major. he has been working on and off in the library with me. we are real excited about being able to work this summer. >> for more information on booktv's recent trip to charleston visit c-span.org/local content. >> for the next six hours booktv will bring freedom vest 2011. annual contest was july 14th through 16 in las vegas. first is author don less than fallen by todd buckles. an hour of 40 minutes michael schirmer talks about the believing brain. robert kaufman will be on in two hours and arthur brooks will

talk about his book the battle. in four hours the discussion between saudi pipe and grace turner on obamacare. and stephen more discussing the pros and con the public unions. .. from jacksonville there is a billboard on i-95 that says, who is john gall to? may be our next speaker will be able to explain to us. you heard our all-star

prediction panel yesterday, you know there were fireworks. well, don laden's was the gentleman who lit the first match and got things really going. he is, if you read the program notes, an avid believer in technology. what happens if it stops jack anyway, to tell us today what the future could be, please join me in welcoming don luskins on "i am john galt." [applause] >> they keep. -- thank-you. thank you for that great introduction. one substantial inaccuracy. i actually am john glat. [laughter] but you all are to. that is the secret. her books are lessons, self-help

books, guides to how to live. we can all be john glat. we can all be heroes, just read what is in their carefully. my new book, "i am john galt," is the reader's guide to help you learn to live like an ann rand hero. at the same time to teach you what happens in the world when there are ann rand types velez out there. now, i assume that everyone in this room has probably heard. how many people here have read the atlas shrugged? i am actually stunned to not see every single hand in the room go up. okay. two big thumbs up for the verge of selfishness. fantastic. if you have not read alice shrek

in no way i envy you because you have before you a fantastic. the first reading is a transformer and experience. in poll after poll what americans are asked, what is the book that influences you the most. alice shrek is always in the top two or three. the town had. always in the top two or three. i have to tell you, there is a message in that that we libertarians, individualists, one of the curses is we tend to sometimes think that we are alone. i can tell you i certainly feel that way. i live in northern california where a libertarian can feel very, very alone. i live just south of san francisco, not literally in nazi policies congressional district, but i can smell it from our live. i can tell you, i feel very alone. it is fantastic to be here as freedom fest. it is great to see that there are like-minded people. they just don't have to live in my zip code. so written 54 years ago,

probably the best selling book in the english language, which is an amazing thing. it sells more copies every year. so more copies last year than ever before. when first came out it was a best seller. now, there is a narrative about that that is being promoted by the conservative community, and we all the that is different than the libertarian community saying that the reason there is suddenly the surge in popularity is because ellis shrugged portrays the world that is eerily like our world. for those of you who have not read it let me just tell you, it is a world of decay, economic collapse, corruption, despair, things getting worse and worse, and invasive parasitic government that takes over private capital and everything it does. it makes things worse. when it makes things worse it does that again. well, yap. that sounds an awful like our world. you could almost say that ann rand had some amazing prophetic

powers as the conservative moves own master thomas. we ought to embrace her ideas. those of you the study your life know that the conservative movement is always. she is an atheist. the conservative movement is riddled with religious threats. she has never been popular. politically expedient for a little while right now. we will talk in a minute about how that is actually a bit of a mystery. the world described in alice charged talks a lot more -- talks about a lot more things than what is wrong with big government. talks about what is wrong with big corporations. will it into all that. but on the surface the narrative of the conservatives is actually very good. i'm telling you, sometimes you think you're reading from today's headlines. one of the most memorable villains is a fellow named wesley mooch. if you have seen the recent

movie they just pronounces the name mouse. just don't get that. when i read it for the first time in high school it was a family moves. it's always going to be minutes for me. we have our own real world. his name is barney frank. now, i don't normally use notes, and i apologize for waiving these around, but i have them because i want to be able to make exact quotations without air. you might remember one of the refrains his every time leslie mood stood some ridiculous thing that made the economy even worse he and his cronies would be in washington and would say we need broader powers. okay. reno government is the only enterprise that when it makes a mistake it repeats the mistake bigger. well, let me quote party frank. after the collapse of the u.s.

