it was written by washington post economics columnist neil irwin. alchemy and the mystical powers of turning things into gold. i assume there is a deliberate intent in choosing that as the title for your book? - there is. hundreds of years ago, the alchemists were these guys who tried to create gold and silver out of routine materials. turns out you didn't need magic or potions or any of the stuff they worked on. if you have a central bank, if you have the authority of the state, and you have somebody to run it, you can print money out of thin air, and that is what the central banker's been doing for the last six years. - but they are not really being hailed as heroes in all quarters. a lot of people feel they have unchecked powers, these un-voted individuals. - it absolutely raises huge questions for anybody who cares about democracy and transparency. what i am trying to do is provide a window into what they did and the true story of what happened. but there is no question that over and over, through these last several years of crisis fighting, the

neil irwin joins us. centers on 2007, the financial crisis brewing, the economy on the verge of falling off the cliff, but ben bernanke, the federal reserve chairman, and central bank presidents in england, europe, they get together, announce an unprecedented coordinatedded effort that people believed saved us from a second great depression. pick it up there. >> we think of this as the u.s. crisis, sub prime mortgages, lehman brothers failed, all the stuff we know well, but that was the beginning of the bigger and global story. i try to trace the evolution from the subprime mortgages to europe and back again, and over and over, what you see is it's not just ben bernanke dealing with it, but really this insular close-knit club trying to find ways to work together to respond on a scale that matches the problem. lori: theseare unelected officials with tremendous, some say overwhelming, too much power even, and they acted at light speed with all of the stimulus and bank bailouts, and this and that. what do yo

many thanks to neil irwin. e new book "the alchemists." >> neil, thanks. when we come back, closely watched weekly jobless claims at 8:30 a.m. eastern. stick around. we'll be right back. revolutionizing an industry can be a tough act to follow, but at xerox we've embraced a new role. working behind the scenes to provide companies with services... like helping hr departments manage benefits and pensions for over 11 million employees. reducing document costs by up to 30%... and processing $421 billion dollars in accounts payables each year. helping thousands of companies simplify how work gets done. how's that for an encore? with xerox, you're ready for real business. ♪ there'll be the usual presentations on research. and development. some new members of the team will be introduced. the chairman emeritus will distribute his usual wisdom. and you? well, you're the chief life officer. you just need the right professional to help you take charge. ♪ >>> in our headlines private equity firms tgp capital and madison are

. >> neil irwin, thank you very much. writer of "the alchemist." tomorrow we'll speak with randy kroszner about the fed, the statement and the health of the economy. >>> still ahead on the program, banking budgets and badges. why the girl scouts is no longer just about selling cookies. >>> but first, a look at how commodities fared today, including gold,hich had its worst monthly performance since december 2011. >>> admit it. it is hard to resist buying girl scout cookies, especially when you know you're supporting a great organization. this year sales of thin mints and samoas and all the other treats are going to reach record levels. but how much does that young sales force really know whereby the money comes from and where it goes and what to do with it? kayla tausche joins us now. do these girls have any idea about the amount of money they're actually making? >> tyler, each girl knows when she personally sells a lot of cookies, but can't really fathom how big the overall organization has become. thousands of troops are young girls will sell in t

in it, reporter neil irwin takes us inside the minds of ben bernanke, mervyn kink of the bank of englandn-claude trichet. joining us now, neil, author and economics editor. how are you? >> very good. thanks for having me. >> let's start with the frame of your book. a lot of people remember this economic crisis as the decline of american businesses. you're using a lens that is telling a story about international governmental cooperation. why that different emphasis? >> we had this horrible crisis in 2008 and we all remember more of it than we might like between sub prime mortgage crisis and the lehman brothers failure and the fall of 2008. that was just the beginning of a longer complex set of events. it involves the european debt crisis, this slow painful recovery in the pus has been going on for four years but sure doesn't feel like it to most americans. they've been a secretive group that get together for dinners and chart out a path to the world economy. and i'm trying to take readers and explain how those decisions really got made over the last five years. >> the three dudes. >> ther

eastern, neil irwin, author of "thal chemists," sits down with david wessel of "the wall street journal". and we conclude tonight's prime time programming at 11 eastern with sam roberts. he talks about the history of grand central station in new york. visit booktv.org for more on this weekend's television schedule. >> elliot abrams, who served on president george w. bush's national security council staff, provides an insider's take on the accomplishments and failures of the bush administration regarding the israeli/palestinian conflict. this is a little over an hour. >> good evening and welcome. i'm roger herring to, chairman of the new york historical society, and i'm pleased to welcome you here this evening. i think we're about to have a truly interesting evening, and a most revealing kind of program with an author who's put a lot of time into a particular area of study. in case you haven't noticed, there's a cottage industry out there populated by diplomats, journalists who write about their experiences in the middle east. this has been going on for 30 or 40 years. i think it's fair

there's a calm neil irwin in "the washington post." >> i love that. you just pronounced it dead.is a money-printing rally, i know that we don't have the close-up handheld, but i have a tie that's helicopter ben and this is what you get. you get bouncebacks, too. a company reports a bad quarter and initially there's a big hit and then it bounces. have you noticed ibm? take a look at ibm, it has just r levitateded a lot of points and it just gained ten pin thes and no one is thinking weight a second and all of the big downdrafts. listen to this, here are the ones that disappointed, apple, amazon, ibm, intel, qualcomm, united technologies, united health, think bah of america, goldman sachs, caterpillar, mcdonald's and starbucks all disappointed and now pfizer. >> this is the largest drug -- those all disappointed and we hit an all-time high. isn't this what the s&p is? >> doesn't that mean that i should perhaps be reassessing and say that won't last forever at some point? >> i said it says -- just keep it going. the second half must be getting better. >> is it just momentum and chea

