>> lachina: georgia tech did not rotate over to help monica wright. she got a clear path there to the basket, a turn over as well. >> 1:25 on the clock. georgia tech trails by five. montgomery knocked down a couple. a lot of traffic inside. freshman sharena taylor comes up with it. they can't spend a lot of time passing the basketball around. somebody has to take the shot. montgomery back. ardossi cleans it up. >> lachina: big rebound by brigitte ardossi in the paint. she is so tough. another game time player for georgia tech. >> jenn: eighteen points for ardossi as the jackets have just chipped away at this lead virginia held since halftime.

monica wright will take time,:36 seconds on the clock. too long, ardossi up with a board. >> lachina: good rebound by ardossi. >> jenn: jackets trail by three. going to get the time-out and talk things over with coach joseph. now this is where things get a little tricky for georgia tech. ardossi has to decide whether she goes for a three-point shot. the best option is alex montgomery or try to get it back as fast as you can and foul and put virginia on the free-throw line and work the clock down. >> as you said georgia tech as a team not a great three-point looking team. we have the makings for the finish. we've had good ones including the game we had friday night at nc state. what a shot by amber to win it. >> that was so exciting. your heart goes out to wake forest because they played so

hard in that ball game. it could have gone either way. both teams making runs. amber laying on the ground horizontally looking at her own basket going in. >> look at the effort on the rebound by ardossi, high on the boards. she's got great footwork. she's a mobile post player. offensively when you think she doesn't have a shot, brigitte ardossi is able to move and maneuver her way to the basket, exactly what you saw her do there. georgia tech taking their final time-out. 24.5 seconds on the game clock, 23 on the shot clock. if you're virginia you have to prepare for two things, montgomery a look at the three or a drive by foster, sharena taylor for a quick basket.

>> ardossi has the hot hands for the jackets in this game. look at montgomery off the screen for the first look. now, another set. ardossi takes the long shot. no good. the rebound goes to virginia. edwards pulls it down. you've got to think that is not the type of play machelle joseph would have wanted from her team in this situation. >> she can knock down the long range basket. they didn't know what to do once montgomery didn't get the look. that wasn't the look georgia tech was going for. you could tell because the team was not ready for the rebound. ardossi 0 for 2. >> missed on the free throw on the other end and it's going to go to georgia tech. edwards missed the free throw, 7.1 seconds on the clock for the jackets as they trail virginia

by three. lots of time, especially if you're sharena taylor who can get the ball up very quickly. tech may work it up and call a time out or they may go and try to drive and get it from montgomery. let's not forget it's a three-point game. georgia tech does not have time-outs. this is the last one. full-court press by virginia. two on the clock. has to take a shot. looks like a foul is called. a time-out by virginia. yes. a foul on whitny edwards with 1.2 seconds left on the clock. so sharena taylor who started this game, then had to guard monica wright, is now going to have to hit two big three throws and make the first, miss the second and try to get an opportunity.

>> let's describe a little bit here, down by three at this point. what would you think is going to be going through coach joseph's mind. would she tell taylor to perhaps miss the free throw. >> you have to 1 downtown 2 seconds even if you're able to foul on the second miss, it's not enough time to get anything going on the offensive end when it's your turn for the basketball. i think what you have to do is miss that second one and really crash the offensive board. >> i've got to tell you, looks like it would be a hard thing to do to try to miss. >> is it difficult to make it miss the right way? >> lachina: it's extremely hard, even if you do drills in practice, like rebounding drills and you're supposed to make it, it makes it's way in some way. >> jenn: well, here we go. taylor at the line.

she does. good shot for the freshman. >> a 56 three-point shooter. if she wanted to miss it would be in her favor. >> that's going to do it. no good. on that effort by georgia tech as virginia hangs on for a 57-55 win. some sighs of relief happening on the virginia sideline as they played so well at the start of the half and kind of for their foot off the accelerator. our gatorade player of the game is monica wright who had 23 points in this ball game to go along with five rebounds and two steals. her 12th 20-point effort of the season. and our geico play of the game is also going to come at the hands of monica wright.

>> lachina: she got out of transition. a great win at home for the cavaliers. >> jenn: that's going to do it from charlotte's, virginia, 57-55.

