joint operations command and describes housing mortgage crisis. niel ferguson reports on the early life of henry ci -- sisinger. this weekend former federal reserve with actions he took to try and stabilize the u.s. economy during 2008 financial crisis u.

>> now book tv's in-depth program with williams. he tackles many issues including race, education, environment, health care and more. >> host: walter williams. you writemo it's difficult to ba goodte economist an be certify - perceived as compassionist. often one hasre to avoid unpleasant questions. >> guest: that is absolutely right. to be a good economist you have to y look at cause and effect. ..something, someone has to tal

about cost. a lot of times people don't like to talk about costs. >> host: is an economist a cold-blooded creatures? >> guest: i don't think so. i think i am a nice person. one of my issues, to help understand me, my initial premise is the each own ourselves. i am my private prope that he is ai am my private property in you are your private property. if you accept the idea of some ownership theacn cecpter ttain e moral internet acts are in mora let's say the reason what rape is immoral is because it violates private property. murder violates private property and sodas theft. does so, i think a good vision of how the world should be from a moral

standpoint is you look at theor initial parameter. l p >> host: what about the concept of the common good?g? >> guest: the common good does it make a lot of sense whatsoever. i think a lot of things have lot been done in the name of common good. nam what hitler did in germany was o me-- done in the name of common good and i think many horrible acts that we see around the a world and over the history of the world has been done in thehr name of common good and has beeo not-- not been very moral. >> host: mini view americans education as a failure, but in a f at least one important way it has been a success. a success of dumbing down the nation so we follow easy prey to charlatans, hustlersg dowon's,.h

>> guest: i think that is. absolutely right. i think if you just look at-- i don't watch any of the debates, but if you look at some of the debate and particularly those of the-- on the democratic side of the spectrum, you find that americans don't really care about the character of the person and what they are calling for port our nation and i think it's because i think americans character of a person. have become dumbed down by the educational system, but there is another success and educational system and that is teachers and the people who run the educational system, they have far greater powerwho and fewer accountability standards than they have ever had. >> host: you spent quite a bit of timehad.>> host: you spe wris education. what has happened here in your view? >> guest: i think there are several things that have happened that don't-- yelp for

the good of the system.appe i think onene has been the gross monopolization of education in our country. syem. i believe the numbers around 1950, there were 52000 school districts in our country.ion in. today, there are about 13000 school districts, so there is a massive consolidation. i don't think that is good for our system. then, i think that there are fewer accountability standards,t both for students and both foraa educators. that isbity s, we see that teacs and principals get pay raises and promotions whether the kids can read or write and kids get their diploma whether they can di wher write. i think a sterling commitment--

condemnation for the school system is the fact that incoming freshman in college are not ready for college. i think something close to 50% have to take remedial education either in reading, writing or mathematics. that is saying that the public schools are issuing fraudulent diplomas. that is they are issuing athe diploma that certifies that aevn kid can read and write at 12cant grade level, when in fact he cannot. >> host: what do you teach?t >> guest: economic theory, microeconomic theory and innomi. nepal, i teach our first phd pourse with her incoming phd students i teach them the microeconomic theory and in the spring, either intermediate which his undergraduate course in academic theory. >> host: what you want your students to learn by the time they graduate?studeno >> guest: i would love for my students to share my values, but

i don't talk about my values int class. what i hope that they gain frome my class is to learn how torn think. that is to learn how to engage in dispassionate analysis and hopefully if they get out in the world and they get in policy commissions if they can engage in dispatch analysis they can come up with compassionate policies or compassionate ideass >> host: what kind of education o you have? >> guest: well, i tell people and it's not nice of me to say this, but i tell people that i'm very happy that i got virtually all of my-- i received virtually all of my education before ivedl became fashionable for white wha people to like black people and what, i mean, by that is that when i earned a c in high school or college, that was a realh sc honest to god c that i earned and when i earned on a that wast

real honest to god a that i earned and those people did not care about the legacy of discrete nation. they didn't care about my handicaps of beingheye about my they held to standards and i think that is good and many i think man students, both black and white are not, blac held up to a high standard. for example, in my junior high school one of their assignmentso was to write a three page essayn and i received my essay back from the teacher on two has a occasions torn into four pieces with a little note on top of it, at least you can spell correctly, rewrites. but, if a teacher did that today the teacher might be in a lot of trouble. because she might be hurting thg kids feelings of self-esteem, well, when i was going to school teachers to give a damn about my

self-esteem is the one in your book, "up from the projects", europe autobiography, youth >gues right about doctor rosenberg, i believe it was, one of your teachers see two he was my englh english teacher in high school and i thought very highly of te him, but-- and he used to come to school early and he taught college tutorial english. englio those kids that he saw that hads some college potential would arrive at 7:00 a.m. and he would drill us on english, topics and grammar. anyway, one day in class what he had the habit of doing or what his teaching techniques was to write a sentence on the board and have one of the students correct the sentence. t board. so, one day he wrote a sentencen on the board and a student, error in the sentence and he was about ready to erase the to er sentence from the board andas ie raise my head and said doctor

rosenberg, there is anotherd error and he looked at it awhndt said what is it and i said there is lack of agreement between the subject of the object of verb to be and so he said very very frin good. you are very alert the smartingn and so ig said to my friend sitting beside me i said here i pay taxes for the teacher thath teach me and i have to teach them and he heard me and went into a tirade's theory he williams, teaching this material is like casting pearls beforepes the swine. bef he said you will never beated w anything-- he was really frustrated with me itd tand legitimatelyhe - so because i ws that kind of clown in class, but he's addressing me that way was the first real challenge that ia had in high school and i ultimately graduated second inad my class, but i needed that kinl do.dressing down. can you imagine what would happen to a white teacher telling a black -- saying the same thing to a black kid today that doctor rosenberg said to me?d tme?

he would be kicked out of the school. he would be called a racist.e w gselinld be condemned or not caring enough about the kids feelings and self-esteem. >> host: one of your books is called "race & economics". what does economics have to odo with race?ur eco of confusion >> guest: i think there is a lot of confusion between race and economics, but i think race has economics. played a role in our country in terms of the economic well-being of let's say blacks or other discriminated against minorities and it has had an effect.minorii book, "race & economics" i point out when the is that ther, di disk-- discrimination does not explain as much assc peopler think it explains about the problems of race in our countrya >> host: this is a common 1997.t you wrote: for years i said the wd klux klan wanted to sabotage black dimmick excellence they

couldn't find the tool more effective than the public school system most excellenc major citm you are going to junior highf b about the time of brown versusf board of education. >> guest: high school. thataf >> host: did that affect you at all or change your classes? >> guest: no, it didn't. i went tong a predominantlye blk school in north philadelphia. it was benjamin franklin high school and at the time the german franco high school was wi the lowest rated school in the city. it was north philadelphia, but on the back. however,lphiominat if you can ia time tunnel and you could pull benjamin franklin up to todayenn than benjamin frankly would probably one of the highestiladl rated schools in the city of philadelphia and the reason why is that standards, educationaln standards have plummeted so much. my statement have plted so aboux klan, i have often said if you

want to sabotage any chance of a black academic excellence youlle could've had a better way you cf the public school system in most cities. schoo but we do see is that most americans are unaware of and particularly black americans are unaware is that the average, black high school graduate or the average black high school 12th grader has the reading, writing, math and civics knowledge of the average whiteer seven door eighth grader.a48 g i mean, that is a devastating statistic that is where a majority of the blacks graduatea from high school with a grossly fraudulent diploma. now, the quality of education that white students get is nothing to write home about. that's because the standards are very low.

that's according to recent national assessment of educational progress statistics for 2015. i think that it's only 30 or 40% of white students court proficient in reading and math, but for blacks it's 7% score proficient in math and i think like 10% score proficient in reading.audule >> host: where do-- why those ?ost:ritiesnt >> guest: well, there are probably a number of reasons.nuf one has to do with education system in general, but i think one of the things we have to recognize is that-- that there are many input seguin education and its some of it inputs are they are it doesn't make a i difference on howt much money u spend on education.ccur. education would not occur. in other words, what i am sayinn is that for a kid to do well in school, someone must make sure e

8:0 the kid is in bed by eight or 9:00 p.m. at night.mebodyust someone must get them up in the morning and get them breakfast. someone must make sure they arrive at school on time fornd e someone must make sure they doe. e, ir homework and someone must make sure that he minds the teacher cured if that is not d done, i don't care how much you money that you put into education budget, education will not occur unless those things are done and if you asked the y questionou, well, can politicias do those things, and then president of the united states can make sure that a kid is in bed on time, can a mayor or anga cons-- punishment or senator-- no, you need a parents and by the way, i think you need to nk parents.arents. >> host: when it did in your view when did this start to switch? th becomewhene standards reality and when did the changes in education take place? >> guest: i think if i were just

too try to find a time i would think during the 60s and 70s. standards began to change.mber m as a matter of fact, i remembero my mother used to complain abou the preachings of doctor spock saying you should not thinkk, yr children. regardless of what doctor spock advised, i got spanked. regar so,dles i think what we saw to e ad started to in terms of education we started to move away from things that work very well to things that sounded good as we went from things that worked d ll to doing things that sound good at things that sounded good ward very productive. n as a matter fact, one example of this is to say i live in a high income neighborhood in the state a of pennsylvania.h in but,co and my wife had been tryg

to get me to move my daughter m out of this fairly good publicuf high school and i was resisting it because tuition at the private school was like $14000 a year.school practis back in 80s. what convinced me to move her t the private school was a parent teacher meeting that i had with her teachers and her mathscho teacher-- all of her teacherseah were in the room and the math teacher said, well, your daughter has not been turning in her assignments on time and sloppy work and had not beenk, h paying attention. them i said why don't you flunk her?t we don't know anything about it. he said we don't like to flunk the kids. we like the kids to feel good. about themselves and i told him i feel good about myself everyvy time i solve a set of aquaticqus equations and i told my wife t that evening let's start looking for a private school.

>> host: did the standards change?>> ht: d >> guest: yes. ac a matter fact, one of theer-f things that the private school we were interviewing several he schools and the school we ultimately decided to send my n't hter to, the head matures-- mistress said we don't hhiigher education majors.yo that is if you teach a course ic english you had to have your degree in english and if you had teach a course in matthew have to have your degree in math and also, if my daughter was slack on some of her jobs, some of her work, we knew within the nextf two days because they send a report home and if she did something very well, we would na know that as well.member of an >> host: in an interview that you did with the national reviey magazine, you say i'm not a i member of any party. i call myself a jeffersonian liberal.a

we need to take back the word liberal because people who use it to describe themselves today are not liberal at all.ople it goes onto say that williamsl. is in large part a libertarian, but some people call a classical liberal though he says he splitn with many libertarians on national defense and foreign policy that he doesn't mind being labeled a conservative c2 well,poli i have been called a e lot of things in my nearly 80n years of life, but-- yes, i think we need toye take back the words liberal from liberals because liberal essentiallyls bu means that you are for a person of liberty and people who call themselves liberals today are not for personal liberty they are for saying things like using the government to forcibly use one american to serve theent toc purpose of another ande they are anything but freedom oriented.tt >> host: how did you get from the projects of north philadelphia, to economics professor at george mason

university in washington suburbs? >> guest: well, it was not an easy trip. you know, one who has gone from where i started to where i am now, you don't to that without luck and chance. tat with and help from many other people i mean, i'm not a self made person but, i think very significant about my journey is joat it's a wonderful testament about our nation.p in that is, just because you knowte where someone ended up in life, you can be sure about where he started. is so and i think that is so great about our nation. that's part of the uniqueness of

the united states. e noti a class society. the trope, if you don't start at the topot goi he were not goingt to the top, but in the unitedart states is possible if you start at the bottom and you move all the way to the top and interestingly if you look at thf -- if you look at forbes list of the 50 or the 100 richest people in the united states, yod don't find the names like rockefeller, carnegie, ford and all of these people. you find new money, steve jobs,, bill gates and it's relatively people that start out withrela relatively modest incomes are middle-classti and they moved to be the richest people in the world and i think that is a great commentary about the united states and something that we should work hard to preserve. >> host: i happen to watch any of the debates so far? >> guest: i'm not turned on by

oliticians that much.f th i think that the political worll is important, but i think politicians are salesmen and they are trying to sell peopleo on their particular vision or try to get people to vote for them and they will maybe use any tools at their disposal to gettm people to vote for them. t i'm just not turned on by politicians. >> host: in fact, up from the projects page 128 you write: it's always been my opinion that say for a precious fewrespect congressmen these people are not deserving of the honor andi r respect they receive. i regard most of themegarm sa ay of both of the constitution and the moral precept of our founding fathers c2 that is>> ge absolutely right. and i think that any politiciant who would rigorously live up to

their oath of office and uphold the united states constitutionde which is not elected to office by the american people because reat politicians reflect, they reflect the values and views of willamerican people. that is those that will electof them to office. now, some people might say that's a bit strong, well, what we might ask ourselves what would happen to politicians thaa had the vision of say james madison and in 1784, congress appropriated $15000 to help some french refugee. james madison stood on the four of the house i rate and said in v a virtually quoting him: i cann undndertake the way my finger on that article in the constution o that authorizes congress to spend the money of their constituents for the purposes.

