[laughter] >> well. and that could not be a better way to conclude and just say "the spirit of compromise" is a wonderful book. it's really a primer, and it's actually exciting because it is a useful reminder of appointments in american history -- some fairly recent -- when things actually did work, and there is advice for ways that things can be better. and it's an election year. i love politics, i love election years, so i'm thrilled to have this new work of wisdom, and our thanks to the authors, dr. amy gutmann, dr. dennis thompson, and our thanks to all of you. as you know, there'll be a signing upstairs. [applause] ..

look for these titles in bookstores this coming week and watch for the authors in the near future on booktv and on booktv.org. >> now on booktv gary weiss explore the political and social ideologies of ayn rand author of the fountain head and atlas shrugged. this is about 50 minutes. [applause]

>> thank you for that warm and flattering introduction. it is interesting if you listen carefully to margaret's introduction, you will notice you might ask yourself why did i write a book about ayn rand. after all i am not a philosophy professor. nor am i an economist. these are the areas ayn rand was best known. she was a philosopher and she heavily influenced economic and political thought. my background is writing about wall street. in particular the underside of wall street. what got me interested in ayn rand was the 2008 financial crisis. i was writing an article on -- to wasn't alan greenspan it was

timothy geithner, one of his major influences was alan greenspan. one of his mentors and closest appropriate -- associates and in the course of my research for that article i found photographs of alan greenspan being sworn in as head of the council of economic advisers in 1974. this was in the oval office and standing right there was ayn rand. it really fascinated me. i had never really thought that ayn rand was quite that central to our political belief systems. as i carried out research i began to realize how important

rand was and is in a number of areas. in the area that interested me the most in 2008 i started to look into the financial crisis. in particular, why did the people who were sort of the main actors in the financial crisis why did they behave as they did? i had always written two books about wall street, one was about the mafia on wall street and the other, greed on wall street. that is something not looked at and have been reporting on for over 20 years for business week. and portfolio. i was very interested to find out, what is the ideology?

there is an ideology behind the greed and selfishness that we saw explode in 2008 which has been with us to the current day. this photograph of alan greenspan and ayn rand appearing in the book. i would like to read from the introduction to the book in which i get into how i got involved in rand and in particular the greenspan connection which i also feel was in the book. it was early in 2009 in the horror of the financial crisis was fully evident the shock had worn off but little else. a country of villains was in full swing. i was researching and magazine article on timothy geithner and found an old photo that i thought might be an illustration of the peace that should the chairman of the federal reserve alan greenspan posing in the

white house with gerald ford and three of the people. greenspan had just been sworn into his first council of economic advisers. standing next to alan greenspan was a woman of 70. i had seen her around, younger but no less imperious but always with a short hair cut. in her televised appearances she spoke with a russian accent and always precise form in her words carefully as if she had written them down before hand. ayn rand was a figure from yesterday. never had any reason to write about her. in many -- many years covering wall street she was always on someone else's beach. inhabited a vague intersection of literature, philosophy legal economics and politics. my focus -- her series had no relevance. i was wrong. to make matters worse i was worse -- wrong for a long time.

looking at that photo in 2009 realized rand provided the missing piece of a puzzle i had never thought about very deeply about why, the moral component of the behavior to which we had been exposed. why essentially honest finance years and traders and ceos provide monetary position with singleminded intensity regardless of consequences to others? what motivated the regulators and government officials, the usual explanations were glib. greed, status and power with regulatory capture sometimes thrown in to explain government inaction. these explanations did not seem adequate. i saw up pattern of behavior to the main actors in the financial crisis. i saw it in the downfall of john blaine and midwesterners who was supposed rescuer of merrill

lynch. to the public thanks to his well oiled publicity machine he was the brain, the cumin calculator. a man of unquestioned integrity. today he is known for the $35,000, owed he bought for his office until shareholders objected. i saw it in john paul's and who collaborated with goldman sachs in designing a financial instrument and head of prime mortgages as profitable for him as devastating for goldman clients. paulson was a brilliant man who could see the financial system racing into a prestigious unlike other hedge fund managers who sounded the alarm and were pilloried as a result. paul some place his bets and kept silent cashing in his chips when the system nearly collapsed. talking with paulson i came away with the impression he devoted his life to one goal, the

