dated November 13, 1968. During an October 1, 2008 broadcast interview on the impending passage of the "Wall Street bailout" despite widespread public opposition. Greider observed:
- (T)his is a very revealing moment in American democracy. We’re seeing the real deformities and power alignments that govern issues like this, particularly the financial system. (A)ll of the power centers in politics and finance and business are discredited by these events. (W)e had this moment Monday (September 29, 2008) when, for complicated political reasons, a majority in the House rose up and said no. (O)f course...the broad public...regards this bailout as a swindle and backwards. (The public wonders 'w)hy are you giving all this money to the people who caused this crisis and taking the money from the public assets of the victims?'"
On January 29, 2009, in an interview with Amy Goodman on "Democracy Now!", Greider commented regarding the United States' financial system's financial crisis:
- I’ve been writing for some months, the system is not just broken and not just injured; it is collapsed. And as long as the government continues to play putting Humpty Dumpty back together again, I think it will fail. That’s not an ideological statement. It’s just...I think it’s the reality.
"A profound political question is suddenly on the table: Must the country continue to give precedence to private financial gain and market determinism over human lives and broad public values?""Americans cannot teach democracy to the world until they restore their own.""As the world's finest democracy, we do not do guillotines. But there are other less bloody rituals of humiliation, designed to reassure the populace that order is restored, the Republic cleansed.""Children born today have a fifty-fifty chance of living to 100.""Everyone's values are defined by what they will tolerate when it is done to others.""Folks in the bottom half of the economy are already squeezed hard. They will be bloodied and bankrupt if economic policy inadvertently induces a recession.""If US per capita income continues to grow at a rate of 1.5 percent a year, the country will have plenty of money to finance comfortable retirements and high-quality healthcare for all citizens, including those at the bottom of the wage ladder.""If we have wealth, it will be protected from inflation and possibly even enhanced in value.""If you think about it, Washington's overwhelming power in the world is founded on death, the awesome arsenal for killing people.""In 1900 Americans on average lived for only 49 years and most working people died still on the job.""In the deregulated realm of US banking and finance, crime does occasionally pay for its foul deeds, not in prison time but by making modest rebates to the victims.""In this country you can say aloud or publish just about anything you like.""Leaks and whispers are a daily routine of news-gathering in Washington.""Nevertheless, I resist cynicism and continue to believe in the possibilities for genuine democracy.""Obviously, people with low or even moderate incomes could not afford such savings rates, and even diligent savings from their low wages would not be enough to pay for either retirement or healthcare.""The burnt odor in Washington is from the disintegrating authority of the governing classes.""The do-it-yourself version of pensions is a flop, as many Americans have painfully learned.""The economy is not governed with the bottom half in mind.""The point is, the political reporters are the ones who no longer understand the ritual they are covering. They keep searching for political meanings in the tepid events when a convention is now essentially a human drama and only that.""The regime of globalization promotes an unfettered marketplace as the dynamic instrument organizing international relations.""The threat to globalization is not the wasted American dollars but Washington's readiness to mix US commercial interests with its self-appointed role as global protector.""The ways in which people treat animals will be reflected in how people relate to one another."