John Stossel

welcome to uncommon knowledge I'm Peter Robinson the late Milton Friedman one of the greatest economists of the 20th century said of our guest today that quote he understands economics in all its subtlety close quote an academic the author of obscure tomes know a television personality and the author most recently of know they can't uncommon knowledge today john stossel welcome to uncommon knowledge I'm Peter Robinson be sure to join us on our website at Hoover dot o-r-g slash UK or on facebook at facebook.com slash UNC knowledge facebook.com slash hunk knowledge joining us today john stossel host of the Thursday primetime show on Fox Business stossel before joining Fox mr. stossel a graduate of Princeton spent almost three decades at ABC he has won 18 Emmys and published two bestsellers give me a break and myths lies and downright stupidity mr. stossel's new book no they can't why government fails but individuals succeed john stossel welcome thank you you brought a sign with you I want to ask about the signing right away not every but guest walks in with a sign John I'm a TV guy I like props I have this fantasy that the Tea Party will respond to this book and the know they can't title is in response to the hysteria last election of yes we can and we can but we to them became government and I would say no they can't so my fantasy is that there'll be Tea Party people going to state capitals in Washington saying no they can't because because they can't because they can't know they can't quote the natural human instinct is to say why doesn't the government do something what government usually does is make the problem worse why don't we ever learn a close quote right there three sentences right at the beginning of the book you have the grounds there for at least one thesis in American political theory first of all why is it the natural human instinct to say the government they somebody ought to do something I think because we grew up with mommy and daddy who run our lives and then our ancestors grew up in clans of fifty hundred two hundred people where if you didn't listen to the clan leader you were dead and didn't give birth to us you had to harvest the fruit when he said it was time to harvest the fruit and those who did live to give birth to us so we're programmed to take orders from Washington we want to and also we have lives life is complex I can't get my brain around how you build a sewage treatment plant myself my instinct is to say let them do it and Thomas Jefferson said it's the natural progress of things for government to grow all right you organize no they can't around several dozen very compelling summary statements and every summary statement takes the form what intuition tempts us to believe and what reality has taught me so let's take a few right at the top here no they can't quote what intuition tempts us to believe when there's a problem government should act what reality taught me individuals should act not government close quote why a preference for individual action over collective action through the government just from what I've observed in 43 years of reporting I mean Milton Friedman got two things wrong one was proposing withholding tax which made oh not he admitted he got that wrong yes right the other one was this blurb for my book that you read where he said I understand economics and all its subtleties it I was a psychology major I don't understand this so much I don't understand about economics but as a consumer reporter and I stayed on the beat because I'm a stutterer and I didn't want to go out there and compete with Sam Donaldson and the other people screaming at press conferences I stayed there and watched the market work and I got some sense how people work things out and often for profit we'll do amazingly clever and successful things out of self-interest well government MUX it up and it would happen again and again as a consumer reporter I would call for government to fix this and you know they would pass all these rules it would make things cost more but it wouldn't make it better and they couldn't even get rid of the obvious fraud the burned fat way asleep pills and the breast enlargers they're still selling that stuff so all the regulation didn't do any good but quietly the private sector performs miracles no they can't once again what intuition tempts us to believe someone needs to plan and the central planners know best what reality taught me no one knows enough to plan a society John you're you quote Friedrich Hayek a pal of Milton Friedman while we're talking about Milton Friedman and Hayek this observation that there's too little information to plan centrally Hayek's writing when the Soviets are trying to plan come up with 5-year plans and so forth but he's writing in the middle of the 20th century now we have so much more information all kinds of data rolling into Washington wave after wave so surely you'd have to grant for example with regard to Obamacare that even if the government can't plan the health economy in detail surely it has enough information now about costs and procedures to give it at least overall direction no I can't agree to that and even if it did it doesn't know what you or I are going to do next or going to want next it can't no you may want every ounce of health care and you may choose to spend your last penny on health care I'm someone who would rather take risks and have a shorter life and government can't know it for everybody Hayek also said the