acquisition of an ever larger sum of money. the goldman sachs deal was the culmination of a single-minded quest. what made these accomplishments so selfish, so seemingly a moral, lacking in public spiritedness, first before a book, these two men and many others personified a philosophy whether it was implicit is not important. what matters is this underlying unspoken philosophy is reflected in the belief, promulgated by greenspan at the fed that the markets were supreme. it was an attitude toward life that pervaded the financial system and was accepted over considerable enthusiasm to regulators and congress and all administration a sizable portion

of the media. at hodgepodge of belief called market supremacy brought home to me by the greenspan photograph from 1974, philosophy of greed had a philosopher. ayn rand had been there all along and never noticed. this is my attempt to correct that oversight. my purpose in writing this book. and the financial crisis, that was killed to the report of the financials and financial crisis inquiry commission. their retreat to biographies. and it doesn't seem to matter anymore. what follows the financial crisis was not reform but denial led by jamie dimon, the outspoken chief executive of jpmorgan chase. wall street sparked back against the idea of reining in its compensation and its ability to

freely transact business regardless of societal risk. little reform was an active and what was passed into law was undermined in congress. even talking about such things, blaming bankers for the things they had done was condemned. and alan greenspan went on the talk-show circuit. arguing that regulation was not the answer. with the spirit of the lady who stood next to greenspan in the photograph almost four decades ago. ayn rand triumphant, the first lady of the politics of reaction. rand has experienced an extraordinary revival sins the financial crisis. nothing seems to be stopping her. is a struggle for the soul of america and she is winning the. she is winning because she is not considered to be very important. she is dismissed by entire segments of informed opinions as

a fringe character, a cultist and an extremist. she is ridiculed and rebutted. was an extremist. she matters because her extremism is no longer on the fringe. her followers call her a serious philosopher. some call her the greatest philosopher who ever lived. some call her the greatest writer who ever lived and her novel "atlas shrugged" the greatest novel ever written. others call her a charlatan whose teachings are simple-minded, morally repugnant and derivative. they denied that she was a philosopher at all or that her ideology was a philosophy. in this book i utilize the term. to deny it unwisely minimizes her considerable influence. what is indisputable is ayn rand was a novelist, playwright and screenwriter. that was second project of the life which was to advance the

cause of the most radical form of free market laizzez-faire capitalism. she called herself a radical for capitalism. capitalism and freedom were synonymous as were governments and force. she advanced a system of beliefs that turned moral values of western civilization upside-down. bad was good. lot -- moral of auditorium laudatory was evil. she believed in individualism and opposed the institutions of society that benefited groups of people which she condemned as the evil of collectivism. everyman was an island in the parallel universe of her ideas. being selfish, pursuing one's rational self-interest was the only truly ethical form of existence. to be selfless was evil. used that term very often. rand intruded into the political scene from the 1930s to the

1980s. her position seemed almost maniacally inconsistent. he oppose u.s. entry into world war ii and supported israel. she opposed the vietnam war and thought dwight eisenhower was soft on communism. she endorsed barry goldwater and opposed ronald reagan because he catered to the christian right. she oppose racism and the civil-rights act of 1964. she believed big business was a persecuted minority. but did not speak out when big business discriminated against real minorities including the one to which she belongs. despise it these and the draft. she was an elitist who adored mickey spillane. with a fierce advocate of individualism, indifferent to criticism. she fell into deep depressions when her final and grandest novel "atlas shrugged" was

critically skewered. she called the philosophy she invented objectivism. to rand and her disciples it would be a triumph of productivity and justice. freedom would sweep the halls of power and the boudoir of like. being thrown out of the house, marriage vows with the option burgess as they were for rand. government would be reduced to three functions, the armed services, the police and the courts. income-tax is would end and so would everything taxes paid for. today her vision of radical capitalism has never been more popular. she is the godmother of the tea party and philosophical ballpark that stands behind the right's assault on social security and medicare. in her lifetime she was leader of a cult, adulterer, militate the san supporter of abortion and opponents of anti-drug laws. rand could be abysmally ignorant of basic facts and eerily creasy