if you look at the federal budget, two thirds and three quarters of it is poor the purposes of benevolent. just ask yourself, what with the american people do to a politician or to anyone running for office who would make a statement like madison did?ent s or make another statement or e alson said call-- h said: charity is not a also legitimate function of s government. n you now, can you imagine what theicl american people would do to ae politician who said that? so, what i am saying is that goliticians are reflecting theln values and views of the people who elected them to office and unfortunately, the values and views of most americans are a distinct from those of thest founders of our nation.>> ho >> host: walter williams, the tea party movement, has a been a

positive you in your view? >> guest: it's been a movementh. ir a group of people saying let'st go back to the constitution. o but, whether they will be successful or not is anotherut w matter.he >> host: c2 keep in mind, if yoo look at the founders off our nation they wanted limited government. if you read madison in federal trate i think 45 or 48 and when he wasyi trying to describe to e citizens of new york was in the constitution, the citizens of i new york to ratify theconstitu constitution he said that the owers thatti we delegate to ths federal government are few and well defined and restricted mostly to external affairs.the e those left with the people and the states are indefinite and numerous. now, if you turn it upside down

nment you would i have all we have toy and that is the powers of the federal governments are indefinite and numerous and those of the people in the ndste are limited and well-defined. yr host: from your book, liberty versus tyranny of socialism you write: we often hear the claim that our nation is a democracyhs that was not the vision of the founders. they saw democracy is another form of tyranny to read if ec become a democracy, i guarantee you that the founders would be u deeply disappointed by howard the trail c2 guess, i think thaf is right. if you read the statements by madison, jefferson and adams, they condemn the idea of the i democracy. as a matter fact,a you don't fid the term democracy in any of our founding documents. of that is, you don't find the word democracy in the declaration of independence to read you don'toc buy the word democracy anywhere in the united states constitution and if the listeners want to further continue-- convincing of this,ss we talk about when we ledge ofae

allegiance to the flag it isn'tr to the democracy for which itacy thands or the republic or the song during the war of e1861, it was the battle hymn of the ofocracy or the battle hymn the republic? now, the founders thought that the idea of majority rules was e form of tyranny and if you lookb at a constitution and read thefo constitution represents our rules of the game, it's a very -- it's an anti- majoritarian document. that is the president is not elected by a majority vote. the president can veto the wishes of 535 people of congresk and it takes two thirds toes override his veto, so there are many anti- majoritarian aspects to the united states represe constitution, which represents our rules of the game.ules >> host: in 2010, this is from

your book "american contempt for liberty". you write early indications suggest that barack obama presidency b might turn ot to be similar to the failed presidency of jimmy carter c2 yes and what some people arete saying, president obama is pre making jimmy carter's presidencs look good. i think that our enemies around the world don't have a lot ofron respect for us and our friends d don't have a lot of trust for ut -- in us and i think that at least the foreign diplomacy part of his presidency has been a disaster and iy think thedisa domestic aspect of it, you know, the socialized medicine under obamacare and the bailouts, big business bailouts and spending programs. our c i think that is been a disaster for our country and it will take

a long time for us to recover. i >> host: one of the things we are talking about this election season is income inequality what does that mean to you?ineoes m >> guest: it doesn't mean veryee much to meet her and i think one of the points we have to talk about what we talk about incomeo inequality, we should be talking about productive inequality and that is you very seldom find highly productive people poor.fg the people you find poor are-- 10 to help low productivity, buh they begin the whole idea of income inequality ignores the fact that there are all kinds oi income mobility in our country. for example, a lot of people look at the lower quintile of income distribution. get e atey look at it as if the peopl in the lower quintile areermane permanent residents there.. it turns out that there are a imrtant stportantre studies, at

least two important studies, one by the university of michigan shows that up irs to 91% of people in the lowest fifth of income distributionwest leave or 91% believe that quintile in 10 years. as a matter of fact, people inac the top 1%, 30% of them are not there anymore after 10 years.mor so, there is a lot of income mobility and so we should not assume that these different quintiles represent permanentqui residence for people.categs. they are statistical category. >> host: back to american-- "american contempt for liberty", president obama and that democraticst: backmerican partx fairness. here is my fairness question to you: what standard of fairness dictates the top 10% of income earners a 71% of the federal income taxtop- burden while 47%f

americans pay absolutelyamerica. nothing? >> guest: that's a risible question. should the top 10% or top 25% pay all of the federal income tax and others pay nothing? .com. 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 taxes? that point out why the so-called put-- bush tax cuts during the bush presidency words that popular because again, if you are not paying much taxes, well, then what do you care about a tax cut?

you may view a pacs cut as a threat to your program. >> host: in your view, was mitt romney right when he said 47% would never vote for me? >> guest: evidence suggests he was correct. >> host: good afternoon and welcome to book tv on c-span 2.d this is our monthly in-depth program in the guest this monthu is author, economics professor,m columnists walter williamsnistsd he will be with us for the next two and half hours to take your calls and your comments be a social media. an a queson here's how you can get a hold of us if you would like to make it, or a question for walter8 williams 202-748-8200 if you zo8 live in the east and central time zone's 202-73-8201 and for those in the mountain pacific times. we have several ways the socials well and we will begin with our media to get a hold of us as well and we will begin with c-span.o booknd that is:

tv at c-span.org, so you can and e-mail doctor williams questions there and you could also make ct comment on her twitter page at book tv. facebook, facebook.com. /book tv and we have got walter wil williams posted to the top of our page and you can go ahead and make a comments along withc the other folks who have madeham comments.adcommentsebook pe. we also have another one. if you want ito send a text message you can send a text message at: 202-717-9684. we will get to his many of those as we can. that is probably the first time i have read that thlittle script and not said to 02. i know that's a threat oft peevy yours-- a pet peeve of yours. i used the zero. her here's doctor williams books

over the years, state against blacks cannot 1992. 1982, america a minority viewpoint as would 1982 and all it takes is cuts, 1987.afca's wa south africa's war against was on, 19. peopls do the right thing, the people's economist speak. or liberty means less government, 1997. up from the projects, ane projec autobiography cannot 2010.tsrac "race & economics" came out int. 2011. his latest collection came out this year: "american contempt for liberty". i went to the back to your second to last book, how much bd san be blamed on discrimination race ine ines to economics and the disparities i> st: see currently?

>> guest: i think one of the things we should recognize is that many things we are seeing in the black community, those things we see in the black communities such as fergus head and, and others, they arethey ar entirely new among black americans., that is that illegitimacy rate among black americans is close to 75%. a lot of people blame this on the legacy of discrimination, but it turns out in 1938, that illegitimacy rate was 11% among black. as among whites it was 3% 1938t, and today among whites is around 30%.0%. if you look at the breakdown off and, as amattr fact matter of fact, breakdown may b a poor term to use because thets black family does not form the

first place. of that is only 30 some% of black kids live in to peer families. miri again, many people will blame them on the legacy of discrimination, but it turns out in 1880s, 75% of black kids slated to parent families. in new york in 1925, 85% of black kids lived in two parent families. the kind of crime that we see ii many blacksee in neighborhoods s i grew up in thine original housing projects in north philadelphia, and we did not go to bed to the sounds of gunshots. many people did not lock their door until 11:00 p.m. or 10:00 p.m. at night when everyone was home. there was far greater stabilityr in poor black neighborhoods at e time when the black people weree closer to slavery, only two genn generations, two or three generations out of slavery and they were not opportunitiesree d far greater discrimination

from against black as we find it is today. so, what i argue is that much of what we see has absolutely nothing to do with discrimination if you look at--c i mean, the fact that this is not pleasant to talk about and if you asked the question, inont what city do black people-- arek black people most insecureor eco ngceive grocery poor educationoi and have other very very poorthe living standards, they are in the very cities where a black is a mayor, a black is chief of police, a black is superintendent of schools and the very cities where thean administration in those citiest have been democratshen in th for centu half a century, so i'm not stating a call so relationship between blacks of being in political control of these

cities and the poor living conditions and poor schools, but what i am saying is that you can't blame discrimination.thatk that is the rotten educationshi, about black kids are receiving in washington dc, you can know when the world can you blame them on racial discrimination when the political mechanism in washington dc is black unless you want to say that the black politicians are engaging inti racial discriminationon and andh pressing their people. so, i think that when you begin to try to solve problems, you have to identify the causes correctly.e a for example, i can be a physician and you can come to me and say you have a badave stomachache and i can say well, your stomach ache is caused by your ingrown toenail. well, if there is no relationship between an ingrownd toe no and stomachache i can treat your ingrown toenail, but will that work and you will stog

the stomachache. w the same thing with trying tothc help people out that is if you have to identify the causes ofeh their problems correctlyt and ik you just say, look, blackby t problems are caused by legacy of discrimination and legcy ofatioe discrimination and slavery, well, you can work onll on thatl >>u want and black problems will hosngt. >> host: how long have you written your calm and how manyhr times a week? column, >> guest: i started out with the i philadelphia tribunes which is plaque newspaper. it-- i print-- a prince by: every two weeks in 1976 or 78 and then i became syndicated 1980 and i have been writing the column for close to 40 years an my column allows me to do those things that i can to in the classroom. that is the kind of discussion that you see me when i am on tho radio, television or the

discussion right now, they nevee classroom because i think that his academicto use dishonesty for professors to use their classrooms to prostatitisn students and once in a while itw get a student that will last me a question about something i dur wrote in the column and i willi tell them to see me after class or come during office hours because i refuse to do that.sawn i thickets academic dishonesty. >> host: what is the first thing you say when you go iclnto cass? that first day with a new bunch? >> guest: in my intermediate a course the person i tell the students, i say this is a real college course.pected t you will be expected to startapl sentences off with lcapital letters, find the subject,bject object and bert-- verb o and the period and if this is too challenging you should drop the course and i also told the a.m. students my class is at 7:30 a.m. on tuesday and

thursday and in the spring and f tell the students part of my lesson on the first aid-- i tell ar them the class starts atays 7:30 a.m. on cold days in february. it starts at 7:30 a.m. when the sun is out and the birds are chirping and you would like todr stay in bed in april.ost: so, if the class is too early for you, you ought to drop it now.wa >> host: does it sell out? >> guest: the class is almost always fullys full..ow a b of >> host: i went to show a bit of video here and you'll understane what this is. it's a friend of yours.rom timeo he met people from time to time aspi to mention black writers and i tell them 30 years ago iwr could have told to walter williams and me and today i the