curious task of economics is to teach men how little he knows about what he imagines he can design and that's right on still right off my job to convince Bill O'Reilly now good luck good luck one more from from no they can't that I think is especially important as we head into the campaign season presidential campaign season again what intuition tempts us to believe the important thing is to have heroic leaders what reality taught me real heroes don't control other people's lives right I'm suspicious of the student council presidents who will want to run other people's lives you don't you don't your your your of just the right generation to have been moved by John Kennedy's inaugural address you don't like the heroic mode in American politics I was moved by that hell I'm a sucker I was moved by Lyndon Johnson's Great Society how he was gonna care poverty you have low standards but I watched them work and I was gung-ho calling for more regulation I watched it fail I I'm not as smart as you or maybe some of you I it took me 15 years to figure out that that wasn't working all right segment to the education of John Stossel you attend in Princeton in the late 1960s this is at the height of hippie movement the anti-war movement is well underway you majored in psychology and your hero you admit all this amazingly enough your hero was Ralph Nader if you were called upon to give an account of yourself as a college student what defense would you offer what was in your head that was admirable to have been in the head of an 18 and 19 and 20 year old at Princeton University in the late 60s little that you were well I also have to admit that I wasn't paying all that much attention I was interested in poker and meeting women and trying to get good grades with the least amount of work but Nader had gone to Princeton and I never tended to become a TV reporter but I fell into this job where I was doing research and then became a consumer reporter and Ralph Nader was the guy who started all that he caught geuman GM had him followed it wasn't hard to see who the bad guys were there the big company had this in the gate of eternal not journalist activist followed by private detectives they wear suits the activists wear blue jeans the blue jean guys obviously are the good guys and the Corvair is unsafe at any speed turns out it was no worse than any other car but that started me on a crusade he's doing it by getting activists to push it I can do it on television so you were I actually think you're saying something pretty profound there about a lot of American journalism which is to say that it's an easy extension from the college kid who's up at night playing poker and trying to figure out how to get good grades without working the usual impulse of a college student to crusading journalism because you pick up the template that already exists big business bad little activist good big government good capitalist bad it's the easiest thing to do if you're going into journalism simply pick up the template that had already been worked out right yes plus I had no journalism training maybe if I had gone to some journalism school how did that happen your older brother is now an esteemed a medical researcher and medical administrator went to medics med school everybody's mother's dream child I imagine and how did you end up Princeton I mean that's a very expensive fancy education and you went into journalism and not you didn't try to become another walter Lippmann you ended up in television journalism how did that happen John and my mother said cheer in this profession with the clowns and the jugglers what are you going to go get a graduate degree and get a real job it happened because I didn't like school and I thought if I worked for a year I might appreciate it more and I applied and was accepted to the University of Chicago school of hospital management so I thought right oof all on your brother's footsteps sort of sort of I I was not as smart as he I'm still not as smart as he he's reading human action in the bathroom as we speak but that I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life so it was 1969 it was a good year for the economy lots of companies came to campus and interviewed undergraduates and I went to just about all of them searching for what would appeal what might be my career and I had no clue but the most interesting job offer came from this Seattle magazine because it was in Seattle and it was the longest free airplane ride so I thought well I'll go see the northwest I've never been there and then Seattle magazine folded before I got there and they said you want to work as a researcher in our TV newsroom I said sure I had never even watched television news and I'd never done Journal as I was the business manager of the Daily Princetonian and once I tried to write a story and they said now only the journalism to us and I got in my worst grades in English always but I learned through fear my immigrant parents had always said you better work hard or you'll freeze in the dark and I watched what the on-air people did and I'm ambitious and I decided more research was good and I didn't want to be covering politics because of my stuttering and I noticed nobody was really covering science or business or medicine really I'll cover that I became one of the first TV consumer reporters and then I would get angry at the businessman who I thought was cheating people so I would do stings we would take a TV set to a bunch of repair shops or the loose