! me! ut. i toit. i tothe efor outh. co ale refot call yoa beng mx! theionsme! tahim,. i d, ieir foulwhen boun te'thrne, e. ce galex coac gol.

of them were flying into berlin so that in many ways the book is the story of these men mostly all men who had given three or four years of their lives to the service. they had come back and they had new wives, newbies, new jobs. in one story after another and they were called back and was believed the thing would only last two weeks that than diplomats would work something out. our relations with the russians were not that bad but that isn't what happened and they were there for a year one of the bad problems when it ended the men who couldn't remember where they left their cars and it defined the cars they forgot where they hid their keys when there were told this is temporary duty for

two weeks. we also stripped the airlines in those days there were many flights, airline schedules were different in the winter because flying conditions were so much more difficult so that the government took not only the plains of american airlines but the pilots, the chief pilots of american airlines them was a man named harley nixon who made $550 a month and the was a lot of money in those days. they went back to being the captain ali mix and at $140 a month and when he arrived in frankfurt which was in the american zone and on the first and not to be the first day of their left wing to a local cafe and as he did every german cafe and there were the only people in there stood up, left their food and drink and walked out.

two weeks later, and when we talk about how the germans view this, arlene mix and went back to the same place and as he walked in the door all of the germans stood up, went to the bar and each ordered beer and brought them to the table one at a time. moreh he said and he could drink in a year and these guys were known to drink a bit. and he would too. they were living in barnes, a temp in the mud -- tents in the mud. there were no preparations for this and they were flying in the worst fog in history was the winter and the fall in europe is the visibility was zero. when they got the thing or a device which took six to eight weeks they all were flying instrument flying so they flew to italy by instruments and the

planes were in such a state that the word among the pilots was if one instrument works it goes. >> with the instrument did. the german view of this because not only were american mechanics and meteorologist and control tower personnel called up but the airlift had to rely on german mechanics and radiologists and so on. >> that was one of the nixon kept the secret from the american people but we did not have enough mechanics. these plans are being used, five, six, seven times their rated capacity sizings for breaking down much quicker and was much more dangerous. there were an awful lot of crashes particularly on landings and general william tauter who

commanded the airlift was another workaholic. really the whip was his nickname. on his own and then went to clay and got permission to hire mechanics, to give them a meal a day. so suddenly you had the situation where young man from colorado named corky, and by a young man i need 19. that is how old the occupation troops were found himself supervising 16 germans working on american planes and him not speaking a word of german many of them not speaking anything but german and in his crew was a former submarine captain and two for our squadron leaders from [inaudible] now working to keep the americans flying and keep berlin alive and corky was in all of

these people. they were older than he was, they were veterans, he was not ephedrine but he was a funny guy. he was alive. he taught the germans. he couldn't teach them about the mechanics, they were good mechanics but he did teach them to say the first day as commanding officer the germans lined up and said good morning major, use some of the bitch. [laughter] cynically the germans could get away with that i think. [laughter] there's the story to tell in the book about this young man who said what the pilots had flown 20 missions over germany saw a lot of these pilots needed training. the have seen it from 20,000 feet flying the b-17 and

24's. he says five years ago i was killing these people and bombing of these people -- >> the pilot's name was noah thompson, a farmer from new hampshire, and his roommate in the eighth air force and best friend named daniel denis, his b-17 was shot down over the eastern part of germany during the war, and dennis was, when he landed, was beaten to death by the farmers in the area. this was very common. people don't like the people who bomb them. and many pilots were beaten to death and in fact if you remember or check out that is what happened to john mccain over hanoi. if he came down in what amounts to the central park of his hanly and he drowned -- people were drowning in the lake when police

and north vietnamese soldiers came and pulled him away from them so suddenly know what thompson knows the exact spot where his friend was slaughtered and is flying over and thinking my god this is quite a world isn't it, but he thought like all of the other, i know that you know a great deal about post-traumatic stress veterans. my own feeling is that no matter what you did, good war or bad, the act of killing people, trying to kill people is going to something to you, and as noah thompson told me he felt as he flew over i would rather be feeding these people than killing them. without exception the people i talked to were combat veterans much preferred and said their greatest satisfaction was flogging the airlift and i think

because as i'm sure some of you know many veterans never talk about combat what they didn't know war but they love to talk about what they did in the airlift because they thought they had justified themselves in the eyes of whatever god they believed in. >> it was a strange experience for men and is certainly was and what the world to have been bombing these people and now i'm saving them. they responded by saying they couldn't believe how much the americans trusted them, german mechanics are working on planes that are going to be flown by american pilots and so on. >> is a very interesting study of the americans, the british and french. the french absolutely hated the germans. after all they had been occupied and fertilized by the germans. the british were correct but

they but have no fraternization with the germans accept both countries loved what they called football, what we call soccer and the british and the germans, the german mechanics and loaders would play soccer games when they were not working. they were about of the roughest soccer games in the history of the sport. there was blood all over the runaway at times from those games. but the americans, the germans simply couldn't believe it. the americans were point to the plan saying take the engine apart or whatever and then have a smoke, sit around and talk and what not. they had never seen people as one young boy described the americans as being so different from american soldiers. first they didn't carry weapons,

second they looked right at you. they didn't have hard faces and this 11-year-old boy, except same age as volume said he couldn't believe these people who had a good life not only were willing but wanted to share with other people. his name was wolfgang samuel, he lived at a cut in falsework and they're came a day, there was a lot of love and marriage in this book, they're came a day when an american sergeant came to see his mother, we've got to remember again germany was a country without men and he said to wolfgang my name is leo ferguson. eventually he married his mother and they moved to colorado and wolfgang samuel retired a few years ago as a colonel in the united states are forced.

