and the time markets were faltering alan greenspan would lower interest rates something markets would catch a big trade higher bernanke inherited that legacy but it seems as though the fed's ability to stimulate this these markets is finished is over is that kind of what you're alluding to it kind of seems like that. own especially i mean certainly the markets reacted positively to q e two and q e one and the for it too early to say verdict yet on operation twist but even bernanke himself seems to be kind of skeptical he gave it he gave a speech a few weeks ago which was basically saying if we're going to do anything needs to be fiscal policy spend more basically trying to kick it back over to congress so i think even he doubts that at this point monetary policy is a great tool but well it's still possible that the fed could juice the stock market if that's all he has going for now your own role over there business insider dot com you're the deputy editor correct yeah now business insider is primarily focused on if i may be correct me if i'm wrong but there's a big emphasis on technol

alan greenspan is the most damned because he knew better. it's one thing to make these mistakes out of ignorance or pure power lust like barney frank did, but alan greenspan knew better, he was a close follower of ayn rand. they were best friends forever. he had no excuse. he knew better. when he went to washington in 1976 as president ford's chairman economic advisers, her and her husband were there in the white house as he was sworn in. why didn't ayn rand damn him? he said to the press that alan is my man in washington. well, she didn't live long enough to see him become chair of the federal reserve. she probably thought then that he was a double agent for capitalism right in the heart of washington. well, sounds good if you say it fast, but any of you spent time in washington, just the atmosphere there is an addictive drug, and washington is like an aquarium, but instead of filled with water, it's filled with power, and after you swim in it, you want more of it, and alan greenspan did. federal reserve chairman is the most highly empowere

then more from alan greenspan on ways to improve tax policy. president obama was in all how today talking about his jobs plan, and mitch mcconnell criticizes the president's proposal. in an election marred by political corruption, blaine lost in 1884. he is one of the 14 men featured in "the contenders," friday at 8:00 p.m. eastern. learn more about this series at c-span.org/thecontenders. >> with that we will turn to our witness for today, dr. douglas commodores. he is the eighth director of the congressional budget office. before he came to cbo, he was a senior fellow at the brookings institution. served as co-editor of brookings papers on economic activity, and the director of the hamilton project. he has served as an assistant professor at harvard, a principal analyst at the congressional budget office, a senior economist, a deputy assistant secretary for economic policy at the treasury com. in those positions, dr. relman door has gained a wide range of expertise on budget policies, medicare, national health care reform, financial markets,

be audited so what they have done with it over the decades and in between we have no idea that alan greenspan admitted in testimony to congress in one thousand nine hundred six that the world central banks were leasing gold to suppress the suppress its price to keep gold's price down so whether or not the u.s. actually has the gold that's very questionable but if they did have all the gold that they said they did then the price of gold has to rise to about twenty thousand dollars per ounce when i did the exercise it was nineteen thousand eight hundred thirty seven dollars or something like the. per ounce for the treasury to have enough gold to cover every dollar that foreign central banks are holding now if dollars if currencies were to fail and you were just to replace all of the dollars out there with gold it requires a price around two hundred three thousand dollars per ounce if you were going to just replace all of the currency with gold i'm not saying that these are any these are prices that gold is going to but gold is still extremely undervalued at this point and i think that ben berna

and if you look at alan greenspan he clearly caused the housing bubble. inflating the economy by keeping rates artificially low and i don't think that center bankers have gotten a lot of good works since inception of the federal reserve as a matter of fact in the united states or clearly a lot of the blame. should be going to them on the other hand zone now or we are already seeing this very high pepfar and clearly there needs to be some other political solution because i don't think there's any easy way to fix it as i mention apart from some form of debt restructuring one point that was made earlier i do want to comment on also though is that the european central bank is any better than them the federal reserve in my opinion clearly that's not. their moment ruining their eurozone but bailing out every eurozone country they can find in every bank left and right as they're desperate again records amount of italian debt spanish that italy is sitting on two trillion euros of their best know it's absolutely impossible even if germany was going to spend all th

