Posted on 11/02/2008 1:00:20 AM PST by BCrago66
This 55-minute video is of specialized interest, i.e., most people won't care, but I thought I'd post it for the relatively few people here who know about University of Chicago libertarian Richard Epstein, and want to hear his view of the origin of our financial crisis, and how we shold remedy it.
Epstein is, in my opinion, a pretty powerful intellect, able to integrate the law, economics, and moral philosophy.
This is the kind of stuff I listen to when anxiety regarding the upcoming election keeps me up nights.
/mark
Excellent talk by Epstein. Thanks for the link.
Thank you for posting this.
Wow. Where has this guy been? What an energy he has for the subject. Good stuff. Thank you!
I heard about him years ago, probably in FEE’s Freeman Magazine (great reading, by the way). He wrote a great book on eminent domain called Takings in the 1980’s.
I'll have to see if it is in print. I'm impressed with his focus on cause and effect, yin and yang.
Let me add that I am glad he needed water when he was finished. I thought he was superhuman for a moment.
It’s in print. You can even read some pages online with Amazon’s “look inside” feature.
http://www.amazon.com/Takings-Private-Property-Eminent-Domain/dp/0674867297
Gratsi.
To sum it up (for those not interested in spending today’s extra hour listening to a dry economist give a speech):
1. Government interference in the market caused perverse market actions which resulted in the crisis.
2. The original Paulson/Bernanke plan was a superior plan to the pork laden bill that eventually passed Congress.
3. Politicians and government bureaucrats being who they are, we should expect them to muck up much of the bailout.
4. Regardless of Tuesday’s election outcome, both parties being enamored of using government power to interfere in the market for various reasons we can expect more crises in the future.
One of the lighter moments that provided a peek into his world view, is found at about 26:50 into the talk (I included the bracketed inserts):
“... the charming political forces that managed to get us to this [bailout] mess the first time, one of the things you're frightened to death of, is after the government gets all this [poor loan] paper, the guys in congress will start to see yet another opportunity for creative accounting and massive intervention and general stupidity, and will act upon them all with the usual clarity that we know them to have”
There's good reason for the approval level of congress. I believe we the people should systematically purge (i.e., end the political careers of) each and every one who has not adhered to sound representative government. I fear that we don't have the fortitude.
Today, Obama/democrats want to renegotiate those FTAs for more protections for labor/environment with fewer protections for the investors.
And the dems say, Epstein was one of the founders of the Federalist Society, which is the cornerstone of the VRWC, and they are trying to "roll back the New Deal".
I took two courses from this guy at the U of Chicago Law School == an exhausting experience!
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