economist walter williams and american contempt for liberty where he tackles many issues

including race, education, the environment, health care andd m. more. >> host: walter williams inter your most recent book american in contempt for liberty, you write it's difficult to be a good economist and simultaneouslyved perceived as compassionate.mp oo be asasion g od economist one has to deal with three out threey, t audi of the two appear topassionate often one has avoid unpleasant questions.oid p >> that is absolutely right tor. te a good economist, you have to look at the cause and effect and many times people don't want toa see cause and effect and so an economist will also talk about cost that is when people talk about the benefit that they are doing something, someone has to talk about cost and a lot of times people don't like to talk about cost.

>> host: is a cold-blooded creature? >> guest: i think one of my issues is my initial premise we each go to ourselves i and my private property and you are your property. if you accept the self ownership, then certain acts are moral and immoral. it violates private property. i think that you can get a fairly good addition of how the world should be from the moral standpoint that looks at the initial premise. >> host: what about the concept of the common good? >> guest: it doesn't make a

lot of sense whatsoever. what was done in the name of the common good many acts that you see around the world and over the history of the world hasn't been very moral. >> host: back to american contempt for liberty in many view american education as a failure but in at least one important way it's been a success in dumbing down the nation so that we fall prey. >> host: that is absolutely right. i haven't watched any of the debate but if you look at some of the debate in particular

those on the democratic side of the spectrum you find that americans don't really care about the character for of the person and what they are calling for in the nation and i think that's because americans have become dumbed down by the educational system but there's another success in the system and that is teachers and the people that run the system. >> host: you spent quite a bit of time writing about american education. what's happened to it? >> guest: there are several things that have happened for the good of the system one has been the monopolization of education in the country.

i believe the number is around 1950 there were 52,000 school districts in the country. today there's about 13,000 school districts so there've been massive consolidation and then there's fewer accountability standards both for students and educators and then we see teachers and principals get pay raises and promotions whether the kids can read or write and the kids get their diploma whether they can read or write and i think a startling commitment condemnation for the school system is that close to 50% of

the take remedial education in writing and mathematica that's the same thing the schools are issuing a fraudulent diplomas. i can teach the micro economic theory and in the fall i teach the first phd course and in the spring i teach intermediate which is an undergraduate course i would love for my students to share my values but i don't talk about my values and class.

it is to learn how to think and how to engage in this passionate analysis and hopefully if they get out in the world and get into the policy commission they can come up with compassionate policies or compassion of ideas. >> host: what kind of education that you have? >> guest: i tell people coming and it's not nice of me to say this but i tell people that i am very happy that i got virtually all of my education before it became fashionable for white people to like black people. what i mean by that is that when i heard this he did it cope us he high school or college that was an honest to god score that i earned in when i earned an a. that was an honest to god a dedicated and care but the legacy of discrimination or my handicaps being poor.

they held up to standards and i think that is very good and i think that many students both black and white are not held to high standards. for example, in my junior high school, one of the assignments was to write a three page essay torrent into four pieces with a little note on top of it but if the teacher did that today they might be in a lot of trouble because she might be hurting the kids feelings of self-esteem. when i was going to school teachers didn't care about my self-esteem. >> host: you write about doctor rosenberg one of three teachers? >> guest: yes he was i anguish

teacher in high school. those kids that he's all but had some college potential that arrive at 7:00 in the morning and he would drill us on english topics and grammar. one day in class one of his teaching techniques was to write a sentence on the board and have one of the students corrected sentence info one day he wrote a sentence into the student of the error and he was about ready to erase the sentence from the board and i raised my hand and i said there's another error and he looked at it and decide what is it and i said there is lack of agreement between the subject and he said very good you are very alert this morning and so i

said to my friend is sitting beside me i'm paying taxes for the teacher to teach me and i have to teach him and he heard me and went into a tirade. he said it's like catching pearls, you will never be anything. he was really frustrated with me and legitimately so because i was kind of the clown in class but him addressing me that way was the first real challenge that i had in high school and i graduated second in my class but i need to do that kind of dressing down. can you imagine what would happen to a white teacher telling it black kid today with doctor rosenberg said to me he would be kicked out of the school committee would be called a racist and condemned for not caring enough about the kids

feelings and self-esteem. >> host: one of your books is called race and economics. >> guest: i think there is a lot of confusion between race and economics but race has played a role in our country in terms of the economic well-being of blacks or other discriminated against minorities that has had an effect. discrimination doesn't explained what people think about race in the country. >> host: and this is from a column in 97 per year to veto for years i said if they wanted to establish academic excellence they couldn't find this tool more perfect than the majors at cities.

keyword at the board of education. did that affect you at all or change your class is? >> guest: i went to benjamin franklin high school and at the time benjamin franklin high school was the lowest rated schools in the city it was in north of adelphia predominantly black and low income area but however, if you could imagine a time tunnel and you could pull benjamin franklin from 1954 up to today, then benjamin franklin would be probably one of the highest schools in the city of philadelphia. and that is the reason why is that standards have plummeted so much. now my statement about the ku klux klan i've often said that if you want to sabotage any chance of black academic excellence you couldn't find a better way than the public school system in most cities and what we do see that most

americans are unaware of and particularly black americans are unaware of is that it's the average black high school graduate or average black high school 12th graders as the reading, writing, math and civics knowledge of the average white seventh or eighth grader. that is a devastating statistic that is where a majority that graduate from high school with a fraudulent diploma. the quality of education that white students get is nothing to write home about. that is because the standards are very, very low and that is according to the recent national assessment of education process statistics for 2015. i think that is only 30 or 40% of the white students that are proficient in reading and math

but it is 7% score proficiency in math and i think like 10% score proficiency in reading. >> host: where do you see those disparities in rates of? >> guest: they are probably a member of reasons. one has to do with the education system in general but i think that one of the things we have to recognize is that there are many inputs that preventive education and if some of the inputs are off their editors and get difference how much money you spend on education and education would occur. in other words what i'm saying is that for a kid to do well in school, somebody must make sure that the kid is in bed by eight or 9:00 at night. somebody must get him up in the morning and get him to breakfast. somebody must make sure that he

arrives to school in time and he does his homework and somebody must make sure that he minds the teacher. if that isn't done, i don't care how much money you put into the education budget, education will not occur unless those things are done and if you ask ten politicians to those things and big short kid is in bed on time and can donate here are the congressman or senator, though you need a parent and by the way i think you need two parents. >> host: when in your view did this start to switch, when did the standards become dualities and when did the change in education "-begin-quotes >> guest: i think if i were to try to find a time during the 60s and 70s, standards begin to change. as a matter of fact my mother

used to complain about the preachings saying you shouldn't spank your children regardless of what the doctor advised i got spanked. so what we we started to do, we started to in terms of education we started to move away from things that worked very well two things that sounded good as we went from things that work well to things that sound good and that were not very productive. one example of this is that i live in a high income neighborhood and in the state of pennsylvania but my wife had been trying to get me to move my daughter out of this fairly good public high school and i was resisting it because the tuition at a private school was like $14,000 a year just back in the

80s. and what convinced me to move her to the private school was a parent-teacher meeting that i had with her teachers come and her math teacher with all the teachers in the room at the math teacher said while your daughter hasn't been turning in assignments and paying attention and we didn't know anything about it. we want the kids to feel good about themselves and i told him, i said i feel good about myself every time i sold a set of equations, and so i went home that evening and i told my wife let's start looking for a private school. >> host: and did the standards change? >> guest: is as a matter of fact one of the things of the at the private school we are

interviewing the schools and those that we ultimately decided to send money to said we don't tie your education measures. that is if you teach the course in english you have to have your degree degree and in galicia and teach the course in math and you have to have your degree in math and also if my daughter would slack on some of her jobs, we knew within the next ten days because they send an interim report home and if she did something very well, we would know that as well. >> host: in an interview that you did with the national review magazine, you said i'm not a member of any party i would call myself a jeffersonian or madisonian liberal. we need to take back the word liberal because people that use it to describe themselves are not liberal at all. it goes on to say that williams is in large part a libertarian but some people call a classical liberal though he says he splits

with many libertarians on national defense and foreign-policy and that he doesn't mind being labeled a conservative. >> guest: i've been called a lot of things in my nearly 80 years of life but yes we need to take back the word liberal because it essentially means that you are for personal liberty and people who call themselves liberal today, they are not for personal liberty they are for things like using the government to forcibly use one american to serve the purpose of the matter and they are anything but freedom oriented. >> host: how did you get from the projects of the philadelphia to the economics professor at george mason university? >> guest: while it wasn't easy

and the one who has gone from where i started to where i am now, you don't do that without luck and chance and help from many other people. i am not a self-made person. but i think that very significant about my journey is that it's a wonderful testament about the nation that is just because you know where somebody ended up in life, you can't be sure about where he started and i think that is so great about our nation. that's part of the uniqueness of the united states that is we are not a class society. that is in europe if you don't start at the top, you're not going to get to the top. but in the united states it is possible to start at the bottom and move all the way to the top command very interestingly if you look at forbes list of the

5100 richest people in the united states, you don't find the names like rockefeller, carnegie, ford and all these people, you find steve jobs, bill gates, and people who start off with relatively modest incomes were middle-class in a move to be the richest people in the world and that is a great commentary about the united states into something we should work hard to preserve. >> why haven't you watched any of the debates so far? >> guest: i'm not turned on by politicians so much. i think that it very important that politicians are salesmen

and they are trying to sell people on their particular vision or get people to vote for them and they will use any tools at their disposal to get people to vote for them and i'm just not turned on by politicians. >> host: up from the projects page 128 you write it's always been my opinion that save for a precious few congressmen peace people are not deserving of the honor and respect they receive and most of them a handful of snow are seen as enemies of both the constitution and the moral precepts of the founding fathers. >> guest: that is right. and i think that any politician who would rigorously live up to the oath of office to uphold the united states constitution he just would not get elected to office by the american people

because what the politicians reflect, they reflect the values and the views of the american people, that is those that elect them to office. some people might say that is a little bit strong. while he we just might ask ourselves what would happen to a publication that had the vision of what's a james madison acknowledged in the united states constitution and in 1794, the congress appropriated $15,000 to help a french refugee and a james madison stood on the floor of the house i rate and says, and i'm virtually quoting him he says i cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article in the constitution that authorizes congress to spend the money of their constituents for the purpose of the netherlands? now if you look at the federal budget, two thirds and three quarters of it is for the purpose. now just ask yourself what would the american people do to a

politician or anybody running for office would make a statement like madison or make another statement madison also said that charity is not a legitimate function of government can you imagine what is they would do to politician so what i'm saying is that politicians are reflecting the values and the views of the people that are elected to office and unfortunately, the values and the views of most americans are distinct from those of the founders of the nation. >> host: so has the key party movement in a positive in your view of american politics? >> guest: i think it has been a movement or a group of people who are saying let's go back to the constitution, let's have the

constitutional principle. but whether they will be successful or not is another matter. and keep in mind that, you know, if you look at the founders of the nation, they wanted a very limited government. if you read in the federalist paper i think it is 45448 when he was trying to describe to the citizens of new york was in the constitution to get the citizens of new york to ratify the constitution, he said the power that was delegated to the federal government are few and well defined, and restricted mostly to external affairs, those left with the people and the states are in definite and numerous. if you turn that upside down you would have what we have today, that is the power of the federal government are in definite and numerous into those are the people in the state are limited and well-defined. >> host: from your book liberty versus the socialism you

rightly often hear the claim that the nation is a democracy. that wasn't the vision of the founders they saw democracy as another form of tierney. if we have become a democracy, i guarantee you the founders would be deeply disappointed by our betrayal. >> guest: yes i think that is absolutely right. if you read the statements by madison, jefferson and adams, they condemn the idea of democracy. as a matter of fact you don't find the term democracy in any of our founding documents. that is futile to find the word democracy in the declaration of independence or the word democracy anywhere in the united states constitution and if the listeners want further convincing of this, when we talk about when we pledge allegiance to the flag to the democracy for which it stands or the republic or the solemn during the war of

