I recently sat down with my friend Dean to talk about his latest book, a fascinating polemic about how the usual frame for the American econ debate–D’s are interventionist; R’s are not–is badly misguided. I reviewed the book here when it first came out, but here’s the movie version, thanks to producer CW. Next, the musical!
Great info. Nicely produced.
Found the analogy of using your house as a fireworks factory, while paying mere homeowners insurance that can’t possibly cover the risk involved, a great way to think about how the banks have operated. Useful meme.
Great job guys! (I for one am very much looking forward to the musical! Hopefully it will be produced under a creative commons license!)
You wrote a while back questioning where the big ideas are coming from (http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/big-ideas-and-the-concentration-of-wealth/). As Thomas Kuhn so aptly described fifty years ago, real innovation usually comes from questioning the underlying assumptions that serve as “foundations” to our “paradigms.” Dean’s questioning and revelations of the fallacies behind many of these assumptions clearly demonstrates how we are being held hostage and blinded to possible solutions by wrong and outdated assumptions. The political obstacles are huge because they they threaten those benefiting from these government handouts (who also happen to be those in power), but we need to start somewhere and the solutions that Dean suggest are some of the most powerful and promising that are being proposed by anyone today. Its rather remarkable that we spend hours discussing ridiculous things like Paul Ryan’s budget when there are ideas with real promise of producing results like those that Dean offers.
You questioned in your “big-ideas” post: ” Why did we squander the opportunity?” and suggested that “It is, at least in part, because the concentration of wealth and power blocked the new ideas from a fair hearing.” But ideas can only be held down by power for so long. They have a history of getting out somehow, in spite of efforts to keep them from doing so.
Keep up the good fight gentlemen; millions of people are depending on realistic solutions to what at first seem to be intractable problems.
Thanks for the video and the informative interview Jared!
I would love it if you continue to explore this theme of ‘false laissez faire’ in your discussions of economic policy.
Feel free to dip into history and offer some historical examples as you identify and discuss modern examples.
Excellent discussion with vivid and effective analogies. I will get this book and read it this summer.
Also, my compliments to the new sound engineer (you fired the last one, right?). Mr. Baker was mic’ed perfectly and Jared was better but still not optimal. Notice the distance of the mic from the mouth for both participants – Jared, move yours up about 2 inches.