independence. i have read the klaus novel about environmentalism, blue planet, a planet in bush blue skies, planet in shackles. so i do read some current serious stuff. basically i read nickel paperbacks from golden book store in waco, texas. ...

>> welcome. really appreciate you coming held on a beautiful saturday morning and it's my great pleasure to introduce johan van overtveldt, the author of this book, "bernanke's test," which is timely of course since this talks about the one person apart from our president to probably has the most influence over the economy. johan is also the author of the chicago school, which is a wonderful book explaining how things work in hyde park and with the chicago school of economics is all about. vanjohan and i know each other r years and i'm proud to say i've read both his books carefully and i reviewed this one for the tribune not too long ago. he's a special guy. he's a ph.d. in economics who then became a journalist who then became a businessman, and he went into work for a couple of very large companies in

belgium where she's from and went back in journalism where he was the editor of trend magazine which was dutch language but the equivalent of business week and very timely and important magazine. then he got the entrepreneurial bug and started his own think tank. we love to do that and he managed doing it by getting corporations. he's got a good business going with for instance outlook sessions every september and october. his think tank provides look ahead, what's going to happen the following year, and he has five researchers like himself to study the economy, the world and look at many different indicators to try to give a hint for what's coming. so i personally would like to know what is coming. i have no idea of myself so i will turn over to johan let me

ask first though does anybody think the u.s. economy has turned around? does anybody think that? a few. does anybody think we may be in for another big fall before we go up again? more. okay. well, johan, what do you think? >> somewhere in between. [laughter] that's not a good answer. >> but it's the beginning of an answer. i think -- i honestly think the worst is over but i don't think you will see a rebound of the u.s. economy in terms of three, 4% annual growth before way in 2010. so, everything that has been happening, there is so much support pumped into the economy first of all by the federal reserve and also now by let's say the fiscal authorities that it's hard to imagine that the economy would go on crumbling.

and i think a lot of the recent data show the crumbling of the economy has more or less stopped or is in the process of being stopped. but i don't think you will see a strong rebound before next year. >> and i should have said if anyone wants to ask a question feel free. don't wait until the end, just march up to the microphone and we will take it from there. having read the book, johan has a free-market philosophy in general. he isn't antiregulation like some folks with that label woul assume that he is a fan of ben bernanke and malkoff allen greenspan saw you was hoping he could explain what he doesn't like that greenspan and what he does like about bernanke. >> what i like about bernanke is he has been very courageous. he has been doing things that would have been unimaginable a few years ago but given the fact

his main focus was the great depression, i knew he couldn't wait too long to some pretty drastic things given what we saw happening in financial and the banking sector. he stated very carefully what happened in the 1930's and basically you can say that the great depression it became the great depression because the monetary authorities first of all the federal reserve didn't do anything or at least certainly not enough to stop the banking crisis from degenerating the first thing he probably did worldwide realized he had to step in and do whatever was necessary to stop this banking crisis. and first of all, he was the interest rate policy to do this and second he didn't hesitate to use the balance sheet of the

federal reserve which extraordinarily the balance sheet of the federal reserve in september last year was something like $850 billion. today and all ready for a few months it is already $2 trillion. and when i say that the fed has stepped in to keep the economy from going further that is exactly what they did with that kind of policy. >> this that amount to running a printing press which everyone has heard about and something that will result in tremendous inflation with so much money floating around? >> the fed has been doing the necessary things to keep the money stock from going down, which of course they have been renting the printing but due to the banking crisis and huge losses in the banking sector there was a lot of money destruction and so they stepped in to compensate that, which is

a little bit more subtle i think in just saying they kept on pumping up money well. that they did all the necessary things to prevent the money supply from going down too much. >> when i read the book i wasn't sure how to feel about the fact this very important person is an expert on the great depression. i mean, should we be glad the person running our economy is focused on the depression? i mean it doesn't sound -- >> one of the good things about the bush administration, given his background. >> good timing. go right ahead. >> paul krugman says there hasn't been enough money pumped into the economy and now other economists are starting to warn that the deficit has grown so much that it's getting very dangerous. so how are you feeling? it sounds like you think enough has gone into the economy?