and. she had a grasp of the american psyche yet her books showed little insight into the lives of ordinary americans. the most prominent critic was not a bleeding heart liberal but attrition leader of the conservative movement, william f. buckley jr.. he was so appalled by her rejection of christian morality that he assigned whitaker chambers to write a scathing review of "atlas shrugged" for the national review, quote, sins a great many of us dislike what miss rand dislikes, quite as part of the as she does many are inclined to take her at her words said chambers. in fact he said her vision was the plan repulsive. from any page of "atlas shrugged" chambers said a voice can be heard from painful necessity commanding to a gas

chamber go. a story of conflict in which it is easy to hate both sides to secure attention and when it has a. harangues them page after page said the new york times book review critic brendel hicks. despite the scathing reviews "atlas shrugged" sold in the millions and remains a best-seller to this day. biggest sale recently was 2009. it sold something like half a million copies. two major novels are thematically very different. "the fountainhead" in 1943 made her a success hardly a word about capitalism. the principal character lives like a pauper and doesn't even like money. that is something you don't hear very much about from object of this. he is played by gary cooper in the movie. "atlas shrugged" and the other hand published in 1957 isn't highly focused on her ideal of

no regulation, no controls, no government, heroes are ostentatiously rich. rand always favored radical capitalism but her practical knowledge of economics and industry was lacking. of missing ingredient she found after she wrote "the fountainhead". its name was alan greenspan. alan greenspan was turmoil acolyte since the early 1950s and member of her inner circle and serve what today would be called a writer's group, reading rand -- "atlas shrugged" and acting as a sounding board for ideas. as the collective disintegrated over the years shredded by defections he never abandoned her and never doubted her even as others did not matter how erratic her behavior. during the 1916s and 70s ayn rand was shunned by mainstream intellectuals and academia. reputation wasn't bad, it was

toxic. in 1972, william o'neill, philosophy professor in southern california and author of one of the few serious rand critiques said that writing about ayn rand was a treacherous undertaking. most intellectual circles she is either totally ignored or dismissed out of hand. those who take her seriously enough to examine her point of view frequently place themselves in grave danger of guilt by association. rand had few friends even on the far right. her fbi file discloses j. edgar hoover rebuffed her request for an appointment in 1966 to discuss an unspecified personal political problem which we don't know what it is to this day. standing in the oval office on at the summer day in 1974 with alan greenspan next to her rand was still isolated and still an extremist and never -- thanks to greenspan she was posing with the president of the united states. she would come again to the white house two years later when

another acolyte, malcolm frazier of australia a visit. she rarely strayed from her apartment in new york city emerging occasionally to give lectures during her final year became a bitter old woman shuffling around her neighborhood. the contrast with ayn rand's important influence could not be more dramatic. she is the darling of the conservative media and mighty force on the internet. small groups of the faithful congregate on rand blogs and newsletters and message boards and even acolyte dating service. rand is the new benjamin franklin. her savings trumpeted by the right, a humorless will rogers in reverse who knew few people she didn't dislike and inspiration of for leading political figures. turf followers meet regularly at the country and her novels once shunned by academia are in

colleges and even high school thanks to free books provided by wealthy supporters and the ayn rand institute founded after her death to perpetuate her legacy. rand's novels were on the bedstands of the baby boom long before it was founded. just as she enthrall the family generation and went on to fill generation x and today's collegiates her novels became a postwar american cliche, universal teenage reading experience like catcher in the raw. the rand living at the -- executive reflection of two rand phrases. one took place on a small scale in the 1960s when she was a fringe cult figure and taking place with considerably more impact today. 1975 stanley marcus, chairman of neiman marcus in dallas cried social legislation was corporate obstruction. to among the business community

today he asks would seriously propose congress repeal our child labor laws? or the sherman antitrust act? the federal reserve act? securities exchange act? or workmen's compensation? or social security or minimum-wage or medicare or civil rights legislation? all of us today he said recognize such legislation is an interval part of our system that made us stronger. that may have been true in 1975 but not today. the credit or blame lies squarely with ayn rand. i just read a bit from the forward of the book and i think alan greenspan if you look at all of the political figures out there the one who i think is widely believed to have had the greatest influence of all if you can cite a single person with