>> talking about the danger these men went through flying into and out of berlin with a feathery corridors into berlin, one in the north and one in the south and then the central one a range as the return. but one of the things -- i wonder if you could describe the conditions of landing at the temple of the airport in the center of berlin. >> temple of the airport for any of you who have seen it one of the most extraordinary places in the world in the first place on one side is a building. it's done in nazi gothic, it was the largest building in the world three-quarters of a mile long looped around with seven levels, there were hospitals complain factories down into the ground. they had more floor space than any building in the world until the pentagon was finished. on the other side of this goal, very pretty, the other side of

this grass bowl six and seven story apartment buildings and they couldn't be torn down, not in a city that had lost 80% of its housing, so the planes had to come into this grass airstrip with metal bats, we put down metal mats called marston mats after marston north carolina where they were built. the planes had to come in over, and again they were doing this in default at night. 24 hours a day and on instruments only. the clearance over the apartment house is to come to the runway was 17 feet and many of the pilots swore there were tire marks on the roof of those buildings. then in a short runway grass airfield they would practically have to die in. at that time the landing, lowest

allowable landing ratio in the united states air force was 40-1. that is every foot he went down went forward 40 feet. the landing-1. they came down like this and hit so hard that it would rip up the middle, ret the ground and as they landed behind the mud rush german war cruce, mostly women wearing the on the clothing they had some guys beating suits, sometimes evening gowns almost with their bear hands the russians had taken all construction equipment would fill in the stones and rubble, bricks and a dirt before the next plane popped out of the sky 90 seconds later and then they would run off the field and the plane with land and the land back on repair. not only did they do that but

there were not enough landing strips obviously in berlin so that they build a new airport which is now the main airport in the city but then was to stay drill field in the french zone. 17,000 people almost all of them women built with their bear hands, again an air strip in 60 days and their pay as always was one more meal a day which was no small thing. but that was the link and in germany and particularly berlin you feel that. i write stories of the reunion of these people. but they pretty much feel that way anybody, not only old enough because they teach this in the schools, they feel about americans the way young wolfgang

sanibel dittman leal ferguson came into his life. >> that's right. this was a city that was still starving in 1948, 49 and as you said 80% of the housing stock was gone, people were living in basements and so on so of rubble women were clearing things away, building things, it was quite remarkable. still in the 60's and 70's i have to say landing at tempelhof in the jets' use still sort of went like this, and i often think i'm being hypergolic but i'm not. you could look as you were landing over into those apartment buildings and see people in the kitchens preparing lunch or dinner so one can only imagine what it was like when the planes were coming in and then these bad conditions. >> one of the ironies of course when the plane stopped coming the airlift continued after may 12th because we were building up stockpiles in case

the russians tried another blockade. but so the planes kept coming in. when they finally stopped in september and many germans, many from berlin to the cause bleeding without the noise committee couldn't go to sleep without the noise of the planes coming over which amounted to every 15 seconds a plan would be coming or going from all over the airports. >> psychologically for those germans hearing airplanes hadn't been -- hadn't been a good thing in 1943, 44, 45 as they were being bombed. one of the things about this book that is not only gripping the store is winning their plans but also these human stories you tell about the relationships, the man and his wife the wife finally gets to the resistance station and it's been now sent to berlin across the world

bhatia but there's also things that can be donner -- candy bomber. >> she was there and people were crazy applauding her. the candy bomber was a man named dale halvorson who was a mormon who later became provost of the university of utah who, like any -- he had an 8-millimeter spring loaded movie camera and he was not to use it and the first time he landed in berlin as a pilot she went around the periphery to the great bowl this temple of taking pictures of it and when he came to the runway by these apartment buildings there were a whole bunch of kids standing there watching the planes land. the kid loved watching that.