>> yeah. i think the big issue for me is what will the federal reserve start doing when the financial process these, the credit creation through the banks start coming back to normal because basically what the fed did is a step in. the financial sector was frozen for months. we came to a point where there would have been a lot of credit destruction where banks would have been obliged to call back loans from private companies and that would have been fought for these all over so what the fed did was buy from the banks these outstanding credits, put them on their balance sheet just to prevent that there would be recalls. now of course the counterpart of that, the credit given by the

banks is of course the reserves of the banks have been increasing american banks close to $1 trillion in reserves they are sitting in which they are using very slowly and very reluctantly. >> i have a feeling some of the people in this room know that since it tried to get a loan it's harder now. is that a good thing that it's hard to get a loan? >> the point i want to make is that the fact is that the situation is as it is. now, if we go back to normal and these banks are starting to use these reserves as a basis on which they create credit for the private sector companies, private persons, then the fed will have to get out quickly. and when you -- i heard this morning i flew in from belgium just yesterday so i was up very early this morning, and i put on the television and 4:30 or

something like that and ben bernanke was on c-span talking with the budget committee in congress earlier this week and he made the point very clearly the fed has kept a lot of these credit that have taken over from the private banks on short maturities. so, they are renewable every 30, 45, 60 days, which means that if the private process of credit creation starts again the fed can quickly wind down in some positions. as a second element, a few months ago, the congress gave the federal reserve the authority to pay interest on their reserves, that the banks are holding with the federal reserve. now, if at one point in time the federal reserve would start to see that credit creation by the banks on the basis of these reserves starts again very

quickly they can offer an interest rate on those reserves which would mean the banks won't use these reserves and seedcases for credit creation. so they have basically two tools to prevent what a lot of people fear these days, inflationary binge. if the fed, let me put it this way, if the fed reacts too slowly we will have inflation. there isn't the slightest doubt about that but i have all the confidence the fed has the knowledge and the technical ability to make this move in a timely way. >> my guess is if the fed started to take the money away they are going to get a lot heat for it. politicians are going to not like that idea. >> that's the big problem because certainly the fed will have to move in this direction before the unemployment rate stops increasing. before the unemployment rate stops increasing.

so, you're all americans, i think. you can easily imagine how the political authorities will react when the unemployment rate goes up from 9.4 to 10.2 and at that point in time the fed will start increasing interest rates. that would be a lot of ugly comments but that's the we would have to go. yes, sir. >> are the banks refusing to lend to the economy in order to beef up recruitments will for the war? >> for the war? >> the two boards. >> the question goes to whether having a bad economy gets people to join the military as alternative to finding private work. >> is that the intention though? is that why they are doing it? >> no, no. i think i don't want to be the big defender of the banks, but

they have arrived in a situation where there is a lot of uncertainty and where you can have in terms of a run on the banks not look like people like you in the room taking the money away from the banks but bank funding can change very quickly and so it is normal that banks are very cautious at the moment and they want to keep a war chest not in the sense that you use the word but they want a lot of reserves under their hands when such an attack would come. now, as confidence comes back again, as the economy comes back again that kind of scary feeling that is today a lot present in the banking world will go away and that is the moment the banks will start lending. but i really don't think that

they are doing this for the reason you point out. >> why do banks lend to banks? >> because banks have to fund their activities and you will always in the financial markets you will always have banks that have too much funding and other banks due to circumstances that can be very different that have a temporary shortage of the funding and that is when banks start lending to each other and that's the kind of process by the belief that gross down completely last year, september october. >> the credit crunch hit when banks wouldn't lend to each other. >> all banks mistrusted other banks and so nobody gave credit to nobody anymore. also in between banks. >> yes, sir. >> what's the risk the credit markets are going to push to short circuit the recovery?

