EP 194 THE FINANCIAL CRISIS TEN YEARS ON: DESTINED TO BE REPEATED? Pt.1
Now how did that happen? It was then President George W. Bush, who asked that question of his Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson. So, if he didn’t know the financial collapse was coming, how could you have known? We just commemorated the 10th anniversary of the collapse of the investment firm Bear Stearns an event that presaged the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. We go back with two financial experts to re-visit what went wrong and whether it could happen again. In that process, we explore the remedies put in place at the time and whether they should provide any comfort that the steady growth of the economy since that time is real or built on another bubble ready to burst. In this episode, we are joined by Edward Pinto, who was chief credit officer for Fannie Mae in the 1980’s and no co-directs the American Enterprise Institute’s Center on Housing Markets and Finance. He is also a former FDIC and Federal Reserve economist.
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William Egginton poses the provocative question in his new book: ‘Are we in danger of losing our civic culture’? As the head of a humanities institute at Johns Hopkins University, he sees the goal of our higher educational system–to strengthen community–slipping away. And while he supports the inclusion of previously dispossessed groups, he wonders whether our culture’s new emphasis on individual rights might need further calibration to insure civic discourse and intellectual pursuits that allow for divergent viewpoints. His book, ‘The Splintering of the American Mind’ may be seen as a follow on to the 1980’s tome by Allan Bloom of ‘The Closing of the American Mind’.
n the first of a two-part series, we look at the subject of free speech on college campuses. Why are speakers being barred or, if allowed on campus, to be shouted down? Doesn’t a liberal arts degree imply that some of the material you will read and discuss will be new, in opposition to that which you have been exposed to and valuable as you find your way in a world filled with people with contrasting ideas? Greg Lukianoff, our guest, and his co-author. Jonathan Haidt, set off a firestorm when an article they wrote made the cover of ‘The Atlantic’ and challenged the notion that universities, regrettably, have become places to protect students from certain forms of speech, rather than introducing them to new ideas. He will make his argument in this podcast. On our next podcast, William Egginton addresses a similar concern.
If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you think you’re getting a great deal. Have you factored in your piece of the $1.5 billion in state and local taxpayer subsidies that Amazon has received since 2000? Or the costs of government benefits, like Medicaid, provided to their under-paid workforce? The Free & Fair Markets Initiative(FFMI) has been keeping a running tally of all the giveaways that this $1 trillion dollar behemoth has amassed as a by-product of the company’s aggressive and strategic lobbying efforts at all levels of government, as well as campaign contributions, to explain why this largesse goes to a company that clearly doesn’t need a handout. So, while mom and pop businesses shutter on Main Street, Amazon continues to disrupt all commerce on-line and brick and mortar with help from the politicians. It’s amazing when you think about it. Robert Engel of FFMI joins us to discuss.
If you think it’s rough out there today in the job market, hang on for dear life because robots, automation and AI have yet to have the convulsive impact they will have in virtually all fields. And it’s not just service workers or entry level positions that will be affected, according to Darrell West of the Brookings Institution. The impacts will come to a job you may now hold and will come in waves as the technology and price points converge such that man vs. machine isn’t a contest. We lose. Now the news isn’t all bad. We can do a range of other things and explore human potential and satisfaction in new ways. However, government policies will have to adapt. Hmm…now there’s a problem. Take a listen.