and he talked to them for awhile. he actually spoke a little german and when he was walking away he realized that they had never asked him for anything. he had been serving in the pacific and europe and of course kids were always asking for candy, money or whatever and he realized these kids didn't ask for anything and he walked back and the only thing he had was a stick of wrigley's double mint gum and he tore into ten pieces, there were about 20 kids and they divided among themselves each taking a bit and he had the others taking a bit of tinfoil because it had sugar and they could look it, these kids have never tasted sugar ever then they said would you come back and do it. gale halvorson ended up the next day came with 17, he and his crew used the allotment to buy

candy bars and they dropped 17 the next day. they need a little pressure it's out of the handkerchiefs so it wouldn't break up when they hit the ground. by the end of the airlift we had passed along and people collected around the country can be, an amount of 40 tons of candy which was collected by americans. the other thing that was collected that was sent by americans from home, harry truman's in the first one word care packages, these 10 pounds or 18 pounds boxes of all sorts of food. it was the food left over the care packages where the food that had been prepared for the invasion of japan. since there was no invasion of japan it was there and was sent many people could physically

describe the first time they saw a care package and opened it and what was in at and what it represented, and among the people who told the story was helmut kohl who became the chancellor, 18 year old boy at the time, became chancellor of the united germany after the wall went down in 1989. the americans for sending over shiploads of candy. it was being collected at firehouses all over the country because of what gale halvorson had done and he thought he was going to get in trouble for doing it actually. >> the british, we should say something quickly about the british were involved in the airlift. they couldn't drop candy because britain was still under, still living under austerity and rationing food so they didn't have the candy. >> there were times during the airlift we kept upping the the

amount as we could get more stuff in calories at one point it got to 2200 calories per person we were bringing in. there was more than the british were giving themselves. the airlift by the way was a british idea. when all of the americans said you can't do this it was a british air marshal named rex who sat up all night with a slide rule and 4500 tons was what they figured they needed each day and he brought in and he brought in how many planes it would take and how often they would fly etc., etc. and he went to lord robinson who was lucius clay's counterpart in the first lucius clay was against the airlift, he thought was impossible. and he wanted to use an armored column down the 110 miles from the western zone so when roberts

and talked about an airlift first he said it's impossible. it's absolutely impossible and robertson and then the foreign minister of britain, both said well we're going to do it any way and it is certainly going to be embarrassing that americans can't do with all they had what we can do with nothing and clay get the right answer which is a line with you. but the british were amazing in that more of brits died in the airlift than americans partly because their planes were even worse shape and they have larger crews. they had four men in a plan where we had three so when their planes crashed they tended to have a higher casualty rate but i, for one who i suppose was a bit of an anglophobe came away

with an enormous respect. the english to me are so interesting. their virtues and faults seem to be the same, that stubbornness they have but it's certainly served them and us well in the world of 1948. >> i think we have time for one last question or observation and we will open things up for questions from the floor. there's some interesting stories in this. i am particularly taken with the two american pilots and copilots listening to the army navy on the radio and were not paying attention to the games being played in philadelphia and they went beyond berlin and found themselves in soviet control territory and had been turned around. there are lots of things like this. one closing remarks, what do you think the united states, what was the lesson drawn?

>> i think the lesson was already there. it has to do with what we would call in the classroom american exceptional some and what not. this was and the reason truman is in my mind a great man is that he knew some how instinctively certainly no one could tell him this is how americans see themselves. this is how we want to be. this is the way people my age were brought up believing we were. i decided to do this book because of abu ghraib. i lived a lot of places in the world including the middle east and asia and the idea of america being hated in my old age as it were compared to what it was when i was a youth i take almost personally.

the berlin airlift is who we are, not the tortures. and i wanted to bring that story out to the extent i can reevaluate who we are, where we came from, what we do and what we don't do and i think that is what was tapped in the american of tom brokaw's america the greatest generation and he talks about considering it not the first battle of the cold war but the last battle, last year battle of world war ii. but so in the and if i represent the american people in my heart, these are the people i want to be. >> is a marvelous story and we've just scratched the surface

tonight. but i think we have time for questions and what we would like to ask you to do is if you would come to the come is there a microphone on this site? , here and queue up as the british say. i'm sure richard would be happy to take your questions. >> [inaudible] as i was listening to the reading of the book i realized how much of a hero truman, again, was for doing the right thing. of the three presidents, let's just let's not include ford just for the spirit of the three presidents you have written about -- >> four -- >> let's exclude -- sprick i meant kennedy, nixon, riggins -- >> of kennedy, nixon and reagan could either of them have done what truman did? would either of them have had the will to overcome the opposition of their entire cabinet? something so fanciful as this?