part most would say loose part no charge some would say I got to take it in charges 200 bucks later and no journalism school taught that I just because I thought it was good television and maybe it's not good journalism because I was a crusading journalist and the pompous reporters of the time did not approve that kind of thing but that is what buddy Miami you had a very big career you start in local television in Seattle you go to a local station in New York which of course is where you go when you're being noticed and then you got picked up at ABC while still very very young good morning America than 20/20 the big prestigious show at ABC and before long you're a co-anchor of 20/20 all a very big deal and as you move upward in this career you're moving to the right politically how come I was mugged by reality I won the Emmys criticizing business calling for regulation the same story about the TV repair shops the politicians would call after and say that was great television we're going to fix that we're going to pass a law and young john stossel was so flattered all these important people are paying attention to me and they're created Department of Consumer Affairs because of that and I was so happy but then I would do this thing again a year later and the results were the same most people were honest some would cheat and I went so what's the department doing and I'd go there and there were a bunch of dreary desks and people filling out forms and now they were licensing all repair shops and that sounds good we like licensing we license driver's license dogs it makes people feel safe but they weren't improving the quality what was going on so I saw that it made everything cost more and now if you wanted to run a repair shop you had to hire a lawyer just to understand the rules if you were an immigrant maybe you couldn't do it you will had to go underground or you didn't do it at all and it didn't make it better the gay and I saw it again and again they weren't stopping the consumer fraud that I thought I ha the trial lawyers will do it because they have real clout I can just tell people they can make them pay and compensate the victim I'd refer people to trial lawyers because cool consumers now were calling me and saying this person ripped me off and so forth how am I going to solve this government no trial lawyers then people would call and say my lawyer ripped me off so I slipped at the conservative press I looked at National Review and I you know they seemed at the time to be wanting to police the bedroom and police the world and that didn't appeal to me either I had grown up in the New York Times they no longer made sense National Review didn't fully make sense to me I discovered Reason magazine the libertarian magazine and that was an epiphany it was oh my goodness these people really get it and they understand it better than I and they're talking about Locke and John Stuart Mill I read them in college but I didn't connect these dots and and then I realized there was another truth out there and I read a little more and I became a born-again free marketer twenty eight years at ABC and one of the summary statements and no they can't is as follows what intuition tempts us to believe big business runs the media so the media support big business what reality taught me the media hate business close quotes the kind of people who go into journalism don't like capitalism at people at universities don't like capitalism I'm trying to figure out what this is about at first I thought what's because the college professor his slightly stupider roommate went into business and makes more than he does so he's envy resentful right and the wealth disparity makes people uncomfortable it's a byproduct of freedom if you have a free market some people are going to get absurdly rich and others don't have that but then I thought about the kings and queens of old Europe and they have vastly more wealth than the average person get they weren't hated they were revered but people hated the bourgeoisie they gave him that nasty name they hated the very people this is a Thomas soul in sight they hated the very people who sold them the things they needed to make their lives better so I'm trying to think what's that about and there's all this hatred of me at the same time as I live in Manhattan somebody came up to me in the street and said John Stossel yes I hope you die soon oh and at first I thought it was because they let you write the Peter Jennings when you passed in the hallway Peter Jennings would avert his eyes and more dramatically he would go oh realize I was an embarrassment to God it was because I was not objective so do they hate me because I'm a conservative and where I live that's like being a child molester it's the worst thing you can be but I'm a libertarian I'm a lousy conservative I think homosexuality is just fine and drugs should be legal and gam sex work between consenting adults so I would thought the Liberals would like me but they're so angry because I'm a consumer reporter defending Liz a fear capitalism and why are they so threatened by that and I think it's because intuitively you think of business as a zero-sum game or liberals do right so if Bill Gates got a lot of money we must have less if somebody makes a profit I have less that's why they hated the bourgeoisie they don't understand that business is win-win segment three the economy the government meant us no they can't what intuition tempts us to believe government can get the