>> could everyone here the question? i'm sorry, i will repeat it. it is what is the risk -- do you want to repeat? >> what is the risk especially long-term interest rates will go up. i think it's for me it's very clear the credibility of the fed and bernanke is crucial here. if as i do the markets believe that the fed will be quick enough and that technically should i say a bold enough to retreat is a moment credit creation start working again if the markets keep on believing that we will see major increases in long-term interest rates because then the markets believe that the actual situation that we have will not generate to inflation. if the markets start to believe that for example due to

political pressure the fed will not be able to do what it has to do in a timely way then of course inflationary expectations will start to go up and certainly in the bond market's the demand to put your money on the longer term basis will go together with higher interest rates. no doubt about it. and so it depends on the credibility of bernanke and the fed that they can on to the present situation without creating inflation. >> that reminds me of something in your book where you are talking about how the in imperial personal rule of greenspan had that affects and i think most economists seem to believe he walked on water and now it's fashionable to become fashionable to bash a greenspan and in your book you are pretty hard on him. what do we know about him now that we didn't know back when he was chairman and everyone was hanging on every word?

>> well, i think -- let me first say that something with respect to the criticism, the actual criticism of greenspan i don't agree with and then come to the point where i am indeed also very critical of greenspan. i don't share the opinion that the fed has been really that much to loosen its policy in the first years of the 21st century. a lot of people, paul krugman and others are arguing today that the basis was late for what we saw happening than in their recent years. i think it's too easy as a critique because in 2000, 2001 there was a huge inflation scare people, imf economists, mr. krugman himself were very outspoken at that time that the japanese disease, deflationary

and no growth recession was real. now if you say that you can say a lot of other things but one of the things you imply immediately is you need expansionary monetary policies to fight deflationary. that's exactly what the fed did and that's why you didn't get deflationary. so saying now that they didn't need to do that because there was no deflationary putting things upside down, so i don't agree with that critique of the fed, but what i think mr. greenspan certainly in the last 56 years installed plus a kind of dictatorship. i mean the federal open market came together. mr. greenspan gave his expos say what he thought was necessary and then he asked whether there were any questions. naim bernanke, the federal market committee comes together

and it is a fixed point now bernanke speaks as last person which is very different which gives everybody the opportunity on the committee to express his views without not having to be afraid when to be bashed by the chairman who was at that time a kind of untouchable person. >> can you tell a little bit about bernanke zach wamp? i was surprised in the book to read he grew up in rural south carolina. >> he seemed to have been a very good student which is not i think, which isn't that remarkable given the remainder of his career. he went to mit, harvard mit, got his ph.d. from mit and then

quickly moved over to princeton and practically all his research has been related to the great depression and more specifically the mechanisms through which the financial crisis, the banking crisis cost the depression on employment, the contraction of the economy by 30% which is still something quite different from what we see today, and i think it was a surprise for everybody that he was asked to join the federal reserve in 2003. >> why was that such as the price? >> because as far as i could discover he was never in the picture for other jobs and becoming a member of the federal reserve board in washington is usually not a job than you get in a one time move.

but maybe there were intelligent people in the bush administration who saw certain things coming. >> i don't know about that. what is a stranger paring, bernanke and henry paulson or bernanke and tim skype ar? they are treasury secretary before and treasury secretary after. >> on a personal basis as far as mr. bernanke and mr. geithner are certainly much more to the kind that mr. paulson and mr. bernanke. >> can you explain that? >> let's say they have the kind of a look at life that is more compatible and a look at economics and financial matters that's more compatible, and i think it must have been quite a difficult situation for mr. bernanke when the financial crisis started maybe you can go

back in your memory it took quite a while for paulson in the bush administration to realize this was really bad. this wasn't just a minor crisis that would go away in three months' time and i think there have been very interesting articles amongst others in "the new york times" about what bernanke had to do to convince paulson and other people in the bush administration this was serious and needed urgent forceful reaction to prevent from getting into something really bad. >> there was a lot of resistance to government intervention in general which now we have seen pretty much full. practically anything goes at the moment. that's what seems. what was the force of that resistance? was the chicago school where you had people thinking the market was cui to take care of itself? >> i think first of all the complacency you get automatically when you have years and years of economic growth. it that you have seen the dot ,