>> you know, i don't know. the presidency, the trilogy i wrote on it really in the end shows what a reactive job is that campaigns and promises and those things don't mean anything. we don't president's wife and our three we pay them for their judgment in crisis. i think is very possible that harry truman was the only one of those three men reagan would be the next who would do something strictly on instinct. he had no idea that it would work but he had a good idea the americans were not going to be pushed out of berlin. and it was interesting in the obama-mccain election. i'm prejudice i have a daughter that writes for obama in the white house.

however, this is not the kind of thing that barack obama would do. he wants all the information. he wants to think it out, and john mccain, a very instinctive and sometimes disruptive politician, is the kind of person who might have done something like this against all advice, against all council. >> [inaudible] >> yes, they are a breed apart and heated the airlifters with a cold grocery deliver some. >> on that note, you mentioned tom bradley and marshall were so against the airlift to begin with. but it was the response after they saw how successful the airlift was? >> well, marshall was very sick so he really didn't have -- bradley was truly mystified by this. he thought it was locked and of course some of it was. but the great make their own

what. i want to say one more thing about truman's role in all of this and when i was looking for something to write what actually got me to write this was that in reading tony job's compost war, which is a very fine book on this period, and david mccaul of's book on truman, which obviously is a wonderful book on truman, but both of those books airlift it's about two paragraphs and was then i realized people don't notice any more. they no in germany but not in america and america is where i felt we needed to know this. >> did they say anything publicly? >> no. they never said anything publicly about being against it, either. the president is the president and the soldiers. the president is commander in chief. >> thank you both for your comments. i wonder if you might, though, comment on what was happening at the united nations at a time of the decision to airlift to

berlin. it seems in my opinion united nations like so many when the security council members are at odds it debates and there is no and action. >> the picture that we saw for annulment of people talking at a table was the soviet ambassador jacob malik and the americans representing, announcing the indigent -- this is how the air live in the or the blockade ended, the airlift continued for a while. stalin took neither advice nor questions as far as anyone could tell. but american reporters would constantly send written questions to the kremlin in the hope that stalin had something he wanted to say. a man named kings' barry smith, who was the chief foreign correspondent of the hearst news service had asked -- send

questions to stalin and he chose to answer those five questions. no one, particularly dean acheson was the one who understood but one of stalin's answers meant. that is when he was asked about berlin airlift was still going on. when he was asked about berlin, he did not mention the currency reform, which after all was the stated reason for the blockade. ..

is your leader open to solving this problem at this time? and the answer came back two weeks later, yes. it was a tremendous embarrassment to them. they knew they have lost once the loser -- the general winner had defeated the polling in the general winner had defeated hitler and he assumed general hitler -- general winter would defeat the airlift and when he didn't teeny the game was up. >> donations played a role -- back channel keeping the dialogue open. >> yes. yes. yes. it was one of their real tramps. >> i think we have time for one more.

>> and the political situation that might have related to american decision. >> what related to it was, as many of you probably remember, when pottstown conference was set up, churchill was prime minister. he was then defeated by clement otley of the labor party. in the key figure for the british was not at least that was earnest but then, the labor leader who became a great foreign secretary of britain. and at least in the last month of the airlift for the first time, bevan had been there many times came over and looked at it and then was asked, what do you think of this? he said this is the eighth wonder of the world. and so it was.

[inaudible] >> this was a terrific way to kick off our 2010 programming schedule. so thank you very much to richard reeves. [applause] and thank you very much to professor childers two are doing a wonderful job for posts gas have copies of their books the library and are sticking around to sign copies beardless hope you'll join us in the lobby. thanks again for joining us. we're joined by bruce

bartlett this book "the new american economy." you call yourself many times throughout the book and elsewhere on the supply side or a former supply-side. what is supply-side economics? >> guest: supply-side economics is sort of a euphemism of an economic viewpoint that developed in the late 1970's, where we had a problem of stagflation friesian unemployment and rising inflation. in the existing philosophy, economic philosophy was based on theories of john maynard keynes

which had been developed in the 1930's. and those policies presuppose the deflationary situation. so when you use them in an inflationary system, all they did was make inflation worse and the inflation eventually made the unemployment worse. so the supply-siders looked around for a different way and their philosophy was to tighten the money supply severely to reduce inflation. and at the same time, cut tax rates in order to increase the incentive to work save and invest. in almost all conventional economists of the time, certainly on the keynes thought this was insane that it was like putting your foot on the brake and the gas pedal at the same time. but we thought it would work in a dead work because ronald reagan and paul volcker implemented it in by the middle of the 1980's, inflation was down very substantially in growth had been restored and this was viewed as a success for

the supply-side model. post goes a former proponent of reaganomics, how difficult was it for you to read about its failure? >> guest: the recent keynes economics was a work in the 1970's his cousin was misapplied in inappropriate circumstances and i think the same thing happened with supplies of economics in the 2000. i think a lot of policies by implemented by the george w. bush administration were said to be based on supply-side economics, but if that were not. they were making ridiculous claims and implementing unwise policies that they said were based on s.w.a.t side economics and they weren't and i think some of the problems developed from that misunderstanding. >> host: i want to follow-up on that point because in your intro you read about what remains when people think of supply-siders is a caricature that there is no problem that more and bigger tax cuts won't

