I'm extremely pleased to present the most recent Occupied Media installment, our interview with economist John Quiggin. Professor Quiggin usually does his professoring at the University of Queensland, but is currently a visiting professor at Johns Hopkins Univeristy. He blogs at the widely-read Crooked Timber and also on his own blog, johnquiggin.com. He is the author of Zombie Economics, which was named one of the top thirty business books of 2010 and surely can spawn untold sequels.
Professor Quiggin and I discuss the current economic crisis as well as his preferred policies to get us out of this God-awful mess. Among other matters, we discussed criminal prosecutions (which he's against), financial transaction tax (which he's for) and how we can keep this economic system from crashing all the damn time (he doesn't know). I think it comes across how much I enjoyed talking with Professor Quiggin and I'm sure everyone will find him to be as charming as I did.
Thanks, as always, to everyone with the Occupy Missoula Communications Working Group and a huge thanks to video editor Paul Shockey who took days fixing the sound on this video.
It is Occupied Media's sincere hope that other occupations and/or supporters of OWS will contribute videos to the Occupied Media project - interviews, teach-ins, how-to videos, music videos and so on (really anything in a video format). Please direct all inquiries and video submissions to:
OccupiedMedia@gmail.com
OR
Plutocracyfiles@gmail.com
Correction: During the interview with Professor Quiggin, I referred to freshwater economists John Cochrane and Robert Barro as supporting a "Treasury View," "crowding out" argument. I meant John Cochrane and Eugene Fama; Robert Barro is a freshwater economist and he has made some ridiculous arguments since the economy crashed, but he did not make a "Treasury View," "crowding out" argument.
Now that's just not fair. Angela Davis looks the same as she did 40 years ago.
ReplyDelete@Raenelle - haha, glad you commented - that should've been posted on my daily blog (which it now is), but yes, you're right, she looks amazing.
ReplyDeleteGreat interview. Do you have an economics background? Your questions showed a some serious insight. Just knowing what questions to ask is half the battle and goes a long way to clarifying what the issues are. Thanks.
ReplyDeletebtw, it's true, Angela Davis has indeed aged very gracefully.
ReplyDelete@David at Our World - my economics background is just that I got interested in econ issues when the economy crashed in 2008 and so, have been reading about/following econ matters since then fairly obsessively.
ReplyDeleteNo criminal acts? The SEC,DOJ and FBI beg to differ at least with some small banks where they are pursuing financial statement misstatement I e fraud. They just are not after the big guys.
ReplyDelete@Tom m - yes, stay tuned - I interviewed someone today who insisted there was massive fraud and I interview William Black tomorrow (Law Professor and expert on white collar crime). So, those videos should be up in a week or so.
ReplyDeleteBut actually, Quiggin raised two issues: 1) was there criminal activity? and 2) if there was, is this what we should be pursuing?
The person I interviewed today and, I think also William Black, think the answer to both of these questions is YES!! All caps, multiple exclamation points.