Book TV In Depth interviews online

[dougo]

At the behest of Greg Mankiw (via Piaw's starred items), I watched a 3-hour interview with Milton Friedman from 2000. He has some interesting insights, and in theory I agree with his "small-l libertarian" ideas, but I feel like I want to see a rebuttal or discussion of his answers by someone like Paul Krugman, particularly on things like minimum wage, health insurance, and what caused the Great Depression.

The video comes from the In Depth archive from BookTV/C-SPAN. Lots of other interesting subjects there; right now I'm watching Ray Kurzweil, which prog should watch if he hasn't already.

Comments

[chrismwage.livejournal.com]

Argh.. I've had this on my "to watch" list forever.. I can never find the time..

[dougo.livejournal.com]

I watched it while I was removing the shrinkwrap and security stickers from all my Tower CDs. Gosh, that was a pain.

[mshonle.livejournal.com]

Well, I think Krugman supports an increase in the minimum wage, but only to the point where it does not actually interfere with employment. Basically every economist agrees that employment would be negatively affected if levels are too high, which would also create more black and gray markets. But the studies around today show that the minimum wage at its current level does not have this negative effect. Given that inflation has brought down the real value of the minimum wage and other factors, there's room for an increase.

Krugman has also spoken out much about health insurance, including his most recent op-ed piece in the NYTimes. (Find a bootlegged copy via Google Groups.)

As for the cause of the great depression, Friedman is probably right; or certainly the bank failures had a lot to do with it.

Actually, you should just read Krugman's book Peddling Prosperity which has much depth on what he thinks about Friedman.

[prog.livejournal.com]

I have not. Thanks, dude.