solve. talk radio and groups such as the club for growth in americans for tax reform ruthlessly enforce this view among republics, even though it's obvious that the tax cuts of the george w. bush years were not especially successful. that the economy's problems today are due primarily to lack of demand and not supply. why did the bush administration in your view get it wrong? reaganomics that isn't supply-side economics. in >> guest: well, keep in mind that the president's father raised the taxes in 1990 and for this he was very widely criticized and it led to his defeat in 1992. and i think that his son was never going to make that same mistake. and i think he felt that as long as he just kept cutting taxes and cutting taxes that a large element of the republican coalition would be with him. and no matter what else he did. and i think that as a political calculation, that worked. the problem is it was

irresponsible as with so much of the policies of the george w. bush administration. for example, i'm incredulous that so many republicans are complaining about the cost of the health care that's being considered, but at least is being paid for in one way or another. we're off, they put forward a proposal to expand drug benefits were people i met a fair and didn't pay for it at all. it has a cost of like a trillion dollars over the next ten years, the medicare drug benefit will, which is about the cost of the health benefits. so these people just have no credibility whatsoever when they complain about deficits. post ogre book is about this a deli or of supply-side economics as reaganomics as it has been known. starts with a look back to fdr. in a chapter to the triumph of keynesian economics. >> guest: my basic idea was that i had observed the

supply-side economics had gone to recycle where there was a real problem that the existing orthodox couldn't handle the new philosophy, the supply-side philosophy, came into existence was implemented come appeared to be successful and then henceforth it was supplied in every circumstance, whether was justified or not. say what kind of a cycle of success and failure. and as i thought about it, i realized that keynesian economics have gone through exactly the same cycle. it had been implemented in 1930's, helped and the great depression, but then was misapplied in the 1950's and 60's and give us inflation. so it seemed to me there was a cemetery here that was interesting and then i try to ask what's going to come next. >> host: and not for i'm going to ask you. what comes next? of the come full circle to its time for in a keynesian approach to our economy? >> guest: well, it's interesting that i've done all this research on keynesian

economics, because i was finishing the book just as the economic crisis hit and it was quite clear to me that the economic conditions were reviewing were almost identical to the ones that the keynes analyzed back in the 1930's. so it was a useful exercise for me to have that background, just as this have been. but i had to kind of short-circuit my thoughts about what was going to come next because i was overwhelmed by the economic crisis. >> host: and when folks they keynesian economics, they're talking about more government stimulus to get the economy going, correct? >> guest: to me the essential point, you have to understand, that what runs the macroeconomy is essentially federal reserve policy, monetary policy. but there are times when fed policy is impotent, when he can't do anything, economist is pushing on a string. these come about when you have very, very low interest rates as we have right now.

and economists call this liquidity trap. when you have the situation, the fed is unable by itself to stimulate the economy. >> host: so keeping rates low doesn't do it as low as they are now. >> guest: no, it doesn't. you're just some and the deep all the along and that has been fiscal policy, that is government spending. and a lot of people think that if you're going to do something on fiscal policy, we should just cut taxes. but the problem is that tax cuts i don't think you're going to have any impact under the particular circumstances we have right now. and i think it's a mistake to have a one-size-fits-all policy that worked under completely different circumstances and to say while let's just do it again under completely different circumstances. it seems to me that the keynesian model fits current economic circumstances better than any other one that we know of. >> host: so the fiscal stimulus was necessary and passing it earlier this year.

>> guest: yeah, i did support the idea of fiscal stimulus, but it warned at the time that it was being grossly oversold, which it clearly was. unemployment is vastly higher than the administration had predicted. and i also think that people don't understand the timeline involved. it was clear to me that it was going to take much, much longer than the ministration copy for the spending actually impact did on the economy. i think that's one reason why the unemployment rate has not fallen or why it is risen and not responded. >> host: we do have callers waiting for you. 202-737-0001 for republican here for democrats it 202-737-0002. independents and others 202-628-0205. and first up is buffalo. good morning to cain on the republican line. >> caller: how are you doing? mr. bartlett, i want to get a hold of the book and read it and

get more insight on your opinions. basically what i wanted to address was, if we are dealing with a fiat trinity, how can we stop inflation? this so-called money -- with the currency that we're using is not backed by anything, what can we do to stop the inflation? that's naturally what happens when your money is not backed by gold or if this is taken off the gold standard like the house joint resolution. >> host: thanks, will get a response. >> guest: was clear the responsible federal reserve to maintain a stable price level. and although they've increased the money supply into the current economic crisis, does that perfectly well understand that it has to reverse that policy or else we are going to be back into a 1970's hyperinflation situation. and they've already talked a lot

