Epstein and Taylor: Are we all Keynesians now?

[atreya87]

I believe rather that, investment banks engaged in such risky lending practices precisely because they knew the Fed had a moral obligation to act as lender of last resort. The result is that it creates incentives for banks to transfer their responsibility/risks to someone else. And so, the fundamental premise of Friedman's philosophy, 'Friedmanomics' if you will, still holds, i.e. that no body takes someone else's responsibility as seriously as their own.

[atreya87]

Abolish the Fed! In my opinion, if there was no governing bank that acted as a lender of last resort (i.e. the Federal Reserve), I don't think investment banks would even consider engaging in such risky lending practices in the first place, don't you think? Hoover Institution, I would appreciate your response to this, preferably from an academic economist. I seldom get objective responses to queries like this.

[Silverbuzzsuccess]

Best Interview I have seen in 3 years since the crisis.. This is how an interview should be conducted!!! But one thing that bothered me, was that they all talked about the possibility of taking a partial amount back out, of the combined 1.5 trillion injected between Bush and Obama into the system.. What mechanism would actually be used for this colossal remedial task??? That idea sounds completely impractical and elusive!

[july142]

great stuff... thank you

[greengringo2003]

What's really fair to point out is that OBAMA is at best a SOCIALIST, and likely is a MARXIST. He wants government to control people's lives to an extent that Americans WILL NOT accept. HE.IS.TOAST.IN.2012.

And hopefully sooner, except he's so tone-deaf to the American people, that he wouldn't notice if somebody gave him a hotfoot and the fire was starting to burn his heinie.

[manonthemount]

@greengringo2003 You need to pick up your nearest dictionary and look up the terms 'socialist' and marxist'. You shouldn't attempt to use words you don't understand; it undermines your already incoherent ramblings. We do agree on one thing, Obama is tone-deaf to the American people. Research this year's WSJ-NBC bipartisan poll. If Obama listened to the American people, he'd stop conceding to obstructionist republicans and endorse the liberal agenda that got him elected in the first place.

[daviddalbylive]

No, here's why because Keynes was famous for CHANGING

HIS MIND and because he was famous for changing his mind

that means you cannot cast his ideas in stone because

he would have changed them at least several times. You

actually dishonor Keynes by falsely believing he would

still think the same way today.

[Ricardog95]

All very studied comments which sound so impersonal to what is really being felt. Is this the way you talk about a country of folk losing everything....And By design!

[tekmnd]

Great interview, but Richard Epstein looks a bit like Jerry Lewis in the Nutty Professor :)

[ghuegel]

This interviewer is great. I saw him interview Christopher Hitchens and his questions there were really interesting too.

Who is this interviewer?... it's not in the description.

[HooverInstitution]

@ghuegel Peter Robinson is the interviewer. The following is his short bio

Peter is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he writes about business and politics, edits Hoover's quarterly journal, the Hoover Digest, and hosts Hoover's vidcast program, Uncommon Knowledge™.

Robinson spent six years in the White House, serving from 1982 to 1983 as chief speechwriter to Vice President George Bush and from 1983 to 1988 as special assistant and speechwriter to President Ronald Reagan.

[Voy2378]

Who cares what that asshole Samuelson said.

"In Samuelson's 1973 edition of his famous textbook, he laid forth the prediction that the Soviet Union would catch up to the United States in per capita income by 1990, and almost certainly would by 2015 because of its superior economic system. Subsequent editions of his textbook would later push the date of his prediction back farther until the Soviet Union ultimately collapsed"

[myhipsi]

@Voy2378

Yeah, his prediction didn't turn out so well, so now he gravitates toward an equally bankrupt economic theory, Keynesianism. The passage of time will prove him wrong once again.

Predicting and guiding the market (which is what Keynes' whole economic theory is based on) is like trying to predict and guide the weather. Complex systems are guided by nature, and when left alone they work really well. When arrogant humans try to manipulate these systems, they f*ck everything up.

[joopten]

It would be better if the journalist knew anything about economics. The structure that the interview follows is illogical and confusing. To say Keynes was wrong and we should do everything Keynes would not do, is simpleminded. The right thing to do is seeing what the government did and what of that worked and what did not and then find out why.

[Unoriginalname3]

What a pair of clueless ideologues.

[riethc]

Both Friedman and Keynes focus on dollars and cents. The economy is physical; money is just the means we use to exchange the physical goods or work. If you focus on money, you can't see the actual physical necessities you need to have an economy.

Ex. Green energy may look good to these types because it creates jobs, people take out loans, and it makes money exchange hands. Yet in reality, solar panels and windmills don't create enough megawatts of electricity to fit in a growing economy.

[MattBeckstrom]

These guys are morons - It wasn't a deregulatory period? The whole situation is very simple, but idiots like these guys simply apply text-book jargon to justify any position they choose.

[elvisfan22]

@MattBeckstrom Morons, idiots? So right off the bat we can see you are not speaking from honesty, but emotions from your "team" ideology. "Anybody that disagrees with me is an idiot" when one can clearly see these men are not. The "text-book jargon" these men speak have already included reality situations, which is why those policies worked.

[Wormtail81]

It is only fair to point out that the bailouts started under Bush, and he did a lot of the things these gentlemen justly criticize President Obama for doing. The intervention in the housing market was bipartisan in a way that little legislation ever is.

[sniped101]

@Wormtail81 guess what? the people didn't want the bailout.