1861 is at the battle hymn of the democracy without with a little hymn of the republic? the founders thought the idea of the majority rule was a form of tierney and if you look at the constitution and read a, it is an anti-majoritarian documents that is the president isn't elected by a majority vote. the president can veto the wishes of 535 people congress and it takes to third to override so there are many anti-majoritarian aspects in the constitution which represents the rules of the game. >> host: this is in the book american contempt for liberty u. -right-curly-bracket and suggests the barack obama presidency might turn out to be similar to the failed presidency of jimmy carter.

>> guest: and what some people are saying is president obama is making jimmy carter's presidency look good. i think that our enemies around the world don't have a lot of respect for us and our friends don't have a lot of trust for us and i think at least the foreign diplomacy part of his presidency has been a disaster into the domestic aspect with socialized medicine under obamacare and the big business bailouts on spending programs think that's a disaster for the country and it will take a long time for us to recover. >> host: one of the things we are talking about is income inequality. what does that mean to you? >> guest: it doesn't mean very much.

one of the points we have to talk about when we talk about income inequality, we should be talking about productive and a quality that is that you very seldom find highly productive people who are the people that you find poor tend to have low productivity but then again the whole idea of income inequality ignores the fact that there's all kinds of income mobility in the country just for example, the a lot of people look at the lower quintile of the income distribution, they look at it as if the people on the lower quintile are permanent residents or permanent residence there and it turns out that there are several important studies at least two important studies on by the university of michigan shows up that 91% of people in the lowest fifth of income distribution and leave or 91%

believe in ten years and matter-of-fact people on the top 1%, 30% of them are not there anymore after ten years of there's a lot of income mobility and so we should not assume that these different quintiles represent permanent residence for people, they are just statistical categories. >> host: back to contempt for liberty, president obama into the democratic party harp about tax fairness. here's my question to you what standard of fairness dictates that the top 10% of income earners pays 71% of the federal income tax burden while 47% of americans pay absolutely nothing but sex >> guest: it is a reasonable question is should the top 10%

or top 25% pay all the federal income tax and others pay nothing? but i think there's even a more insidious problem about people not paying any income tax and that is the people who have no federal income tax burden or liability they become natural constituents for big spending politicians. after all, if you don't have a tax liability, what do you care about texas parks and matter-of-fact but points out why the so-called bush tax cuts during the presidency were not popular because again, if you are not seeing much taxes then wouldn't you care about a tax cut and as a matter of fact you make a tax cut as a handout to the program. >> guest: so wasn't running right when he said 47% is never going to vote? >> guest: they improved the evidence that suggests that.

>> host: good afternoon and welcome to book tv on c-span2 treatises or monthly in-depth program. our guest this month is on economics professor, columnist walter williams and he will be with us for the next two and a half hours to take your calls and comments on social media. here's how you can get a hold of us if you've got to make a comment or have a question for walter williams, a 202-748-8200 if you live in east and central time zones, 202-748-8021 for the eastern pacific eastern pacific time zone. we have several ways social media to get a hold of us. we will begin with our e-mail and that is 202-748-8021. you can also make a comment at order page at book tv. they spoke.com/booktv.

we have walter williams posted to the top of the page and you can go ahead and make a comment along with the other folks have made comments. quite a conversation going on on the facebook page right now. we've also got another one. if you want to send a text message you can send a text message to doctor williams at (202)717-9684. that is (202)717-9684 and we will get to as many of those as we can. that's probably the first time that i've ever read that little script and not said 202. i used zero and my mom says the same thing. first time i've ever used. it's a little more difficult. here is doctor williams books over the years the state against blacks came out in 1992, 1982. america is minority viewpoint also in 1982.

all it takes is guts, 1987. south africa's war against capitalism, 1989. do the right thing to people's economist speaks more liberty means less government, 1997. liberty versus the tierney of socialism came out in 08. up from the project projects in autobiography came out in 2010. race and economics how much can be blamed on discrimination cannot in 2011, and his latest collection came out this year american contempt for liberty. doctor williams, i want to go back to the second to last book how much can be blamed on discrimination when it comes to race and economics and the disparities that we see currently? >> one of the things we should recognize as many of the things that we are seeing in the communities, those things we are seeing in the communities such

as ferguson at baltimore and others that they are entirely new among black americans. that is the illegitimacy rate among black americans as close to 75%. and a lot of people would've blamed this on the legacy of discrimination but it turns out in 1938, the illegitimacy rate was 11% on blacks. and matter-of-fact among white was 3% in 1938 and today it's around 30%. if you look at the breakdown of the family as a matter-of-fact, maybe breakdown is a poor term to use as a family doesn't form in the first place it's only 30 some percent of black kids that live in two parent families. again, many people would blame that on the legacy of discrimination. but it turns out in 1880, the

75% of black kids that within two parent families in new york in 192585% live in two parent families. the kind of crime that we see in many black neighborhoods is entirely new. i grew up in the housing project a housing project in the ability of end we didn't go to bed to the sound of gunshots and many people didn't walk the door until 11:00 or 10:00 at night when everybody was home. there was greater civility in poor black neighborhoods at the time when people were closer to slavery only two or three generations of slavery and there were not the opportunities and far greater discrimination as we find today. so what i'm arguing is that much of what we see has absolutely nothing to do with

discrimination. if you look at the fact of business which isn't very pleasant talk about if you ask the question in what city are black people most insecure received grossly poor education and have other very poor living standards, they are in the very cities where a black is the mayor, black is the chief of police come a black as the superintendent of schools in a very cities where the administration and the cities have been democrat for over half a century. so i am not stating a causal relationship between blacks being in political control of the cities and the poor living conditions and standards of school but what i'm saying is that you can't blame it on discrimination. that is the rotten education education that black kids are receiving in washington, d.c.,

you can no way in the world blamed on racial discrimination when a political mechanism in washington, d.c. is black unless you want to say that black politicians are engaging in racial discrimination and oppressing the people. so, i think that when you begin to try to solve problems, you have to identify the causes correctly. that is for example i could be a physician and you could come to me and say you have a bad stomach ache and i could say your stomach ache is caused by your and your own toenails. if there is no relationship between the in crowd and the stomachache i can treat treat your ingrown toenail all i want and you're still going to have a stomachache. and the same thing with trying to help people out. that is you have to identify the cause of their problems correctly and if you just say what, problems were caused by

the legacy of discrimination and slavery and discrimination. while coming you can work on that old you want and the problems are going to persist. >> host: how long have you written a column, how the column, how many times a week? >> guest: i started out in the philadelphia tribune which is a black newspaper, and it runs i think once every two weeks this is 1976 or 78 and then i became syndicated in 1980, 1981 so i've been writing a column for post-40 years and my column allows me to do those things that i can't do in classrooms. that is the kind of discussion that you see when i'm on the radio or television or discussions right now they never come up in my classrooms because i think that is academic dishonesty or professors is the

classrooms to proselytize students and once in a while i will get a student of the last me a question about something i've written in the column and i will just tell them see me after class or during my ordering my office in after-hours because i refuse. >> host: is the first thing you say when see when you go into class the first day? >> guest: the first thing i told the students i say this is a real college course. you're going to be expected to find the subject, object, verb and period and if this is too challenging you should drop the course. and i also told the students my class is that southern:30 in the morning on tuesday and thursday in the spring and i told the students part of my lesson on the first day i told him them

the class starts at 7:30 on the cold days in february. it starts at 7:30 when the sun is out and the birds are chirping into it like to stay in bed and in april it starts at 7:30s with the class is too early for you you ought to drop out. want to drop it now. >> host: doesn't sell out of? >> guest: it's almost always full. >> host: i want to show a little bit of video here and you will understand what this is. it's a friend of yours. >> people from time to time ask me to mention some black conservative writers and 30 years ago i could have told you walter williams and me. and today i can't even keep track of them all over the place. the media, they have their own shows, columns and books. and from nowhere they suddenly appear. so there is this countertrend going on and everything depends

on -- [inaudible] >> how much of a role have you played in driving them to the conservative point printers clocks >> i have no way of knowing. you'd have to ask them. sometimes i'm credited with having influence on this person or that person is walter williams for example had a rise of the same at the same conclusion i did before i ever met him and that is one of the reasons [inaudible] so it is so easy to reconstruct these things but it's what i call putting 222 together and getting seven. he had his own ideas before i ever came along. >> host: that was from 2005, who is that? >> guest: that is my very good and longtime friend and colleague. we met at ucla in 1969 and he came out as a professor in 1969 i believe 1970 he joined the

faculty and i never took a class with him but we became instantaneous friends, and i think some of our friendship began when he called me up and he said walter, i just got some royalties on a new book. would you like to go see the mohammed ali fight? that's when he came out of retirement and he got the fraser and that is the fight that he lost against joe frazier and we've been friends ever since. and we think very much alike that we are not friends in terms of our thinking. >> host: what about his comment he can't count the black conservative writers? >> guest: back in the 70s, we worked on a project at the urban institute and he was telling me if we had a game among blood conservatives would have to be cutthroat.