crash breeding an attitude in the administration when it is hitting jul, august, 2007 that it would be gone before the end of the year. i think maybe also because bin bernanke isn't free of plame blame i think he also thought that the first two months but by the end everything shows he really was convinced this wouldn't go away just like that >> why do they call him helicopter ben? >> well because he has been doing what he told he would do. there's a famous speech of him november, 2002 where he explained in detail what he has been doing in the last year and

at that point in time people found it so outrageous and the central banker would start talking about buying credit positions from private banks that people started to nickname him helicopter been met. >> it's referring to a helicopter driving over and dropping money. wasn't it milton friedman -- >> something that is related to the cannes and it has been used by friedman, to macbook the original quote is from john maynard keynes who said that if necessary you just have to drop money from a helicopter and then people pick it up and start buying in things and the inflation will away and basically milton friedman agreed with that point of view. >> i like the idea. if that happens somebody alert us and we will all go outside. isn't that what we are doing the way we are printing money and funding everything that moves. >> i come back to the first point i made this morning.

there's a lot of money destruction also given the situation in the financial sector in the banking sector and the fed is compensating at the moment largely compensating dennett mauney destruction. if the money creation, the credit provision in the sector starts reviving i repeat myself but i think it is essential to understand that then the fed has to go back, has to step out of the game and so at the moment i think honestly also we in europe because we can talk about european central bank been very stupid in that respect i think and we can learn a lot from mr. bernanke. we must be very thankful we have a guy who understands this mechanism and acts accordingly. there are risks involved but not doing that then you get the great depression.

>> now why does the german chancellor think bernanke has too much power and what was she thinking when she talked about that off the cuff as it seemed? >> she doesn't have a habit of things. [laughter] this time are now either. she has an e election in september and that's it and she wants to blame the bad economic situation in germany, europe and germany and central banks and that's it. it's no more than that. >> is that a fair criticism or is it strictly politics? >> strictly politics. >> germany worse than on us, better than knous? >> europe is worse than the united states today and something people forget and you're not just to take the broad data, europe, the whole economy is 50% private, 50% public more or less. france has a little bit more public, my own country is exactly almost 50/50 where as in

the united states youth two-thirds private sector one-third government more or less. i'm not talking about the smaller data. so if your economy goes down 6% like it has been going down into quarters in europe and the united states that means something different for the private sector in europe versus the united states because essentially you can take the point of view that the government sector doesn't move. i mean the government will not throw people out now given the recession, so essentially the size of the sector more or less remains the same. the negative six is for the whole economy. if europe half of that economy stays as zero the government sector and the rest of the sector of the economy is the private sector you have negative 12. >> so when you're saying is the

effect of a 6% of all because only half of the economy -- >> given the fact that the overall contraction is more or less the same, the contraction in the private sector in europe is much more pronounced in the united states. >> by how much? >> private-sector contraction in the united states must be -- how hard it does that make it for everybody to come out of the mess we are in right now? >> i think everybody is waiting again if you look outside the united states because what has been happening essentially up to a few years ago that it was the american consumer polling the world economy to get i don't want to personalize this to the people here but in the broad divisions in which you look at the world economy and the

external deficit of the american economy was a clear manifestation of that. and rick sable, if you look at what germany is doing, they refuse to have an expansion of the budgetary policy, which has a big country they should have i think. they refuse to do that and at the same time they are taking a lot of measures to increase their international competitiveness. they have recently cut taxes on their electricity for the major exporting corporations, which means a lot because this is still an industrial country. so if you take away all the taxation out of the electricity price the companies pay your increasing the competitiveness belgium or france or hollen or other european countries substantially. so my conclusion at this point

in time it is tentative that the major european countries are free riding on the stimulus produced in the united states and waiting for the moment the american demand starts running again, that the idea might states will start importing again and be ready with a competitive export sector but that's tentative. but i see a lot of things also in france going in that direction. >> yes, sir. >> you've been talking about the u.s. and europe and been reading a lot about stimulus activity, the chinese government has been undertaking. t think they will actually have a more important role coming out of this mabey historic clique? >> for me it is quite obvious that china will become more important economically, financially, but in one sentence

