NEED TO KNOW | Niall Ferguson on the Tea Party, budget cuts and the economy | PBS

[makeithappen42zx]

Let's get another thing strait ... the debate between Ferguson and Krugman is not one of completely opposing viewpoints. Ferguson merely has a problem with Krugman because Krugman does a poor job of explaining any "policy prescription" for long-term fiscal responsibility following a classical keynsian stimulus. Ferguson is not against a keynsian stimulus, he is IN fact against the idea that the U.S. can simply avoid it's debt obligations while adding on more debt.

[baronessvondengler]

Meacham's nose is a major distraction. MAJOR.

[jackgoldman1]

The crisis is a money bubble. The Dow was $700 in 1963 and is $12,000 in 2011 BUT it is $480 in real US Treasury 1963 silver coins. Another crisis, prices are up 1,000%, but labor is only up 500%. Workers, renters, families, lose. Owners, bankers, governments win with currency debasement. Globalism is the globalization of currency debasement. Gasoline is 50% cheaper today in 2011 than it was in 1963 in silver coins. We have met the enemy. He is us, our own US Federal Reserve. It's a money bubble

[tkg2902]

At last! An interviewer who makes the interview about the guest and not himself - quite refreshing really.

[zuzupetals1999]

This guy conducts a really good interview. He's let Niall elaborate and never interupts him. This is the way it should be, unlike idiot like Charlie Rose. Ferguson is nothing short of brilliant.

[kevinbertis]

Obvious Furguson's never read anything on Ted Jones.

[leevinson]

this could possibly be the smartest person on earth. his publications are genuis. when he speaks all others remain quite. i have yet to see anyone challenge him on his opinion. i guess that's what happens when you are the smartess person involved in the discussion. the best example is when he was on MSNBC discussing U S foreign policy. the anchors wanted to come to the defence obama, but dared not. BRILLIANT

[TheSkeetergirl]

I love this guy even if he misspells his first name. Ferguson rocks!

[ar0inziladun]

I hope that I am not the only one who noticed that he seems to think that ethics is important enough in banking for him to highlight that part of his new book; but he seems to think that it is not at all important enough for the country as a whole to be troubled with.

Consistency is a good starting point.

[MultiUniv3rsal]

You want stimulus? Make working full time minimum wage earn enough to actually pay into the tax system and not down in refund-povertyville.

Windfall from the bottom up. Horrid thinking what paying a living wage would do to the rich.

[Dauist34]

Ethics died with government backing. A classic case of moral hazzard.

[ReliableInsider]

@Dauist34

Ethics died when the corporation was invented because the corporation -itself- is a moral hazard problem. Corporations were created in such a way as to protect the executives that run it from any responsibility for the harms that the corporation does.

Bankers gambled. If they won, they made billions. If they lost and the company went bankrupt, they knew they could just walk away with a golden parachute and work somewhere else.

[ReliableInsider]

@Dauist34

Once Bush had allowed all the too-big-to-fail banks and insurance companies to form, there was no solution.

If government allows them all to fail and people lose confidence in banks and withdraw their money and there is a run on the banks, and they all go bankrupt, and you have a Second Great Depression, who is hurt by that?

Not the bankers. They already have their millions.

[ReliableInsider]

@Dauist34

EVERYONE ELSE is hurt. How does hurting innocent bystanders (you and me) with a great depression put pressure on bankers to behave ethically? Obviously, it doesn't. It didn't.

Corporations are like fire. Under proper conditions, they're very useful. When they're out of control (deregulated), they burn down the house.

[ReliableInsider]

@Dauist34

Bush should have kept banks small and he should have prosecuted predatory lenders and forced more transparency in the creation and selling of toxic assets. Then none of this would have happened.

Even the rating agencies failed. They were afraid to offend their clients with poor ratings.

[ReliableInsider]

@Dauist34

Like everyone else on earth, people in the financial services industry need a few rules to follow. Even Alan Greenspan now admits this. Ayn Rand was wrong. The federal government is not the Soviet Union. It's not over-regulating. Because banks corrupt government with big campaign contributions, the Bush administration was UNDER-regulating.

[ReliableInsider]

@Dauist34

Anyone who has a credit card knows that banking is not the ethical industry it once was. It used to be ethical and dull. Now it's exciting and utterly amoral.

And desperately in need of a few basic rules to follow.

[ReliableInsider]

@Dauist34

What creates the moral hazard is that bankers no longer -want- a job for life. They want to get in, make big bucks fast, and retire. As mergers and acquisitions accelerate, there is no longer any such thing as a bank having a "reputation". If we want them to have an incentive not to fail, we've got to create one.

[ReliableInsider]

@Dauist34

Why don't we just pay bankers in stock options that can't be exercised within the next twenty years.

THEN watch them suddenly start to care about the long-term health of their own company.

[MrBasilGanglia]

Can't stand Meacham.

[nickfl1980]

Don't worry folks, we're doing great, we're number one and we have disney world. Don't worry, be happy.

[vorotnikova]

If he does not talk about profits, it does not mean he is not thinking it. He was a relationship banker because he understood that his bottom line and profits are dependent on strategic relationships and PR.

[sdfkjllshadflhadfshl]

We are $202 Trillion in debt. These scum bags who say they helped us avoid a great depression are idiots. Had the Government done absolutely nothing unemployment would be 7% or lower. Instead they passed more entitlements and further clouded the business environment making it near impossible for anyone to invest or hire. No one even knows what the top tax rates will be in 3 months from now or what Obamacare will cost. Total Failure, but what do you expect from socialists.

[jimbobanalbeats]

I think you are simplifying it to an intellectually dishonest extent. The problems go back over 30 years and involve far more then the "evil" welfare state. Both parties are absolutely complicit.

[tooltalk]

@jimbobanalbeats : the structural problem goes back 50 years now, when LBJ and his liberal revolution set the country on the wrong path. This has been discussed numerous times by Romers, now former chair of Obama's CEA and other economists since. Liberals started this macroeconomic trend of short-term debt financing to pay for wars and welfare systems they never intended to work out in longer-term. This is what a lot of economists, including Ferguson, is talking about.