The Ascent of Money: Niall Ferguson
By Barry Ritholtz - November 22nd, 2008, 12:30PM
Night Talk: An Interview With Niall Ferguson
click for video
An Indian-born economist once explained his personal theory of reincarnation to his graduate economics class. "If you are a good economist, a virtuous economist," he said, "you are reborn as a physicist. But if you are an evil, wicked economist, you are reborn as a sociologist." —Paul Krugman, "Peddling Prosperity: Economic Sense and Nonsense in the Age of Diminished Expectations" (1994, page xi):
Macro Notes
FED/stocks/What’s next?Peter Boockvar
With the key FOMC meeting over, key b/c it was their last official comment before QE ends at month end, what do we now have to look forward to in terms of their exit? IF the economy continues to show signs of improvement, the next move won't be an actual policy change, it will be wording, the telegraph by Fed members in speeches topped off by the April FOMC statement that will tell us that rates won't be "exceptionally low" anymore for an "extended period." That's step 1. While the FOMC won't be raising the fed funds rate anytime soon,...
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November 22nd, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Oh, Niall Ferguson, he’s probably the most eloquent, erudite asshole neoconservative out there. His debate on the Long Now foundation really shows his pessimism, I’ve never read anything happy from him (not that I thing he’s wrong in this instance).
November 22nd, 2008 at 7:36 pm
IMHO:
- For regular TBP readers, this video probably not worth the 40 minutes. (Sorry if I’m not being generous enough.)
- Niall’s book (about a history of money, starting from 4000BC in Iraq) is probably an interesting read.
- Niall thinks we should double (the $700B) bailout to the banks (via equity infusions), because they have more to write off.
- He expects a full year recession (dated from?) and much lower growth than we’ve been accustomed to. (“Growth ex-MEW during the Bush years would’ve been 1%.”)
November 22nd, 2008 at 7:42 pm
>> neoconservative
I never heard of him until watching this video. But, one of the things he said that struck me was “the US should not become Europe”. But, he doesn’t say in what sense he means. When later in the video he said equity infusions are better than buying toxic assets, I wondered “isn’t that what the Europeans are generally doing?”
November 22nd, 2008 at 8:55 pm
haileris describes him so well.
November 22nd, 2008 at 10:57 pm
Finally catching up on my reading after a few hectic days and ran across this piece by Michael Pettis in which he argues that those. like Bernanke and Ferguson, who think we need huge stimulus in and by the US to avoid a depression have it exactly backwards.
China is in the role the US played in 1929: huge trade surplus accompanying huge overcapacity, while the US has been playing the role that Europe did at that time of absorbing the exports. When Europe could no longer keep up its end of the trade, the US resorted to trade policies like Smoot Hawley in a vain attempt to keep the merry go round from stopping. Pettis argues instead that the US should have tried to increase domestic demand to absorb the overcapacity.
He is based in China, and he see China adopting policies that could well produce the same results as Smoot Hawley instead of trying to increase its own domestic demand to absorb its overcapacity.
http://mpettis.com/2008/11/rising-unemployment-increases-the-pressure-for-misguided-trade-policies/
It is a good blog worth following.
April 18th, 2009 at 2:39 am
can someone send me permission or invite to watch this video. Ferguson makes good historical arguments, and i havent seen this interview yet. please send an invite. it would be greatly appreciated.