i have to say they have huge problems of course. their environment, social problems, income inequality. i know that in the united states income inequality is an issue but income inequality is much worse than it is here or in europe. i fear a little bit, i talked recently to people at imf who follow-up china closely that a lot of the stimulus problem and that we just make publicity out in an attempt to push up confidence but that's really the hard facts show the stimulus is not that impressive in terms of what really happens and what is put extra into the economy. >> what's the reason go to make

it out to be more than it is? >> basically the same reasoning as the german reasoning. free ride on the american expression. >> everybody is waiting for us to buy. i think i like that idea but not very much. even the book is a bit of a stretch. i will wait for this question. >> you spoke about china. how about india? >> i think india is less, should i say less in the picture for certain extent but i think they have a very good industrial policy because if you look at where economic activity develops and india is much less basic sectors of the economy, the chinese economy is still very much oriented towards steel and all that kind of basic

industrial the activity whereas for example in india you have a lot of development and software and information technology. medical equipment, india has become after the united states the second producer of medical equipment so i think they are developing their economy more clever and less dependent on the competitive cost situation because what is a problem for china is countries like bangladesh, vietnam, even pakistan have become competitiveness because competitive vis-a-vis china because they are much lower than they are in her china. india is less dependent on that kind of cost competitiveness. they are much more clever industrial policy and i don't

think -- china of course has the advantage over the power of its huge -- which india has some reserves but not nearly as much as china. and that gives china some power but don't overdo that either because if they start using these reservists they will run the risk, they are basically dollars at the moment. if they start moving too much and the dollar goes down they draw down the value of their own reserves so i really don't think that china will make a move out of the dollar. that would be totally self-defeating. >> that's a good question what's going to happen to the dollar and how low will it go if it is going down? >> i'm also sure it will go down much more than it actually has

done because if you look at the world economy is basically there's one competitor, that is the era with the stymie be ten years time the chinese currency will be a competitor but today it is not. now, coming from europe i am also sure that people realize and what kind of situation with respect to the currency because we have one currency that's 16 countries, so if the than bernanke of the european bank has to make a decision, he has to call 16 secretaries of the treasury and obviously or necessarily both ways of mr. steinbeck of germany is worth more than the voice of the

minister of finance of my own small humble country. so, these guys at the ec be or in an impossible situation and i blame them for reacting too late to this crisis but i can understand the institutional environment in which we have to work and which is a horrendously difficult because can you imagine what would happen if the ec starts doing with the federal reserve has been doing and i refer taking over the credit positions from private banks but the ecb should be doing? german banks, dutch banks, irish banks? it is immediately gigantic purely political question, whereas here in the united states bernanke calls to paulson and, if geithner and

mr. bernanke takes over credit for american banks. that's it. the situation in europe is very complicated and is still -- it's no coincidence each time there is a pressing financial crisis everybody runs to the dollar. >> a lot of people think our banks haven't been treated equally, common sense of the top and the local community bank at the bottom. yes, sir. >> before the turn of the millennium i understand that there were $2.50 for every dollar of gdp. that would mean the economy was bankrupt the, the dollar had meaningless. how do you explain with those figures that the economy runs and is still going? >> of course the u.s. economy is a huge economy. it's the biggest in the world, and you have the reserve

currency. a lot of people are almost fighting to have dollars in their central banks. so, as long as the rest of the world believes that the people who create this money, the federal reserve, believe there is trust in the dollar and you can have a trust between the dollars moving around in your economy and not get into a bankruptcy situation. when that trust falls to the ground you will have a problem and have a run on the dollar which will be diminishing value in the dollar enormously likened the pound in the 50's and 60's.

