paul volcker was cutting off the money supply is to kill off inflation. the government's job when they are acting boldly means that they will probably do harm to some people. maybe government's role is to soften the blow to them. the real action that changes the american landscape will mean harm to someone. obama seems to be embracing that somehow. this will allow him to free himself for what he calls the legislator in chief. he is looking for a perfect

you saw that inflation was fifteen percent in one nine hundred eighty until paul volcker raised interest rates to twenty percent crashing inflation back down to closer to zero percent now this is what paul volcker says about what central banks add to stability of a monetary system it is a sobering fact that the prominence of central banks in this century has coincided with a general tendency towards more inflation not less if the overriding objective is price stability we did better with in one thousand nine hundred gold standard and passive central banks with currency boards or even with free banking the federal reserve bank and the u.s. is not independent by any stretch of the imagination and no independent body would independently suck up two point five trillion and toxic debts from wall street that's what an independent thinking fed would do there in the control of wall street so again the arguments against the chinese un being the world reserve currency don't hold water the u.s.

paul volcker was cutting off the money supply is to kill off inflation. the government's job when they are acting boldly means that they will probably do harm to some people. maybe government's role is to soften the blow to them. the real action that changes the american landscape will mean harm to someone. obama seems to be embracing that somehow. this will allow him to free himself for what he calls the legislator in chief. he is looking for a perfect solution and hoping that he will come up with it and he will not have to come out of the mud and start swinging. tavis: you mentioned summers and a geiger and it leads me to ask how much of the trouble that this president has encountered have to do with an issue that you discussed in the book that team?ked the lonwrong -- you mentioned summers and timothy geithner air. >> i think a lot of it. he had a strong bipartisan said of advisers coming through the campaign. he had robert reischauer, robert wolf, this dynamic chairman, the head of pbs. he cast them aside when things got tough in the fall of 2008. he

paul volcker went on to beat the fed chairman later on.alked to george schultze who had other jobs during that time who went on to the secretary of state and a celebrated career as an international negotiator with the soviets and others. arthur burns is a very forgotten fed chief but he was the ben bernanke of his day. he has a diary that came out recently that gives us almost a clockwork, hour by hour, day-by- day account of the crisis and his response to it. then there are various other people who were around that were either working for the fed or for the nixon administration who knew what their bosses were up to in 197140 years ago. host: our guest is roger lowenstein. we are talking about a peace of president nixon moving away from the gold standard. let's read from the storied. -- tehe story. why so urgent? guest: well, exactly for the problem that we were just talking about. dollars were piling up overseas. foreigners did not want these dollars. remember, currency values were all fixed. it was not so easy for them if the relationshi

miller. '80s, paul volcker as fed chairman. inflation came down under paul volcker. 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 a

also quoted in the book, paul volcker, the great former fed chairman who headed the president's economicsory board. said "obama is smart but smart is not enough. leadership is another thing entirely about knowing your mind enough to make real decisions, ones that last." that's a profound criticism of the president. that's not really about this book. that's a profound charge about the need for a president to have a firm grip on his own thinki i or her on thinking, the ability to stay the course. he's saying obama doesn't have that. that's probably a more profound comment that we're talking about here. >> in some ways if you read near the end of the book, president obama also admits that, himself. this whole idea of it's not enough to be confident in the chair in the oval office. part of leadership is also transmitting that sense of confidence to the american people. he -- suskind interviews the president, it lasted 50 minutes in february. you do get the sense this was before. this whole idea of a feuding economics team and rahm emanuel and larry summers and those, big personalities rammin

paul volcker said obama is smart but smart is not enough, leadership is another thing entirely, about enough to make real situations, ones that last. that's a profound criticism of the president, nia. that's a profound charge about the need for a president to have a firm grip on his own thinking or her own thinking, an ability to stay the course. and he's saying that obama doesn't have that. that's probably a more profound comment than we're talking about here? >> in some ways if you read near the end of the book, president obama almost admit that is himself, this whole idea of it's not enough to be confident in that chair in the oval office, part of leadership is also transmitting that sense of confidence to the american people. suskind had those interviews with the president. it lasted about 50 minutes in february. you do get the sense that this was before, this whole idea of a feuding economics team and rahm emanuel and larry summers and those big personalities ramming legislation through congress, that's what the president needed then. now that he has turned a chapter, post-shella

you know obama of us talking of volcker when he came into office but he never there's a good reason yeah there's no question that well the tums haven't been good in a while in a row as i mean the last couple years have been ok for the economy but certainly i mean when the it would be talk about taking the ponderable way well that would have meant like prior to the housing crisis the fed should probably have been more proactive to see that it was too much bad lending going out because that's essentially what that means essentially means there's you know the fed needs to step in when. there's too much credit creation inflation we really haven't been like that in a while and we certainly haven't been like anywhere near too much lending since the crisis or since the crisis hit it's not a solution to just keep rates low for ever. it's certainly not going to fix the economy but it has kept the financial system alive which is i would argue pretty important isn't there a case to be made that as you point out the credit has been in short supply during this crisis but in do large part not to an ec