housing industry in the u.s. mortgage -- mortgage industry collapsed. he engineered from his position in the u.s. congress getting fannie and freddie to loan money to and subsidized loans of money to people who could not possibly ever own a home, could never pay back the mortgages. that was all barney frank's work. when as will the city to clean up the mess he said the way to cure that is to give us a broader powers. you can't make this stuff up. the amazing thing is ann rand did 54 years ago. frank is more like mooch then you can imagine. starting to get into the microstructure. you might imagine that he get into government in the first place, started as a lobbyist, the lobbyist for henry riordan, one of the great heroes. he gets into government by

betraying written. that is a certain kind of corruption. this is one of these things were when liberals are corrupted does not did very well reported. you might be surprised snow that barney frank was censured by the congress for a scandal in which she ended up admitting to have used male prostitutes and paid them and sustain them in his apartment in washington as a base of operations for the. did you know that as a member of congress regulating fannie mae and freddie mac he placed one of his gay lovers as a financial analyst at fred -- fannie mae? as a libertarian i have no objection whatsoever to his sexual preferences. i have a serious objection to corruption. we're talking about a deeply, deeply corrupt man his corruption's very nearly destroy the world. another villain is alan

greenspan. what character is alan greenspan light? anybody remember dr. robert sadler? kind of a minor character, but a very key character, one of two college professors it was a mentor to young john glat. wind john glat was still a young man he left academia to found the state science institute said that he could do his experiments in physics from a theoretical physics three of the privy support of capitalists and people who pay tuition and things like that. and john glat disowned him, he damn time. now, at the climax when the world finally totally goes down the drain the climactic scene is when the government's having a big star braided his work in physics to create a weapon of mass destruction, this weapon almost accidentally detonates.

the description of his death at the hands of this weapon at his science and overtly created is one of those moving passages. alan greenspan is dr. robert sadler, the most damage because he knew better. it is one thing to make these mistakes out of ignorance or pure power lust. alan greenspan knew better. alan greenspan for 30 years was a close associate and an apostle of ann rand. he was with her the day she died in 1982, best friends forever. he had no excuse. he knew better. when he first went to washington in 1976 as president gerald ford's chairman of the council of advisers they're right there in the white house as he was sworn in. why didn't ayn rand dan him? she actually said to the press that allen is my man in washington. well, she didn't live long

enough to see him become the chairman of the federal reserve. she probably thought then that he was a double agent for capitalism right in the heart of washington. it sounds good if you say it fast, but if any of you guys spend any time in washington, the atmosphere there is an addictive drug. washington is like an aquarium, instead of being filled with water is the will power. after u.s. former around in it for a while you want more of it. alan greenspan did. federal reserve chairman is the most highly powered unaccountable economic czar on platters. it is better than economic czar, master of the universe. and the ayn rand acolyte got that job. well, the rest is history. an 18 year run as chairman. seemed like he was okay for a while. a lot of bad things happened on his watch. i remember seeing him on the cover of time magazine with a headline was chairman of the

save the world committee. i met greenspan recently in washington. let me tell you what happens when you go into his office. you see they shriveled little man who is wearing a sign saying welcome. eighty-five years old, mind is still totally there. his spirit is not. he is a broken man. i would be broken if i was hauled before congressman henry waxman. have you ever seen henry waxman? this guy looks like a combination of the original phantom of the opera with mortimer snared. waxman grill greenspan, got him to admit that all that self-interest stuff, all that virtue of celtuce the stuff of that individual self-interest, self regulation staff to and really work very well.