>> geithner said the fed when he was a member of the new york fed didn't have any kind of the real power to do certain things that would have had averted the financial crisis and lately eliot spitzer has been saying the fed does have a lot of power but it didn't have the political will to exercise its and now there have been all these reports about the fierce lobbying effort that the banks and the financial institutions are exerting on our politicians to try to make sure that we don't have more regulations why wondered if you have a perspective on this and or where is bernanke coming from on all of this because i haven't heard him be outspoken about. >> there's a lot to say on that question. first of all i think bernanke has always been very careful with respect to his speaking on issues that were not only really

monetary because there's a huge tradition in the united states of independence of the federal reserve but congress can't vote that way tomorrow. with respect to the first part -- that is one of the reasons bernanke rather reluctantly speaks about things that are not really closely related to purely monetary issues. with respect to your first question and that is one of the things you can blame bernanke for it was nonsense to say that they didn't have the machinery or the power to do necessary for example like lehman brothers. i think there was just a situation of panic. there was a situation of aig happening at the same days and other body would be overwhelmed with the amounts involved so i think the excuse we don't have

the power or the authority to do this kind of thing or that kind of thing is a really weak argument and that's certainly one of the things for which you can blame mr. bernanke of being certainly those days, of 2008 a little bit on the ec side. >> it does seem like we've come a long way in a year now that we all own general motors among other companies. the amount of government intervention is unbelievable considering when you wrote this book on free markets in the chicago philosophy of hands of government. so, where is this going to go? have we set a precedent for now on this is why the governments are going to work, the government owning businesses and running them? >> we certainly have created a precedent, that is for sure and there is a big difference in my way of looking at things between letting lehman brothers or bank of america or citigroup going

bankrupt or general motors because the systemic effects of the huge bank going down the drain in an uncontrolled way can be enormous. i mean, i'm repeating myself. what is the difference between what they are doing now with general motors, which at the end of today will mean that there will be huge job cuts. i don't know exactly but i am told 14 plants closed in the united states. you probably would have more or less the same results after two years in the bankruptcy situation. >> it's in bankruptcy of course. >> its chapter 11, pure bankruptcy situation where you would immediately have parts of the business taken over and now you try to do it in a controlled by there's an argument for that but there's arguments against it also. >> it's interesting to hear about individual dealerships

being preserved as a result of congressional intervention where the local politician calls op general motors and says you can't close the dealership, that's important and so chevy is still in business as a result of that or at least chevy dealer. we are going to see a lot of changes. before we had a chance to come up here i was asking johan about residential real-estate and he said spain. if you deal on a condo, the coast of spain. so i would ask you where is the biggest discount in residential in the country's? >> as far as i've looked at it and purely as research interest and not as a buyer -- [laughter] spain -- the real estate problems in spain are huge. the problems in the united states are modest to what is happening there to get for instance valencia in the south,

apartments on the coast line that went for something like 300,000 year rose three years ago you can have them for 100,000 bureau is now. but, yeah -- >> sounds nice. >> i don't know how expensive the fleeing tickets to spain are. but a remarkable thing is that none of the spanish banks are in a problem. it is remarkable because you would expect such a huge real-estate crisis to translate itself automatically in the huge banking crisis which is totally not the case and essentially as far as i looked at it, there were two things that happened in the last seven, eight years in spain. first of all, you certainly all heard of the famous off-balance vehicles the banks created to do a lot of the strange things they did, let me put it that way.

the bank of spain already in 2001 said to the banks i'm going to put it a little bit plainly now, if you do that it's okay for us, but we consolidate and you will be taxed on it whether you do it in liechtenstein or wherever. we don't care. it's your branch, you're transferring activities. we consolidate. we know what you're doing. we consolidate and your balance sheet. so basically the zone to do that was gone. secondly, the bank of spain installed several incentives to increase profit attention, so not to distribute profits in terms of dividends but keep the profits in the bank's and strengthen the capitol base and i think those two issues everybody knew the spanish banks, their balance sheets,

that was it. there were no corpses in the closet, everything was there and so there was no panic surrounding the bank's. everybody's saying it's much worse but we don't know how much worse. it was plain, it was open, it was clear. >> i wish we had done that. go ahead. >> would it be fair to say efficient market theory is worse than orthodoxy and actively theology and secondly there once was a wonderful belgian american economist named robert driven and he predicted way ahead of his time that there was a terrible dilemma awaiting the american economy. where were the roberts preparing us for what came in the last few years? thank you. >> starting with robert triffin who live down very well.