you the markets around the world look to him he's kind of like maybe it was a decade ago or the alan greenspan of russia i mean people really old people don't presbyterian today if they really trust who drink today and so the markets will react to it but if you any minister that says that sitting in office about the prime minister or the president you know. deserves to be criticize you that's really not appropriate behavior that said mr putin maybe angling for a position in the next government on his own terms ok we have to remember mr putin knows putin is well was made but it does i mean this is a very small circle of people that know each other extremely well this could be some power play before we get started i'm a little surprised it's a bit early i think mr green was out of line in his comments we again will have to see if that russia's economy investment will suffer as a result and he should keep those kind of things in mind you have to be careful what you say well let's talk about convince past foundations now has been suggested the finance minister can have become prime minister back a

the first witness, alan greenspan, manage u.s. monetary policy under four presidents during the five terms as chairman of the federal reserve, and during that time he -- the united states grew from a 5 trillion to a $13 trillion economy. and john taylor served as a member of the council of economic advisers in the george h. w. bush administration, and as undersecretary of treasury for international affairs in the george bush administration. and he is a professor of economics at stanford. martin feldstein served as chairman of the white house council of economic advisers in the reagan administration. and dr. feldstein has written more than 300 research articles in the field of economics, founded the national bureau of economic research, and is currently as a professor at harvard. john engler, president of the business roundtable, three term governor of michigan. mr. engler, governor engler was president and ceo of the national association of manufacturers. and edward kleinbard, chief of staff of the joint committee of taxation from

also stayed in charge that also continue to go on and speak to the media we can even talk about alan greenspan's of the world they got to tell the story and so it seems like everything was just such a shocker and it was such a complex and complicated system that no one could have seen it coming so i actually think that they could see me going to certainly think. you could see the collapse coming here they were focused on short term profits of profits in the next three months four months five months but what i meant was that it wasn't clear that they could c.b.s. . my guess is that they were betting that the aftermath would be just straight out war bill it's no real regulation of poor because they all look where the system was it was less clear it didn't necessarily have to go but my point is that since it has got to work now we are so. there you know when the next time this happens those executives don't go they don't have to worry about the political fall of prosecutions and go like because they know what happened in the last situation in the last verse and you know it's so interesting to think

it's the fact that the labor unions are being boston or the ability of people to fight you know alan greenspan in one thousand nine hundred seventy in front page of the wall street journal so that his job was to me turn to mend a certain necessary minimum level of we're. in security there was any time workers started demanding higher pay start cutting you know cutting back on the economy back the economy by jacking up interest rates and this is what's been killing is that it's simpler it's reaganomics thirty years are going to strain the i don't agree and i think that there are many things that we ought to be able to agree on we can't keep having these presidential debates where if i'm president eighteen months from now we're going to institute a new jobs policy and we need to start focusing on common legislation there are democrats in congress who support things like a repatriation window so these projects somebody get said the trillion dollars of corporate money that they've made overseas comes back and doesn't have to and raises revenue actually on a net basis so i gem a crap support it peo

steve forbes used to say alan greenspan want goosing it up enough.hey have allowed the fed to make policy decisions on monetary policy, because elected politicians are no good at this stuff. they get it wrong all the time. they try to manipulate things for the politics. the fed has a remedy to cut down inflation and cut down employment. if these elected leaders, the leaders of the republican party think this is normal or acceptable, then the republican party isn't what it used to be, and it's way out of the mainstream of its own history and public opinion. >> i agree with you. in fact, let me show you what vice president biden said about the republican party that really says exactly what your point was that you just made. he says -- you know what our biggest problem is -- there's no republican party. the tail is wagging the dog, and they can't control their party. that's the -- that's the problem. that's not going to -- the only thing that's going to change their minds is their constituency. tell them that they have to move. that's what biden says. >

alan greenspan once said, get everyone in a room and spend ten minutes and the first five agree on howurity and the other five -- >> it's interesting, greg, you mentioned, anything that scares your mom is not a good political move to make. it allowed an entree for mitt romney to look like a centrist, a realist. and it made him look like a frontrunner. >> diane's right, this is very fixable. we're in a society now where in order to get on tv or sell a book, you've got to say outrageous things like, let's secede from the union, ben bernanke is treasonous, this is a monstrous lie. you have to tone the rhetoric down. the trick is to be electable. when he talks like that, i think he diminishes his chances of getting elected. >> that's a good point. roland, weigh in on that point. by appealing to the base now, maybe he's helping president obama's case down the road. >> look, at the end of the day, i'm a native texan. i've known governor rick perry for so long. but this is classic republican politics where you come up with a perfect bumper sticker that the people you're appealing to can say,