the greatest influence on government in the 1990s it would have been alan greenspan as chairman of the federal reserve. not only did he set monetary policy but was also a regulator and advocate of deregulation. fair to say he was the nation's leading advocate of the regulation. one thing i get into in the book is how alan greenspan never really change his stripes. he was an acolyte of ayn rand in the 1915s and a member of her inner circle and one of the things i get into that i don't have time to read is his famous mayor culpa speech from 2008 when he appeared before henry waxman's committee and said that there was a flaw in the mindsets, i was terribly surprised we have all these problems. i thought the self-interest of bankers and business would be sufficient to prevent abuses

from happening and i was terribly shocked when that happened and in actuality he did say that but if you bring that comment into context with all of his other comments at that time as well as statements that he made before the committee you find that in fact greenspan never apologize for anything and never repudiated rand. that was more of a public relations gesture and in fact later in his testimony before the financial crisis inquiry commission he did what they call on wall street and a d k. he didn't know. he was asked about his comments before waxman's committee and said i was talking about something else. i wasn't repudiating my world view so it is really amazing to

a certain extent -- and the regulation, never strayed from her views. and the moral to make this widely publicized pr gesture in 2008 and denied ever having done it. there is a quote that i have in the book from nathaniel brandon who was one of her leading acolytes and nathaniel brandon made a very interesting, and. today it seems painfully obvious that respect for reality was the ultimate objective this virtue. it was not one we practiced consistently. a bill for collection. that is a very important quote and fair to say the current economic agony we are currently

suffering under is to a large extent -- we are all paying it. thanks very much. we will take some questions. [applause] >> thank you very much. i guess i got involved with ayn rand in the me generation which is sort of funny. rand had the institute and stuff but interested if you want to bring it up-to-date paul ryan is probably the biggest one now on the scene and confronted by his god awful plan for the budget had to review her the other day and said because the catholic bishops went up against her, saying your plan is more like

ayn rand than what we want to do. it was always her contradictions, that selfishness that was the objectivism psychology movement had about her and don't care about poverty or issues and i am wondering if you know what paul ryan is up to. is he pushing of the same plan? and rand paul. >> politicians what they do with ayn rand is many of them really love her. tremendously. rand paul, paul ryan is a superb example. paul ryan appeared at a gathering of the atlas society which is one of the rand groups that are talked about and gave a glowing endorsement of ayn rand. he was -- i quote him, the

comments that he made and recently he denied -- just an urban legend. i never said that. i am not an rand acolyte. the society had a tape of his comments and they played it and i wrote an article or something on that and so did a lot of other people. he was just fibbing the. it is like that quote i just read, the bill for collection. the tendency to what was the word to use? dependency. respect for reality was the ultimate objective this virtue. not what we practice. he lied about it. he lied about it. it is interesting you should mention that. it is important to understand why he lied about it. it is more than just if you

endorse ayn rand away he did in such a glowing way you are endorsing a philosopher -- first of all she favored abortion which puts sir at loggerheads with a great deal of people in the conservative movement. she was also in the broad sense opposed to the fundamentals of judeo-christian morality. she was supposed to altruism which she felt was evil contrary to what people us talk in sunday school. absolutely had to disavow. >> you mention the fatah let gerald ford's wearing in and alan greenspan but that was for the council of economic advisers. he didn't become chairman of the federal reserve until 1987 which was after rand's death. did you look at comparing the

actual actions of alan greenspan once he became chairman of the federal reserve to the ideas of rand rather than associating him historically with her because she had no opportunity to distance herself from him once she was top regulator according to you. >> in the book i do get into a bit of detail on rand on greenspan. two chapters devoted to greenspan. the crucial thing with greenspan. i call him the term that i use, the mary hill candidate. even when it was necessary he wasn't 100% of the time. to the head of the central bank but as a regulator at crucial times he was always out there preaching deregulation. he was the most committed opponent of regulation in or out of government.