the last ten years of his life he didn't do economics anymore. he was just interested in history, just as a sideline. but did triffin say? the world has a dilemma because you're dependent on the dollar to keep the machine going and if you don't create another mechanism to get the liquidity for the world economy you will always depend what the americans are doing. that is basically what he said and basically where we are today. it's a little too easy and that isn't because i'm here in the american audience to blame the united states for all these situations. there was nobody obliging european banks to buy the sub prime, you created it, the american banks created but there was nobody holding a gun to the banks in my country saying you have to buy these. we bought them because we wanted more profit, the banks wanted more profit. more broadly, if you don't

create an alternative to the dollar you will remain dependent on what the united states, being the country of the dollar is doing and that was in the time of triffin in the 60's and still so today. >> thank you. >> first question we will settle in private. [laughter] >> thank you for attending today's discussion and supporting the chicago tribune's commitment to literacy. a book signing will take place in the arts room. as you exit this room to your left is the first room on your left. >> i want to say thanks for the outstanding questions. thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] johan speed is the author of the chicago school. the stock was part of the 25th anniversary chicago treen printers row let fest. for more information visit

chicagotribune.com/entertainment s/events/printersrow/. we are at the 2009 bouck exfil america at the javits center in new york city at the booth of blooms. walker, the family of books and i am here with peter miller. what do you have coming elkus all? >> the most ambitious and exciting book is the one over my shoulder which is logic comics, a graphic novel. we don't normally public graphic novels the decided to do this one because it is a historical biography of birch russell, and as crazy as that sounds it is an interesting novel of ideas and the two people behind are mathematicians and computer science experts and so they decided to sort of approach the idea of the foundation of mathematics and the life of the russell es told in comic-book form because a big idea of what

russell was pursuing was actually as heroic and his life and death as anything you find in a super hero tails of it is a book that's been getting a lot of attention before this convention and a lot here. we've been getting a lot of the galley and everybody seems to be very excited to increase of this medium for that particular subject. >> what else do you have coming out? >> the other interesting set of work of nonfiction in the fall is this book called quote code the age of comfort" by joan and she is a scholar who has sort of -- who takes a look at the period in the late 17th century when public life became sort of interior iced and places like fer sali, louis the 14's wasn't built for comfort at all, it was

for enormous blunder and sort of public events and grander but these are not public spaces of all, this was meant to be lived in the open and after louis xiv guice and louis xv takes over there is a movement afoot because new technologies are coming in and domestic life is changing that suddenly things are starting to be designed around the idea of comfort and everything starts to get turned into a sort of secondary private area and for sali is the perfect metaphor for that because it is all retrofitted by louis xv and his mistresses and the women in his courtroom predate to wiltz; the world the public sees and the world behind. things were introduced such as the sofa and the flush toilet, the private bedroom. suddenly with that comes the idea of having a private life versus a public one. so this is the really important work of scholarship that tells

in a completely new way that it's not just a book about design, but an important moment in european history. >> this is the tenth anniversary of bloomsbury usa and bloomsbury books was originally the store still based in the u.k.. what was the decision to start up and print in the u.s.? >> well, i think at that point that they were growing significantly in the u.k. and felt like they needed an american presence and we didn't want to just sell the rights to a lot of their books to publishers in the u.s.. and the u.s. is one of the largest markets in the world for book publishing, so they were taking the next step. they were the publisher of harry potter in the u.k., so i think they took that opportunity. and established a foothold here. in a very small weight and years ago and now it's grown considerably and george gibson can talk about the various, you know, how would expanded in those ten years and all the

different divisions it now encompasses. >> also joining is peter, publisher from bloomsbury barham off of the bloomsbury name. what is the difference between bloomsbury usa and bloomsbury press? >> bloomsbury press is devoted to entirely nonfiction. we have history, on politics, current events, economics, science and that kind of thing, so it is much less general and more focused than the bloomsbury list. >> what you have coming out this fall that you're excited about? >> one is called half moon. henry hudson and the foliage that redrew the map of the world. this is the anniversary of hudson's discovery of the river that bares his name and the exploration of new york harbor and that was an adventure that changed the course of history of north america. it was a daring voyage for a lot of reasons. the first being he was supposed to be going the other direction. he had been commissioned to sale