neil irwin. author of e the -- "the alchamitss." >> together they shape our economic destiny. in a way most of us aren't aware of. >> sounds like a conspiracy theory to me. they are unelected. i got three peoples that are unelected and three of the most powerful people in the world. >> it is troubling. you have these unelected officials and meet in secret. it's not ideal from a democratic perspective. >> who are they? >> ben bernanke we know the chairman of the u.s. federal reserve. jean-claude in charge of 17 countries in western europe. murray the governor of the bank of england. take canada and switzerland in the club too. >> how did they do? david stockman says not well. >> i think david is mostly wrong. >> why is that? >> wow. >> why do you think david is wrong? >> i think he has a view of that anything you do to try to corral what can go wrong in an economy you're laying the groundwork. it's the policy to see what went wrong in the past and learn from history and try to fix it and do better. that's what ben bernanke and these other guys have been doing the last few years

this week, neil irwin in his book, "the alchemists: three central bankers and a world on fire."and it, mr. irwin gives central banks before examining the choices that today's central bankers and their effect on economies worldwide. the program is about an hour. >> host: meal, this is a really ambitious book. i did a book as well as you know, that you try to do the whole world here. tell me how this came to be. >> guest: we've been through a remarkable few years. it started the subprime crisis and of course this turn into something much bigger and more global come with much broader effects in anything having to do with mortgage security in the united states. the deepest and darkest days of the crisis was the fall of 2008. he wrote a wonderful book on that. i wanted to try and capture slightly different story. the global story, first of all, of what started will be thought of as a housing crisis in the united states and the financial crisis became this conflagration that is dated towards european unity has worsened the british economy for years and years has had this global reach

at 9 on "after words," neil irwin author of "the alchemieses" sits down with david wes el of "the walltreet journal," followed by lee sandlin at 10 p.m. and we conclude at 1 with kristin hawkens. she describes the efforts of students for life for america. that all happens tonight here on c-span2's booktv. >> and now on booktv, former supreme court justice sandra day o'connor presents a history of the high court and profiles several of its former justices. [applause] >> thank you. now, i'm sitting down, so you can sit down. come on. that's good. i'm kind of hobbling around a bit. and so -- can you hear? is it all right? no? no. does this have to be turned on, or what's the matter? right into it? oh, dear. [laughter] now can you hear better? >> yes. >> i actually didn't get an offer for my first job, so let's just get the introduction changed a little bit. [laughter] i happily attended stanford law school, and in the process, i met my husband-to-be, john o'connor. and he was a year behind me in law school. we decided to get married, and i graduated from the law school, and we both liked

. >> neil irwin on after words, sunday night at 9 eastern, part of book tv this week in on c- span2. >> she was out there in a way that respectable women did not do, but this is a new era. this is the time when the women's movement is under way, and interestingly enough, someone like julia tyler kind of fits into a certain extent. she is very conservative in some ways, but in terms of breaking through the traditional way that a woman should behave, she is doing it in a way that other women are not at that time. >> our conversation with historians on julia tyler is now available on our website, c- .pan.org/firstladies >> president obama argued for stricter gun laws today. colorado recently moved to require background checks for all gun purchases and put limits on the size of ammunition magazines. this is a half hour. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> thank you. thank you so much. thank you, everybody. everybody have a seat. thank you. it is wonderful to be back in colorado and in denver. i want to thank chief white for that introduction. you have some outstanding officials here today. i want to acknowledge

. >> neil irwin on creation of world central banks and how the managers develop global power. on "after words", part of booktv this weekend on c-span2. >>> the late photo journalist leonard freed documented the 1963 march on washington. hundreds of his photos have been published by his widow, brigitte freed. up next a 40 minute discussion of the book with remarks by john coal with the library of congress. >> without, gooage. wrut colt to -- good afternoon, welcome to the library of congress. i'm the director of the library of congress which is the reading and book promotion arm of the library. we're pleased to could sponsor this program with the library prints and photographs division. the center for the book was created in 1977 to help the library of congress stimulate public interest in books and reading and literacy and libraries and we are a private public partnership with the library of congress paying our five salaries but indeed we have raised private money from the beginning to help support our array of programs and projects. there are, center for the books now in ever

. >> neil irwin on the creation of the world's central banks and how their managers develop global poweron "after words", sunday night at 9:00 eastern part of booktv this weekend on c-span2. >>> senior advisor to president obama, valerie jarrett, spoke about her role in the white house and limited politics. her remarks are part of the atlantic's women in washington series. this is just under an hour. >> thank you, elizabeth and terry, thank you very much. and all of you for being here. thank you, valerie. i will tell you about a couple things about valerie before we get started. because we want to dive in. full disclosure. valerie and i used to work together. we worked on the first obama presidential campaign and as you heard i worked in the white house. but know i get a chance to ask her all the questions i always wanted to ask. valerie is senior advisor to president obama. she oversees the white house office of public engagement, a very important office for the president and head of council on women and girls. she was a senior official in many capacities in the city of chicago and was