can't even keep track of them all. they are all over the place.an there in the medium, shows, they write books and they learn about them in from nowhere theythere suddenly appear, so there isis n this countertrend going on and d everything depends uponthis-- >> how much of a role have youvt played in guiding them,le conservative black writers? >> i have no way of knowing. most of the people-- sometimes i'm credited with inputs of this person or that term, but walter williams, for example right at the same conclusion i had.im in fact, i wasto rea-- it's eass reconstruct things and it's what i call pre-two and two together and getting seven.o and two tg . walt had his own ideas.>> hostts >> host: that was from 2005. >> guest: that is my very good and longtime friend and colleague. we met at ucla in 1969, and heut

came out as a visiting professor in 1969. 1969 a i i believe in 1970, he joined the faculty. i never took a class from him, h but we became instantaneousi thk friends and i think some of our friendship began went he called me up and said, walter, i just got royalties on a new book and would you like to go see the muhamed ali fights and that wasn't-- when muhamed ali came out of retirement and fought fraser and that was the fight that he lost against joe frazier and we have been friends ever sense.ev we think very much alike, but we are not twins in terms of our thinking.nt >> host: what about his comment that he can't count the black conservative writers? >> guest: back in the 70sthe bn

soul, we worked on a project ata the urban institute and he wasge telling me, he wanted to have a pinochle game among black conservatives it would have to be cutthroat and you couldn'thaa play partnership because there isn't that many and also billcki buckley got one time same tomt w soul of the epaou doesld not als tonsil and walter williams to a fly on the same plate because ih the plane crashed there would be no more conservative economist, but today there are many many people whowh are libertarian bla conservativesck and i think maye we are proud to say that att i'd least i'm proud to say that som of their inspirationins to challenge conventional wisdom came from the writings of me and tom soul. >> host: what is your relationship with rush limbaugh? >> guest: i just to the show. i have been the show for 20 only years

.nd th reas >> host: and you have guestee hosted.se >> guest: yes guest hosted for 20 years and the reason why i don't see him is because thes bu reason i even new york to do the show is because he is not there, he's somewhere else, so we have only seen each other twice, but over the years he lets me have a show. so if my show. i own the show and am always pleased to have good guess and e save interviewed tom soul ahen ' lumber of times on his books an i looked at rush limbaugh's show as my big classroom.that as that m was my 6 million students clsroom classroom and also, i can express ideas on the show that i could not express in myalter wii classroom. >> host: this is a facebook omment from trevor coleman:am m williams, thomas soul, clarence th

thomas, ben carson are right wing bigots, favorite color people because they absolve theo of any responsibility for the racismop they institute a maintained in the society and oe course, in spite of i ndividuals successes african-americans still have to navigate structural barriers, the succes, and profound and relentless white privilege most whitesth ue about.n have to thinkink >> guest: well, i think that's very unfortunate viewst: well, s in our country. that is, if you-- i think it's clear that black americans have made the greatest gains oversome some of the highest hurdles in the shortest period of time spent any other racial group ina the history of mankind. why would i say that?blak well, if you added up the amount

of income that black americanstn lack or nd you though,t of b americans as a separate nation,e we would rank 17th or 18th the r richest nation on the face of ld's. there are few black americans who are among the world'sme richest people. there was one black americans who was the head of the world'so mightiest military. there are some black americans who are the world's most famous personalities. now, the significance of all of this is that in 1865, neither ah slave nor slaveowner would have believed that these kind of sames would be possible in justo a little bits over a century ant as such it speaks to they fortitude of a people, but just as importantly, it speaks to the greatness of a nation. now, but ask that lies before us is how can we get these gains to a large percentage of blackty, communities, maybe one third fow

whom these gains appear to beche elusive and so that is the real challenge, but the point is isup that anyone who would betrayle s black people as for and, downtrodden, i think that's a racial insult. >> host: we have calls waiting. walter williams is our guest and bobve calter willi in denville,u are the first call her. >> caller: how are you?>> h >> host: go-ahead.ost: go-aheada >> caller: i'm enjoying the conversation very much and i'm interested for an opinion on doctor williams brought up madison, and i'm wondering if h is familiar with richard b mints book. >> guest: no, i'm not. >> caller: in it he describes i the guess the shift from what wouldw be considered a principle of sum

federalism to one of more of a national supreme government inih light of shays rebellion, that i guess general washington's troops that were threatening tot march on philadelphia for lack of payments and over time there became an understanding that a stronger centralized governmento really was critical to ourl. nation's survival. amilton walter felt that way.mauce others felt that way. oflac it really kconstitutionally iste not an issue of b halack and vee because there has to be abeeen partnership thbetween the feders government as well as the states on an ongoing basis and that remains today. i'm not arguing with principles of conservativismin,g withiv bic asking you, do you recognize the need on a continual basis for public-private partnership between the centralized federal

government as well as the states and as well as private enterprise?ion ihave that's one question i have and a wonder if i could have a follow-up later?>> ho: w so host: we have a lot ofiting, collars waiting, so let's havel doctor williams respond to thats and we will move on. will mo >> guest: i think one of the >> guest it's not whether something is a good idea or a bad idea.. the question is, is it permissible by the united states constitution, and much of whatel the federal government does is d not permissible by the united states constitution. and the constitution calls for limited government, limited po power of the federal government and as i say i gave that up madison quote, the federal-- he says the powers of the federal government are few and well f defined andew restricted mostlyo

external affairs.are teopl those of the state are vast ande numerous. i would like to see e where we c change the constitution to sayw the federal governmentthe hasers unlimited powers and those powers held by the people in the states arest limited.at ha so, what we have done isve madee changes in the constitutions i withoutn the c having a constitn amendment and indeed the framers fr were wise and give us article five, as a means to amend the, constitution, but we do things now and we say the heck with the constitution and i think that that's a big mistake.k th > host: in your booka, libertyn versus tyranny of the socialism you quote thom pain, government even in its best state is but at necessary evil and at its worst state--

>> guest: that's absolutely right. we americans should recognize that the history of mankind has it been that of arbitrary abuse and control by others. the founders were not perfect, but they tried to move us away from that and the main enemy ofn mankind throughout the history has been government. that is, if you look at the 19th-- at the 20th century, it's the most brutal century in i th the history of mankind.thing li i think thatke something like 60 million people lost their lives in wartime, but that palee in comparison to the number ofm people who were murdered byt their own governments of pe andy number comes up to somewhere close to 100 million people murdered by their own governments.alled as a matter of fact, thesegov statistics are documented in aer book called death by governmenti

,t and so it showst's a it's a strong arguments that that government is the enemy of mankind. as a matter of fact, the framers of our constitution recognizedot that's.itd just look at the language of thl bill of rights to read it says s things like: congress shall not abridge, e, congress shall not disparage, congress shall not infringe. if the framers did not think that congress would do these things, whin the world would they put them-- why would they put that down in the constitution?tion?t wn i suggested to people that when we die and if at her next destination we see anything like a bill of rights , we know we arein in hell because a bill of rights in heaven would be an affront to god.od nd it would be saying we can't the trust god, so the framers recognize that the enemy of

mankind was government, but they recognize that we do need some government as thomas paine was pointing out.as government under the best is ths necessary evil.argument the whole second amendment argument about guns, the righthr to keep and bear arms, mosts t americans think the framers gave kee that, gave the second ampendmend right to keep and bear arms tog protect our right to keep and bear arms.yas they think it was for deer and duckhunting.bu, t but, the framers actually come out say to allow americans to have some kind of defense against abuse of government and people like hamilton said thingh like to allow the americanrotect protect people to protect themselves against their representativespres if they are betrayed by their representativesrepresen and whoe world are their representatives? isabelle united states congress congress. so, i think the framers hoped a

great distress for government t that americans todayhi, i thinke love government and that is the average american loves governmente america and the reay the average american loves government is because government can do those things for them not if they did the same thing privately they would go to jail. of the government can take my money and give it to you,. govea you came up to me with a gun and took my money you would coutu yu jail, but if you go to congresso as a will you take williams money and give it to me, you don't go to jail, but you have id money.should sa >> host: if you do text in a message for walter williams, ifa you could include your firstlt name and cityyou c so we can idy you that way, but this is a tex without first name and city. is the welfare system intrinsically intended to keep poor people mainly of color poor? >> guest: i don't think it is intrinsically intended. i don't think that's the

intention. i think the intentionthat the ip intended people i think is to help people, but i think when y you look at the intentions of am program, when you look atd programs you should ignore thei intentions and ask what is there affects. i think that affect of welfareth has been devastating for blackec mericans.entireew the kind of things you see among black americans today are entirely new, as i set her up here. there is no more material poverty in the united states. there is no war material poverty.al without have anything like youpt see iny, anythin bangladesh andd al afghanistan in these other poor countries.l what we have in our country is poverty of the spirit. that is where people have become dependentrits. on government prs and they are not

self-sufficient. that's the kind of poverty we we have today. >> host: tommy, texas city, texas. it afternoon.ve t >> caller: good afternoon., t, the question texave , i have four things i would like to ask. in the 1950s, it wasn't until the 1950s and my understanding is that black people in this country were not considered human beings and tell them. of the next thing is that it's u ku klux klan has been a hate crganizationti for years and noa governmental official have evert approach them. no police departmentment has evr re really done anything that would be effective to get rid of such a group and the third thing is black lives matter movement and the fourth thing is that integration, i don't think, you know, when i was coming up thatt

black people wanted to go to wat school with white people. black people wanted their own ag they wanted a level playing field. integration today what it hascos caused is is caused black people in this country to lose their foundation because there was a time when my mother couldn't see another kid doing wrong and shed would discipline that kid and take a kid to his or her parents. we lost that. we lost our teachers, which would watch over us and would report to our parents when we was not acting correctly in school.sc integration, when integration took place the white teachers were scaredhi. it was like it was a stand off. was no communication and there was always fear and tension between black students and white teachers. co >> host: tommy, quickly before

wentent get walter williams toan answer, tell us a bit about yourself. where were you raised and how old are were you-- how old arenh you and if you could clarify your remark about black lives movement. >> caller: i was raised in dallas i wa and my first encounter with the system and when i say the system, police officers i, i was nine years old.ne. >> host: what year was that? >> caller: i'm 64 now.w. >> host: thank you. > >> caller: that was back in the 50s, back in 1958.s he might-- that's the way they did back then. they would come in and tell youo when he was young, i mean very young, get you under control. but, that is one incidentyou wih an officer that i consider to b racist and it begets. but, my experience is with wit

police officers has not always been bad. h i have had some that have had the right to arrest me, but they didn't. they gave us a chance. they sent us home to our parents. >> host: tommy, quickly, what did you say about the black lives matter movement? paost: tom about >> caller: okay. of this is why am : sooka intert in the black lives maed intter movement. when i was 19, i was shot six times by my step father. this is black on black crime. .. 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. .. it would not make a very significant in the numbers of blacks murdered this year. one of the tragic things about the problem, the crime problem in many black neighborhoods is that 52, 51 or 52% of victims

are black: it turns about 94, 95% of them are murdered by another black. 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 streets because most are murdered by blacks. so i don't quite understand the black lives let's make the assumption that cops murdered 500. well, still you're talking about overwhelming percentage of blacks who were murdered by

other blacks. what are you doing to do about that you just miss the boat. that is the murder rate will continue. >> host: from our facebook page tony núñez, he is very selective and uses numbers to fix ideology without looking at all the facts, he is a good house slave supporting and blames minorities for the situations they have been put in. >> guest: that's the kind of thinking of at no continuance te see today. pointing the fingers of places that are irrelevant. if he wants to blame, you blame rich people, blame the tops% for