we couldn't play partnerships because there wouldn't be that many. and also bill buckley, he joked one time he said that tom soul of the epa doesn't allow walter williams and tom soul to fly on the same playing. the plane would crash into the no more conservative economists. but today there are many people who are, there are many black people that are conservative and i think that maybe we are proud to say that at least i am proud to say that some of the inspiration to challenge conventional wisdom came from the writings of me and tom soul. >> host: what's your relationship with rush limbaugh? >> guest: i've laid eyes on him only twice even though it on the show for 20 years and the reason why -- >> host: and you have guest hosted. >> guest: yes i just posted for 20 years into the reason why come i don't see them because the reason i'm in new york to do

the show is because he is not fair as he is somewhere else, so we have only seen each other twice. but over the years he lets me have the show and it's my show. and i'm always pleased to have good guests and i've interviewed him a number of times on his book. and i've looked at the show like me big classroom and i could also express ideas that i couldn't express in class. >> host: clarence thomas and ben carson art right-wing bigots because they resolve them result them of any responsibility for the racism they instituted and

maintained in this society and of course in spite of individual success, african americans still have african-americans still have to navigate structural barriers to success in a profound and relentless white privilege most don't even have to think about. >> guest: that is very unfortunate and i think it's clear that black americans have made the greatest games over some of the highest hurdles in the shortest period of time than any other racial group in the history of mankind and why would i say that? if you add up the amount they earn and you thought of them as a separate nation, we would rank 17th or 18th in the face of the earth. there are few who are among the world's richest people.

there was the head of the mighty military. there are some who are the world's most famous personalities. now, the significance of all this is that in 1865, neither a slave or slave owner would be me that these would be possible and just a little bit over a century and as such it speaks to the fortitude of the people but it speaks to the greatness of the nation. how can we get these to a large two large percentage of the community may be one third for who these appear to be elusive. but the point is anybody that

would betray black people as poor and downtrodden i think that is a racial insult. >> host: we have calls waiting. walter williams's organist and bob in new jersey you are the first call. >> i am enjoying the conversation very much into what interested for an opinion on what doctor williams brought up on madison. i'm wondering if he is familiar with richard beeman spoke plain honest man. it would be the principle of federalism to one of a national sipping government. i guess general washington's

troops that are threatening were threatening to march on philadelphia for the lack of payment and over time they became an understanding that a stronger centralized government really was critical to our nation's survival. there has to a partnership on an ongoing basis and that remains today. and i'm not arguing with principles of conservatism, but i'm asking you do you recognize the need. as well as the private enterprise that is one question i have and i wonder if i can have a follow-up later.

>> host: i have a lot of callers waiting salutes of doctor williams respond to that. it's not whether something is a good idea. the question is it permissible by the united states constitution it's not permissible in the united states constitution and if it calls for limited government and limited power of the federal government and as i said. they are few and well defined and well restricted mostly to external affairs and those are the people in the states and numerous. i would like to see where we

change the constitution to say the federal government has unlimited powers and those powers by the people and the states are indeed limited. what we've done is we've made changes in the constitution without having a constitution without having the constitutional amendment. but we do things now and we say the heck with the constitution and we think that is a big mistake. >> host: and in the book liberty versus the tierney of socialism you quote thomas paine government even in its best state is but a necessary evil in its worst state an intolerable. >> guest: that is absolutely right and i think that we americans should realize and recognize that the history of mankind has been that of

arbitrary and use and control by others. the founders were not perfect but they tried to move us away from that and the main enemy of mankind throughout history has been the government that is if you look at the 20th century, it is the most brutal century in the history of mankind i think that something like 60 million people lost their lives in wartime but that pales in comparison to the number of people that were murdered by their own government, and the number comes up to somewhere close to 100 million people murdered by their own government and as a matter of fact at the statistics are documented in a book called death by government, and so it shows that it is a strong argument that the government is the enemy of mankind.

just look at the language of the bill of rights says things like congress shall not abridge, congress shall not prohibit or disparage the congress shall not infringe. the framers didn't think that congress would do these things why in the world would they put that down in the constitution? and i suggest to people that when we die and if at our next destination we see anything like the bill of rights we know that we are in hell because a bill of rights in having would be an affront to god to say we can't trust god and so the framers recognized that we do need some government and that is as thomas paine was pointing out.

there was the amendment about guns and the right to keep and bear arms most americans think that the framers gave the second amendment right to keep and bear arms and wanted to protect the right to keep and bear arms but framers didn't come out and say to allow americans to have some kind of defense against abusive government and people like hamilton settings to allow the american people to protect themselves against the representatives if they are for trade by the representatives and into who in the world are the representatives in the united states congress lacks so i think that they have a great distrust for the government that americans today i think we love government. and the reason why they love the

government is because the government can do those things for them that if they did the same thing privately they would go to jail as the government can take my money and give it to you and if you came up to me with a gun and took my money would go to jail. if you text a message and if you could include the first name and the city said you could identify that way this is a text without first name and city to keep people in poverty? >> guest: i don't think that is intrinsically the intention. i think the intention for well intended people is to help people but when you look at the intentions of a program, you

should ignore their intention and the effect of welfare has been devastating for black americans. the kind of things that you see today are entirely new as i said earlier and there is no more material poverty in the united states, we don't have anything like you see in bangladesh and afghanistan and all these other countries. we have is what we have is the poverty of the spirit that is where people have become dependent on government programs and they are not self-sufficient that's the kind of poverty that we have today. >> host: texas city texas, good afternoon. >> guest: good afternoon. yes, my question i have but i

have for mr. williams in the 1950s, it wasn't until the 1950s my understanding is that black people in this country were not considered human beings until now and the next thing is that the ku klux klan is in the organization for years and no official has ever done anything that would be effective to get rid of such a group and the third thing is the black lives matter movement and the fourth thing is that of immigration. black people wanted their own. they wanted a level playing field and immigration seemed

like immigration but it's caused his its calls it's caused people to lose their time because it was when my mother could see another kid doing wrong and she would've would discipline the cave and take the kid to his or her parent. we've lost that, the teachers that would watch over us and reports to our parents when we were not acting correctly in schools and integration that took place the teachers were scared. it's like like it was a standoff. there was no communication that was always in tension between black students and white teachers. >> host: very quickly tell us a little bit about yourself. where were you raised, how old are you and if you could also clarify your remark on the black life is movement.

>> guest: i was raised in dallas and my first encounter -- i'm 64 now. >> host: thank you. >> guest: that was back in 1958, 59. that's the way they did it back then. they would come in and get it under control but that is one incident with within officer that i consider to be racist but my experience with police officers haven't always been bad. i've had some that had the right to arrest me but they didn't.

they gave us a chance. >> host: very quickly what did you say about the black lives matter movement? kay, this is whm so interested in the black lives matter movement. and was , i s st .. by my step father. this is black on black crime. the reason i'm interested in the black lives matter movement is because i don't think anything has really changed. these young people, which is our children now, they have heard over and over what the politicians have to say and these politicians go to washington, they have been going to washington since the 60s. we are finding out that the black community still is suffering. it's still doing the same things that was done before we were

declared human beings in this country. >> host: tommy, we have a lot of information thank you for your time this afternoon. walter williams. >> guest: he doesn't have any specific questions, but i would comment on-- let's say the black lives matter. .. all in all somewhere around 95%

of them are murdered by another black, and so if you focus attention on what police are doing or what white people are doing, you will not deal with the problem of black lives being destroyed on the street. most are done by and murdered by blacks. i don't quite understand the black lives matter movement, if you asked these people, look let's make that assumption that cops murdered 500 lives. still, you're talking about overwhelming percentage of blacks who are murdered by other blacks. what what are you going to do about that? just focus your attention on blacks who are shot by policeman you just missed the boat.

the murder rate will continue. >> from our facebook page, tony noonan, he is very selective and uses numbers to fit his ideology without looking at the fact. he he is a good house slave selling a pro-right-wing agenda that supports the top 1% and blames minorities for the situation they are in. guest: that is the kind of thinking that is the continuance of what we see today. just pointing the finger at places that are irrelevant to the problem, we just do not get anywhere that way. that is, if he wants to blame, or you blame rich people, blame the top 1% of the schools that the black kids go to. so you round up the 1% that are

rich and you take all their money, take their houses, what in the world is it going to do for a black kid in high school, graduated from high school and high school in washington d.c. that cannot read and write at the third grade level. it will not do anything. it may make some politician and make mike that do-gooder feel good. host: michael is calling in from alabama. >> caller: good afternoon, i am honored to have this privilege of asking the question. before i get into my question. host: michael, we hear from you once a month and if you could get right to your question that would be great. >> caller: all right, it's about the way that campaigning

politicians, radio hosts and think tank radios broadly use the word freedom and liberty and how washington involvement in the economy is going to somehow take away our freedom and liberties with the constitution protects. i'm not standing up for president obama at all, but even though i am a white male as a born-again saved christian with both a mental illness, and a very rare birth autism that is why i talk too much, i don't see how those who are impoverished through no fault of their own in the third war especially children who are born into poverty and handicap people, if washington washington provides assistant to united way agencies, federal work projects such as the public buildings, public schools, and all of that spee1, michael michael i think we got the point.

the importance of washington helping out those less fortunate in those that cannot do for themselves. guest, i believe it is praiseworthy for people to help their fellow man. i think it is praiseworthy to help your fellow man by reaching into your own pocket. i think that is worthy of condemnation to help your fellow man by reaching into someone else's pocket. i think for the christians among us when god gave moses the commandment, thou shall not steal, he did not mean thou shall not steal unless you have a majority vote in congress. host: darrell, tacoma, washington please go ahead. >> caller: yes, thank you. first of all, congratulation on still be in a row. you have been around a long time. you as a clear thinking

individual, you have two distinct disadvantages. first of of all you expect people to think like you and come to the same conclusions, and then you think you are right in all things, but your college, had the pleasure of the naacp at that time, you change my life. whether i want to accept it or not, you are factually correct. you gave a statistic that they have received more federal assistance then any other people, yet they have more of the problems. you made some recommendations that night, i will name them all, one you made the

recommendation that if we would do certain things, we would be successful. but the key, and i will finish very quickly, the key is you said something about politics and i'm a christian i believe in doing things. here, they had an election about eight years ago, there is a white male against a black female, the white male, i came in i just moved to the area and his credentials were incredible. twenty years of working, et cetera. the other party said nothing about what they think, what they believe except, they represent the black race. as a black person, i took the

other person because what i fought for and what i'm sure you fought for is that race should not be the determining factor, but what is surprising is through clear workings. host: can you get to the point? >> caller: yes, i told them that by me working for a white person is the same as we would would want whites to vote for a black person. the. host: okay we will leave it there. did did you get anything you would like to respond to come i'm not sure what he was going for. guest: when he was talking, is thinking about the lecture i gave i think at trinity college some years ago. one of my objectives when i give lectures, or generally when i talk to people, i don't try to get people to necessarily think like i do although i would be