and greenspan said, yeah, i guess it didn't work so well. he basically recanted. so when i met him i said, did you really recants? i mean, i kind of saw it on you to. he said to my no, not at all. you complete -- that is completely taken out of context. no, it's not. a year had passed. so i have my copy. my favorite ayn rand nonfiction book is capitalism, the unknown ideal which has two chapters written by alan greenspan, one of which is called gold and political freedom. i have a first edition copy of that. i brought it with me. i said, do you still stand by this? should i be asking you to sign this? ♪ every word. i stand by every word ayn rand ever said and every word i ever

said. it has all stood the test of time. well, "said youtube. everybody says. one of the lessons you can learn is if you don't want to end up being a broken man have a little integrity, stick by your guns. now, one of the secrets of the enduring popularity is that it describes this nightmare world, but it is also a profoundly inspiring book, the best of times and the worst of times. the heroes in it are absolutely inspiring. who can read the book and not identify with characters? it is a very, very inspiring book. i am here to touch you that our world, all bleak as it seems, is absolutely populated by those

kinds of heroes. now, like all heroes, some are tragic like some of the heroes in ellis shrugged. let's look at some of the heroes. henry riordan, the still cartoon who invented a revolutionary new metal had it taken away from him by the government that was blackmailing him. ring any bells? how about bill gates, exactly like skynyrd in. callus dropout, created a revolutionary technology that transformed all our lives, became the richest man in the world in the process, well-deserved. in 1999 using tax dollars that bill gates himself and sent to washington washington says to bill gates a lawsuit from the department of justice seeking to break up microsoft on antitrust grounds which is a polite way of saying because he succeeded too much. now, just like riordan when that happened gates could not be

bothered to dirty his hands going in hanging out with the sick people in washington. i don't blame him. microsoft is a gigantic company. two with three lobbyists at that time. he learned his lesson. the kind of won the suit, filed to force a lid on fairly favorable terms. microsoft is still struggling with the echoes of it, is still straining an antitrust issues in europe. there is another broken man. he stepped down as ceo as soon as the suit was settled. microsoft's stock, you can draw an x where bill gates to step down. that is way above the current stock price. has not traded there for 11 years. broken stock because he's a broken man. bill gates created the world's largest fortune. if he had stated that, he could have taken the world's largest fortune and made even larger. now he's giving it away.

doctors call this stockholm syndrome. you identify with the kidnappers. our culture villified bill gates for making money. now we love him because he is giving away money. that is sending the wrong message to our children. so what is the lesson? a light listen and a dark lesson. the light lesson is you can't drop out of school and become the richest man in the world. the kind of -- and by the way, the spillover affect all of us, people rail about income inequality. let me tell you the inside. when there is a guy as rich as bill gates, that means that something is possible for everybody that was impossible until he proved to be done. the first guy who broke the four minute mile. thank you, bill gates, for showing what can be done. it can still happen in america. the other lesson is watcher back.

don't make the mistake of ignoring washington. the me switch to the fountainhead and talk about a hero. my favorite character. hard work, the rebellious architect, the ultimate individual. one of the most fascinating characters and all of literature from page one to page 1,000, he is the only major hero in the history of literature who undergoes absolutely no transformation, presented as perfect on page one and perfect all last page. what is it the perfect? he is an absolute individual. every step makes, every success the has to much riley faces is faced with absolute utter integrity in his individualism and a sheer joy in his work. in our world that man is steve

jobs. steve jobs dropped out of college, is an orphan, the guy just came out of nowhere. think what he accomplished, simply because he loves it. he is obsessed with this stuff. the canvas from the pain on. when he founded apple computer he completely transformed the computer industry from a command and control man for a model to individual empowerment desktop model. he made that happen. a few years later he brought an obscure little dazzle rendering company on a fire sale when george lucas needed to get rid of it called pixar. he had this idea that this could be used to create full length animated movies. he taught that will be pretty cool. he found this guy named mark klass other. it's been so many years on it and so much of steve jobs money that he came near to personal