about how to do this and when to do this, but they have not yet decided to actually begin tightening. and my fear is that they will wait too long and so, i think a certain amount of inflation is almost inevitable, but hopefully the fed will not allow it to go too far. >> host: next is eerie, pennsylvania. read, good morning. a democratic call. eerie, go ahead. blair stone, new jersey, mark on an ethernet line. go ahead. >> caller: good morning, how are you doing? minus eight erie and i think all of these people try and push the republican plan. the really plan that needs to happen here is that they've played games with the rest of it. they have to place value in america again. i mean, you sit down and look at the illegal immigration of our construction workers. everything about these need to

be americans again and to value an america again. you guys can do is you want, but the democrats are selling us out with the socialism and the republicans are basically robbing for the rich. >> host: but as the impact of jobs going overseas? s. go there hasn't been a lot of that, in fact there's a lot of evidence that tax a lot of illegal aliens that would come to the country previously are now in fact leaving and going back home. i guess in the theory that if you're going to be an employed you might as well be unemployed in mexico or guatemala didn't be unemployed in california or something. but i don't think that that perspective is very useful in terms of trying to get the economy moving again. because it's clear that our basic problems are macroeconomic. they are things that we have to deal with in terms of what goes on at the capital, in terms of stimulus spending and mostly in terms of what's going on at the federal reserve. and i think you kind of lose

your perspective and start focusing on trees in the forest which is really what we have to be thinking about. >> host: you write in a book about the fiscal stimulus during the reagan administration. you write the ink was barely dry on the transportation bill in congress pressed ahead with emergency jobs act of 1983. this bill is basically a grab bag of miscellaneous porkbarrel projects that congress had slept together in name of job creation. most of the projects funded just happen to be in congressional districts of members of the house anenate appropriations committee. six months later, there was little evidence the bill had created any job whatsoever, almost a year later there was still no evidence. is there any evidence that this sort of experience may happen with the stimulus bill? just go it clearly did. clearly a great deal of the money that was in the february stimulus package was just part girls stuff and things that members of congress have been wanting to get past and just needed some excuse, must pass

legislation to get a mac did. one of the things they talked about in the book is something i mentioned earlier which is the implementation. i think there was this somewhat romantic notion that there were just terms and tons of public works projects i really needed to be done, roads to building bridges to build and things like that. and the plans were just sitting there and everybody was just ready to go when all they needed was a check from the federal government in the next day, workers would be out taking and building. and that wasn't true. it takes a long time to get these projects going. and as of the last time i checked the data, and obvious, only $16 billion out of all of the almost $800 billion in the stimulus package actually had gone to public works projects that had been already working. that's a very trivial amount of money. and a lot of the rest of the money was just wasted.

>> host: but on the same token, you're critical of the tax rebate that happen at the very end of the george w. bush administration, not very effective. >> guest: not effective at all. there's a lot of history on this here regard to tax rebate in 1974 in august and is afterwards showed they didn't spend it but they saved it. which may sound like saving is good, but the deficit increased in order to pay up the dataset, or the rebate, so the higher deficit simply offset dollar for dollar the rebate and nothing real was accomplished in terms of stimulating growth. and then we did another rebate in 2001 and all the studies after that show exactly the same thing. everybody save the money. and despite always failures, we had another rebate in 2008 that the same thing happened and i argued at the time i wrote a piece in "the new york times" saying this money is going to be wasted. we should take all this money and use it to stabilize the

housing market. maybe a little bit of money up front could have forestalled a collapse that cost a great deal more to take care of later on. >> host: you mean to homeowners in such? >> guest: i wasn't sure the right way to use the money. maggie was to give it to fannie mae and freddie mac and get them to start buying up some of this bad paper. the point is it's an option that was never considered so will never know whether things could've done differently. but the one thing we do know is that the rebate didn't work at all. >> guest: >> host: rag, sorry mr. earlier. democratic color. >> caller: good morning. it really strikes me as sort of disingenuous of the conservative to complain about our deficits and the problems that the government is going through with financing all these things. when you compare the deficits of the federal government has with

the obligations that business has do to all that bad paper, all the debt that they created, the trade installers. what credit default swaps are $22 trillion. it's unbelievable the insurance that business took out on itself against its bad decisions. and now all of that is coming to. or when you the federal deficit worse is the deficit of the big mistakes that everybody made or the illegalities that people made here in i'll take my answers off the tv. thank you for having my question. >> guest: thank you here at i was unclear about what the caller was asking. i would certainly agree with one thing at the beginning which is the republicans have are really on the blog track by trying to blame every single thing that's going on with obama. i mean, to listen to these guys

