notice my pleasure to introduce tonight's program featuring john lanchester, new yorker contributor andhor of the new book "how to speak money: what the money money people--and what it really means". john will be in conversation with michael lewis, author of a number of books that involve liar's poker. let me give you background about each of them. john lanchester is the author of the debt to pleasure, mr. phillips, as a memoir, family romance. he is a contributing editor at the london review of books and his work has appeared in the new york times, the observer and daily telegraph among others. has won numerous prices, he was awarded the 2008 foster award by the american academy of arts and whethers. as someone who has lived in hong kong and london i can attest to his remarkable ability to capture the underlying sentiment in tension, reading stories of people and place. his new novel capital proves his remarkable talents. it is no wonder the times of the u. k wrote capital is brimming with perception, human empathy and relish. he will be charting tonight with michael lewis. michael lew

our guest is a john lanchester and were discussing of the world of finance really works. i am michael lewis. you can find a few of commonwealth program on our youtube channel. let's get to the book. the book is a dictionary. it reminded me of ambrose dictionary. you done an amazing job of taking essentially, there's an essay on either end of the dictionary of the dictionary itself is very readable. the joy of it is even if you know what a bailout is or what cdo is, that the descriptions that you provide you be thinking about them in any way. i'm curious how you decide what to include in this book. >> i would say this because i'm a writer but for me the first obstacles and the main obstacle following the subject was the level of vocabulary. it's just embarrassingly simple think not knowing what the words mean, and that was the first hurdle i had spent a list of what you did not. >> i tracked it down. whenever i was starting to read the stories, whatever their sword i did not mean, i would review it until i felt i did not the meaning. >> can i stop you? when you found you k

. >> on that hopeful note we will and is otherwise depressing program and thanks to john lanchester new york contributed author of the new book "how to speak money" with the money people say what it really means. we thank our audiences hear on radio television and internet bidder on to remind everyone in the books will be on sale in the library immediately following the program. we appreciate your letting john make his way to the book signing table as quickly as possible. i am michael lewis and now this meeting of the commonwealth club of california the place where you are in the know is adjourned. [applause] anne sarah rubin appeared at the zoo so visible but is a natural tendency to discuss her book "through the heart of dixie." she stood and took questions from the book festival audience. it's just under 15 minutes. who would you offer. this afternoon we have anne sarah rubin with us and she is an associate professor of history and director for the center of digital history and education at the university of ireland baltimore company. county, sorry baltimore country to receive 80 fro

the laffer curve the most, and john lanchester's definition of the laffer curve. the most influential audience arrived in the world on a cocktail napkin. arthur laffer's and cons that explained this idea to the ford administration in 1974. the idea was in essence the government could raise more money in tax by cutting tax rates. laffer drew a curve that true income rates from tax. he made a point at it 0% the government raises no money better 100% tax again the government raises no money because nobody will do any work in the government confiscates all the proceeds of a tax rates that raises the most money isn't automatically at the top end of the scale. governments will often raise tax revenue by cutting rates of tax. as you can probably imagine this idea is very popular with rich people. reagan's administration was the first of a despair into practice. the two officials to whom laffer pitched the idea were donald rumsfeld and dick cheney so does literally that case the same people who cooked up the second iraq war also brought his tax cuts for the rich. to quote