bankruptcy funding it. they almost discontinued at the last minute. finally he did a hell mary pass and did a deal with disney. to a story is now one of the top-10 biggest grossing movies of all time. ♪ those which are also on the top-10 list of biggest grossing movies. he did not to make money. he just thought it was cool. i remember meeting steve jobs in the people in a resort in hawaii years back when they both had been children. i went with my daughter into the pool. of course of recognize him. ♪ at his hand and said hi, my name is steve. i make movies. what do you do with and the secret is of your work. what else to give them? he created itunes and the ipod. transforms computers, movies, then music. he's not done. then he creates the iphone

and completely transformed telephony. now he has created the ipad and gone back and read transformed the first industry he transformed, computing. don't tell me there are heroes in this world. on that panel yesterday i was the only optimists in the room. look, you can't beat steve jobs and not be optimistic. that is what is possible. i no there are a lot of problems in this world, but there are a lot of solutions to. another great silicon valley story, man named cj rogers, the ceo of cypress. he has been a freedom fest destine the past. a self-taught democratic open, like those little miracles and cited. quite a few of them probably come from cypress semiconductor. t.j. rodgers is like the character francisco antonio. dan ghandi showed up in critical scenes whenever the main heroes

for having a moment of doubt and leaded moral clarity. he will show up to tell them what is what. one of the most often quoted passages is francisco's famous speech about the inability of money. he is at a cocktail party. some one says money is the root of all evil. he then goes on for 20 pages proving that money is to rid of all good. he's that kind of guy. he is completely politically incorrect, ceo a major company who says things that ceos are not supposed to get away with, and he does it by having absolute moral clarity. i'm going to ." like many ceos he is constantly under assault by politically correct people trying to get them to have more gender diversity, racial diversity. a couple of years back a franciscan nun named mary gorman , a tax cypress

semiconductor insisting that they diversify the board more for gender and race. responded in the wall street journal, choosing a board of directors based on race and gender as a lousy way to run the company. cypress will never do it. furthermore, we will never be pressured into it but bowling to spell -- an immoral way to run the company given all the people and would hurt. we simply cannot allow arbitrary rules to be forced on us by organizations alike business expertise. i would rather be labeled as a person and kinds of religious groups than as a coward who hanses employees and investors by mindlessly following high sounding but false standards of right and wrong. and he survives. [applause] in 1999 jesse jackson came to silicon valley as part of this program at that time where he went to wall street and declared wall street to be racist.

he went to detroit. he came to silicon valley and declared technology to be racist. this company at that time had 35 percent minority employees come everyone of them was shareholder. 44 percent of the executive the peace or minorities. he gave a "to one new station, and i say jesse jackson reminds me of a sigell. he flies in, craps over everything and then flies out. okay. lesson here is simple. just believe it. have the courage of your conviction. just say it. if they sense weakness there will kill you. don't show any weakness. so these heroes i have been talking about our businessmen, and a lot of people misread it to say that what it is really telling you is that all businessmen are good and all government people are evil. go back and read. to is the main villain?

the businessman, james taggart, the president, the great pension that runs throughout the book is the conflict between james taggart and his sister. all of the placental tissue political machinations are because james taggart is pulling the strings with his own cross decapolis games. so in our book when we are looking for an analogy we happen donned a fellow named angelo mazzola, name familiar to anyone? the founder and former ceo of a company, the former company countrywide financial, a country like financial was the poster child for everything you could possibly do wrong in some prime lending. after he secretly sold his stock in 2007 the same leaky give the

shareholder presentation saying that everything was fine, from that .7 months later lost 80 percent of its value at which point it was acquired by bank of america. i'm sure they thought there were really getting quite a bargain. well, it turned out there was no bargain big enough to buy countrywide financial, not only did it carry all kinds of unknown liabilities, but bank of america is still paying. two weeks ago they paid almost $9 billion to settle lawsuits and regulatory complaints about the fraudulent documentation of countrywide mortgages. let me tell you just how fraudulent some of these work for anyone who thinks that all businesses noble. it's not. some government is. a lot of businesses and. countrywide went $3,309,000 to the part-time chicago housekeeper who made $200 a week, 3309 dozen dollars. after receiving the mortgage she