happy if they did. my objective is to try to get people to challenge conventional wisdom. that is, give them some ideas to enable them to challenge conventional wisdom and then reach their own conclusion. i never try to say i want you to think the way i do. also, again i would like them to do that, but i give them evidence to question things that they had not question previously. spee1, you write, for most my professional life i have traveled frequently, have traveled frequently, sometimes boarding a commercial flight, to order more times a month for lucrative speaking engagement. over the past three years, the

frequency has fallen to an average of once or twice per year. the reason is simple, i don't want to be arrested or detained for questioning some of the senseless airport security procedures. don't airport security procedures. don't get me wrong, i am for security. guest: i have a very low tolerance for the tsa people, i think think this is a number of years ago. i had carry-on luggage and in my carry-on luggage i had an eyeglass repair kit. this tsa person told me i could take the screws but i cannot take the screwdriver. and i i said that's stupid as hell. whoever heard of someone hijacking an airplane with an eyeglass and screwdriver. so he said, wait here. so his superintendent came up and asked me, and i repeat myself. he said it's on the list either leave it here or you don't get on the plane. so, i would not have gotten on the play but the people who invited me set up a banquet and things like that, and it would be pretty awful if i did not show up. but i just don't travel commercially anymore, now i just

travel in a private plane. if people want to have me give a talk, i just will go by private plane. i just will not deal with the tsa because i'm too old to go to jail. i am not as compliant as most my fellow americans. host: you have been in jail. guest: yes i have. host: how many times have you been arrested. guest: i think i've spent three nights in jail. as a matter fact, my stepfather used to joke, you are not a citizen unless he spent time in jail. one time, my first time in jail i was a taxicab driver at the time, i strive and on the street and the cop was standing in the middle of the street for no obvious reason to me. i learned later that he was holding a parking spot for his body. so i asked him, did he want me for anything, he just ignore me. i said look, if you don't want me for anything get out of my

way. so he came up to the cabin asked me to repeat myself and i repeated it. he me out yanked me out of the cab until my customer, who i had as a witness to be on his way unless he wanted to get charged with interfering arrest. so i was taken to jail, he need me in the groin, and i was really in pain. initially i was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. when i i got back from the dr. another charge had been leveled, assault assault and battery on a police officer. so i spent a night in jail, then the next time i went to jail, again i was driving a taxicab and i came to pick up my wife. she was now my wife at the time, she was my girlfriend. she was at her sister's house and they had a loud, rowdy party there. the police came to the house in north philadelphia, my wife's,

sister's husband, really big guy, picked up two cops and threw them on the street and sick to his german shepherds on them. they call for backup and arrested all this. i asked the officer who placed me under arrest, what are you arresting me for? i just got here. he said we are resting you for frequenting a disorderly house. then the third time, i was married, we are in los angeles and i had an argument with my wife. so i got up and walked out of the house at one am or two am in the morning to walk off my anger. i was walking along, a policeman stop me and asked what i was doing. i said i was taken a walk and he said this far from home. he asked where i live, and, and i said i'm taking a walk. and i said yes, and i think you ought to walk once in a while your cell. so that remark made him : the

station to check my record and it turned out, this was in los angeles, it turned out about four or five years ago from that time i had a parking ticket that i did not pay. award was issued for my arrest. they had to arrest me of the worst thing about it was i had to to call my wife who i just had an argument with to come down and bill me out. i think the bill was like $50 or $75. she came down to the station and i got a lecture two. i met connie when i was driving under driving a cab in philadelphia. we used to go to speak is at that time in philadelphia or pennsylvania they had laws that bars had to close a 12:00 p.m. on saturday night so cab drivers in some of their wives and girlfriends, we

would meet at this luncheonette across the street and go to the speakeasies until two or 3:00 o'clock in the morning. so they started dating just a cabdriver friend of mine, as a matter fact i gave her my phone number and said why don't you call me once in a while. later she said she thought as being pretty arrogant because girls back then did not call guys. she eventually eventually called me to meet a girlfriend of hers. i went to the house and met her girlfriend, she asked me what i give her drive home and we became friends. we were married, she she passed away in 2007. we were married most 48 years, and together 50 years. some people, during our long

marriage, some people congratulated us for congratulated us for being varied so long. and i say congratulations is not in order, both of us are just apathetic. i can do better and she can do better but we're just too lazy to try. >> who is devon. guest: she is my daughter. i wanted five children and my wife did not want any. the reason why she didn't want any is she was the tenth, the last of ten children and she was obliged to take care of her nieces and nephews. she did not want any children. after we're married 14 years, we finally did have a daughter and so we settled with one. but then again i kind of got even with mrs. williams because

when my daughter went away to college, sometimes i would go down to get water or glass of wine it should be sitting and watching tv with tears in her eyes. i i would tell her, look if you had five children you would not have an empty nest. your to play for it. host: what is devon doing today? guest: she teaches. she teaches high school history and ap history i believe. host: private or public school? host: private school. host: thank you. >> caller: hi professor williams, i've been on hold here for a while i have got about a dozen more comments to make. i need about an hour, set possible? a lot of what you are staying is

true, but i would just like to get some contrary, and you mention be able to think, i guess change your conventional thinking, which i'm a big believer inches i think that is one of the biggest problems we have is that people take these big assumptions and can't really examine and think. i would challenge you to do the same. i do agree with a lot of what you are saying, however, the big government is a problem and one of the major reasons is controlled by largely the wealthy. big money. we have socialism for defense contractors, big egg, pharmaceutical companies. so

when we look at the money, sure poor people but who stands up for poor people? you know what #not everyone is going to be an entrepreneur. what i would like to see as a is a country that recognizes that that janitor who works hard, if he is working hard should he be able to put our roof over his family's house, and have medical care? spee1. host: okay i think we have your point. guest: i think what the color talks about wealth and big business and others in washington, i think the problem is not necessarily money in washington, i think the problem is the power of congress to do favors to people. to give one american unprivileged that would be denied another american. so, of course, of course people are going to be willing to pay for that. so what we need to do, we need to strip congress of that kind of power to play favorites with

different americans. so, you would not find money coming to washington. so various packs empirical organizations, they are not giving money to congress for congressman to uphold and defend the constitution, they are giving money to congress because they want special favors. they they want access. i think that is the big problem with our system. that is the big problem with a a of things that go on in congress. getting like the export, import back that gives huge hand out to boeing and two other competitors , and i think one of the things that we recognize is that the only way congress can give one american citizen 1 dollar is to first intimidation threats and coercion, confiscate that dollar from another american. so i agree with the collar in the following sense, we need to

do something about these handouts that congress is given out. i think we need to do it down the line, handouts in general. keep in mind when people say, well we just have to fight under and have food stands are people*. i say i say look, when the poor irish were fleeing the potato famine in the 1840s, arriving in new york without, with just the clothing on their back, how in the world did they make it? was there there food stamp program? of course there wasn't. people say, we need this program in that program. i said how in the world did we make it, we became a rich became a rich nation without all of these programs? think of another area, people say well government ought to do something about the inflation or government ought to do something about the recession or

depression. it turns out that from 1787 until about 1930 the federal government, we had recessions and depressions, no one thought the government ought to intervene to correct the economy. it wasn't until the hoover administration and later the ed roosevelt administration that people thought that government should get involved to try to correct the economy. as a a result they created the longest depression we ever had. that is during the entire 1930s we dealt with the unemployment rate went below 19 or 20%. it wasn't until after world war ii that we solved some of the problems with the depression. in general, your hard put. your hard put for finding out

some good things done by government except that are protecting individual liberties and individual rights. host: boyd calling in from st. louis. hi lloyd. >> caller: hello. how are you. host: lloyd you just have to go ahead make a comment or question. >> caller: okay prof. this is what i would like to ask him about. the three fist claws and also the founding fathers who are slaveholders, and also what about the 13th, 14th, 15th amendment. i will stop there and hang up and i am looking forward to hearing the professor's comments on those things. he keeps talking about the founding fathers if it was just turned on them would still be in slavery. host: lloyd, before we get an answer give us a brief snapshot of yourself.

>> caller: first of all, i i am a retired schoolteacher, and also an attorney. i went to what you would call and all colored high school. but at any rate, we had a good foundation. i graduated in january of 1953. my integration was the military in college. during that generation they produced a lot of outstanding black folks who are called colored then. but anyway i will stop and hang up, i am looking for to hearing the professor's response to those different things, and i appreciate. host: this is something you write about, the phony fathers in slavery. guest: yes, i think the three fifths clause that people talk about, people talk about blacks being seen as 3/5 of a person. it. it turned out during the 1787 convention in philadelphia that

slaves were 40% of of the population of the southern state. the southern states wanted to count each person, each slave as one vote. the northern delegate to the convention did not think slave should be counted at all. in terms of the proportion men of the house of representatives. so the concession they made was to make blacks count, the slaves count as 3/5 of a purpose under a person person for the portion of the house of representatives. now, the color i don't know whether he would want this but what he would argue on the side of the seven states to count each black as one vote.

if they were counted as one vote it would give the southern states far greater power in the united states congress. now, many of the founders they did not want, they were against slavery but they felt that if they had abolished slavery during the convention then there would not have been a union. so, one has to ask the question, would blacks have been better off if the north went their way and the south went their way and there was not a union created between them. we didn't become a united states. i don't think so. i would disagree that blacks would have been better off under those conditions.

as a matter fact, i think it was wilson wanted delicates i believe from new jersey, he said well at least we have outlawed slavery, the slave trade by 1808 and that might be a very good start for outline altogether. now, in terms of the founders vision of slavery i have many quotations of the founders on slavery. that would condemned the idea of slavery. i think there's one thing we have to recognize, and again this is not getting any moral sanction of slavery is that throughout mankind's history, slavery, slavery has been the normal state of affairs. it turns out that blacks were the last people to be enslaved. as a matter fact, the term slave

is a reference to the slavic people, the slavs were among the first slaves. as a matter fact, white white americans were enslaved and that is why jefferson sent troops to tripoli, to free american slaves that were enslaved by some of the northern african countries. so, i think think the unique thing about slavery in the united states, and slavery in the western world is that great written and the united states were the two countries that went to the greatest pains to eliminate slavery. that is, great britain bandit slave trade, just the sight of the union jack on the high seas.