activists are democratic primary history in the last ninety percent of republicans you know actually the volcker independents but a big a disproportionate number of the republican primary i mean i've done it i've done to the tune of about six hundred thousand these are my numbers of twelve percent the primary in the last six years thirty four percent are a number of independents but regardless is a reasonable swath of america so i call it a low information voters i used to call them stupid people but i don't think they're stupid i think they're watching sports or the listening to music or working three jobs but the republican primary voters are evil the democratic independents are stupid and they're are and the democratic primary voters are acceptable the independents are the we are the majority of the voters in america. basically just said no no no i sort of used called stupid enough. to mean that they're not stupid they're they're busy they're watching sports right that's why i call them low information voters i think many of them very high i.q. they just don't pay attention to politics but i

guy named jason casteo unless you can see the profile of elmo smoking marijuana, these were pretty volckerweeted this. >> by now he is well aware that his account name is important take the next video earlier today he tweeted this. >> we will have to wait and see how netflix handles this one if they are trying to get out from jason or if they will have to, with another twitter handle. the >> a member of the yankees achieved a milestone never been seen before in the history of major league baseball gary it up next to tell you what it is and he has highlights from monday night match up all the sports up next. >> coming up i will take a look at the skate park in san francisco and show you what changes have been made to the park in the next edition of people became valley. i work at the cable company, and i get to wear a hard hat... a question already! my mom says cable can't bundle cell phones. you mean wireless voice service? nobody does that. mom says at&t does, so... uh...uh... [ female announcer ] get u-verse tv and high-speed internet for just $49 a month for 6 months. with more bundle c

public transit projects in houston the volcker and of the worst areas of traffic in the country. -that will help with congestion and traffic. >> schools that the need renovation. how can we expect schools do their best when these places are literally falling apart? this is america! every child deserves a great school and we can give it to them if we act now. (cheers & applause) >> the american jobs act will give repair at the least 35 american schools of putting people to work fixing roofs, windows, installing science labs and high-speed internet all across the country toward rehabilitating homes, communities hit hard by foreclosure. jump starting financial to make sure that they're properly spent we are going to build reforms that are properly in place. no more earmarks. no. boondoggles. more bridges to know where. we are cutting the red tape that is even getting these started quickly as possible. an independent fund will be set up based on two criteria. how badly a construction project is needed and how could it will do for the e economy. >> this idea came from a bill written f

you know, in the '70s and '80s, paul volcker was threatened with impeachment, the chairman of the houseking committee, was always beating up on the fed chairman. what's different now is that it's not these lower level people, it's not people on the fringe like ron paul, it's the leadership of the republican party, it's their leading presidential candidates. and they're essentially channeling the high degree of suspicion and skepticism of the republican base of any form of government activism. now i don't seriously think that pem at the fed are living this, to stop them from doing right now what's necessary. and indeed we saw them move perhaps a bit more aggressively than we expected. but over time, it does perhaps, you know, add a restraint on their willingness to act more aggressively. more interesting i think is in 2014 when ben bernanke the current chairman, when his term is up, who replaces him. it is entirely possible that if it were a republican administration he would be replaced with somebody with a more hawkish and austere view, vision about where monetary policy should go. >>

paul volcker's in the book. pete peterson. everybody's in the book, telling obama in '08, even in '09, you've got one shot at this -- >> you've got to restructure this thing. >> -- please do it. tim and larry said, no, no. hippocratic risk, you'll love this, first, do no harm. >> do no harm to the banking system -- >> exactly! >> but do lots of harm to the poor people and the middle class. >> a strategic error. >> strategic error?! tell that to the people who don't have food. >> not separating wall street from american business and main street at the beginning, lumping them together, who was thinking? >> very quickly, is there a double standard in the media where the darling president of the liberal media, when you indict him in a book like this as being, as blowing it when it came to the fundamental problem in the global economy, which is the structure of the credit markets, meanwhile, you indict george bush and you're a hero? >> absolutely. absolutely. and the thing is, i'm sitting here saying, i'm a reporter, this is my job

paul volcker is quoted in this book as saying, obama is smart, but smart is not enough.er thing entirely, about knowing your mind enough to make real decision, ones that last. that's a pretty damning portrayal by a man who is described by this white house as a senior economic adviser sometimes. >> well, it is, john. as you well know, there are a number of arguments in this book that the president was in over his head, that he had a team of people around him on the economic side who were frequently clashing with each other, had the knives out for each other. most of the top economic advisers have specifically refuted what's been attributed, led by secretary geithner, as you just showed that clip. what's been interesting about ron suskind's book in the past he had three about the bush administration, in each case there were attacks on particular lines or statements people had made, what was attributed to them. sometimes it appeared they were wrong. but the main narrative of those books tended to hold up. i think the danger for the obama team is, you can disagree with one p