went home to poland and never made a single payment. $350,000 to an electorate california dairy worker making $1,100 a month. $398,000 to a woman unemployed since 1988. al, why would anybody when money to people like that? it is simple. you make a fee when you write the mortgage. the actual mortgage itself is transferred to all boss through government sponsored organizations like fannie mae and freddie mac. thus the connection between angela and the zillow and barney frank, the unholy alliance that is what ayn rand opposed. that is when they got you, corrupt companies, corrupt government to together. now, so deep in bed with fannie

and freddie it's ridiculous. countrywide had an exclusive deal to pass on toxic mortgages at bargain rates. why anybody would want that to my don't know. actually, i do. there was a program called vip loans known informally as friends of antelope. this is where influential people in government were able to get loans from countrywide on especially favorable terms. now, there would have to be pretty darn favorable. when you and $350,000, i don't know what you do to be more favorable than that, but they were doing it. let me give you a list of the people in washington who were beneficiaries are friends. now, this reads like a who's who of some of the sterling characters of our age such as john edwards. some surprising characters have actually survived and are in positions of special powers, senator conrad to at this very moment is the chair of the senate budget committee.

i love this one. chris dodd, the guy whose name is part of dot-right, the financial reregulation bill that was only necessary because of blew up. this is the best. daniel h. mud, a guy who grew up having to deal with that famous scene, your name is mud. his name actually was mud. also the chairman and ceo of fannie mae. so this is what we libertarians need to watch for. the unholy alliance of governments and corporations. now, to draw the contrast the don't want to give the idea that all corporations are bad, the hero giving the most loving treatment in my book is a fellow named john : the former chairman

and ceo the bbc, one of the top dozen banks in the united states ranks by asset size. they're absolutely dominant throughout the 37 states. at here you'll see a deviancy branch, but if you're in alabama and tennessee zero washington dc seven will. ellison bill deviancy, utterly different principles. countrywide blew up in the financial crisis, caused a financial crisis. bbn t totally survived. eight and j.p. morgan with the only to large banks that did. how did he do it? ellison happens to be a ayn rand fanatic. in 1985 when he became ceo he instituted a policy of having his whole executive group breed

helles shrugged. he created a statement of mission purpose and values for bb tea. i have a copy of it. this is a remarkable book. proud to say this is inscribed to me by john. speaking of inscribes, after i'm done here there will be a book signing of my book over at the lazar cherbourg. john is going to be speaking at 1030 in the silver room on the financial crisis, join me for the book signing. if you would like to have not only the author of the book but the main subject of the book sign the book he would be happy to do it for you. a wonderful man. this is your opportunity to interact with them. our best-selling book, but 30,000 employees of bb&t right now in over 25 years who knows how many hundreds of thousands of copies of this book have been produced. this book embodies the famous

speech of john glat. this is basically a summary of objectivism applied to how to run a business. all 30,000 bb&t employees right down to the tellers are evaluated every six months based on how they are complying with these ideals. now, i want to quote to you from this and tell you that bb&t statement of purposes. and about this. if you've ever worked for a large company, you know what purpose did minstar, communities were save the day wales was something like that. here is bb&t. our ultimate purpose is to create superior long-term economic rewards for our shareholders. we are in it for the money. her new? they are all in it for the money. this is a guy who's honest about

it. what happens when you're not? instead of having 30,000 employees you have 30,000 liars. work for countrywide. don't try that one. be honest with her employees. a noble mission. we all want to succeed, we'll want to make money. we all understand shareholders have to make money. just say it. there are tend fundamental about use the support this. god to read them when it's time until you have this help them avoid the financial crisis. got your number one is reality. boy, why say that? don't we all live in reality? don't we all respect reality in our work in every phase by life? apparently not. people in lehman brothers didn't. the people at aig didn't. i don't know what fantasy world there were living in, but you look back of some of the stuff they did, it just makes no