that ended the trade of slavery and then americans, we fought a very costly war, 600,000 americans died and part of the effort was to eliminate slavery. so i think there's two things we have to recognize. slavery was the normal state of affairs of a mankind, get i am not giving sanctions to it but it was a normal state normal state of affairs among mankind. but the fact of business was the united states and great britain had the most to and that abusive and ugly thing. spee1 rod is calling in from florida. you are on tv. >> caller: high professor. that is a long rap sheet. i want to point out that you brought the constitution and

framers designed to secure liberty did not, as james madison said, did not rely on parchment barriers. did not. did not reline words on paper. it's great that we have all of these rights and privileges, natural rights put there on paper, it is fantastic, however, however, their system relied on a separation of powers. probably every school kid, i am 60, my generation early on i learned that you can have three branches of government. the legislative, executive, and judicial. however, with the framers inserted in there, which we do not have today, were senators representing their states. the framers recognized the only rights that were actually secure were those that had an interest group behind them.

the tenth amendment is a dead letter because the states are not in the senate. we can thank the 17th amendment for that 102 years ago. my point. my point is that we cannot return, possibly to freedom in this country until power is once again dispersed, dispersed widely. that means among the 50 states. the people. the people there that created this union. look at today. host: you know what, we are going to leave it there and get a response. guest: i think the caller is suggesting and i think he is absently right, the loss of power by the states because of the senators they are not obligated, they are not chosen by the legislators of the various states. the states have have lost considerable power. the tenth amendment means very little. i think that also the tenth amendment means very little because of the war between states and people called the civil war.

i think it is incorrect to call it a civil war, that suggests that there two factions trying to take a hold of the central government. davis so it was really a war between the states. but what the war between the states settled was the issue of succession. once the issue of secession was settled by brute force, then the federal government can do anything it wants with the states. they can run rough side over the states. it is very much like if you tell my wife that you cannot divorce me, i could treat her anyway wanted to. the very act of exit is a very powerful inducement for people to live up to their contractual agreement. then again, there is an issue and people say, well what can we do to restore economic freedom or to get us back on track.

i say well, i don't want to be too pessimistic but are we as americans, as human beings, any different than the people from the romans, from the french, french, the portuguese, the spanish, these are great empires of the past that went on the two. they are doing many things that we're doing. are americans expecting anything different from ourselves? are we we any different as human beings? i think not. i think we also have to recognize that personal liberty is rare in human existence. that personal liberties as we know the western world, in the the united states are relatively rare in human existence. so, i i am also afraid that historian writing too many years

from now, they'll say well there's this historical curiosity where people were free mostly in the west in the united states. they had some liberties but it all went back to normal state of affairs. arbitrary abuse and control by others. i'm afraid that will be entrance. if you asked the question, which way are we americans headed? tiny steps at a time, are we headed towards more personal liberty or are we headed toward more government control over our lives? you'd have to unambiguously be the latter. so, i don't don't see a trend in the other direction that is headed toward more liberty and less control over our lives. so the ultimate ultimate answer of this process is totalitarianism. host: are live conversation and

your calls with watts old williams will continue after this quick look at some of the authors that he is reading right now and some of his favorite books be back. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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♪ but have not released books. book tv has covered many of these candidates, you can watch them on our website, book tv.org. >> walter williams, as we ask all of our authors some of their favorite books, some of their favorite authors, some of their favorite influences area this is the first time this response is coming to us. when asked asked about his inspiration, this is the producer nick writing this, williams responded with, all those people involved in my life who didn't give a damn about myself. guest: that is absently right. they held me accountable to even their own standards, or held me accountable to other people's. up to high standards in general. so, for example at ucla, that is where i went to graduate school,

one has to in order to get a phd, one has to take a theory exempt. lunch when i took the theory exam, 16 students took it, 14 flunked. i was among the ones that flunked. they had two professors sit down with you after the exams and decide whether to kick you out. one of my professors told me, he said walter, your exam was among the worst. but we think you can do much, much better. so they gave me reading assignments, i had to come to their office and discuss the journal article. sometime sometime i would come to the office and they said william you're just a nonsense.

, read it again and come next week. maybe next week or next time i came i felt very good. and they said oh perfect. when i took the exam again, i passed it. so they did not give a damn about the legacy of slavery or discrimination, or my heart upcoming, my hard life. but they held me countable to standards that they held every other student. that is respectful. that is the basically, look williams, there is slavery and discrimination, blah, blah, blah, we are not going to have you live up to standards of white people, we are going to have a special standard for you, one that is lower. that would have been insulting. that would not have lower. that would have been insulting. that would not have helped me in the long run.

i'm a better economist as the result of holding me to the standard they did. host: and in your phd is from ucla? spee2 yes. spee1 walter williams is our guest, we have an hour 50 minutes left with him. we will put the numbers up on this green, divided by where you live in the country. east, central time zones and mounted pacific time zones. we also have several methods of social media where you can contact and make a comment meant to walter williams. real flash to those as well, email, facebook, twitter, text messages as well. if you do send a text message, you do send a text message, please include your first name and the city and state so we can identify you through that. this is a tweet that you have received, it is from chris heller, i'm sorry it is a facebook comment and he wants to know can you talk about your experience with milton freeman? guest: milton friedman he was a free-market economist, in 1976.

he has done outstanding work in his economics and a lot of his work had to do with monetary policy, milton friedman, he was one of my mentors at ucla. i audited his class, is is afraid to take it for credit. after i got my doctorate we engaged in several activities, one was to write a spending limitation amendment to the united states congress, spending limitation. we wrote the amendments and it was carried in the senates, it passed in the senate i believe in 1982, 1982, it did not make it to the house.

we offered again in 1986 and it did not pass them. what it sought to do is put a limit on federal spending. milton friedman, he is even if you disagree with them you have to like him as a person because he is everybody's old uncle. i remember one time he called me up, it was like in 1978 and i was in a debate on educational on school vouchers. it was at harvard university. it was shown on wg b, wgbh some like that, anyway milton friedman called me up the next day and he said walter williams, your points are right on the money, you brought out the important points but you made one fatal air. he said, you didn't smile. when you talk about liberty, you have to smile.

so i think i learned that lesson to him to try as much as i can to smile when i talk about liberty. host: from a text message field, vincent pat texas wants to know what you think about the true flat tax proposal and doctor ben carson. guest: i think we need to do something in the way of a flat tax. get rid of some of the loopholes in the current tax system. i would never support a flat tax unless we got rid of the income tax because if we had a flat tax would find that we would have both an income tax and flat tax. i think the big army some years ago he suggests that 17% flat tax with only exemptions for dependents.

i think that would do away with a lot of the hanky-panky you see in washington. if you look at the two most powerful committees of congress, the house ways and means committee and the senate finance committee, these are where lobbyists go to get congressman to rig the tax law in their favor. so, if we had a flat tax we would get rid of much of the congress ability to play favorites with others. host: donald trump says he wants to bring jobs back to america,. guest: well, the the way they could bring jobs back to america is to get government out of the way.

getting rid of a lot of the regulations, the taxes, i think we would see enough surge in the number of jobs. keep in mind, we became the wealthiest nation on the face of the earth long before we had these regulatory programs. for example, from 1787 until the 1920s the federal government was only 3% of the gdp except during wartime. 3% of the of the gdp compared to the federal government being 25% of the gdp now. so you say, how the say, how in the world do we go from a third world backward country in 1787 to the richest country in the most powerful country in the face of the earth without all of these government programs. i think the reasons we did become a rich country was because we did not have all of these

government programs. u.s. the question, zero well well you need housing and urban development. you need a hud agency. well, the american people build some of the greatest cities on the face of this earth before hud was established i think back in the late 50s. then it was only after hud that we found a lot of our cities going down the tube. so, we always have to ask that question, what do we do before? well we? well we need a department of education, it turns out, well american education was on a higher plane before the department of education then afterwards. so, we find all of these different programs, all of these excuses whether the increase in the role of government in our lives without asking the questions, what do we do before? host: michael, oakland, california thinks california

thinks for holding your on with walter williams. >> caller: mr. williams, i want to know what you think about illegal immigration specifically. especially economically. that is my question, i'll take it off the air. guest: i think no one has a right to come into our country except legally. i welcome people to our country, we have a huge country. we have plenty of resources. as a matter fact that has been our history, people coming to our country legally. i do not think that people should have a right to ignore our laws to make their first step across our border to be an illegal one. i think we should do something to ensure attitude protect our borders. borders. what we should do about the

people who are here illegally, that is a little more difficult question. it is a clearly an easy answer. the first thing we ought to do is to secure our borders and make sure the people that we want in our country are here legally. also, there is a security issue, that terrorist organizations if they want to put 30 bombs, if they want to put bacteriological agents in our country, they just have to send their agents to mexico and come in through texas, arizona, new mexico, and open up sleeper cells in our country. so, i think there think there is a national security issue here as well. host: i have a text for you. hello walter, my name is devon, i am a 25-year-old half black,

half white male from virginia. i was just wondering what your opinion is on the new political correctness movement and the sudden pry of cultural appropriation from self proclaimed allies of minorities? guest: i think we should ignore political so-called politically correct strictures. people say to me, while williams you can't say that, and i say will damn if i can. the first amendment. the first amendment of the united states constitution guarantees me the right. so, i think what what we ought to do is ignore these people that are demanding that we change our language to accommodate some particular values they might have. host: from the new york times was an article about halloween, costume correctness on campus, feel free to be you but not me. it is an article about what is acceptable, pocahontas, caitlyn

jenner are no nose, also off-limits our geisha geisha girls and samurai warriors, but you can be a crayola crayon, a a cup of starbucks or, where's waldo. guest: that's really going very far. i think her grandparents would be shocked by the kind of things we accept, that we just accept. i think we should ignore. host: do see political correctness. guest: probably so. i ignored there as well. i do not see it in any of my classrooms and i'm not political correct at all. i say whatever i want to say. my colleagues tolerate me, i think i start my 35th year there. host: what you think of tenure? guest: i am tenured. host:'s tenure in important thing for universities? spee2 i think we ought to eliminate tenure. you don't have tenure, the

average person does not have tenure and the school like a university such as hillsdale college where i used to teach, and i am still on the board of trustees emeritus though, and the schools getting along well, what tenure does, tenure does not allow you to keep your high-quality professor. what tenure does do, it makes it difficult to get rid of your rotten teachers because they have tenure. i think the same thing happens in public education, as teachers with tenure and makes it difficult and costly to get rid of them. but does not allow you to keep the good people because if people are competing for them. host: next call from laurie.

>> caller: yes, i heard the professor equating the irish coming here during the potato famine to the black experience and i almost fell off my chair. there is no comparison to what the black suffered and the irish suffered professor, i don't know. guest: but i did not say that. host: they said you they had a fine and dandy when they came here. they came here under terrible condition and look how good they did yeah they had a flying part start compared to what the blacks had. but my other comment. host: hang on, you'll leave you on the line. guest: you misinterpreted. when people say you have to have food stamps i say, well what did the irish, the poor irish to clean the potato famine there is no food stamp program. that is the point i was making.