i would start with alan greenspan, franklin raines. i would like to see barney frank in handcuffs. of course. all of those things. [ talking over each other ] >> sean: it has to be him. >> that is true. as far as the base, the perception on the public's part goes somebody has to be held accountable. carville is giving him advice. he should do some of that. tap into the public anger. >> he should come up with a plan that has faith in the private sector not in the public sector. he keeps coming up with plans that trusts government to rescue this economy. >> he needs just to get the momentum, some momentum back. he needs to fire everybody. he feeds to clean house. >> sean: not going to do it. >> it is him. at the end of the day the buck stops here. it is about him, voters can fire him next year. it is about his view of how to rescue this economy and it is him. it really is the -- [ talking over each other ] >> he has a chance to do something radical and bold and do real -- >> sean: you are saying all along you have been right hannity? >> i think you have. >> sean: for the 46.2 million

it was alan greenspan in the late 1980s. until 2006, inflation stayed pretty low. under ben bernanke's chairmanship, bernanke, according to newt gingrich is the most inflationary fed chairman of all-time -- bink. that's his inflation record. it's kind of anti-climactic, right? again, in normalsville, if you were assessing the inflationary prowess of the guy furthest to the right in red on this graph, he doesn't really look all that inflationary. in normalsville, that guy does not look like your inflation problem, but in republicanland, he must be replaced. he must be fired immediately. he must even be treated ugly by an imaginary mob in the great state of texas because of his horrible, horrible inflationary measures. as represented, again, by bink, that tiny little last position on the graph. it's the same thing with the effect of economic stimulus. with the whole idea of whether government can do anything to create jobs. when we have a really bad unemployment problem. it is held as an article of faith among the republican candidates. that stimulus spending to crea

we happen alan greenspan -- we have alan greenspan, chairman of the federal overseer of -- former chairmanserve system. david stockman, and senator warner, the sitting senator and one of the gang of six, heavily involved in this issue. we are going to talk pretty much about anything that you want. this is one of those washington policy forums where you get to answer any question. we want to have a rich discussion. what we want to focus on is where the politics and economics of this issue are right now and where they are headed. i have to observe, it has been pretty remarkable. i saw people disagree. they were allowed to. across the board, it has been a fairly tough argument in urging and forcing the super committee to come up with a fix is a necessary endeavor. >> first of all, let me start with chairman greenspan with the economic argument. you have had a lot of discussions about going big. and from an economic standpoint, what is the right number and how quickly do we have to get there? >> it is not for dollar trillion. the reason, as everyone here is aware, there is a tendency in govern

the joy of deficit reduction committee included a panel with former federal reserve chairman alan greenspan and the virginia senator mark warner a member of the budget committee. this is an hour. >> thanks to everybody on c-span. this is quite a panel. the first to panels so if you will were not here come some of you were but we have great acts to follow dewitt let me briefly go over the people we have with us today and then i'm going to turn over to you for the first question. thanks to all of you for joining we are pleased to have jane harman now the president and ceo of the woodrow wilson international school for scholars to read alan greenspan former chairman of the federal reserve system, governor engler of the business roundtable, david stockman, former burger of omb, and senator warner who is the sitting senator and also one of the gang of six and a heavily involved in this issue. we are going to talk pretty much about anything you want. this is one of these washington policy forums where you are able to answer any question you wish you could have been asked instead of what you were

the question is alan greenspan famously commented on this, can you trust the executives of these institutions to have the interests of the institutions as such at heart? because it would appear in these episodes that the interests of the institutions might have been sacrificed to those of the executives. and i think, again, going back to the question of the heads on pikes, i think that that, that phenomenon also deserves a lot of attention. >> agreed. >> hi. looking forward and thinking about the next election, um, and i'm assuming the answer to the question is, no, but what do you think is the possibility of there being some kind of discussion of housing policy going forward in the next election? it would seem like the obama plan and, i guess, the eight plans that the republicans are talking about are different. .. >> that's not housing policy question. do i have expectation that either of those discussions, the one that we are heading there which is not a housing policy discussion board real substantive discussion of thousand policies? probably not. so here right. but even in terms of what