sense. it was not about reality. so reality is their prime virtue. the second virtue that the acid every employee is reason. okay. seven to see the connection. objectivism. ceases i am a philosopher of reason. this is what it's all about. reality is what's out there. reason is what's in here. our tool for apprehending in dealing with and profited from what is out there. you have to use reason to run the business. what did they use command fancy computer models. that worked really well. a few more greek letters and it might have worked out. we will have to try that again some time. the third virtue is independent thinking. how about that? a bank that wants employees to think independently. well, the entire u.s. banking

industry was figuring out how to compete with countrywide and learn this big fees, in other words among short-term greedy, over the doing tonight inventing crazy new so-called exotic mortgages. the word exotic as now done anagrams into toxic. those mortgages consisted of things like negative amortization, so-called payment. this was the way all banks in the united states made their money in the 2000's except for bbn tea because there was an independent thinker who was not even particularly high up in the executive hierarchy. this is really a bad idea. we just aren't going to do this. john ellison to and even make that decision. he heard about it after was made and said, yeah, that's the right decision. a trained this guy walked. so these guys didn't blow up the world. they didn't blow up in the world

love. the productivity, nothing new to be said about that. the next value is honesty. of course they're supposed to be honest. let me tell you, dishonesty pervades business, especially when you lie at the beginning about the purpose of the business. dishonesty purveys businesses when you promote and give power to and perks to when somebody fudges and does the rules and happens to make a lot of money at year the company. that does happen at bb&t. the next virtue is integrity. it's one thing to say fancy words. let me tell you how to put this in practice. everyone remember the supreme court chela decision? this was the decision of firming the ability of governments to seize private property and handed over, not to use it for government use the t-bill the

freeway, but to hand it over to other private parties like realistic development, scandalous, scandalous decision against property rights. when he heard about that he said of, my god, nothing more fundamental to a bank and property rights. we can support this. thus declared that bb&t will never make a loan to a realistic developer to put up one brick or dirt on any property that was acquired through eminent domain. [applause] now, it's just so happens that the guy got about a million letters from customers saying, yakima they become a way to go. a banker who has integrity. i'm doing my checking account to you. you can do well by doing good. another principle is justice.

very important for a company. by acquisition. they have done lots of acquisitions. that is a hard thing to do because and a big company takes over a little company the employees are afraid they'll lose their job. at bb&t delicate the employees and say, okay. you are in that particular functional area. you do it better. so it's only justice to give you the job. that makes .. a preferred acquirer, which means it can acquire companies at a lower price than more predatory companies. another meeting. bb&t is headquartered in winston-salem, an area where racial discrimination is historically a big issue. racial awareness is a big issue of who are all the time. let me read to you from that book about what they say about their policy on race. we don't discriminate based on

not essentials. brace. racism non-essential. it is better. it goes on to say we do discriminate based on competency , performance, and character. you just have to love these guys. now, .. is the bank that at this builds. absolutely bulletproof. came to the crash. tragic end to the story. in the summer of 2008 during the three or four weeks when that was very violently debated in the congress and among the american public he take a very courageous stand opposing it. the fact that his bank to needed, but he opposed it in

general, on the grounds of moral hazard, the council didn't want to see government taking over any industry, including banking. a very sad thing happened. when it passed in repulse and had the idea that if the treasury said okay, this bank needs it, all but once you did needed would be identified as pariahs. the pauses would run. all of you in this room are insect, but will give you all the medicine because we don't want you to know which one's the sec. so what was the medicine? that medicine was that the government became a preferred shareholder in your bank. the government took options on common equity. the government made the sign at 250 page contract the last section said the government would develop rules for executive compensation which you would agree to abide by and for the government might come up with all kinds of other rules

with respect to you which you will not question. .. had been audited the previous week and passed with flying colors. one evening the regulator of bb&t met with john allison and said you really need to sign this contract. i don't need to. my bank is absolutely bulletproof. you just on the us. and the regulator said tomorrow, that was last week. retains the capitol requirements. up they, what did the 10-cent to? well, we don't know. we just budgeted pass. please sign this. what is the to do? a terrible position to bien. absolutely morally opposed. if he does not the government destroys the bank. he is now the former chairman and ceo.

