Tonight’s episode of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher featured a segment with Elizabeth Warren a professor of Harvard University who is now in charge of oversight for the 700 billion dollar TARP fund. She made some comments which were a bit confusing to me regarding the history of american economics.
One of the things she said was to the effect that “from 1792 to 1940 we had a vicious boom-bust cycle occurring like clock-work every 15 years, until we established regulations etc and bought 50 years of prosperity before encountering the S&L crisis.” This seems to be directly contradictory to what I have learned so far, which is that the boom-bust cycle is actually created by central banking, which we did not have in America until 1914. Also, her use of the words “bought ourselves 50 years of prosperity” just seemed really bizarre and confusing, as my understanding is that government intervention into the marketplace is always harmful, and the notion of “buying prosperity” just doesn’t make sense.
Anyways, I am coming to the forums here for some clarification because I am still a very new, albeit extremely enthusiastic Mises’ student, yet I am not so confident in my knowledge that I can just assume a Harvard professor could be completely wrong on this subject matter. So any insight regarding her comments or even better if anyone saw the program tonight and could offer their take on her segment, that would be great. Thanks,
I think the jump in living standards from 1792 to 1930 was far greater, then from 1930 to modern era.
I would recommend This by Rothbard. Her appeal to history also seems fallacious. She wants to compare a tiny window in history, 50 years?- to 130 years.
Her title is meaningless. Get over stuff like that, because it will only retard your knowledge if you assume people are right because of their position, not what they say.
Hey man thanks for the reply. I must admit I am feeling extremely confident in calling total “BS” on what she was saying tonight for a variety reasons. First let me preface by saying I read the article you linked and it is information like that, that made me so suspect at hearing what she had to say tonight. Anyways, just now I decided to fact check and see what exactly she was referring to in the 1792 credit freeze etc. To my total shock after trying a variety of different formats that included “1792 credit freeze” into google, I did not get one scholastic type website documenting this event. What I did find, however, was a variety of links to interviews and news articles from 1-3 months ago, with the very same Ms. Warren giving almost word for word the very same speech she gave tonight on this program. I will copy and paste from a Canadian newspaper article dated apr 2009 part of what she said then, because its literally almost exactly what she said tonight on this program anyways.
“Okay, young country. George Washington’s in his first term and we have a credit freeze. There’s a financial panic. Every 10 to 15 years, there’s a financial panic in our history - you can just look at it. There’s a big collapse, big trouble and people lose their farms - wiped out. Until we get to The Great Depression. We come out of The Great Depression and we say ‘you know, we can do better than this. We don’t have to go back to this kind of boom and bust cycle.’ We come out of The Great Depression with three regulations: [the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation], it’s safe to put your money into banks. [The Glass-Steagall Act], banks won’t do crazy things. And some SEC regulations. We go 50 years without a financial panic, without a crisis.”
For the rest of that interview here is the website address:
I think based on just reading that as opposed to initially hearing it on television, I am confident enough now to realize I think what I’m learning from Rothbard et all is much more accurate than what someone whom appears to be so grossly misinformed about American history is preaching. I of course would still like to hear what other people think, but its just amazing that a Harvard Professor in charge of 700 billion in TARP funds, who by the way stated when asked where did the first 350 billion go, “I’m not really sure and there is no way to track it” could be so misinformed about economics and American history. An even greater surprise and now concern I am having is that (as I learned while trying to google for information about the 1792 credit freeze and just finding articles of her repeating this same message) she is in a prominent position of power, with a very respectable and credible educational background spreading what seems to be either an ignorant or at least disingenuous message.
Now I know who you are talking about. Elizabeth Warren is a law professor. She is an economic ignoramus, even though she has done substantial work on personal debt. She’s asked to speak all of the time, I think I saw her doing a talk at UCLA or some other California institution via YouTube. She doesn’t understand monetary policy, interest rates (time preference), the FED, capital theory, or the subjective theory of value.
Robert, as time goes on and you learn a lot of this stuff and become comfortable with the concepts, it will become very hard to watch mainstream television unless you are a real cynic. There are no shortage of people with credentials and expensive clothes who will babble the most idiotic, counter-factual, dishonest bullcrap, and if you are at all like me, will probably feel some shame that you spent so many years listening to their jive routine, thinking they must know what they are talking about because they are on TV and make big bucks to tell people how it is.
I agree with what you said regarding meaningless titles, I suppose I wasj ust being overly cautious to be sure I was correct in contradicting basically everything she was saying, before I did so. I am currently watching this video about 15 minutes in and it’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. I feel like I want to apply for a job as this guy’s personal assistant, or give him some money, or something. Thank you very much for linking it.
Tom Woods is a senior fellow at LvMI (Mises.org). He has popped into the forum once or twice. His material is fantastic for someone starting off from scratch.
There are a lot of lectures, articles, speeches, presentations, seminars here as video, audio, print, online or all of them. Tell us what you want to learn about and we can probably guide you to the right stuff.
Haha, I really enjoyed your last post, I could not agree with you more! I must warn you, I am constantly looking to discuss the ideas and concepts I am learning as I continue on my mises.org home study course and most if not all of my friends are either not interested or similar to Ms. Warren in their views, shall we say. So I might have to come back here and pick your brain a bit more, I think we have a very similar outlook in these regards. Thanks again,
Just finished the Thomas Woods video. It’s hard to believe how entertaining a 50 minute video on economics could be, but that was amazing. I really enjoyed it, his closing line about companies not being too big to fail, but rather being to big too live, as a result of zombifying the economy, was phenomenal as well.
Very inspiring, please let me know if there’s anything I can do to continue to support the mises.org message.
Tom Woods is one of the most engaging speakers I’ve ever heard. If you’re really into his talks, he has an entire ‘article archive’ on itunes, which is really easy to download if you’re already using it for music. I listened to the entire archive while driving to and from classes this year, and while I was eating lunch.
Also, you can just pull them off the Mises website. Either way works. ; )
She blatantly lied. As has been noted, there were two central banks of the US during the 1800s. Further, the US government created the greenbacks during the War to Prevent Southern Independence and made them legal tender. Also we had a serious recession during the 1970s, which the Keynesians forget ever happened.