alan greenspan wanted to be the maestro. he wanted to be the hero.n the early 2000's, he created- interest rates. what that means is that inflation was higher than the interest rates. inflation was running 3% and you could borrow money at 2%. ben bernanke, the current head of the there are reserve, when he took over the federal reserve, he converted interest rates. short-term interest rates are higher than long-term. that is not unnatural phenomenon. only the federal reserve can do that. if you invest long, you want a higher return because it is riskier. banks make money by borrowing short. if you convert the yield curve and create negative short-term rates, the margins go negative. that is why -- we are buying watermelons for $10 and selling them for $8. the banking business is a funny business. you can get higher interest rates by taking more risks. if you look at most of the bad loans that were made, they were made during the periods of inverted interest rates. at the same time, the federal reserve, economists and ben bernanke were setting, this w

but it illustrated to me how carefully alan greenspan was listening to that presentation. how he identified the omission that i had left. and it was an astute response. i said to him i need you to advocate for this. and he said to me, serious, you will not find serious economists that disagree with you on this position. the fair tax does all the things that you say it does. it's not an economic question because serious economists will not disagree. it's a political question. and you are the politician, meaning me, mr. speaker, and you need to solve the political question. it's not an economic argument. so comes back to the same thing over and over again. here we are in this great country. we are a wealthy country. we are also a productive country. and we do have a good work ethic even though it's being undermined by 72 different means tested federal welfare programs. we are a great country and we have the resources to solve any problem that can be solved. we can come up with the money to do it. we either have the technology or we can develop the technology. we've got the m

actually, i worked for alan greenspan and jack danforth from missouri, but i am registered democrat.t's an interesting play on my loyalties to the program, and social security works, this has often been an idea of people who wanted to undercut the program. so it is alarming to us that it is come trg the democrats and from the president. megyn: let me ask you because this is something that you devote your life to, social security, and know a lot more about it than, i'm sure, i do or a lot of our viewers do. i want to talk to you about what rick perry said at the debate last night about how he thinks this thing has been set up and his remarks that it's a ponzi scheme. watch last night. >> it is a monstrous lie. it is a ponzi scheme to tell our kids that are 25 or 30 years old today you're paying into a program that's going to be there. anybody that's for the status quo with social security today is involved with a monstrous lie to our kids. and it's not right. megyn: what do you think of that, nancy? >> that is an outrageous statement. he is calling a program enacted by congress, signe

one of the witnesses was alan blinder who used to be vice chairman of the federal reserve when alan greenspanas chairman. let's be serious about health care costs in this country, medicare and medicaid and addressing health care costs. we won't get a handle on the deficit. thanks for your testimony. we are doing q&a like this. you said earlier if we don't do it in about health care costs, we are playing around the edges. he said that is right. what would be your advice? what should we do? he said i'm not helping the economists. here is my advice. i urge you to find out what works. that is all he said. find out what works. more of that. and i said to correlate that would be finding out what to do after that. i think the same is true across government as we deal with a budget deficit. we are happy that it is down. only $1.3 trillion by the end of the year. but the red ink as far as we can see everything we do we have to look through a prism that says a way to get a better result for less money or a better result for the same amount of money. i would ask you today to talk about some of the thing

alan greenspan on as roundtable of tax reform. it will be before a senate finance subcommittee looking at how to reduce the deficit by restructuring the tax code. that is life tomorrow on c-span 3. >> we provide coverage of politics, public affairs, not fiction books, and history. look for congress to continue federal spending into november including funding for national disasters. keep tabs on the deficit committee as a formula in a plan to lower the debt. it is all available to you on television, radio, on line, and social media sites. we are on the road with our c- span digital bus and content of videos -- people, showing events from around the country. it is washington your way, the cspan network. next, a discussion of the housing program, section eight. host: we will look at not just what programs cost, but what they do. we will look at the federal assistance program offered to low-income families. thank you for being here. guest: thank you for having me. host: here is the phone number to call. if you live in section 8 housin