he was the oracle, the most vivid example an opponent of regulation was whehs he combined with arthur leavitt's two separate people from completely different lives. i think of alan greenspan as

somebody who had scruples at one point but his owners at some point told him otherwise. i think he changed. i don't think her message has changed at all. i think alan greenspan, something change somewhere along the line in his life. i can't say i ever read her books but i have seen her interviews and read her philosophy. if i was to write a book about her i would compare it to actually the law attraction. those of us who are secular and don't have religion and want to be more spiritual stars from the point of view that we are all selfishly wired. that is how we are created by design and it gets you to a point where you actually have more agnostic believe that some point rather than atheist belief and wants to become a whole person. her words are no different than

the new age teachers of today. >> you raise a good point. she stayed the same. alan greenspan change. when he became a member of the collective he had no major beliefs, no major economic beliefs. he was an empty slate and became a convinced objective is to. he was such a convinced objective beist that he wrote several essays edited rand authorized -- which where published in a book called capitalism the underlying ideal which is a big seller today. he never does about anything he

wrote for rand bucci never requested that the essays that he wrote for capitalism the unknown ideal be removed from that an apology. in his memoirs speaking about his evolution as randian doesn't distance himself from the rand movement and vaguely disavows his -- of the 15's views in a vague sort of hint but he never disavowed her in any substantive way and his words speak for themselves. his words in capitalism the unknown ideal speak for themselves. he was opposed to any form of regulation. even building codes. he felt that building codes the way he put it is regulation undermines -- don't have it in front of me. regulation undermines moral basis of capitalism was the word

he used. i don't have it in front of me. he felt if you have regulations all that you will see is the free market was sufficient. the free-market could supplant building code. as i point out in the book in fact when you have a free market, buildings collapsed. people die in fires. the free market has been proven as incapable of regulating buildings. it doesn't work that way. >> what would and rand -- what would ayn rand have fought of

ron paul? >> no question she would have despised ron paul. i don't know about the second one. i would much rather answer the first one. it is hazardous putting myself in a place of ayn rand much less adam smith. she would have despised ron paul the same reason she despised all libertarians. any people who promulgated a point of view similar to her own she despised. she was against libertarians vehemently and she was against the john birch society. you either had to be under her wing and agree with her completely in every respect or she didn't have anything to do with you in terms of your politics. she didn't endorse reagan. with against reagan -- she would

have disliked ron paul because ron paul among other things opposes abortion. she would have hated ron paul. she would have disliked anyone associated with ron paul. he would have disliked any libertarian. not named after ayn rand. his name is randal. that is a genuine urban legend. his name is randal. >> ayn rand and nathaniel branson came to a party. was that personal? >> it was personal. ayn rand had 100% personal represented differently at the time. she had had an affair with nathaniel brandon who was her principal deputy and her

ideological heir between roughly the years 1952-1960. there was a big split in the rand movement and the reason was they had been having an affair from 1952 off and on through the 60s and nathaniel brandon wanted to break off and she didn't take kindly to that. this is established history. there was a tv movie made about it 20 years ago. even the objectivist movement acknowledged that a fair. she made all kinds of accusations against him. serve as accusations. it was a personal dispute. it goes back to the quote from nathaniel brandon about how the objectivist movement doesn't always stay close to the facts. which is that again?

[inaudible] >> he became -- he was a psychologist and he became a very successful author writing self-help books. his role in the objectivist movement ended though he appears on panels. he is in his 80s. he totally left the movement. contrary to her wishes she'd put a curse on his head. contrary to her wishes he became a very successful author. >> i wonder if you might say a little bit more about ayn rand. e.u. described her as the godmother of the tea party. can you tell us more about your thinking on that? >> you have to understand about ayn rand. you have to understand about the tea party is it is very

disorganized movement. it is anarchic but there are several main groups. as i described in the book, she was -- a certain amount of publicity about how at tea party rallies in the early tea party rallies, ayn rand and who is john galt, john galt being a character from "atlas shrugged" but ayn rand was an important influence on early members of the tea party including mark mcclure who was head of one of the major tea party groups. he is a very big ayn rand aficionado and ayn rand was an influence on other early members of the tea party. you see this not just in their adoption of her point of view. not only all of her beliefs the crucial parts of her belief system. you see this in positions that the tea party has taken.

