did was get a bigger policy going where aall went off their currencies and the 30s was a miserable decade. you can cheat, get a little leap forward, and others follow, and you're back to where you were. >> it's a mistake anyway to think that the key function of money is to register something called inflation or deflation. it's to give signals of information, and in europe, the euro isn't gold. the euro is a manipulated currency, dominated by socialist regime. and so it falsifies the information that guides entrepreneur creativity. and that's why it doesn't work. it's not because it misjudged collective level of prices,

which is almost impossible to compute anyway. >> all you have to do is look at the price of oil, nominal price of oil in the '7s so when we went from $3 to almost $40 a barrel. the price was going open, people thought we were running out you've had huge investments in alternatives and huge investment in the energy industry in the early '80s. terrible inflation, oil crashes to $10 a barrel, texas goes into a depression, the agricultural economy goes into a depression. unstable money -- we saw the same thing in the last decade -- unstable money is like a virus in the computer. it corrupts the information to george's point. >> i think we'll leave it there. i usually eat lunch at noon so right now my stomach feels like i'm living on the 75-minute hour that steve referenced earlier. but i want to say that one of the things that steve started

out with in his remarks, we reject this idea we have to get used to a reduced level of growth and reduced level of prosperity because the fact that we're living through this difficult time really is a result of serious policy errors that are all related to a reduced level of freedom. so obviously something that believe very strongly here at cato. i want to thank you all for being here. i want to especially thank those of you in the audience who were sponsors of cato. it's your generosity that makes our work possible, and especially want to thank three presenters today, all of whom have books available outside for purchase. i'd encourage you to do so. but gentlemen, thank you so much for being here. [applause]

[inaudible conversations] >> booktv visit capitol hill to ask members of congress what they're reading. >> i am a multiple read sore i read a lot of books at the same time, and so sometimes i'll finish a book in one sitting, but more often than not i read different parts of a book, but for example, one book i finished reading a short time ago is a great book i understand you did a whole segment on, is "the millionaire and the bard." i'm a big fan of shakespeare and to know the folger library is

right down the street and it is a terrific book about folger, who went on a spree, really, to buy shakespeare's folios and he amassed a huge collection of not just the folios but materials on shakespeare he kept at the folger library. it's a fascinating story how it ended up in washington, dc. i'm also reading -- i'm re-reading the righteous mind. it's a book about communicating, how we communicate in a more effective way, and if you can picture an elephant and there's a required on the elephant. the elephant is making all the decisions, go left, right, forward, backward, the writer nearly explains what the elephant is doing, and a lot of time you talk to the rider and ought to be talking to the elephant. it's a good way to remember to

be talking to the elephant making the decisions, not the person responding to the decisions in a time of political situation, arena, it's important that we keep in mind who we ought to be talking to. in the book i'm e.r.a. -- i'm re-reading and also reading a book called "the accidental masterpiece" and it is about how you see art and really to me, not because i am a great lover of art, you can see beauty in art and everyday objects and everywhere you look, but this is also another really interesting book that i just picked up. as you can see, by my office, i like color, i like art. also do my own art. i do ceramics, although i intend to keep my day job here. and reading -- i just want to mention, is the foundation

because i was not born in this country. english is not my first language. i credit a librarian when i was in elementary school who awake enmet reading and i remember the book she read to us, little kids who would sit at her feet at the library and she read "mary poppins" and that was the level of reading for me is foundational. i think basically in order to be a good writer, you should be a reader. i'm a pretty voracious reader. >> anything else you're reading? >> well, let's see. i also picked up "h is for hawk. "and i also read the new the the now, kerr pom layingses of short storyman ipad, and i read when

i have time. have a number of those kinds of bookman ipad. one other thing i want to mention is that often when you think about the books that changed your way of thinking, one book that did that for me in when i was in college and that was "the feminism mystique." the light bulb went on when i read the book and decide maybe my life was not going to consist of getting married and having children and living that kind of life that shy be thinking about, taking care of myself, and expanding my own horizons. i can say that is one book that totally changed my way of thinking about myself. >> booktv wants to know what you're reading this summer. tweet us your answer,@book tv or post it on our facebook page, facebook.com slash booktv. >> kareem abdul-jabbar, raw role

model? >> whether i like it or not i am a role model. the fact i was able to achieve what i was able to achieve as an athlete and hopefully as an author, is makes me a role model. i'm a parent so i have to be a role model. all parents are role models. so, i don't think that any of us escape that burden. for some it's a burden. for others it's a joy. but we all end up in that -- >> are you a national role model? >> i guess so. all i do -- >> is that good thing? >> it can be a good thing. i have to make it a good thing. it's up to me to decide what i can do with it. and how to use it. so, i've been trying to use it in a positive way. >> you write that, i have complicate relationship is with the media. i use my celebrity to take political positions.

>> i think i was -- in a way that enables me to say things that need to be said, and i'm glad to see there are other athletes that are getting along with that. when tamir rice was killed so unnecessarily in cleveland, lebron james came out and said something about it. i think that was very important to me. the fact that lebron -- besides this incredible celebrity and achievement as an athlete, he was concerned about the killing of the young person in his community that should not have been killed. ...

>> i think up to take that risk if the issue is that important and that meaningful to you. it's worth taking a risk. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> host: so lara heimert, what are some of the books coming out from basic this fall in. >> guest: i'm very excited about the word detective by john simpson which is a memoir by former editor-in-chief of the oxford english dictionary who had been there for about 40 years until his retirement in 2013 and in that time oversaw