. >> you wrote books about ralph nader, alan greenspan, an olmstead. is there a common thread?>> there is. funny you ask. they are all diverse people. alan greenspan was a professional jazz musician becoming a member of ayn rand, presidential adviser and a chairman. ralph nader was a lawyer, a writer, and he invented for himself the job that did not exist of consumer advocate and then became a fly in the ointment of an annoying presidential candidate. you also have olmstead being an abolitionist, a journalist, a park maker, urban planner, and several other things beyond that, so -- >> justin martin has been our guest, here's the latest book, "genius of place, the life of frederick olmstead." thank you very much for being on booktv. >> thank you very much. enjoyed it. >> a couple hours left of the book festival coming up. now, we'll finish the live program with wilkerson, the warmth of other suns. she'll talk about her book, and booktv will join her and take your phone calls, tweets, talk to the audience. that's the conclusion, but coming up next, you know her as the author of a

they will hear testimony from former fed chair alan greenspan, business roundtable president john engler and other policy advisers. the committee on fiscal responsibility and economic growth will examine how tax code changes could be a part of deficit reduction efforts. live coverage of that at 2:00 p.m. eastern on our companion network, c-span3 >> any given night in america more than 640,000 men, women and children are without housing. >> you're right. if we have a problem, we probably have a family, a network, a net work of friends. a network of maybe a church or a school or, we have people who will hold us up if we fall down and homeless person has lost all of those contacts. >> i think the most common stereotype is that the folks are homeless because they're not trying hard. that they're lazy or victims of their own lack of initiative. >> so should the federal government spend our tax money to help these people? >> i think there is definitely a important role for the government to play in ending poverty and ending homelessness. some people feel like the government should stay out of

he is the author of the widely held the biographies of to a iconic figures, alan greenspan and ralphder. both of him i think would be really interesting and novel. [silence] [silence] >> nadir, published in 2002. in the definitive biography of a consumer advocate emporia a president can't it this sometimes leaves voice messages on my voicemail asking the post to cover one thing or another. he also played a controversial role in the disputed election of 2000. just and became one of the gut to the experts to explain natick appearing on cnn and other shows in the to the six deccan entry in unreasonable man. seems a place, the life of frederick law olmsted, is the story of the brilliant landscape architect pierre designed central park in about 50 other green spaces around the country. also was a sailor, scientific farmer, a crusading journalist, noted abolitionist, and civil war hero. a lawyer for the of the careful eliminating justice -- just as martin treatment. a former staff writer and has written molly for such publications as newsweek and money. a graduate of rice university in hou

i was watching the other day and they asked alan greenspan and he said we would never default on ourt. we would just print more money. the only one who talks about this is ron paul. you have this rodeo clown rick perry trying to sound like ron paul. guest: that is a very real possibility, printing more money or raising the inflation rate because that would make money cheaper and easier for people to pay back debt it. is not fair at all when you cut rates to zero and make money worth less. it is not fair to the people who lend the money who are expected to be paid back. nor is it fair to the people who depend on a fixed income or made investments in bonds and so on because that 2%, 3%, or 4% yield or whatever they are getting to my days are getting that yield in dollars that are not worth as much. we are taking money out of the hands of people who lent it and giving it to the people are when it. it is not a neutral decision. host: what does president nixon's decision to say about the currency of china and allowing it to float? guest: the view of the americans is chinese should float t

the first witness, alan greenspan, managed u.s. four presidents during the five terms as chairman of the federal reserve. and during that time, the united states grew from a $5 trillion to a $13 trillion economy. and john taylor served as a member of the council of economic advisors in the george h.w. bush administration and as undersecretary of the treasury for international affairs in the scrorge bush administration. he's a professor of economics at stanford. martin feld stein served as chairman of the white house council of economic advisors in the reagan administration and dr. feldstein has written more than 300 research articles in the field of economics, founded the national bureau of economic research and is currently a professor at harvard. john ingler, three-term governor of michigan, president of the business round table. he was president and c.e.o. of the national association of manufacturers. and edward kleinbar, chief of staff of the joint committee of taxation from 2007 to 2009. he has 20 years of experience practicin

of the witnesses was alan blinder who used to be the vice chairman of the federal reserve when alan greenspanas the chairman, and the church of the testimony and said unless we are serious about the recent health care costs in this country, medicare, medicaid, and finding addressing the of care cost said we are not really going to get a handle on the deficit all the witnesses finish this is the money during the q&a like this, and came to me and said you said earlier if we don't do anything about health care costs that's the 800-pound gorilla in the room and we are playing around the edges and he said that's right. what will be your advice, what should we do? he said on not helping congress. he teaches at princeton. he says here's my advice i would urge you to find out what works. do more of that. that's all he said. find out what works. do more of that. so i guess to correlate to that would be to find out what does not work and do less of that. i think the same is true across the government as we deal with the budget deficit we are happy it's down. it's going to be $1.3 trillion i think by th