the riot in schools that kids go to. 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 that can't read or write at seventh grade level? what will it do for them? it mightnd make them feel good. >> host: michael is calling from alabama. >> caller: good afternoon, before i get into my question -- >> host: michael, we hear from you once a month. if you could get right to your question, that would be great. >> caller: all right. i want -- how can i say it. it's about the -- it's about the

way that campaigning politicians talk radio host and thank lobbies, broadly use the words freedom and liberty and how washington involvement in the economy is going to somehow take away our freedoms and liberties which the constitution protects. i'm not standing up for president obama at all, but as of even though i'm a white male as a born christian with both mental illness and rare autism, that's theis reason i talk too much, i see that no fault of their own, civilians in the third world, specially where there are civil wars, children born into poverty and handicap people if washington provides assistance to united agencies,

public schools and all that. >> host: you know what, michael, i thinchk we gotoo the point. the importance of michael of washington helping out those less fortunate or those who can't do for themselves. >> guest: i believe it's praise worthy for people to help the fellow man. it's praise worthy to help your fellow man by reaching into your pockets to do so. i think it's worthy of condemnation by reaching to somebody else's pocket. i think for the christians among us, god gave moses the commandment, that will shall not steal. >> host: tacoma, washington. please go ahead. >> caller: yes, thank you. first of all, professor congratulations on still being around, you've been around a

long time. [laughter] >> caller: you have two distinct disadvantages. first of all, you expect people to think like you given the same facts and conclusions and then you say you're right in all things, but 1980, i was president of naacp and i went to hear you and you changed my life because whether i want to accept it or not, you were fact -- factually correct. the group that received most assistance was the american nativee indians yet they have te

problems more than anyone. you made recommendations that night. i don't know if you remember them all. >> guest: i might not. >> caller: you made recommendations that if we would do certain things, we would be successful. but the key, and i will close this up very quickly, the key is you said something about politics and i'm christian, i believe in doing things. here they had an election about eight years ago where a white male against a black female and the white male, i came in and just moved to the area and credentials are incredible, 20 years of working et cetera, et cetera and the other party said nothing what they think, what they believe except they

represented the black race. as a black person, i took the other person because what i fought for that race should not be a determining factor of who we should elect. but what's surprising is, and i was very clear -- >> host: can you get to the point? >> caller: yes. i told them that i by me working for a white person is the same as we would when whites to vote for a black person and that -- >> host: all right, we are going to lee it there. did you get anything you want to respond ofve comments? not sure what he was going for. >> guest: when he was talking i thought about lecture i gave years ago.

one of my lectures, i don't want people to think like i do, although i would be happy if they did, my objective is try to get people to challenge the national wisdom, that is give them ideas to enable them to challenge conventional wisdom and reach their own conclusions, but i never try to, let's say, i want you to think like i do. although, again, i would like for them to do it. i give them evidence to cause them to question things that they hadn't questioned previously. >> host: for most of my professional life i traveled frequently, sometimes boarding a commercial flight, three or four times a month. over the past years for frequeny

has fallen because i don't want to be arrested, don't get me wrong, i'm for security but against stupidity. [laughter] >> guest: i have very low tolerance for the tsa people. once i was traveling and had carried luggage, i had eyeglass repair kit. the tsa person told me i could take the screws but i could not take the screwdriver. whoever heard somebody high-jack a plane with eyeglass screwdriver. he said wait here. i repeated myself. i would not have gotten on the plane but the people had set up a banquet and it would have been

awful that i i hadn't shown up. i just don't travel commercial anymore, and now i just travel on a private plane. if people want to have me to give a talk and it's a very costly proposition, i just will go by private plane. i just won't deal with it to tsa and i'm too old to go to jail. >> host: but you have been in jail. how many times have you been arrested? >> guest: i think i spent three night inan jail. as a matter of fact my stepfather he used to joke, he said, you're not a real citizen unless you spend timehi in jail, and one time my first time in jail i was a taxi cab driver at the time and i was driving down the street and there was a cop standing in the middle of the street for no obvious reason for me, i learned that later that he was holding a spot, he just

ignored me and i said, look u if you don't want me for anything get out of my way, and so he came up to the cab and asked me tome repeat myself, yanked me ot of the cab and told my customer who i wanted as a witness to be on his way unless he get charged with interfering with arrest. and so i was taken to jail and i was really in pain. i was initially charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, another charge had been levied, provide cover for him. so i spent a night in jail and then the next time i went to jail was, again, i was driving a taxi cab, i picked up my wife, she was my girlfriend, they had a loud rode party there and the

police came to the house. this axis north philadelphia and my m wife's sister's husband, really big guy, he picked up two cops and threw them out on the street and sticked german shepherds on them. i asked the police officer who placed me under arrest, i said, what are you arresting me for, i just got here. and so he says, we are arresting you fort frequenting a disordery house. and then the third time i was marryied and we were in los angeles, i was having an argument with my wife and so i just got up and walked out of the house at 2:00 o'clock in the morning, i walked off my anger and i was walking long and so the policeman stopped me and i said, i'm talking a walk. this far home. he asked me where i listed. i'm talking a walk.

yes, i think you ought to walk once in aiv while once yourselv. that remark made him call in the station to get, you know, check my records and it turned out this is in los angeles, it turned out that about four or five years ago from then i got a parking ticket that i didn't pay and a warrant was issued for my arrest, and so they had to arrest me, and the worst thing about it is that i had to call my wife who i just had an argument with me and bail me out. the bail was 50 or $75, something like that. >> host: did he come down to the station? >> guest: yes, and i got lectured too. i met connie when i was driving a cab in philadelphia. they had blue laws and bars had to close at 12:00 o'clock on

saturday nights. a bunch of us cab drivers and some -- and some of our -- and some of their wives and girlfriends, we would meet at this lunch across the street and go to speakies and connie had just started dating this cab driver that was a friend of mine and i was talk to go her before he got in and so i -- as a matter of fact, i gave her my number. she thought i was being pretty arrogant because girls back then didn't call guys. she eventually called me to meet a girlfriend of hearse and then and met athe house girlfriend. he asked my to give her a drive home, we were married. he passed away in 2007, we were

married almost 48 years and together 50 years. and some people during our long marriage, some people congratulate us on having been married so long. no congratulations, we are just -- we are -- both of us are just apathetic. i can do better and she can do better but we're too lazy to try. >> host: who is devin? >> guest: she's my daughter. the reason why she didn't want any because she was the tenth of the last of ten children and she was to take care of nieces and nephews. after married for 14 years we finally had a daughter so we settled for one.

i kind of got even with mrs. williams because when my daughter went away to college, sometimes i would go down, get a water or to get another glass of wine and she would be sitting watching tv with tears in her eyes, well, if you had to have five children we would not have an empty net so you're to blame for your saddens. >> host: what is devin doing today? >> guest: she teaches high schoole history and ap historyi believe. >> host: private or public school? >> guest: private school. >> caller: hi, professor williams. as i've been on hold, i have more comments.

>> host: sure, go ahead, i'm going to get more coffee and you go ahead and take over. >> caller: okay, great. a lot of what you are saying is true but i would just like to get some contrary and you mentioned being able to think, i guess, change your conventional thinking, which i'm a big behavior in. i think that's one of the biggest problems we have is peopleve take these big assumptions and can't really examine and think. and i would challenge you to do the same. i do agreeha with a lot of what you're saying, however, and, you know, big government, yes, it's a problem. and one of the major reasons it is controlled by largely the wealthy, big money. we have socialism for defense contractors, oil companies,

pharmaceutical companies. so when you look at the money, who stands up for poor people. you know what, not everyone is going to be an entrepreneur. what i would like to see is a country that recognizes that that john tor that -- janitor that works hard should feed family and get medical care. >> host: i think we got your point. walterp williams. >> guest: i think the one that calls about wealth and big businesses and others in washington, and ind think the problem is not necessarily money in washington, i think that the problem is the power of congress to do favors for people. and so, of course, people are going to be willing to pay for

that. however, what we need to do is strip conrgress of that kind of power to play favorites with different americans, and so you would not find money come to washington. that is people not -- let's say various packs and political organization. they're not giving money for congress for congressmen to uphold and defend the united states constitution, they are giving money to congress because theyre want special favors. they want access and i think that -- that is the big problem with our seasonal, and that's the big problem with a lot of the graph that goes on in congress. and given, you know, like the export-import bank that gives huge handouts to other competitorsth and i think one of the things we have to recognize, the only way congress can give one american citizen one dollar is to first through intimidation

threats and coercion and con -- confiscate. i agree with the caller in the following sense that we need to do something about these handouts that congress has given out and i think that -- that we need to do it down the line, handouts in general. keep in mind, when people say, people say, well, williams, we just have to have food stamps or people will starve, and i say, well, look, when the poor irish were fleeing and arriving in new york without -- with just the clothing on their back, how in the world -- what was their food stamp program? of course, there wasn't. people say, we need this program and that program. i say, how in the world did we make it, we become a rich nation without all these programs or think of another -- another area people say, w well, government

ought to do something about the inflation or government ought to do something about the -- the recession or the depression. it turns out that from 1787 until about 1930 the federal government -- you know, we had recessions and depressions, they call them panics and nobody thought that the federal government ought to intervene to correct the economy. it wasn't until the food administration and later the roosevelt administration that people thought that government should get involved to try to correct the economy and as a result theyo created the longest depression that we ever had, that is the -- during the entire 1930's, the unemployment rate went below 19-20% and it wasn't until after world war ii that we --or that we saw some of the

problems with the depression. in general your hard put for finding good things done by government, except that of protecting individual liberties and individual rights. >> host: boyd -- loyd calling in from st. louis. >> caller: hello, how are you? >> host: go ahead and make your comment or ask your question. >> caller: yes, okay. for the professor, this is what i would like to ask him about. there's a three fits clause and founding fathers who were slave holders and also what about the 13, 14th and 15th amendment and i'll stop there and hang up and i'm looking forward to hearing the professor's comments to those things because he keeps talking about the founding fathers. if it was turned on them, he would have still been in

slavery. >> host: give us a brief napshot of yourself. >> caller: first of all, i'm a retired school teacher and also antorian, and i went to what you call an old-colored high school and -- but any way, we had a good foundation, i graduated in january '53 and my integration was the military and college and during that generation they produced a lot of outstanding black folks, we were called colored then. but anyway, i'll stop and hang up and i'm looking forward to hearing the professor's response to those different things and appreciate. >> host: and this is something you write about which is the founding fathers and thefeo isse of slavery. >> guest: yes, and i think that the -- the three fifth clause that people talk about, blacks being seen as three fifths of a

person, it tushed out that during 1780's, 1787 convention in philadelphia, it turned out that slaves were 40% of the population of the southern states. the southern states wanted to count each person, each slave as one vote. the northern -- the northern delegates to the convention, they didn't think that slaves should be counted at all in terms of the apportionment for the house of representatives. and so the concession they made was to -- to make blacks count, the slaves count as three fifths of a person for the purpose of apportionment to the house of representatives. now, the caller, i don't know whether he would want this, would he argue on the side of

the southern states to count each black as one vote which if they were counted as one vote, it would -- it would give the southern states far greater power in the united states congress. now, the -- many of the -- many of the founders, they did not want -- they were against slavery but they did not -- they felt that if they had abolished slavery during the convention, then there would not have been a union, and so one has asked the questionsk would blacks have ben better off if the northern went their way and the south went their way and there was not a union created between -- you know, a did not 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 of fact, i think it was wilson, one of the delegates from new jersey, he said, well, he said something at least we've outlawed slavery, slave trade by 1808 and that might be a very good start for outlawing all together. now, in terms of the founders of vision of slavery, i have many, many quotations from the founders including george washington, madison, george mason, thomas jefferson, et cetera, et cetera, that will condemn the idea of slavery, but i think that there's one thing that we have to recognize, and again, this is not giving any moral sanctions to slavery, is that throughout mankind's history slavery has been the normal state of affairs. it turns out that blacks were the last people to be enslaved.