for instance the tea party is not very much into social issues. you don't see tea party members pushing all that much on abortion or gay marriage. their main thing is capitalism. to a large extent i think to a large extent that is rand's influence. >> i think there is a difference between the messenger and the message. the thing is it seems whatever the perception of her message is, i think you still have -- still broad appeal and you can pick things you like or don't like and just wondered from your perspective is -- i sense her appeal growing or not and it takes many forms. maybe people are also spinning

it to their own views. but she is still -- we are talking about her and she herself war that philosophy still has an impact on what is happening. >> no question about that. one of the things that it was interview oliver stone, the famous film director who is a very far left guy, way out to the left but oliver stone had an interesting take on ayn rand. ayn rand has one point was going to do an adaptation of "the fountainhead". rights to "the fountainhead" still with warner brothers. she sold them to warner brothers in the 1940s and she made a movie with gary cooper which i personally liked but critical reception was mixed. they still have the rights and he was going to do another

remake of "the fountainhead". i get into the way he was going to manipulate "the fountainhead". he was going to turn howard work from being a very selfish man into a selfish some -- selfless individual who acted for the people. kind of interesting. there are elements to brand -- rand, her philosophy, that are actually very appealing. i personally liked her novels which i point out in the book. not great works of literature but neither is herman wouk for that matter who was a big best seller about the same time. i didn't agree with a lot of what she had to say but there were elements of her philosophy

like individuality, i think she had a point there and her point on selfishness. if you don't take everything she said -- if you don't agree with everything 100% if you agree with 30% of what she says you can take away certain things from her books that are positive, that are life affirming. i recommend people read her book but i'll recommend people read it selectively and try not to swallow what she said hole or do what oliver stone did which was to sort of adapt rand to your own belief system and not let her take over your belief system which i think a lot of young people do when they read her books and that is why it is unfortunate that her books are taught in high school. you have to be a bit older. you have to be at least in college to be able to really

properly appreciate ayn rand. to answer your question there are positive aspects to her books. no question. >> wait for the microphone. >> in your opinion what would you say the single most inconsistent internally inconsistent aspect of objectivism is? >> you see in consistency -- to me i see inconsistency wes in the internal -- than in the actions of rand herself. rand -- the biggest example was medicare. rand was an opponent of medicare. he was violently opposed to medicare going back to long before medicare was enacted. was opposed to medicare in

newspaper articles in the kennedy administration when medicare was a-she felt wooden slave dr. sfax or words to that effect. a simply terrible thing. but what happened? when she qualified for medicare and she needed medicare and her husband needed medicare they set up for it. and they signed up for social security which i can understand. their reductions in medicare. she took the vantage of this program she described as evil.

>> you were interviewing tea party leaders and found something about rand struck something in their private lives? >> not just tea party leader is but others like the well-known blog her opposing the so-called ground zero mosque. pamela dillard and some of the other -- and the tea party leaders. she was not -- some of the tea party leaders i spoke to all shared one source are common denominator which was the rand appealed to them on a deep psychological level. for instance pamela geller was a

rebellious young lady when she was in college. she wanted to leave home. her parents wouldn't pay for her college education and less she stayed at home so she left home and supported herself. she was introduced to rand around that time and rand resonated with her because rand, in addition to politics and economics and everything i think a lot of people object to about rand she was in favor of individuality and speaking up free yourself with members of your own family. that appealed very much to geller because she came from a family that was kind of controlling and you see characters in the rand books particularly "atlas shrugged" where several of the main characters including hank riordan, the steel magnate, got

his family -- reading that book by -- it was totally routine for hank riordan. i didn't like the philosophy but as a character i rooted for hank written. that is the kind of thing that appeals to people and i don't think it is really appreciated. she appeals -- that rand speaks to people's self-esteem. self-esteem issue. psychological issues. you don't really have it anymore but for a while in the 50s and 60s becoming a branch of psychoanalysis. randian psychology which you don't hear much about any more, which was really self-esteem and she appealed to people's self-esteem issues very much and that is the kind of thing that