to china over the northern coast of russia and he sort of took a left turn and came to north america instead which led him to his discoveries here and exploration of the river. the author is a terrific writer and researcher and a sealer, he stunned his own kind of forensic navigation and reached on the map, the plots of hudson's foliage to give new insight into what the trip was about. >> finally we are joined by george gibson, publisher and director of walter books. walker books is celebrating its 50th anniversary. what is walter books and who is the founder? >> walter and company is a division of bloomsbury usa founded in 1959 by sam and beth walker. it was a completely independent company until january 1st 2005 when we were acquired by bloomsbury so we are now a division of bloomsbury along with bloomsbury prez and the three adult divisions of bloomsbury and we are one of them. >> you say you're the publisher

director. how long have you been with walker books? >> i've been with walker since 1993 as the publisher and then i can publishing director of bloomsbury usa last summer. so that is a much more recent development. but i've been involved with walker the past, god, what is it now? 16 years. wow. >> so what books are you excited about this fall? >> a couple of walker books to read a book called an artist in treason by a man named andro linklater. it is the story of the greatest trader in american history. a wonderfully complex man named james wilkinson who was a revolutionary war hero, general, youngest general in the continental army who became the leading general in the american army 15 years later the same time he became agent 13 in the spanish secret service and was a spy for spain the next 20 years at the same time as he led the american army. but the amazing thing was every president he worked for, washington, adams, jefferson,

madison all knew that he was a traitor. and the captain in this position for a very strategic reasons and it is a fascinating untold story and on known life. there's that. and then another biography of an unknown but fascinating figure in history, jo anne, queen of naples sicily and jerusalem. the only clean, the only woman to rule in her own name in the 14th century, she was every bit as dynamic as elizabeth i of england, ruled over a glittering court and naples at an incredibly turbulent time and has a revealing look at the century through the lens of her life. >> finally something out of your catalog coming out this fall. >> actually on the bloomsbury list a book called meltdown i slammed the i think is going to be a fascinating way into the economic crisis that hit last year. this is the story of the meltdown of iceland, the collapse of the country and we

will publish your anniversary october 7th and it is a fascinating inside story of greed, over the reach, all the things that happened in this country happened in iceland but they are understandable in microcosm and i think that is what is going to make the stories of fascinating. >> you said you've been with walker since 1993. how has the publishing industry changed since then? >> wow. well, it's changed in almost every way and yet it hasn't. that sounds contradictory, but the marketplace has changed enormously obviously. in 1993 even the chains were not nearly as dominant as they are. and as on hadn't even been invented. and price clubs and warehouse clubs and shops that sell books today sold practically non. so the number of outlets has applied geometrically for years. in terms of publishing it is still all about getting good writers to do good work and then

finding media out it's for them. the media changed a lot particularly the last five years there were fewer outlets for printed previews. the classical ways of promoting books have declined but there are opportunities on the internet publishers need to learn how to use the firearm networking. it is a brave world for publishers and we are having to get used to it. >> will blocker's recognize the company today? >> that is a good question. beth walker is very alive and follows it so yes. sam passed away a number of years ago. i think he would have had trouble in this world. i just think it is a very different world than the one he inhabited but beth is quite fluent in the new technologies and so actually i feel that she's rather enjoying it. >> joined by peter miller from bloomsbury walker books.

this summer booktv is asking what are you reading? >> susan m. weinberg publisher of publicaffairs books what's on your summer reading list? >> the first book on my list is a change of pace because we publish nonfiction and i read a lot of nonfiction but i would hope this summer to read the master by colm toibin. we tried books and talk about each other's books but when she found out i hadn't gotten around to reading that when she was quite vexed and i thought if a publisher believes in it that much i have to read it. i also just read and am going to read another one of our books this summer that we happen to have books coming out that are wonderful books of the islamic world. one is called destiny disrupted. the history of the world through islamic eyes, and it is by tamim ansary. and it is a wonderful negative