that is the -- as a matter of fact, the term slave comes from the -- it's a reference to the slovic people. the first s slaves, as a matterf fact, white americans were enslaved. jefferson sent troops to free american slaves that were enslaved by some of the northern african countries, and so i think that the unique thing about slavery in united states and slavery, slavery in the united states is that -- or in the western world, i should say is that great britain and united states were the two countries that went to the greatest pains to eliminate slavery, that is great britain band slave trade,

the union jack, that ended trade of slavery and then americans, we o 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 a normal state of affairs with mankind. again, i'm not giving any sanction but was a normal state of affairs among mankind, but the fact of business was that united states and great britain did g the most to end that abuse and ugly institution. >> host: rod is calling in from port st. joe, florida. you're on book tv with walter williams. go ahead. >> caller: professor, i didn't realize you had a long rap

sheet. my gosh. hey, i wanted to point out. you brought the constitution framers that the framers designed to secure liberty did not as james madison said, did not rely on barriers, it didn't rely on words on paper. i mean, it's great that we have all these rights and privileges and natural rights put there on paper, it's fantastic, however, their system relied on the separation of powers. excuse me, probably every school kid, i'm 60, my generation early on, i learned that we have three barchs -- branches of government, however with the african-americaners inserted in there what we don't have today is senators representing their states. the framers recognized that the only rights that were actually

secured 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 senate. my point is that we cannot return possibly to freedom in this country until power is dispersed widely and that means among the 50 states and the people there that created this union. look at today -- >> host: rod, we are going to leave it there and get a response from walter williams. >> guest: i thinkha that the caller is suggesting and i think he's absolutely right, but the loss i of power by the states because of the senators up -- they don't -- they're not obligated, they are not chosen by the legislators of the various states, the states have lost considerable power and the tenth amendment means very little, but i think that also that the tenth amendment means. >> little because of the --

because of the war between the states. some people call the civil war, i think that's incorrect the civil war. jefferson davis no more wanted to take over washington, d.c. than george washington wanted to take over london. it was really a war over states, once it settled, it settled the issue of succession. once the issue of succession was settled by group force, then the federal government can do anything that it wants. it's very much like if -- if you told -- if you told my wife that she would not divorce me, i could treat her anyway i want to. the very fact of exit is a very powerful inducement for people to live up to their contractual agreement. then, again, there's issue that i -- that people say, well, what can we do to restore economic

freedom orpl to get us back on e track, and i say, well, i don't want to be to pessimistic but are we as americans, as human beings any different from the people from the romans, from the french, from the spanish, from the british. these are great empires of the past, they went down the tubes for doing some -- many things that we are doing. are americans to expect any different from ourselves? are we any different as human beings and i think not. and then i think we also have to recognize that personal liberty isat -- is rare in human existence, r the liberties thate know in the western world possibly rare in human

existence, and so i'm all too afraid that a historian writing 200 years from now, he'll say, well, there's a historical curiosity where people for freed mostly in the west and in the united states, abuse and control by others, i'm all too afraid -- if you ask the question f you ask the question which way are we americans headed, are we headed towards more personal liberty or are we headed to more government control over our lives. it would have to be the latter. i don't see a trend in the other direction, that is headed towards more liberty and less government control over our lives. so the ultimate end to this process is total --

>> host: quick look at some of the authors that he's reading right now and some of his favorite books pu. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ >> host: walter williams u as we ask authors some of their favorite books, authors, this is the produceer writing this to me.e williams responded all those people that were involved in my life who didn't give a damn. [laughter] >> that is absolutely right. they held me accountable to either their own standards or held me accountable to other people's high standards in

general. and so, you know, for example, at ucla, that's where i went to graduate school, one has to in order to get a ph.d, once has to take aph theory exam and three other areas and when i took the theory exam 1 # 6 students took -- 16 students took it and 14 flunk, i was among the ones that flunk. two professors sit down with you after the exam and decide you whether to kick you out of the program. one of my professors told me, he says, walter, your exam was among the worst but we think you can do much, much better and so they gave me reading assignments, i had to come to their office and discuss the

journal articles and sometimes i would come to the office, you know, come again, read it and come again next week. maybe nextt week or next time i came i felt very good, perfect, you know. when i took the exam again i passed it, and so -- so they didn't give a damn about -- about the legacy of slavery or discrimination or my hard upcoming, my hard life, but they held m e accountable to standards that they held every other student. that is respectful. if they said, look, williams, there's slavery, discrimination, blah, blah, blah. we are going -- we are not going to have you live up to the standards of white people, we are going to have a special standard for you, one that's lower, that would have been insulting and that would not have helped me in the long run. i'm a better economist to the

standards they held me. >> host: and your ph.d is from ucla as well? >> guest: yes. >> host: we have about an hour and 15 minutes left with him, we are going to put the numbers on the screen divided by where you life in the country. east central time zones and mountain and pacific time zones. we've also got several methods of social media where you can contact and make a comment for walter williams. we will flash through those as well. it's e-mail, facebook, twitter, it's text messages as well. if you do send a tempt middle -t message send name, city and state. this is a tweet that you have received, dr. williams. it's from chris -- i'm sorry, this is a facebook comment. chris heller wants to know, can you talk about your experience with milton freedman.

>> guest: he was an economist. he's down outstanding work in economics and -- and a lot of his work had to do with consumption function and a lot had to do with monetary policy. freedman was one of my mentors at ucla. i actually ordered his class. i was afraid to take it for credit, i just ordered the class, and then after i got my doctorate, we engaged in several activities, one was to write a -- a spending limitation amendment to the united states congress, spending limitation and we wrote the amendment and it was carried in the senate, passed in the senate i believe

in 1982 and it did not make it through the house and we offered again in 1986 and it didn't pass the senate, what it sought to do is put limit on federal spending. he's -- even if you disagreed with him you have to like him as a -- as a person because he's everybody's old uncle. i remember one time he called me up. maybe it was 1978 and i was on a debate on educational vouchers, school vouchers, it was at harvard university and it was shown on wgb -- w god bless harvard. something like that. anyway, melton freedman called me up the next day. walter williams, your points are money, you brought up the important points but you

made one fatal error. you didn't smile. when you talk about liberty you haved, to smile. so i think i learned that lesson from him to try as -- as much as i can to smile when i talk about liberty. >> host: from our text message field, vince patterson in texas wants to know what you think about the proposal from dr. ben carson? >> guest: get rid of some of the loopholes in the current tax system but i will never support a flat tax unless we got rid of income tax because if we did have a flat tax we would find that we would have two types of tax -- income tax and a flat tax. i think that dick army he suggested 17% flat tax with only

exemptions for dependents. that would do away with a lot of the hank yu-panky that we see in washington. the two most powerful committees in congress, house ways and means committee and the senate finance committee, these are where lobbiest go to get congress corig to tax -- to rig the tax law in their favor, and so if we did have a flat tax we would get rid of much of the congress' ability to play favorites with different americans. >> host: donald trump says he wants to bring jobs back to america. >> guest: well, the way that you bring jobs back to america is to get government out of the way.

you know, getting rid of a lot of the regulations, a lot of the taxes, i think we would see enough surge and number of jobs. keep in mind, that we became the wealthiest nation on the face of this earth long before we had regulatory programs. you know, for example, from 1787 until the 1920's the federal government was only 3% of the gdp except during wartime. 3% compared to the federal government being 25% of the gdp now. how in the world did we go from a third world, backward country in 1787 to the richest country and most powerful country in the face of this earthld without all of the government programs. i think the reason we did become a rich country was because we

did not have all the government programs. and you asked the question, you know, peoplel say, well, you nd housing and urban development, we need a hud agency. well, we -- the american people built some of the greatest cities on the face of this earth before hud was established, i think, back in the late 50's and then it was only after hud that we found some of the cities going down the tube. we have to ask that question, what did we do before. we need a department of education. it turns out, well, american education was -- was on a higher plane before the department of education than afterwards, and so we find all these different programs, all of these excuses for the increase in the role of government in our lyes without asking the question, what did we do before.

>> host: michael, oakland, california, thanks for holding, you are on with walter williams on book tv, go ahead. >> caller: mr. williams, what do you think about illegal immigration specifically, specially economically. i'll take it right there. >> guest: i welcome people to our country. we have a huge country. we have plenty of resources and -- and as a matter of fact, that's been our history of people coming to our country legally, but i don't think that people should have a right to ignore our laws to make their first step across our border to be and i legal one, and i think that we should do something to

ensure, to protect our border. now, what we should do about the people who are here i legally, that's a little more difficult question, but i think it's clearly an easy answer is that the first thing we ought to do is secure our borders and make sure that the people that we want in our country are here legally, and then also there's a security issue, that is, you know, s terrorist organizations, if they want to put dirty bombs, if they want to put agents in our country, they just have to send the agents up through méxico and come in through texas, arizona, or new mexico and -- and open up cells in our country. i think it's a national security asl well. >> host: text for you walter

williams. i'm a 25-year-old half white and half black male in virginia. i was wondering what you think of appropriation from self-proclaimed allies of minorities? >> i think we should ignore political -- the so-called political correct stricters. you can't say that, damn if i can. first amendment of the constitution gives me the right. the first thing we ought to do is ignore the people that we change our language to accommodateth some particular values that they might have. >> host: this article about halloween, costume correctness on campus, feel free to be you but n not me and it's an article about what is acceptable and

pokahontas, pancho villa are no, noes. [laughter] >> guest: i think that's going very far. our grandparents would be very far -- shocked, i think we should ignore it. >> host: do you see political correctness?o >> guest: probably so but i ignore it there as well. i don't see it in any of my classrooms and i'm not politically correct at all. i say whatever i want to say and my colleagues tolerate me. i've been there -- i think i started my 35th year there. >> host: what do you think of tenure?

>> guest: no, i think that we ought to eliminate tenure. you don't have tenure and -- [laughter] >> guest: the average person does not have tenure t schools such as h universities grove ciy university -- >> host: where you used to teach? >> guest: as a matter of fact i'm still on the board of trustees and the board is getting along well. what tenure does not allow you to keep your high-quality professors. what tenure does do it makes it difficult for you to get rid of your teachers because they have tenure, the same thing happens in public education. teachers with tenure makes it difficult and costly to get rid of them. it doesn't allow you to keep the good people because if people are competing for them.

>> host: next call for walter williams r comes from laurie frm pueblo, colorado. go ahead. >> caller: irish coming here compared to the black experience. there's no comparison to what the black suffered and the irish suffered, professor. >> guest: i did not say that. >> caller: you said they had it fine and dandy when they came here. they came under terrible conditions andhe look how good they did. yeah, they had a flying start compare today what the blacks have. but my other comment and then you can answer -- >> host: lorie, hang on.