>> caller: you said if you elected black mayors, black police chiefs you kinda said that look in the cities where they have elected blacks the crime is still higher whatever, but i'm going to say to you, and the places where there black leaders that does not mean the people underneath them are not racist, mean people. if you have a black police chief there are still going to be racist police officers. i live in a live in a town where you can count the black people on one hand. when i called in and my car had been broken and the first thing out of that police officers mouth, is i i bet it is a black person. i'm like, why? they're not even any around here but they are ready to blame them for everything. so, you can, off the air but i know i heard you correctly on irish thing because everyone in the room was just looking like

wow. host: lori can you tell us a little bit about yourself. nope, we'll never know. she hung up. guest: i don't know what to say. let's just move on. host: david in chicago, good afternoon. >> caller: good afternoon, prof. williams it is a great honor and pleasure to speak with you today. my question is, early in the program you remarked that you do not see existing inequalities of wealth and income as necessarily problematic, but as libertarians we also acknowledge that there several layers of distortion and interventions in the economic system that separate it from being a true, free market. i wonder wonder if you think that if existing interventions might be aggravating problems of

wealth inequality and incoming inequality? guest: i your quote is incorrect, however i have argued and you can look in my books particularly race and economics. i . out that very often attend the economic game is rate. it is rigged against people who can be described as latecomers and outsiders. one example example i give is the taxicab industry. that is, what does it take for person to be able to get into business, become an owner operator of a taxi. well, maybe make $50000 a year. what does not take a lot of capital, you get a used car, you get some insurance, and you learn the city streets. it turns out, new york city for example the license to own and operate one taxi cost $700,000. that was as of last year.

in boston, $400,000, $400,000, chicago, $300,000, miami around 500,000. so what is the ask expect of these license regulation. they keep people out of the taxicab business who don't have $700,000 line around or who can have bank credit to get such a loan. so, that that discriminates against outsiders and the game is rigged to become insiders want to keep outsiders out because they want a higher wage. another law that discriminates against people moving up the mainstream of american society is the minimum wage law. so, a lot of americans most of them support the minimum wage law and they supported out of the intentions, because it has good intentions, but when you look at a law you shouldn't ask, what are the intentions you should ask what are the effects of such law?

you see the effects of a minimum wage of say $7 per hour and you say look, put yourself in the place of an employer. >> and. >> connect. >> .. who are the low-skilled workers in our society? for the most part teenagers and their teenagers that are low-skilled because they lack of maturity and experience of

adults. among the teenagers are black teenagers who not only shared the handicaps of teenagers in general but the additional handicap of living in right neighborhoods, what the minimum wage law does is cuts off the bottom rung this of the economic ladder because if you pay a person $4 an hour at least he will be working and gaining some experience and later on ultimately 7, $8, $9 an hour but the minimum wage cuts of the bottom rung of the economic ladder. i have written about the data which is a superminimum wage law that restricts employment for blacks, restricts discriminates against nonunion labor. the davis-bacon act is still on the books today and if you read the congressional testimony in support of davis-bacon act, march 31st, day 6513 of the congressional record you will

see all the statements from politicians saying see that contractors there? he brings cheap colored labor up from the south and puts them in cabins, competing with white americans. in light book in south "the relevance of religion: how faithful people can change politics"'s word against set up capitalism racist unions in south africa were the major supporters of minimum-wage laws for blacks and their stated reason was to protect white workers from having to compete with low-skilled, low-wage black workers. in the united states we don't use the same rhetoric but the fact is the same. to discriminate against the employment of the least preferred worker. there are many regulations on the books that create a disadvantage for disadvantaged people but we don't focus on that.

we focus on discrimination, focus on this and that rather than looking at the rules of the game, various regulations that discriminate against the less preferred individual. >> host: i want to show something from your web site, a certificate comment and have you explain what exactly we are looking at. proclamation of amnesty and pardon granted to all persons of european descent. >> guest: i was teaching at temple university in philadelphia from 1973 until 1980 when i went to george mason university. when i became a faculty member at temple university, there was the push for black economic, class in black economics. i asked my colleagues how did demand terms and supply curves

work, what is the economic difference? they could come up with any answers. i said you are doing these things because you feel a sense of guilt. and so as a matter of fact during a department meeting what i told my colleagues when they brought this up, what are like to do is to for give you for your own grievances and those of your forebear's against my people so you stop feeling guilty and stop acting like fools. it italian students demanded italian economic you would throw them out, chinese student demanding chinese economics, you would throw them out of your office but black students, you listen and i think a lot of what we see is motivated by white guilt and guilt is one of the most dangerous and despicable motivation for doing anything.

>> host: here was an article that appeared when you were teaching in temple, a philadelphia inquirer, racism, question-mark, opposes easy grades for blacks, the cluster opposes leniency for blacks. >> guest: i came across this, a very nice professor asked me to go to lunch with him and during lunch he was saying but the problems he's having with black students, they don't come everyday, their assignments, many times they are sleeping in class, not very well, and so i said what do you do? he asked me what to recommend? what do you do? so he said i try taking consideration poverty and discrimination. you have a pencil like i do, you

put down grades. he says if they come everyday and look like they are taking notes i will give them a seat. i said you know what you are doing? that is like my having a dog in an english class and sometime during the semester the dog gets on his hind legs and says you are not going to do that. you get the dog and because you don't expect the dog to say anything and whenever he says is laudable. you are insulting and hurting these students by such a policy. as a matter of fact i found out a number of my colleagues were doing the same thing and they are motivated by guilt or trying to compensate for the legacy of slavery or discrimination and poverty and i don't think that does a person very much good in

the long run. >> host: steve in arlington heights, ill. texts to you can you speak to the anti confederate hysteria currently sweeping? >> guest: i think people don't really understand much of the history of our country. just very briefly, this is on my website and my articles i talked about this. and that is in 1783 there was the treaty of paris and the treaty of paris ended the war between the colonies and great britain. if you read the treaty of paris it says there are 13 sovereign nations. each state was that nation and these states came together as principals in 1787 and created the federal government as their

agent. principals conspire agents and so if you read and you read the ratification documents of rhode island, new york and virginia they specifically say in the documents the federal government becomes abusive of powers we have delegated to the federal government we have the right to rescind those powers. we have the right to secede. so most americans do not understand, they think that the war was solely to end slavery but the war was for much more than that. however, but winners of any war write history so the confederacy, they got a really bad name and i think that this

anti confederacy movement is just maybe one more step towards abolishing many of our symbols. one can argue whether the confederacy was right in seceding and you don't have to be for slavery. you can be against slavery but that is an independent argument if they had the right to secede. all the evidence suggests yes they did have the right to secede because the state's work principles and they came together and created the federal government. most americans today think that the states are recreation of the federal government. that is the way congress acts, the states are of the creation of a federal government when it is the opposite. >> host: tray in fresno, calif. thanks for holding, you are on the air with walter williams.

>> caller: what you are doing is beautiful. i want to ask a question of economics to you. are you aware of any economy is brought history that it can scarcity as the foundation of its bases of the economy. are you aware of any economy that did not have scarcity as foundation? >> guest: economic theory would not exist unless there was scarcity and what scarcity means is humans once back seat the means, that gives rise to scarcity gives rise to conflict and we have to find ways to resolve the conflict and we can resolve conflicts through the market mechanism for government, through violence and through gifts. scarcity, without scarcity there would not be any economic problems whatsoever. >> host: john in portland, ore. a text message, in what ways do

you believe black americans would be better off if the wells there -- welfare state had never been? >> guest: not only black americans but americans in general, americans in general would be more independent. one of the things we have to recognize, any economist, liberal or conservative or free-market, will tell you that if you tax something you will get less of it and if you subsidize something you are going to get more of it. what we have been doing is subsidizing slovenly behavior. you see, the duration of unemployment has almost doubled since the 1940s and one of the reasons why the duration of unemployment has doubled is because of unemployment compensation whereby people can pick and choose, they can say i am not going to take this

hamburger flipper jobs, i will wait for something better to come along. but not accepting that job and starvation they would not make such a decision. it creates dependency mentality. give you an example of this. my wife has that cute family as i suggested she would be the youngest of ten children and one time we were over at their house and two of her nieces were arguing about money and one set i will pay you, i will give you their money when i get paid. and she was referring to going to the mailbox and picking up a welfare check. the idea that a welfare check is payment. it is not only poor people, it is farmers. farmers think they have the right to get subsidies. sugar producers think they have

the right to get subsidies. businesses think they have the right, walt disney, they think that you and i should subsidize their advertisements or subsidize their campaigns. we have become a nation of thieves. that is what we have become, nation of people seeking to live at the expense of other people and i think that represents moral decay. >> host: bill in rock, mich. good afternoon to you. bill? rock, michigan. let's try john in missouri. you are on booktv with walter williams. >> let me make this as a statement, i want your opinion. micro aggression, micro aggression, seems to me it could be a cry, people make their

living on racism to make sure there is something around if the real racism goes away. i would like your opinion on that. thank you and you look great, by the way. >> guest: my take on micro aggression is similar to my colleague who wrote a column, he calls it micro totalitarianism. that is what it is, people try to stop people from expressing certain views. that is nothing more than totalitarianism. >> host: should some public service be required for full citizens rights? >> guest: i don't think so. i think a lot of people's a should you be in the army or

should you work on roads to be at citizen. i say no. that is nonsense. i don't think public service should be a requirement for citizenship. >> host: auburn, alabama, text, do you think the fed serves a viable purpose? >> host: the fed has been very unproductive. justification for the federal reserve bank, federal reserve act was to promote price stability and end bank failures. you did just a simple before and after analysis, you will find price stability was greater before the federal reserve act and there were fewer bank failures before the federal reserve act than after the federal reserve act. and i think the federal reserve bank, this might not be nice for

me to say this way, they enabled the government to steal from its citizens by inflating the currency. i have often suggested to people that if they ever find themselves on trial for counterfeiting they should tell the judge that they were engaging in monetary policy. that is what the federal reserve does. >> host: your publishers the hoover institution press. why do you go with the hoover institution press? perhaps a major new york publisher. >> they made life easy for me. that is one. >> host: not denigrating that in any way. >> guest: no. maybe some inertia although i have been criticized for using some because some people say they don't spend enough resources in publicizing the

book, but they spent considerable resources in publicizing the book. >> host: if someone said pick up a walter williams book, they go for the newest book, american contempt, sorry about the analysts, or they go up from the project? one book. >> guest: i would say "american contempt for liberty" and the reason why, that is a collection of my columns and ideas and not whole range of topics. books like south africa's war against capitalism are a little more narrowly focused. as well as race and economics, that is more narrowly focused. i think race and economics, i would recommend as a second choice. >> host: joan, you are on

booktv, this is "in depth," walter williams is our guest. >> caller: this is the personal economic problem. i am in my 80s and went through the depression and world war ii and grew up in a very frugal way of managing my finances and right now i do have some money saved. however, in the bank i am getting 1% interest is a big deal, personally, where should wheat old people put our money because we are afraid to take too many risks and in a way with the social security not being increased because they're supposedly is no inflation i kind of feel my age group has had it. what is your opinion as to where we old people should invest? thank you. i will listen. >> guest: i am not a financial adviser but there are many

places like mutual-fund its that maintain a portfolio in equities and bonds that you can check out. what you need to do is talk to and investment counselor, call up ubs or merrill lynch or some other investment house and ask a stock broker to give you some ideas and they will be happy to give you ideas because they would like to have your account. i am not going to -- when people ask me, what is going to happen to interest rates, what is going to happen to stocks, i tell them a fine is the answer, i would not be sitting here talking to peter. i would be out on my chios and i would be rich and i am not rich. i don't have the answers. >> host: when you were a teenager you bought shares in pepsi. how did that happen?

