Russell Roberts: What You Need to Know about the Bailout

George Mason University economist and author Russell Roberts, who blogs at the always interesting Cafe Hayek, sat down with reason.tv to talk about the nation's shakey economy and the government's bailout plan. Watch this six-minute interview to learn where the problems came from, why the bailout won't address them, and what sort of hurt we're in for over the next several weeks, months, and years. "The real cost of this," warns Roberts, "is that we have said to people, 'Risk taking is not as risky as it used to be.' That's a mistake. It's a horrible mistake and it will lead to a lower standard of living down the road because investment will be more cavalier and less prudent."

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• bailout
• financial
• rescue
• russell
• roberts
• bush
• reason
• magazine

[runsweetlew]

A well spoken, concise, and coherent explanation.

[Aurini]

What a great summation. I loved that Roberts also included rebuttals to the simplistic socialist argument "We just need more rules/power for government." I'm far from unaware of my environment, but this video nonetheless helped me make more sense of a confusing situation.

Well done.

[Syncopator]

Communism: the idea that government might ever want to do anything. Well, he does have some good ideas here, but as others have mentioned, Glass-Steagal was glaring in it's omission, and the "government is always bad so we should trash it," knee-jerk is dangerous religious dogma

[emzyk]

While I agree with several of his points he is remiss in not even mentioning the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act and the massive deregulation that encouraged the massive fraud on Wall Street between the rating agencies and the brokerage firms.

[Wormtail81]

"That's not even a deck chair on the Titanic."

[flaccidpackage]

Listen to Russ' podcast at EconTalk.org !!!!

Mike Munger is a good guest to start with

Take care, people!

[iggsta3o5]

basically milton friedman wasnt wrong but rite that more regulation and government intervention has essentially caused our problems. Why is it when I research, speak and watch an economist on online, and in person they all say the the same thing. I mean if all economists from several different universities and societies saying to regulate less then where the hell is the government getting there economic advisors from.

[owhsht310]

Isn't he also the author of The Invisible Heart? He seems so much like Sam in the book

[thebagmanmiidaj]

Sorry you couldn't understand what Dr. Roberts was saying. It's really quite simple, but minds who don't want to understand it just simply won't, I suppose.

[HenryBlankett]

"...along with some innovation in securitization".

Roberts labels the Wall St.'s trillion-dollar side-bets that sunk the financial system as "innovation in securitazation." Then he motor-mouths his way past several words which indicate his belief that Wall Street was "put into this position".

Yeah, that's right Brainiac -- Wall St. was just an unwitting victim.

Holy crap, where do they find these people?

[ganlohun]

My God your right!

Thank God there are so many honest Democratic politicians in Washington. (I personally think it's naive to put so much faith into the Democratic "saints of government".)Democrats won't be blamed for the bailout, but they will be blamed for all the money they're trying to steal from the american public.