>> guest: there was no food stamp program. that's the point i was making. okay. >> caller: i'm going to move on. you said that if you elected black mayors, black police chiefs, you kind of said, look in theac cities where they've elected blacks the crime is still high or whatever but i'm going to say to you in the places where there are black leaders that doesn't mean that the h people underneath them doesn't mean they are racist people. i live in a town where you can count the black people on your one hand and when i called in and my card had been broken, the first thing out of that police officer's mouth is i bet it's a black person. i'm like, what. there aren'tng even any around here but theyet are ready to ble them for everything, so, yeah, you can comment off the air, but i know i heard you correctly on

the irish thing because everybody in the room was looking at like, wow. >> host: can you tell us a little bit about yourself? we will flefer know. she hung up. walter williams. [laughter] >> guest: i don't know what to say. let's move on. >> host: david, chicago, good afternoon. >> caller: good afternoon, professor williams it's a great honor and a pleasure to speak with youal today. myf. question is early in the program you were marked that you don't see existing inequalities of wealth and income as necessarily problematic, but we also acknowledge that there are several layersa of distortions and interventions in the economic system that separated from being a true-free market. i wonder if you think that existing interventions might be

aggravating problems of wealth inequality. >> guest: well, i think your quote is incorrect, but however, i've argued and you've looked in my books, particularly raise -- race and economic, it's rigged against people who can be described at late-comers and outsidersment one example i give is a taxi cab industry. what does it take for a person to get into business and become an owner-operator of a taxi and maybe make $50,000 a year, well, it doesn't take a whole lot of capital, you get a used car and you get some insurance and you threarn city streets, but it turns out in new york city, for example u the licensed to own and operate one taxi cost $700,000, that was as of last

year and in boston 4 -- 400,000. so what is the effect of these licensing regulations? well, they tend to get people out of the tax cab business who don't have $700,000 lying around or who don't have bank credit to get such a loan. and so that discriminates against outsiders and the game is rigged because insiders want to keep outsiders out so they they can get a higher wage. another -- another law that discriminates against people moving up is the minimum wage law. a lot of americans, as a matter of fact, most americans support the minimum wage law and they support it out of the intentions because it has very good intentions, but when you look at a law, we shouldn't ask what are the intentions, we should ask

what are thent effects of such a law, and you see the effects of a minimum wage of $7 an hour, if you say, look, put yourself in the place ofwa an employer and u must pay $7 an hour to no matter whom you hire, actually more than that because there are manned>> -- mandated. if you pay $7 an hour oh to whom you hire, skills which will only enable him to produce $4 worth of value per hour. most employers would see that as a losing proposition. so the minimum wage discriminates against the low-skilled workers. who are the low-skilled in our

society. for the most part are teenagers, they look maturity and attributes of adults, among the teenagers are black teenagers, they share the additional handicaps of living in neighborhoods going tora rotten schools. what the wage law is tax off the bottom wrongs to have economic ladder because if you could pay person $4 an hour, at least see if they are working and gaining some experience and later on l be ultimately worth , 8, $9 an hour. i've written about the act which is a superminimum wage law that restricts employment for blacks and restricts and discriminates against nonunion labor, and if you read -- it's still in the books today. you read the congressional testimony in support of the act, as a matter

of fact, if you go to march 31st page 35y of the congressional record, you'll see all the statements from 6 politicians saying, see that contract, he brings cheap colored labor from the south and he puts them and it's labor of that source that competes. in my book in war against capitalism, racist unions were the major supporters of minimum wage laws for blacks and they're 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 effects are the same, discriminate on theth least-performed worker. there are many regulations on the books that create a -- a --

an -- disadvantages for disadvantaged people, but we don't focus on that. wege focus on discrimination, we focus on this and that rather than looking at the rules of the game and the o various regulatis thatt discriminate against the less preferred individual. >> host: walter williams, i want to show something from your website. it's a certificate and have youics plain what we are looking at. >> guest: well, i wrote that when i was teaching at temple university. .. 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 nd a matte of during a department meeting,tolm what i told my colleagues when he brought this up, i said what i would like to do is to forgive ldu so you stop feeling guiltyow and stopped acting like a damn cool. if some italian suits came to your office demanding italiant economics or chinese, you would throw them out of your offimand, but black students,ing ch yinout to the argument, so i think af lot of what we see is motivated by white guilt and i think kiltt

is perhaps one of the mostd g dangerous and despicablearticle motivations for doing anything. >> host: there was an article that a feat-- appeared when youw are teaching and it's in your book, "up from the projects", racism? a temple professors proposes-- uc professor poses leniency foroppe blacks.s fe guest: i came across thisro when i was at temple university, a very nice professor and heh asked me to go to lunch and he said during lunch he said some of the problems he was having with black students, they don't come every day and sometimes they are sleeping in class or hand in their assignments not ae done well. so, i said, well, what do you da and he is asking what i recommended i said what do youu do and he said i tied to take

into consideration poverty and discrimination. i i said, no, you have a pencil just like i do and yet the denigrate and he said, well, ife they come every day and they l look like they are taking notes i will give them a c. giv i said you know what you're doing, that's likeaid my havina dog in an english class and sometimes during the semester the dog gets on his hind legs and said he's not going to doo that. you give the damn dog of a because you don't expect the dog to say anything and whatever he says it's audible. i said, you are insulting and hurting these students i such ag policy, so as a matter fact, ift found out a number of my colleagues were doing the same w thing and they are motivated by guilt or trying to compensate fr for the legacy of senate-- slavery or discrimination and

poverty and in don't think that does a person very much good.n >> host: steve in arlington can you speakois, to the anti- confederate hysteria currently sweeping the nation? co >> guest: yes, i think peoplerrn don't really understand much of the history of our country. just briefly and this is on my website in my articles i talkwey about this and that is, 1783, there was a treaty of paris ande the treaty of paris ended the war between the colonies and great britain and if you read the treaty of paris had says that there are 13 solve our nation said mathis each estate was a nation and these states ad came together as principles inar

1787 and they created the federal government and agent principles can always fire their agents and so-- if you read the ratification document of rhodeee island, new york and virginia, they specifically say in the documents that if the federalth government becomes abusive ofeco the powers that we have delegated to the federal government deleg, we have the ro rescind those powers. that is, we have the right to succeed and so most americans do not understand the-- they thinkn that the warot was solely to ent of slavery. but, the war was for much moreb than that.th however, the winners of any war rights in its history and so the confederacy, they have gotten a

really bad name and i think that this anti- confederacy movement an just maybe one more step towards abolishing many of ourds symbols. one can argue whether the confederacy was right inols. seceding and you don't have todu be for slavery. you can be against slavery, but that's independent argument if they had the right to succeed i all the evidence suggests yes, they did have the right toid secede because the state have we principled and they came together and created the federal government as most americans today think-- they virtually think the states are a creationn of the federal government. as a matter of fact, that's grwt ion congress acts that the sta tesnt are a creation of the federal

government, but that is the opposite.or holng >> host: trait in photoshop-- fresno california. to thank you for holding and you're on there with walter williams. >> i think what you are doing is beautifulith walter wil and i w. question of economics. are you aware of any y economisu throughout history a-- its [inaudible] >> guest: say that again. >> caller: are you aware any eco economy throughout history theyy didn't have scarcity as its foundation. >> guest: economic theory would not exist unless there was scarcity and what scarcity since he means is that human wants exceeds the needs and that gives -- as scarcity gives rise to conflict and we have toconfli somehow find ways to resolve tht conflict and we can resolve con conflict through the market mechanism, through government, through violence and through gifts and so, yes, withoutc

scarcity there would not be any. economic problems whatsoever. >> host: john in portland, oregon, text message: in whatha ways do you believe black americans would be better off with-- if a welfare state had never happened? >> guest: i think not only black americans, but americans in general. i think that americans in general woulderic be more independent. that is, you see one of the things we have to recognize andg any economist whether liberal or conservative or free market, he will tell you that if you tax s something you will get less of it and if you subsidize something you will get more of w it and what we haveha been doing is subsidizing this behavior. you see, the duration of unemployment has, i think,t almost doubled since tdohe 1940s.ubled ion

one of the reasons why the duration of unemployment has doubled is because of brger flipp jobmpensation. dou whereby people can choose and say i'm not going to take this hamburger flipper job and i will wait for something better. but, if not accepting the job meant starvation and they would not make such a decision. a dependenceecision. mentality. an example of mentality. to give you an example, my wife has a huge family as i suggestee she was the youngestre of 10 children. she has a huge family and oneetw night we were at theiril house two of her nieces were arguing about money. one that i will give you the too money when i get paid. she was referring to going to the mailbox and picking up a welfare check. the idea that a welfare check is

payments. now, it's not only poornk the p. its farmers. farmers think that they have th right to get subsidies. sugar producers think they have very to get subsidies.et s businesses think thatub they hak the right to get subsidies. walt disney thinks you when i should subsidize their advertisement you or subsidize r campaigns.subsize we have become a nation of thess that's what we have become, a nation of people seeking to live at the expense of other peopleoe and i think that represents aan moral decay. >> host: bill in rock, michigane good afternoon.nt >> guest: bill? let's try john in curing,re on missouri. john, you are on book tv with walter williams. >> guest: let me make this-- i

will make this as a statementst, and i want your opinion.t your you always hear about micro- aggression, micro- aggression, to be a cry for people that make their living on li racism to make sure there is rao something around if the real racism goes lay and i would just like your opinion on that. thank you very much and you look great, by the way. >> guest: now, my take on micro- aggrsion isis similar to mike colleague tom solon wrote a colleague and he calls micro- totalitarianism and that's what it is, people try to stop people from expressing certain views and that's nothing more than totalitarianism. tha >> host: text message: should some form of public service be requiredli--ed [inaudible] >> guest: i don't think so.

i think a lot of people say, well, should you be in the armyo or should you work on roads to be a citizen and i say no,citize that's nonsense.s n i don't think public service should be a requirement for ld be citizenship. >> host: anna, auburn, illinois, professor, do you think the fed 's was a liable service and economy? a >> guest: i think it's been very unproductive. i think you can just too-- i v mean, the erjustification for te federal reserve bank was to promote price stability and and bank failures. just a simple before-and-after m analysis and you will find that price stability was greater before the federal reserve bank andre there are fewer bank

failures before the federalafter reserve bank van after the federal reserve bank. and i think the federal reserve bank and this might not be nicee for me to f say it this way, but they enabled the government to steal from its citizen by by inflating inthe currency. the i have often suggested to peopls that if they ever find themselves on trial, fort th wee counterfeiting they should just tell the judge that they were engaging in monetary policy. i that's whatne the tafederal rese does. >> host: walter williams, your publisher, whitey go with the perhaps nstitution press and perhaps not a major new york publisher? >> guest: well, they made life easier for me, that's number one. made le easy f >> host: i'm not denigrating: nn them in any way. >> guest: so, it's kind ofany mo be some undershot, i have been criticized for using them

because some people say they don't spend enough resources and reso publicizing the book, but the american liberty spend considerable resources and publicizing the book.sa >> host: if someone said okay, i will pick up a walter williams i gk, do o for the newest: "american contempt for liberty"-- sorry about that noise if you hear that-- or dofe they go for "up from the projects"? one book? >> guest: i would say "american contempt for liberty" and theouc reason why is that it's a for lr collection of my columnsty and a collection of my ideas and the whole range of topics. books like south africa's were against capitalism are moreapitr narrowly focused and as well as the race in economics is a focused,re narrowly but i think "race & economics" i

would recommend that as the second choice. >> host: joan, bryan, texas, jump, you are on books tv on c-span 2.epth walter williams is our guest. >> caller: thank you.,er wil walter williams, this is sort os a personal economic problems arm i'm in my 80s and have gone through the depression and world war ii and hav weor grown up ina very frugal way of managing my finances. finans an right now i do have a some money saved. however, in the bank i'm gettinm less than 1% interest. big personally, where should we old people put our money because weo are afraid to take toour many risks and in a way with the social security not increasedy because they are supposedly is no inflation, i kind of feel that my age group has had it.

we veat's your opinion as to wheren we old people should invest? >hank you. >> guest: i'm not a financial advisor, but there are many places that are mutual fundsy that maintain a portfolio and equities and in bonds that you can check out. what you need to do is talk to an investment counselor. to , they ubs or merill lynch or some other investment house and ask for a stockbroker to give a you some ideas and he will bedes happy to give you ideas because he would like to h ave your account, but i'm not-- when people ask me williams, what'ser going to happen to interestates rates, what's going to happen ,, stocks, i tell them if i knew the answer to that, and would not be sitting here. i would be out on my yacht. i would be rich and i'm not ricw