>> guest: i used to work after school for stockbroker and sweep the floor and deliver packages and one day we were sitting and talking and nothing was going on and he says i can sell -- at that time your people was not a derogatory term, a shiny vacuum cleaner, or stock. so i listened to him and next time we talked i said what stock? he says -- explained to me what stock is, a couple times later i said suppose i want to buy stock? he said choose something that you like and so he gave me a list of stocks and eyes of pepsi-cola. i loved pepsi-cola and so the man went out and bought me one share of pepsi-cola and i think it could have been around $12 or

$13 a share. subsequently -- it really cost him to buy, he had to pay a fee to get one share. i started accumulating shares of pepsi-cola and then i stopped buying it because it got too expensive. what it did was it forced me into looking at the newspaper, looking at following my pepsi-cola share and looked at other stocks and read the newspaper accounts of what was going on, i learned a little about it. i have been on vostok market 14 or 15 years old, ever since. the point i make is if i did not have that job i would not have met that guy. in other words if there were a minimum-wage law there would be not only that opportunity but other opportunities that would have been denied for me and might not have turned out the

same way. >> host: what happened to you in the korean war era when you declared yourself white? >> guest: i have a lot of problems in the army. i was drafted into the army. sometimes i call it drafted, my labor services were confiscated by the united states government. this was 1959. i sent to fort stewart, georgia and without a very good -- i had some adjustment problems. the adjustment problems led to my being court-martialed and the won a court-martial. made a jackass of the people who court-martialed me and brought charges against the company commander who court-martial me and the charge was undue hardship on a person subject to your command but before i could get the court martial charges started i was sent to korea.

when i landed in korea to fill out these forms to give your race, notification of next of kin and things like this. where it said race i put down caucasian. the chief warrant officer inspecting the forms was of soldier who made the mistake. i didn't make a mistake. we said you put down caucasian. i said i am caucasian. when around and around. if i put down negro i get the worst job over here. i never changed the marking i put down for caucasian. he probably changed it, but i was the troublemaker when i was there. first class troublemaker. >> host: something about painting a truck. >> guest: i was sent to the motor pool to work with trucks.

they gave blacks menial jobs. this officer told me to paint the truck, paint the flatbed of the truck so the whole truck? he said the whole truck. i started painting tires, windows, guys were crowding around the laughing. the company--not a company commander but this officer said up what was i doing? i said i am painting the whole truck. he made me wash the paint off myself. then i got another job watching trucks, but those inside the engine to wash the engine out. i told the guy there was a lot of greece in there. then they kicked me out of the motor pool and i was sent up to the lunchroom, the dining hall to be the mop man.

i was kicked out of that job because the head chef caught me mopping off not meet table with the form of, it was a horrendous site, nasty water flowing on the sides so long story short, i was sent to battalion headquarters to sweep up everyday. it turned out that this corporal was getting discharged and i asked the sergeant major could i have his job? they laughed and said you couldn't do it. i said give me a chance. he gave me something to type out and are made some corrections and he decided to give me a chance and i became head clerk of the battalion. i did some things as head clerk because i was in the field of communication and the only black in the field of communication and they had separate dances on post, dance for white guys and

black guys. so they would send a sergeant and some soldiers to town to get the girls, one time the sergeant called, he called up and said can i speak to sergeant major, sergeant major is not here, can i take a message be to tell the sergeant major, plenty of niggard bus drivers the known bigger and ceos. i said yes sir. it turned out the inspector general was from washington, was doing an inspection of the post, they had generals and colonels. i went to the water fountain and hollered to the sergeant major with the message one of the colonels said get that as ob up here and they got him up there and raised hell. so i did all kinds of things. i was a bit of a troublemaker, quite a bit of a troublemaker.

>> host: this e-mail for you from charlotte, n.c.. please comment on the tendency of liberal blacks to treat blacks with conservative views as less black. is this affected your career? >> guest: no. it hasn't affected my career because i ignore them. however, i think for people to suggest that there should be at monopoly on ideas that black people have about many of the important issues is counterproductive. black people cannot afford to have a monopoly on various ideas and many of the various ideas that were put out in terms of helping blacks have been

disastrous. what we need to have is other ideas. i don't think anybody should have a monopoly on any idea whether it is black people or food and drugs or health or whatever, i think this superior outcome is always the result of a competition in the marketplace of ideas. >> host: mark in columbia, south carolina, please go ahead with your question or comment for walter williams. >> caller: thank you for your service. my question has to do with legacy of tobacco in america. your view on today's situation with tobacco products. >> guest: what about it? i think -- >> host: something you write about quite a bit. >> guest: the idea that we

should outlaw let's say cigarettes and cigarette smoking, i think that it is a violation of property rights. i mean that in the following sense. the issue is not whether tobacco smoke is harmful to others or not. that issue is private property rights. that is for example if you own a restaurant and you do not want people smoking, then it is your right to the a sign outside saying no smoking in my restaurant. if i own a restaurant and wants to prevent people smoking are assigned out saying smoking is permitted. so people have the option, they know where the smoking is. ..

we can control whether you have foie gras in your restaurant, or how many -- whether there can be salt in your diet. and so once you tell a person, you tell a government, they can control certain areas of your life, well, they have incentive to try everything else to control your life. and so we have invited people to control our lives, and i think that smoking represented the beginning of it, and it's kind of interesting how these people start. they always start out small. at the beginning of the antismoking movement, they said, we just want a warning signs on cigarettes. then they got the warning signs on cigarettes. then we want no-smoking sections

in away airplanes. and then we don't want any smoking. they got that. we don't want any smoking in the airport and then we got that. we don't want smoking within 50 feet of the doors of the airport. so it always starts out small, and then it gets larger and larger, and that's almost with any act of government. >> host: y money more liberty means less governmentor," you write: i'm at a loss what can be done to gender norm boxing the fact of business is that we humans are not equal. >> guest: that is right. we're not equal. now, a lot of people want to pretend that we're equal because they think equality before the law requires you be in fact equal but we're not equal. there's no evidence to suggest we're equal. by race or by sex. if you look at -- for example,

how in the world would you explain that jews are three percent of the american population, but the wayne 40% of the nobel prizes won by americans. how do you explain that? or blacks are 13% of the population, and 80% of the nba basketball players. and the highest paid ones. or 66% of the nfl, football players. or virtually no blacks in olympic class swimmers, or all -- with the 100 meet are -- meter dash, there are almost all won by blacks. sew can't pretend -- there are differences between people, even

medically, that is there's a -- jews get a disease to a great extent than everybody else. the pima indianed have diabetes, blacks have sickle cell anema and other populations it's not there at all. we are different. men are stronger than women. men have greater upper body strength than women. men have tesss to at the -- testosterone, and men score a standard disease nation higher than women in physical cocompetition. so we're different. now, because we're different, shouldn't mean that we should be treated differently in the eyes of the law. so, i think that -- viva la

difference. >> host: al, ames, iowa, good afternoon. >> caller: hello. >> guest: hi. >> caller: my comment is earlier talking about irish and when they came to america, something that is very rarely talked about is the fact how the british so despised the irish hundreds of years before that, and captured and enslaved irishmen and sent them to different places to work, and also during the potato famine, i know as college student, taking these history courses, learning about this, that the irish actually had enough food during the time of the famine when the potato blight took place they could have not had to starve to death, and that millions of them would not have had to have fled ireland for places like the united states so they could have food to live off of. but the british, however, placed

many, many military people, many recommending -- in ireland to make sure the food was shipped out of ireland and the irish had to subsist on potatoes which had the blight. we rarely hear about the fact that black people were captured by blacks in africa and sold by blacks the slave traders. we don't hear about slavery except a certain politically correct kind of slavery issue. >> i. >> guest: i think that the issue is that there's probably enough grievances for all ethnic groups for each of us to have our share. we lived in a brutal and ugly world where there have been massive aggressions and massive denial of basic human rights,

and so there's enough for almost every ethnic group to -- or racial group to have their share. i don't know of any particular group of people who have not seen oppression of one form or another. so, of course -- matter of fact, kind of interesting case about irish. you need not go back anymore than, let's say, 1910, or 1890, to see signs and advertisements that any race except irish, any race can apply when they're advertising for jobs, any race except irish, or restaurants saying that anybody admitted except irish and dogs. so, irish faced discrimination, and many groups -- most groups in the united states failed some form of discrimination, which it was japanese, chinese, irish, black americans, jewish americans. i don't know of any other

group -- maybe the people with english ancestry faced the lowest amount of discrimination, but there's been description and oppression for all the groups in the united states. of course, different groups responded in different ways, but that we can -- that can be studied, but nonetheless, various groups faced various -- varying degrees of discrimination. >> host: here is a text message we received. a picture sent to us. see if i can get this -- i'm not very -- there we go. let try that. see if we can get that picture on the air. and -- is that anybody you recognize? >> host: that's your grandson, according to their text message that said your grandson is enjoying watching the show. do you see that there? can you see it? >> guest: yes, i can.

hi. >> host: that was sent in. roslyn, baltimore, maryland. hello. >> caller: ey, thank you for answering. your answer to this question is probably blank but i'm prompted -- i was prompted to call based on your remark on to tall -- >> guest: to -- totalitarianism. >> host: yes. the constitution is the law and if you're denied due process, denied due process to resolve a matter, and in the denial of it for years the ones who are making for the denial are benefiting off of in due process, which is the law, how does the constitution speak for me if i am not afforded due process? and it's the law?