you think the budget would be balanced if we simply elected john mccain. but i think it's important to remember that the cbs deficit estimate for fiscal year 2009 that was made in january 2009 before obama even took office was $1.2 trillion for fiscal year 2009 and when it ended, those $1.4 trillion another 200 billion-dollar increase, $100 billion of that was due to slower economic growth than the cbo had anticipated, leading to lower revenues. so there was exactly $100 billion of additional spending that was not projected in january. and i think it's worth keeping that in mind because it shows really that the administration has done very little in terms of stimulus for the economy and a great deal of the deficit problem that the republicans complain about is because of their policies, which obama inherited. >> host:

post go here or san francisco. good morning, susan. democratic color. >> caller: i have sort of a specific question that i can't figure out when i try and think about where the mortgages, who learned what many do. and that is on the one hand i've heard people say one of the things that pushed people to make these all these loans is that it was such a market for asset taste investments. so these mortgages were turned around and then people bought them as investments, i guess presumably because they pay interest back and they make a profit. and wall street, you know, was turning this over so fast that people were looking to make more and more mortgage loans. on the other hand, when the banks, you know, had problems. one of the things they said is

they are broke because these foreclosed homes and the decreasing, you know, prices that home cost which is the assets that are on the books. you know, they have all these losses. and it seems to contradict each other. it would seem that they had already turned these mortgages around and pay for them by the investors. and i think this seems to contradict itself. >> host: thank you, suzanne. guess though historically, banks would make a long to a homeowner to buy a house. they would give them the mortgage in the bank would hold the mortgage until it was paid off. but over the years, people concluded that you could take these mortgages, which are just sitting in these various banks and bundle them together and have a new type of investment

vehicle that people were willing to buy because you can get a higher interest rates on mortgages then you can on many other kinds of investments. and in theory, these were all backed by real estate. and so therefore, you had a least a theory of very low risk. and so for a long time it was a good deal because the banks in the past and they make a mortgage, they may not have any more money available to make additional mortgages. but now, they can sell the mortgage and get money back that they can then be lent to someone else. so for a long time it was really a good deal. the problem was that the people, the real problem with the people whose job it was that places like moody's and standard & poor's to go through these packages of mortgages and try to get figure out what was the risk in these mortgages. what is the likelihood that some percentage of them are going to go bad. and they did a very, very poor

job of making those estimates. and we also had some just unexpected events that it was a good idea, but it just didn't work. >> host: you raised some redookt a second fiscal crisis. you write that the when the second fiscal crisis hit sometimes in the next few years, it is inevitable that higher revenues will be needed to plug much about fiscal hole. unfortunately, both parties are in denial about this. republicans still delude themselves that tax cuts se the beast and tax increases feed it while democrats are afraid of being seen as tax increases and that they are so afraid the assembly refuse to acknowledge reality. what is the second fiscal crisis you're talking about? guest know i started writing this book long before the current fiscal crisis and before the massive deficit that we've seen. i was just looking at the projections before last year and

earlier made by the congressional budget office and the social security trustees and the government accounting office in places like that of the long-term fiscal trends. and in particular, what's going to have to do programs like social security and medicare and medicaid when the giant baby boom generation begins to retire. and the youngest one is already turned 62 and qualifies for early retirement. and over the next few years, more and more of my generation are going to be drying social security and medicare. and when that have been, the spending for those programs is going to explode. and we've done nothing, absolutely nothing to reform them in such a way as to make them sustainable. and i'm afraid that as time goes by, the deficits were looking at now that we think are one-time only event are liable to become regular events that we have year after year after year, that are inevitably going to have a very

negative consequence for interest rates and inflation and at some point we are going to have to do something about it. but i think doing something sooner is going to be a lot less painful than waiting until the last possible moment. >> host: one of your solutions is a value added tax. how will that work? >> guest: my observation of the analysis of the situation is that it's simply impossible, certainly unlikely that we could cut enough spending out of these entitlement programs to avoid the necessity of the very large tax increase. and so the question becomes, how will those taxes be raised? if we try to get more revenue out of our current income tax system, which is essentially dysfunctional and we can barely get money out of that now. i think it will just collapse with its own weight and therefore we have to look at a new revenue source and this value added tax is one that every other major country has

used to finance its entitlement programs and it's a kind of sales tax. but instead of being: did all of the checkout comments collected a little bit at a time in the whole production distribution stream and it's proven in other countries to be a very effective tax, raises a lot of revenue at very little economic distortion. and i think are going to have to do it whether we like it or not. >> host: many supporters of that on capitol hill? >> guest: no, none. at least not publicly. i periodically meet with members of congress that same absolutely right, but if you go around and say that i agree with you i'll call you a liar to your face. so there's a deep, deep fear about saying anything about these things that i think is very, very harmful because we need to at least have open debate and not have certain subjects that we are not allowed to discuss because it upsets somebody