, so i have the answers. >> host: walter williams, when you were a teenager and you ouught shares in pensacola, howb did that happen? >> guest: i used to work at the school for the stockbroker and i used to sweep the floor and iep would deliver packages and one d day we were sitting talking, nothing going on and he said, is can sell your people and at that time your people was not a derogatory term to read he said i can sell your people a shiny vacuum cleaner, but i could not sell them a share of stock. so, i listened and the next time we talked i said what is talke i and he said and he explained to me what stock is and so maybe a couple of times later i said suppose i wanted to buy stock and he said you choose somethinl you might.a. so, he gave me a list of the

stock and i saw pensacola and i love pepsi, so the mant went out and bought me one share of pepsd and i think it could have been h around 12 or $13 a share andpayf subsequently, when i got-- it really cost him to buy because he had to pay some kind of fee to get that one share. pe, i started accumulating shares of pepsi and then i stopped buying it because it goa too expensive. so, what it did, it forced mepe. into looking at the newspaper and looking out following myer, pepsi shares and i looked foroo other stocks around and i read some of the newspaper accountsee on what was going on in the acct stock market so i learned a bit about it. it. i have been on the stock markett i guess 14 or 15 years old i have been there a percent and the point i make is that if i 1 did not have that job i would not have met that guy and h iny. other words, if there were a minimum wage law, there would be

many-- not only that opportunity, but other opportunities that would have and i would>> host: what happen have might not turned out the same way. >> host: what happened to you in the korean war era when he declared yourself white? >> guest: well,torean i had a wf lotta problems when i was in the i was dft i was drafted in the army and sometimes i don't call it drafti my labor services were confiscated by the united states government's.vern this is 1959, and i was sent tot fort stewart, georgia.hout v a very good orientation on the southern way of life and so i had some adjustment problems.ro. the adjustment problems led to my being court-martialed and imt won the court-martial. and made a jackass out of thehe people who court-martialed jack and i brought charges against this company commander who court-martialed me of the charg was undue hardship on the person hardsh -- person shall be toommand

your, but before i could get the court-martial charges started, t was sent to korea. when i landed in korea you hadw to fill out these forms to give your race, notification of next of kin and things like this advert said rate-- race i put down caucasian. the chief warrant officer who was inspecting the forms says fs shelter, you made a mistake ande i said i'd make a mistake and so he said you put down caucasianas and i saidia i am caucasian ande went around and around and i said why would you put down caucasian. i never changed the marking at the down there, the check off because-- for caucasian and he probably changed it, but i was a troublemaker when i was in the early. first-class troublemaker.

>> host: something about painting a truck? >> guest: well, i was sent to motorotor pool and to work with trucks. they gave blacks menial jobs.mei and so this officer told me to paint the flat bed of the truck and a so i said to the whole truck and he said yeah, the whole truck. so, i started painting the tiree and the windows and kaiser crowded around me and laughing and that committee commander-- not the company commander, but w the officer said what are you doing and i said in painting the whole truck, so he made me wash the paint off with solvents and then i got another job washing o trucks up with a hose insideg engine to wash the engine o ut i told sky there was a lot of grease and it was dirty and there and then they kicked me out of the motor pool and i s was sent up to the lunch room. o

to the dining hall, to be theil mark than. be i was kicked out of that job because the head chef caught me mo mopping off the meat table withp the floor mop and it was a horrendous site with the nasty water flowing on the sides. so, long story short, i was sent to the battalion headquarters t sweep up every day and do sove turned out that this corporal, he was getting discharge and iad asked the sergeant major could i have his job and so they laughed and said you couldn't do it and so i said give me a chance and m he gave me something to type oud and i made some corrections and they decided to give me a chance and i became the head clerk of the battalion and i did some things as head clerk because i was in the field of in communication and i was the only

black there in the field of communication and the hadf separate dances on post, why black kies and dance with black guys, so one-- they would send a sergeant and some soldiers to town to get the girls to come te the base.t so, one time that sergeant called and said can i speak to message sergeant major and i said sergeant major's not here, cannot take a message and he said tell the sergeant major that we are plenty of busr, drivers, but no ncos and when the sergeant major came out it turned out the inspector general was from washington wurasned don general wa inspection of the post and thene generals and colonels and so ice went over to the water fountain and ito hauled over to the sartain-- sergeant major with the message and one of the colonels said get that sop appear anwid they got him appear

and they raise hell with him. so, i was a bit of a troublemaker k, quite a bit of a troublemaker. >> host: e-mail from charlotte, north carolina: please comment of liberalency blocksde through to treat blacks with conservative views.is thi has this affected your career?uc >> guest: itar hasn't affected y career because i ignore them. becaus however, i think that for people to suggest that there should be a monopoly on ideas that black people have about many other important issues, i think that is counterproductive. black people cannot afford tocot have a monopolyer on the various ideas and many of the various ideas that have been put out ino

terms of helping blacks have hink disastrous and so i t what we need to have is other ideas. i don't think anyone should have a monopoly on any idea, whethern it's black people, whether it's food and drugs, health, i think that a superior outcome is always the results of competition in the marketplaceih of ideas. >> host: mark in columbia, south carolina, please go ahead with your question or comment foryo walter williams. >> caller: thank you for your service. thentuesterion has t wo do wiii legacy of tobacco in america and your view on today's situation i guess with the tobacco products. >> guest: what about it? with t tethink that-- a. somethi wri

>> host: it's something you write about quite a bit. >> guest: i have and i think the idea that we should outlaw let'w say cigarettes and cigarette violatg, i think, but it's a violation of property rights and, i mean, 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 rig and you do not wantrestauran people smokingt, then it's your right to put a sign outside saying no smoking in my restaurant. and if i own a restaurant and it want to permit people to smoke put a sign outside saying that smoking is permitted, so people have the option.n, they know whether smoking is there, permitted or not and if

they don't want to come in on those conditions they don't come in. the same thing with the idea if you don't want smoking in a restaurant, well, then people go to your restaurant and say this guy does not allow smoking, so i won't go in his restaurant. now, see most americans will support the idea that the government ought to come in and tell a restaurant owner that he cannot permit smoking in his restaurant. suppose on the other hand, there was a majority who said that, well, since you don't want smoking in your restaurant, we are going to force you to permit smoking. that is we will use the political mechanism to require that you permit smoking your restaurant. you would view that as totalitarianism three it's the same with other way around. now, another side effect of it is that what americans have done is invited government into our lives because totalitarian, i

don't know any totalitarian who is awakened one morning and said , i'm tired of terrorizing people to read i will rest now appeared well, do is find that, if we can control smoking, well, we can control the amount of soda you drink such as the mayor in new york or we can controlthr whether you have-- or whether there can be solved in your diets and so once you telly person, you tell government that they can control certain areas of your lifencentive, well, thee incentive to try everything else to control your life and so we have invited people to control e our lives, and i think that's okay represents the beginning of it and it's kind of interestingt how these people start. they always start out small.y si at the beginning of anti- smoking movement j it was, well,

we just what thwarning signs on cigarettes and then they got the warning signs on cigarettes and we say we want no smoking in sections and airplanes.d the they got the no smoking section and then they said we don't wan. any smoking whatsoever.on't wan and they got that, well, weairp don't want smoke in the airport and then they got that readf the well, we don't smut-- onet alwas smoking within 50 feet of the doors of the airport and so, get always starts out small and mand gets larger and larger and g that's almost with any active government.erty >> host: in more liberty meanst less government you write: i'mi at a loss for what can be done to gender norm boxing to read the fact of business is that we humans are not-- [inaudible] >> guest: we are not equal. no a lot of people pretend we aref equal because they think equality before the law requiree

that you be, in fact, equal. eq. we are not equal and there's up evidence to suggest we are y equal.ou by race or buy it sex.n t if you look, for example, how in the world would you explain that jews are 3% of the american amei population, but they went 40% of nobel prizes won by americans.,d party you explain that? or blacks are 13% of the population and 80% of that nba basketball players and they ared the highest paid ones were 66% of the nfl football players. were virtually no blacks in olympic swimmers war with the

100-yard, 100-meter -- their almost always when my blacks ans so we can't pretend there areer two differences between people. even medically, that is theirs jews,-- the pima indians have te worlds highest rate of diabetese blacks have sickle cell anemiabh were other populations it's nots significant at all. so, we are different and men ara stronger than women. men have greater upper body strength and women.per then have tossed ostrow, which means almost every measure of -- hostility, aggression andthan competition men score a standarn deviation higher than women. so, we are different and so-- we

now, because we are different should it mean that we should be treated differently in the eyes of the law and so i think that'i -- i think that people are different. >> host: out, ames, iowa. good afternoon.ler: h ler: my coent i >> caller: hello. my comment is, earlier talking about irish and they came to america, something that's rarely talked about is the fact thatti how the britishsh despised the e irish hundreds of years before that and captured and enslavedun irishmen and sent them to different places to work and also during the potato famine i know as a college student takin, these history courses learning about this that the irish actually had enough food during have the time of the potato famine sa when the potato blight to place that they could have not had tos starve to death and that millions would not have had to

of 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, manyt regiments throughout ireland to make sure that the food wasout f shipped out of ireland and that the irish had to subsist on basically potatoes, which had the plight. we also rarely hear about the fact that black people are captured by blacks in africa and is sold by those blacks to thev. slave traders and we don't heart about a lot of that slavery except a certain politically correct slavery issue.: hink t >> guest: i think the issue is that there's probably enoughnouh grievance for all of civic o groups for each of us to have our share. i mean, we have lived in a brutal and ugly world where bee

there have been massive aggression and massive denial of basic human rights and, soi dont there's enough for almost everyw ethnic group or racial group toy have their share. i don't know of any particular grou group of people who have not seen oppression of one form ora. another, so-- as a matter of fact, kind of interesting case about irish is you need not go back anymore than let's say 1910 , or 1890, to see signs and advertisements of any race except irish, any race can apply ex when their advertising for jobs, any race except irish or resta restaurants saying that anyone it admitted except irish and dogs, so irish faced discrimination.--

many groups or most groups innee the united states face some for, of discrimination whether it was japanese, chinese, irish, black americans, jewish americans, i don't know of any other group, maybe the people with english ancestry, maybe they face then, lowest amount of discrimination, but there has been discrimination and oppression for practically all the groups in the united states.ut now, of course different groupsc responded in different ways, but that can be studied. nonetheless, various groups faced varying v degrees of discrimination. >> here is a text message we received and i went to show this on the air and see if youvery -t recognize this picture that wase sent to us. let's see if i cant. get this. t there we go. let's see if we can get that picture on the air. is that anyone you recognize?jo

do yuest: see when that's your grandkids according to this text message and said your grandsono? is enjoying watching the show. can you see it now? >> guest: yes, i can.. >> host: that was sent in. rosslyn, baltimore, maryland, hello. >> caller: thank you for answering. nour answer to this question iso probably blanket, but i was prompted to call based on your remark onemar-- c2 totalitarian. >> caller: totalitarianism. the constitution is the law ando if you are denied due process,nd the ninth two process the resuli of matter and in the denial of it for years went to our makinge for the dfienial are benefiting off of no due process, which is the law, how does the

constitution speak for me? i am if i am not afforded due process and is the law c2 i think thecal constitution calls for dues, process and-- two you have a specific area in mind? >> caller: well, it would require an attorney to represent me, but the situation is justs s about unique. it could just go on and on and on with no due process c2. in: e >> guest: i don't understand the question. >> host: gym in colorado texting, would-- were you ever the beneficiary of affirmative action? >> guest: well, if i was i don't in know about it.