-- that is what gets people involved in rand. >> did you see the "atlas shrugged" movie that came out your or two ago? do you have a view of it? does it echo her philosophy or come close to being like the book? >> there were several problems with the movie. first the one for which was criticized the most that i agree with is it is not a particularly well-made movie. even rand acolytes who were thrilled they were making a movie about "atlas shrugged" were not happy with the performances or production values which were not all that great. the other problem was it was a multi part. it was only one part. the very first part of the volvo. it had a problem with production

values. instead of being dystopian, instead of being 1950s dystopia they moved in to the present day. they screw around with the timeframe of the movie. it just wasn't that well made. the production values learned that great. i would say -- baron broke, lukewarm about the movie. the thing about the movie which -- the main test of the movie is would it make people read rand and i would say the answer is no. seeing that movie isn't going to make people read rand. it was not a very good movie. >> one quick follow-up. you say self-esteem is one of the things -- the feeling.

almost the self-help book. especially compared to what is happening now if you look at government now it is so dysfunctional. very interesting. i am glad you mentioned it. >> i did mention that. funny you should say that because somewhere in the book it is one part self-help book. that is what it is. no question. >> it has been said the job of the federal reserve was to take away the punch bowl when things get a bit rowdy. do you think what alan greenspan did was more in his self-interest by keeping interest rates low when he should have increased them because the party was getting rowdy around the year 2000 because he wanted to get one more appointment as chairman of the federal reserve from george bush and was also keeping the

democrats have been by keeping interest rates on home loans will? >> interesting pherae. that is possible. would you are suggesting is possible. one reason alan greenspan is not popular is his actions on interest rates but what made him interesting to me was that interest rates but regulations but what you are saying is possible. he was a politically savvy person and self preservation might have been part of it. any other questions? thanks again for having me. [applause] >> for more information visit the author's website

gary-weiss.com. >> here's a look at some upcoming book fares and festivals happening around the country. the atlantic journal constitution's decatur book festival will take place august 31st through september 2nd highlighting an interactive children's area, poetry and author panels and the florida heritage book festival and writers conference will be in st. are the scene the weekend of september 14th. award winning author jeffrey lindsay will be the keynote speaker for the festival. on september 22nd-twenty-third kirkland washington will host the northwest book test featuring dozens of doctors signings and presentations including appearances from pbs journalist blaine harden and. morrison. also the weekend of sept. 20 second booktv will be live from the national mall in washington d.c. for the national book festival. check booktv.org for updated information on my father panels

and interviews. let us know about book fairs and festivals in your area and we will add them to our list. e-mail us at booktv@c-span.org. >> what are you reading this summer? booktv wants to know. >> i have five books in my queue. i read 60% of the time on my ipad and 40% of the time actual hard copies. let me start with my nonfiction this summer. during the winter break i read a book on fdr and the election of 1944 by david jordan. another one just came out called final victory about the same campaign. for a number of reasons, why it may be interesting to political junkies in today's times period. you read about thomas dooley you see a lot of mitt romney.

the good, the bad, all the issues, popped up when you get these books about thomas dewey. forget the campaign of 48. the campaign in 44 as well. the new one, and what i have been meaning to read from some time about a friend of mine who wrote a book called pinched and it was about the great recession and chronicleing how it is culturally changing us and what kind of long-term change is taking place in many places around the country. talking about a white male under class is one of his thesises and it is a good way and thinking about making it required reading for a lot of my folks internally

but every politician not to read this and understand because it explains as well as anybody the chronic pessimism that is out there. we see it in all the polls. while we so pessimistic about the future? we don't have this optimism anymore. we talk about the importance of optimism for presidential candidates but there is a pall of pessimism. not necessarily translating in the benefit of one party or the other. a is sitting there and sitting on us and this great recession really did it. we have gone through this before as a country. it takes time to get out of these things. pinch is a book you ought to read. my fiction books i am reading daniel silver's new book. at american colleague of mine. got to love this book. they're all good. fallen angel. it is historical fiction. that is what i love. i have been plotting for rent it has taken me time but i haven't given up, the stephen king book

112263 -- 11-22-63. fictionalized history using the kennedy assassination. stephen king books -- that is what i am reading this summer. i hope to finish them all before the convention. >> for more information on this and other summer reading lists this at booktv.org. >> sunday live on booktv in depth with economist julianne mal low --malveaux. you'll take your e-mails and tweets for three hours. >> i try to look at this in the larger perspective and go back and see how did we get to where we are today? what were the main causes? are there any trends that run through our relationship? what the ultimate goal of tryin