he walked away. he retired. when john glat left the economic world he became an agent for the morality of capitalism, and that is what john allison is now doing. he is in dowling programs at dozens of universities the route the south to teach the morality of capitalism where a sign reading is atlas shrugged. he is doing the work. [applause] last character of the analogy in the real world of want to talk about, and on and-no, back to the fountainhead, everybody remembers the main villain. he was a socialist, scheming to wharf. a newspaper columnist who used his column to tell lies and

manipulate. you guessed it, i'm talking about paul krugman now, back to the you can't make it up stuff, the analogies are so striking it is just downright eerie. he now, but socialists. he knows i am an unabashed defender of the welfare state which i regard as the most deepest social arrangement. he advocates a state that offers everyone who is underpaid additional income. they both hate rich people. once wrote in a column that rich people must be defenders of the downtrodden. otherwise they have no hope of justifying their existence now, although bit of a hypocrite. are we surprised? he has to be a little above the

man. rita from public record that he has a billion dollar home, million dollar apartment in new york a multimillion-dollar estate in princeton, new jersey, where he teaches to be 6,000 square foot home which will foot ceilings, music room. according to an article in the new yorker it has a fire pit outside where he and other faculty members of been known to burned in effigy various republican politicians. he hates the ritz except for himself. they excelled the incompetence at the expense of the continent. here is one i favored. the official ideology of america's elites remains one of meritocracy. that will last. both are simply out right wires. no less a person than daniel of france, the public editor of the new york times that once wrote, a disturbing habit of shipping,

slicing, and selectively setting numbers in a fashion that pleases acolyte. both are physically very small. they have napoleon complexes. anatomy is destiny. i agree with that. i'm just not imposing enough in person to be inspiring. if only i were a few inches taller music once called enormously hansen. i agree. so what i want to know is is the reason he opposed the book tashkent's, he said they are a step on the way to a system which only the little people play texas. also probably a little crazy. he once broke, my economic theories have been influenced by

my rule is to sit with my cats. this explains a lot. okay. this is the part where somebody said to into when the nobel prize? is indeed a respected economist? come on. yasser arafat, jimmy carter, barack obama. all you have to be as liberal or a terrorist. the real test of an economist is whether you can make a correct prediction. in 1982 when krugman was part of the council of economic advisers in the reagan white house and wrote a paper in 1982 when we had just come off the all-time peak in u.s. inflation, at least the civil war, he wrote a paper called the inflation time bomb predicting that inflation would skyrocket and throw the world back into the persian. basically ever since you wrote the paper inflation has been

lower. it's been practically and zero. he hates big government deficits. as long as their in the bush to ministration, and he is terrified it will create sky-high interest rates. he loves deficits now in 1983 and created, the fancy word with the crowd sourcing. the use the internet, blocks to get dozens of like-minded people to participate in a joint project. the project at the time was every time he writes a column all of the members of the troops got stay up all night, fact checking. kids every line, every error, every distortion, every misquotation, e-mail me. i'll have it published on national review online in a

state. we did about a hundred columns over seven years. that does major retractions of airs allies. but before it did that it had to resolve a not once but twice getting the new york times for the first time in its more than century long history destitute an official policy under which its opinion columnists are obliged to correct errors. they didn't have that policy. [applause] al let me tell you what is so powerful about that. when they can't lie liberals have nothing to say. [applause] i just hit the two-minute mark, so on going to end by saying that