as a matter of fact, when i was interviewing for a job that leti a temple university, i told the department chairman, i asked thd department chairman, are youe to under any pressure to hire a black person and so he said, noe i'm not under any pressure, but we would like to have you and im told him, i will accept right your word, but when-- if i findn out you are not telling the truth, i'm going to quit the very day i find out about it. ge at george mason, i'm pretty sure any pressure to hire a black person. in my 35 years there i have not found they were under pressure and moreover, if they are under any pressure to hire a black hir person i don't count as the right to black person. a i mean, they have to hire a liberal black person, so-- as a latter of fact, i had a

colleague at temple universitye, and he heard me in the hallway talking not nicely to one of myo colleagues on this guilt stuff and he said that she's a friendu of mine and he said walter,p say don't blame anything on racialle discrimination in ourdepart department's.he he said people wouldn't like you even if you were white.t that was an observation made by a colleague and friend of mine.d >> host: then in chesterw, virginia was no w when i was ine college in the late 70s, the monetarist economic theory was .onetary what are you teaching today? >> guest: i don't teach monetary economics. i teach microeconomic theory and as i said earlier in the show, i teach phd-- first-year phd students microeconomic theory and in the spring i teach undergraduate microeconomicoecot

theory, sheo i'd don't get into monetary theory and when i did take monetary theory as a class, i did not do very well on its. o so, i'm not really good-- i lovm reading about monetary theory, but e i'm not an expert at all. >> host: especially during election season we often hear politicians talk about how theyu will do this for the economy ory .hat for the economy due politicians in washingtonmy. have that much control that they can do this or do that for the economy? >> guest: i think politicianssuk have a very very limited abilitd to do good for our economy, vero limited ability. h they have awesome power to do harm. so, when people would say to me job -- some years ago when i got a job and i was teaching at the cityn college in 1990, and so i asked

people, now, i have a job teaching in 1990 stirring the clinton administration. a was president clintonat did h responsible for my getting a job what did he actually do to make me get a job at grove cityoubt college?ollege. i doubt he even knew i had a job at grove city college, so a president or politician has limited ability to do good and ab awesome ability to do harm to the economy.econom >> host: can't find the right h book, doctor williams, maybe it's in here that i find it? no. it's about corporations.s corporations that can take on citibank for paying reparations. >> guest: a lot of corporationso they will try to buy off their

adversaries. they will do things like like contribute to the environmentalist movement or contribute to the idea of ide reparation. and i think that-- i mean, as ir suggested earlier, there has w been enough grief that we niseiy reparations everyone ought to receive reparation. but, i think that one of the tha problems is that when people say, look, we're going to pay so reparations today, that means that white people of today have to compensate lakh people of the day for what white people of yesterday due to black people on yesterday. now, if you believe in individual accountability, gotov

to find such a standards offensive. t punish that is to punish a white off today to help a black of todayy. to compensate what a whites ofhe yesterday did to a black of yesterday and when people talk about reparation, i think that reparations ought to be paid too slaves because slavery was auste great injustice., e' but, that's going to be a matter taken care of them have a. there is no way we can so -- compensate slaves for slavery, but for their children who nevea faced a slavery i think that itv doesn't make sense.t wit >> host: elayne's calling in from sun city, california, gues. elaine, we have about 10 minuten left with our guest, walter williams. chae >> caller: will you comment onmn the effect of the change from ad economy based on savings with o compounding interest to one ofhe

investment in the stock market? ended it takeaway-- take power ad accountability away frominds individuals and ultimately givee it to the government?nment? thank you. >> guest: i think that investink in equities, i don't think thatd in itself gives the power to the government's and i think that we still have a society where iff you save there is a compoundingt of interest. awa i think that is not conaway. >> host: daniel, indiana. hello, daniel.ou. >> caller: thank you. the question is about the government takeover of the loan college loan industry and how to a that's going to affectff the tol economy in the future. ove i believe we are now at overand $1 trillion and millennial's i'l can't get jobs.

>> guest: what interesting did you say the government has taken overr?? >> caller: the government loan industry for colleges students k that the government has taken basically taken over.seemed t >> guest: it hasn't seemed to be with all of the defaults, it hap appeared to be a success. >> host: what is it costing you to go to--uesti [inaudible]hat reasonable >> guest: i think that's wishon c about 16000. >> host: is that a reasonable amount for college education?llh >> guest: its much lower than- many others. that is some college, tuition room and board you're talking about 50, $55000.ncon o like a princeton or harvard. a >> host: as an economist, is that affordable, is a worthwhile? wor

>> guest: no, as a matter of fact, i think that roughly 40 tw 50% of students who are in colleges should not be there in the first place. that is, anyone who is admitted to college who is not college ready as suggested by the requirements that so many kids have to take remedial english and remedial math, they leare nt ready for college. i think it's a waste of resources. tha i think sometimes i will go to the library and i will see someo kids out there playing frisbee r and i go to the libraryt 8:00 a.m. in the morning and i come back at 11:00 a.m. and thew same kids are out there playing frisbee. so, i'm wonderingther i ver whew very productive for them. i t i think that many kids, many young people when they graduate from high school, their parentsc should try to make sure thatthey

they get a job at mcdonald's, ah carwash, at some of the other te places to gain maturity. mid then, to go back and maybe when they are in their mid- 20s, o o may be having gained some maturity go to college. i know that in my own personal life if i had gone to college right out of high school, it would have been an unmitigated disaster. m so, i started college when i was 25 years old, married and had been in the army and it worked.m >> host: from our facebook page. craig wiley. outle, when i was a young black man inr camden, new jersey, there were some jobs, shipyard factories and major retail pellets, boo le over from the world war iihe economic boom of. of the town was systematicallyhe insist serrated. the highway was built around the town.coffin mr. williams doesn't knowmr b. e

is an apologist for the systematic exclusion of people of african ancestry from economic empowerment by the public and private sectors c2.si >> guest: well, i think that's unfortunate view of the world. of matter fact, for that person, i used to work in camden. my cousin and i worked for campbell soup unloading tomatoea in april-- i mean, in august. i used to use trying to suit-- shoes. camden was a flourishing city at one time.inesses out but, a lot of times you had tow, say, well, what drove the thi businesses out of the city's? a lot of things like taxes, high crime, poor schools and you have to ask the question, what drove

the people out of the particular city? so, you see in many cities,es, urbanization of the cities and d lot of times people are talking about white flight to the icburbs.op this is in the 70s, very popular topic. turns out that out black flighto the suburbs was greater than a r white flight the suburbs and ita turns out black people don't like being mugged anymore than,e white people and so one has to ask the question, what created the conditions. look at detroit. detroit at one time during the d 40s, 50s and i believe partt of of the 60s was a city with s 1.9 million people.eople. it was a flourishing the city0,0 and today it's around0 700,000s. people in the city. people have laughs and theone. industry has gone and people w have to ask why and it turns oue that: young was the mayor during the 70s and he was

responsible for a lot of the policy, he and his successors ad were responsible for a lot of the policy that ran industry and people out of the city of detroit, so one has to ask what lld to the evacuation of many oa our cities and people don't want to ask that question at all.umn? >> host: how often to your right >>os on, once or twice a week? >> guest: once a week.t: that's the best i can do. >> host: how many newspapers? nationly: about 140uest. >> ht: rly syndicated. >> host: robert, wales, massachusetts. d the a >> caller: i've been listening to this and one of the things that interests me about when our president got elected and i live in a small white community in new england, there was no tea party until he got elected.

th from my own personal observation, for my customers that come and go over the lastel seven years, we have a lot ofre people here in this country tha. were surprised that we elected a black president and i think hisw problem since he's beenlack president has been because he my was our first black president's. . ltls my case >> host: what kind of business to people coming to see you about?etinto cus >> caller: i have a convenience store and in the past when customers came in and spoke my negative about my president iail will justl your groceries back n here is your money and i have'tt probably kicked out 500 people in the last seven years, the people who i know that go to church all the time, are asur white as can be an say suchdidn negative things about our presidents to read it it come out of nowhere.his liberty >> host: about robber in wales, massachusetts and if i couldph f take this libertyrom your to wed one paragraph from your book. ad "american contempt for liberty",

from 2010 early indicationsthats adjust the upper rock obama presidency might turn out to be similar to the failed presidency of jimmy carter.iall candidate that is bad news for the nation, you write, but especially bad news for black americans. no white presidential candidater can live down the disgraced presidency of carter, but i amd all too fearful that a future black presidential candidatee pi will find himself carrying heavm baggage of a failed a black president's. that's not a problem for white liberals who voted for obama who received their one-time guilted receiving dose that voted for ai black president, but it is a wrg problem for future generations of black americans a. >> guest: well, one thing-- i a, wrong and what assessment, i think, that a future black presidentde might have to carry the baggage of a failed blackt ben carson is

president such as obama. that is with the support that ben carson is gettingetti. it seems like-- it shows americans are good enough not to hold ben carson responsible for barack obama.alle but, i think what they have recognize is that black peopleot did not elect obama to the so the presidency. it's just not enough way, theres not enough of us. the way he got into office was having huge numbers of white people vote for him.t i think that that's a statements , that alone is a statement about the goodness oft american people. that is that we are able to eventually get around to electing a black president or at least a partially black president's. but, i think that he just hasd not-- i think he squandered than goodness among the american people by his presidency.or

>> host: you can be the last word, ada.k you s >> caller: how nice, thank you.m i wosuld like to say, walter williams is the voice of reason on every topic and i don't use " that word reasonre because it'sm magazine or libertarian, i useet it because i do agree with everything he said, thus far.ee i went to see his smile andia a those long legs back here in philadelphia as soon as t possible. could he please let us know hows we could get him and his wife to visit us again and speak to us?n >> host: tell us a bit aboutr: m yourself before we get an answee >> caller: you remember me, on the 90-year old libertarian,ice, caucasian, was married to ane ft army officer j. he was joking about the two oneo black men in the motor pole fand they got into an exit and oneer

said to the other,-- [inaudible]whate i >> caller: believe me, i know all about what he's talkingn ard 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.or comeback to philly. >> guest: thank you for your mutt-- very much for comments ts read unfortunately, you can't get my wife at all because she passed away seven years ago and is so so -- but, i get back to e philadelphia area now and then.k i think that there's-- at the a- union league club i think thereg is a-- i will be giving a talk there i believe december 3, but you can check on theirat site.el at the same time you can go to shou my website, which isld walter williams.com.

you can see many things about me and sometimes when i havecoming events, upcoming events at recomm posted on that site, plus a lot of book recommendations and other things you can gather fror the site. >> host: walter williams. a,ic america, minority view poetry. all it takes his guts, south africa's war against capitalism. do the right thing. gov more liberty means less government. "up from the projects", his autobiography. and e "race & economics" and "american contempt for liberty" newe boo newest book. he has been our guestshe for the last three hours on book tv. thank you for your time. y. >> guest: thank you. >> c-span, created by america's cable comedies 35 years ago.

not to you as a public service by your local cable or satellite provider. republican presidential candidate jeb bush recently announced the publication of his newest book, reply all. >> last year i decided i wanted to share my story with people across the country, so i wrote a book. really, i didn't write it, not in the traditional sense. i e-mailed it. they used to call me that the governor. for eight years i gave that might knowledge as. i give it to anyone who wanted to talk to me. e-mail they did. [laughter] >> people across the state told me their stories, sometimes they ask questions, sometimes they asked for help. i will never forget one lady, an elderly woman in south florida doesn't me and e-mail governor, i have a raccoon in my attic. what are you going to do about

it quarks so, i called up the city manager from delray beach and i said, you're an elderly person who has a raccoon in her and make what are you going to do about it quarks by noon, that raccoon was out because we did have a surface in tallahassee. we got our team on each and every day when people had problems and floridians are always giving their opinion and they did not hold back. i listened and i did try to answer every e-mail. it wasn't something i could have predicted at the start of my time in office, but this eight your conversation shape my governorship, so in writing my book i used might e-mail exchanges to tell the story, to tell about the work to turn one of america's largest estates intuit economic engine or people could live, work and raise their family and safety and security. [cheers and applause]

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