>> guest: well, i think that the constitution calls for due process, and -- do you have a specific area in mind? >> caller: well, it would require an attorney to represent me, but the situation is just that unique. that means it just could go on and on and on with in due process. >> guest: i don't understand the question. >> host: okay. jim in colorado. texts in: were you are the beneficiary of affirmative action? >> guest: well, if i was, i don't know about it. 0 matter of fact when i was interviewing for a job at, let's say, temple university, i told the department chairman -- i asked the department chairman, are you under any pressure to

hire a black person in your department? so he says, no, i'm not under any pressure but we would like to have you. and i told him, i'm going to accept you at your word, but if i find out you're not telling the truth, i'm going to quit the very day i find out about it. at george mason, i'm pretty sure they weren't under any pressure to hire black person, at least in my 35 years there i haven't found that they were under pressure. and then moreover, if they're on any pressure to hire black person, i don't count as the right black person. they have to hire a liberal black person. so, i don't get -- matter of fact, i had a colleague al temple university, he heard in in the hallway talking not very nicely to one of my colleagues

on this guilt stuff. he's a friend help says, walter, don't blame anything on racial discrimination in our department. he said, he wouldn't like you even if you were white. so, that an observation. >> host: ben in chester, ad, wants to know, when i was in college in the late 7 sod the mon tearests economic theory was taught. what are you teaching today? >> guest: i don't teach monetary economics. i teach microeconomic theory. is a said earlier in the show, i teach our first ph.d -- our first-year ph.d students microeconomic theory, and in the spring i teach undergraduates microeconomic theory. so, i don't get into monetary theory. and when i did take monetary theory as a class i did not do very well on it.

so, i am not really good. i love reading about monetary theory but i'm not an expert in that at all. >> host: injury during elect seasons we hear politicians say they're going to do this or that for the economy. do they have that much control? sunny think politicians have very, very limited ability to do good for our economy. very, very limited ability. and they have awesome power to do harm. and so when people would say to me, some years ago, when i got a job -- i was teaching at the grove city college in 1990. and i -- so i asked people, said, i got a job teaching at grove city college in 1990, during the clinton administration. was president clinton

responsible for my getting a job? what did he actually do to make me get a job at grove city college? i doubt whether he even knew i got a job at grove city college. so, a president or a politician has very, very limited ability to do good, and an awesome ability to do harm for the economy. >> host: can't find the right book, maybe it's in here. but it's -- about corporations. spineless corporations, take on citibank for paying reparations. >> guest: a lot of corporations will try to buy off their adversaries. they will do things like contribute to the environmentalists movement, or

contribute to the idea of reparations. and i think that -- as i suggested a little bit earlier, there's been enough grief that if we are going to say reparations -- pay reparations, everybody ought to receive reparations. but i think that one of the problems is that when people say, look, we're going to pay reparations today, so it means that white people of the day have to compensate black people of the day for what white people of yesterday did to black people of yesterday. now, if you believe in individual accountability you have to find such a standard offensive. and that is to punish a white of today to help a black of today

to compensate what a white of yesterday did to a black of yesterday. and when people talk about reparations, i think that reparations ought to be paid to slaves. slavery was a great injustice, but that's going have to be a matter taken care of in heaven. there's no way we can compensate slaves for slavery. and so -- but for their children, who never faced slavery, i think that it doesn't make sense. >> host: elaine's calling from sun city, california, we have ten minutes left with our guest, walter williams. >> caller: thank you. will you comment on the effect of the change from an economy based on savings with compounding interest, to one of investment in the stock market and did it take away -- take power and accountability to

individuals and ultimately give it to the government? thank you. >> guest: i think that investing in equities -- i don't think that in itself gives power to the government, and i think that we still have a society where if you save, there's a compounding of interest. i think that is not going away. >> host: daniel, baitville, indiana. go ahead. >> caller: thank you. my question for professor williams is about the government takeover of the college loan industry, and how that is going to affect the total economy in the future. i believe we're now at over $1 trillion and millenials can't get jobs. so i'll take my answer off the air. >> guest: what industry did you say the government taking over? >> caller: the government loan industry -- the loan industry

for college students that the government has taken -- basically taken over. >> guest: well, it happened seemed to be with all the defaults, hasn't appeared to be a success. >> host: what does it cost to go to george mason? >> guest: i think the tuition is about 16,000. >> host: is that a reasonable amount for college education? >> guest: well, it's much lower than many other -- >> host: affordable. >> guest: much lower. that is, there's some colleges where tuition, room and board, you're talking about 50,000, 55,000, like at princeton or hard record or other colleges. >> host: as an economist, is that affordable, worthwhile -- >> guest: no it's not worth it. matter of fact i think that -- i think that roughly 40% to 50% of students who are in college should not be there in the first

place, and that if anybody who is admitted to college, who is not college ready, as suggested by the requirement that so many kids have to take remedial english and remedial math, they're not ready for college, i think that it's a waste of resources. i think that when -- sometimes i'll go to the library and i'll see some kids out there playing frisbee, and go to the library at 8:00 in the morning and i come back at 11:00 and the same kids are out there playing frisbee. so i wonder whether it's very productive for them. now, here's what -- i think that many kids, many young people, when they graduate from high school, their parents should go out and try to make sure they gate job at mcdonald's, a car wash, at some of the other places, to gain maturity. and then to go back and maybe

when they're in their mid-20s, maybe having gained some maturity go to college. i know in my own personal life i had gone to college right out of high school it would have been an unmitigated disaster. so i started college when i was 25 years old. i was married, and i had been in the army, and i worked. >> host: from our facebook page, this is craig wiley. when i was young black man in camden, new jersey, there were some jobs, a shipyard, factories and major retail outlets, leftovers from the world war ii economic boom. the town was systematically eviscerated. the highway was built around the town, the first nail in the coffin. mr. williams doesn't know b.s. and an pallingist for the systemic exclusion of people of from african ancestry from

economic power. >> guest: i think an unfortunate view of the world. matter of fact, for that person, i used to work in camden. my cousin and i worked for campbell soup, unloading tomatoes in april -- i mean in august. and i used to shine shoes. i'd get on the ferry and shine shoes in camp den. so camden was a flourishing city at one time. but you know, a lot of times you have to say, well, what drove the businesses out of the cities? well, a lot of things like taxes, high crime, poor schools, and all those -- you have to ask questions, what drove the people out of a particular city? and so you see that in many cities, urbanization of the

cities and a lot of time people talk about white flight to the suburbs, and this is in the '70s, very popular topic. but turns out that black flight to the suburbs was greater than white flight to the suburbs and black people don't like being mugged anymore than white people. so, one has to ask the question, what created the condition? look at detroit. detroit at one time, during the '40s, and '50s and part of the 7 six's, a si with 1.9 million people. today it's 700,000 people in the city. people had less. and industry has gone. and people have to ask why. turns out that coleman young was the mayor during the '70s, he was responsible for a lot of the policy done he and his successors were responsible for policies that ran industry and people out of the city of

detroit. so, one has to ask, what led to the evacuation of many of our cities? and people don't want to ask that question at all. >> host: how often do you write your column? >> guest: once a week. that's the best i can do. >> host: how many newspapers. >> guest: about 140. it varies. nationally sin syndicated. >> host: robert from what's, massachusetts. go ahead. >> caller: how is the day going? i listened the and is one thing that interests me when our president got elected -- i live in a small white community here in new england -- there was no tea party until he got elected. and from my own personal observation, from my customers that come and go over the last seven years, we have a lot of people here in this country that were really surprised that we elected a black president.

i think his problems, since he has been president, has been because he was our first black president. now, that's my case. >> host: what kind of business do people see you about? >> caller: i have a little convenience store and we get into real donnybrooks and the past when customers came in and spoke negative about my president issue said i'll put your grocery back, here's you money, and i connected out 500 people in the last seven years itch doesn't put up if the the dialogue the people i know, go to church all the time, are as white as can be, and say such negative things about our president. didn't come out of nowhere. >> that's right robert in massachusetts. if i could take this liberty to read one paragraph from your book, american contempt for liberty, just to add on: this from 2010: early indications suggest that the barack obama presidency might turn out to be similar to failed presidency of jimmy carter.

that's bad news for the nation, you write, but especially bad news for black americans. no white presidential candidate had lived down the disgraced presidency of carter but i'm all too fearful a future black presidential candidate will find himself carrying the heavy baggage of a failed black president. that's not a problem for white liberals who voted for obama who received their one-time guilt relieving dose from voting for a black man to be president but it is a problem for future generations of black americans. >> guest: well, one thing i could be -- i'm wrong in one assessment, i think, that a future black president might have to carry the baggage of a failed black presidency such as obama. that is with the support that ben carson is getting. it seems like the -- i think that it shows that americans are good enough not to hold ben

carson responsible for barack obama. but i think that what the caller recognized is that black people did not elect obama to the presidency. just not enough of us. so the way that he got into office was having huge numbers of white people vote for him, and i think that that's a statement -- that alone is a statement about the goodness of the american people. that is, that we were able to eventually get around to electing a black president, or at least a partially black president. but i think that he just has not -- i think he squandered that goodness among the american people by his presidency. >> host: ada, pennsylvania, you can be the last word, ada. >> caller: how nice. thank you so much.

walter williams is a voice of reason on every topic. i don't use that word "reason" because it's the magazine of the libertarians. use it because i agree with everything you have said thus far and i want to see his smile and those long legs back here in philadelphia as soon as possible. could he please let us know how we can get him and his wife to visit us again and speak to us. >> guest: well -- >> host: ada, tell us about yourself before we get an answer. >> caller: you remember me. i'm in the 90-year-old libertarian, caucasian, was married to an army officer, and the first joke he told me was about the two black men and the motor pool, and they got into an accident, and one of them said to the other, see, do the horns still blow, as if that was a necessary thing. so, believe me, i know all about what he is talking about with the army.

and i do agree with him, and please tell me how we can get him and his wife to visit us here in ardmore, p.a., come back to philly. >> guest: well, thank you very much for your compliment, and unfortunately i can't get my wife at all because she passed away seven years ago, and so -- but i get back to the philadelphia area now and then, and i think that there's a -- at the union league club, think that there's a -- i'll be giving a talk there i believe december 3rd but you can check on their site. and at the same time people should go to my web site, walter ewilliams.com and you can see many things about me and sometimes when i have events, upcoming events, i post it on that site. plus a lot of book

recommendations and other things you can get to gather from the site. >> host: walter williams, came out in 1928. america, minority viewpoint. all it takes is guts. south africa's war against capitalism. a couple more of his books. do the right thing, more liberty means less government. liberty versus the tyranny of socialism. race and economics and american contempt for liberty is his newest book. he has been our guest for the last three hours on booktv. thank you for your time. >> guest: thank you. thank you.