As readers may have noticed, I’m a big fan of Chris Hayes and his show. One more reason for that was present this morning, where he had the best discussion I’ve ever seen of monetary policy on TV:
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In case you can’t watch that, it was basically a much better and more in-depth version of this post I wrote yesterday. Crank ideas about inflation, the gold standard, and the Fed have spread like wildfire on the right, while no one on the left seems to care that much, even though they are at the mercy of the Fed when it comes to their political future. Kudos to Chris for pushing these ideas.
The ensuing discussion wasn’t quite as good as I was hoping due to the presence of Peter Schiff, a loud and crankish goldbug, heavily prone to doomsday tirades, who is all over TV from having somewhat accidentally predicted the financial crisis. (Watch poor Karl Smith, an actual economist, grinding his teeth in the corner.) Apparently it’s tough to find a Fed “skeptic” who isn’t a total kook.
But even still, it was a great show, and the kind of stuff you never see on TV. Watch, or if you don’t get cable, it’s online as well.