possible in a democracy in a democracy do those actions do there you know who truly never met paul volcker well you know but do you suppose you know excellent question tom i mean you're told as paul but we need we need a central banker who can really deliver. the goods and we've got central bankers right now who are i think trying to pull the war as was zero interest rates in this magic called quantitative easing yes well the paul volcker example is a good example they had the inflation they came after next and closed the gold window and you had gold spiking in price and you had massive inflation stagflation and came in raise interest rates and set the stage for reagan reaganomics reagan just inherited everything that volcker position the head of that economy raising rates increases competition because it forces out the speculators who are merely parasitical in their behavior the bankers are just being parasites they want to lower rates higher rates would force those guys out and bring in entrepreneurs who are doing something other than just financial speculation it would be the best possi

after former federal reserve chair paul volcker. this rule will prohibit u.s. banks, u.s. banks holding companies and their affiliates from engaging and proprietary trading. we are going to learn a lot about the definitional boundaries of proprietary trading today. proponents of section 619 have made assertions that proprietary trading the practice of banks buying and owning securities for the own accounts was a key contributor to the financial crisis. on the contrary, chairman volcker himself has admitted that proprietary trading in commercial banks quote, was not central to the crisis. this raises i think significant questions about the size and the scope of the problem of section 619 is seeking to resolve. the federal financial regulators have been tasked with writing will take it out the objectives of section 619. the result of their efforts is the proposal that is new 300 pages long, and asks more than 1300 questions for comment from market participants. this has led to significant confusion. and i will put myself in that boat. and many unanswered questions of the con

but the last one that had a serious conversation with me on monetary policy was paul volcker. we didn't agree, but he seemed to be more interested in the ideas and would invite me over for breakfast and have a -- have a real discussion. >> he was the last -- he was the last of the gold guys. volcker really was the last of the gold guys, at least in terms of the treasury and the central bank. congressman paul, you're going to continue your campaign, i gather. and is i want to ask you, do you still want to give the speech at the national convention? do you still want to stand up and give a ron paul speech at the republican national convention in tampa? >> well, that's not my goal in life. my goal in life right now, and political life, is to get more delegates and get a maximum amount of delegates. but to think that my whole target -- what do i have to do to give a speech, believe me, that's not really high on the agenda. >> you would do it. you would do it, if asked, would you not? >> well, it depends on what the circumstances are. you know, they have a lot of rules and regulati

paul volcker was a little bit worried. financing of these takeovers. these huge takeovers. an absurd crisis. who benefited? wall street. they had a little piece of the action every time the takeover price of up. they got a bigger piece. they made fortunes, leveraged buyouts. some of them. people turned into billionaires' this to the takeover of existing companies of which they claim they deserve because what did they do? expenses which made them lean and mean, regenerated america. well, we see where we are today. "the sarcastic and angry, but i think it's just. i think i got away with too much chairman of the federal reserve. probably went too far. disturbed by these loans. the publisher probably regulate them, but he got no hearing from are rated. the book talks a lot about this kind of thing. let me jump to the 1990's. i'm going to lot. i want to make the point very clear. there was crisis after crisis before 2007 and 2008. to crises in the 1990's. one was undertaken by banks. they started using these newfangled securities called derivatives. you could buy a stock or bond

one guy i'd like to see brought in just as some food for thought here would be something like paul volckerdy who was very involved in the big recovery in the 1980s. we need a big, robust expansion. the big problem for the president right now is even though the economic signals are suggesting a pickup, a lot of americans aren't feeling it at home. >> which leads a lot of people to the question we started with about fairness. diane, i want to get back to this idea that we have an economic system that is unfair to millions of americans. we continue to say that it now appears that capitalism itself might be on trial. so forget the politics for a second. as an economist, do the numbers tell you when you look at all the economic indicators out there, do or can the numbers tell you that america has an unfair economic system? >> absolutely. i mean we have neglected education in this country. we hit a peak in educational attainment in the 1970s as other countries continue to educate people in the 1970s moving to the 1980s. at the very moment the information age and ideas were being rewarded more th