economy moving again what reality taught me government does not spend money better than individuals do close quote explain that the economy is not like an orchestra that needs a conductor to start or a car that needs jump-starting an economy is people with needs and if you leave them alone they will do amazing wonderful things to achieve those needs and we take take them for granted we take it for granted that a supermarket has 30,000 products and they're all cheap and it's well lit it's open 24/7 and they rarely poison us people do stuff if we don't get in the way and the Keynesian ins in the administration we're saying we can spend money better than the private sector can we have to start it and this multiplier effect right it's just nonsense the government can create jobs that created jobs building pyramids but think how much wealthier that Egyptians would have been had they been free to pursue their own interests John former the financial crisis of 2008 former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan testifying before Congress hey Alan Greenspan I note for you my libertarian friend my reader of Reason magazine was a disciple and friend of ein Rand as libertarian as they come Allen Joines well okay wasn't any more quote well then this quote your glory no way yes it is that in a way in a way I testified before Congress I Alan Greenspan I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interest of banks was such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders that the loan officers of those institutions knew more about the risks involved than even our best regulators a critical pillar to free markets did break down that shocked me I still do not fully understand why it happened closed quote if Alan Greenspan says that the financial crisis of 2008 was a market failure who is John Stossel to gainsay him and who's John Stossel when Hank Paulson and Tim Geithner and all these very smart Wall Street experts say they had to bail these people out yeah yeah why was that what's the how do you put the a lot of people will say right okay I'm with you in the great general archive sort of the Matt Ridley argument if you start a thousand years ago the upward climb is impressive but come on John we've got problems with capitalism it needs adjustment it needs oversight latest example 2008 and John Stossel replies the oversight won't work and the overseers will never understand the banking business and the tricks or the cheating as well as the cheaters and the tricksters will so you can pass sarbanes-oxley after Enron that's going to end all the scams in the future and that didn't stop Bernie Madoff or the housing bubble and dodd-frank isn't going to stop this either and Alan Greenspan's problem I believe is that watching from the point of view of the media over these years is that the people closest to the panic always get too scared mmm the global warming scientists say we have to take action against global warming the bird flu doctors want all our money to go to researching bird flu the killer bee coming up from Mexico going to sting assaulting to death the y2k computer experts said the planes are going to crash they all want government action Robert Higgs said war is the friend of the state well so is crisis and fear the thing is that the global warming experts and the Killer Bee experts not in the Treasury Department it did not have the power to scarf up a trillion of your dollars and give it to their friends who were scared and calling from Goldman Sachs oh my god it's the end of the world I'm losing everything you have to rescue this company and they got scared I argue market discipline will protect us better and that means no privileges no bailouts ok so let me just let me summarize Damon's what intuition tempts us to believe some institutions are too big to fail what reality taught me failure makes markets work okay so let's just you're saying that the mr. conventional wisdom is now that the government made a big mistake in failing to bail out Lehman Brothers that was the mistake that was what caused the trouble Stossel says no no no to go back the mistake was the bailout was was supporting Bear Stearns and arranging a sale saving the instance should let him go down the mistake was bailing out AIG that's your position right here Stearns would have at the right price found a buyer for whatever assets they have left likewise okay a.m. so your argument is not that absent government intervention there would have been no crisis your argument is we're human beings we live in a fallen world people screw up sometimes they screw up in large ways capitalism will experience crises the government would make it worse you're not saying that it would be crisis less without the government you're simply saying the government would make it worse right or doesn't yes but it's worse than that I'm saying more than that I'm saying government caused the crisis Canada didn't have the same housing bubble they don't have a Fannie and Freddie and they have the same rate of homeownership and government makes it worse because Greenspan pump too too much liquidity into into the system perhaps probably but more we have the FHA and all these agencies subsidizing reckless behavior okay no they can't what intuition tempts us to believe if auto companies are in trouble government should encourage the purchase of new cars I'm giving you an easy one after Alan Greenspan what reality taught me wealth will be destroyed and poor people will be hurt okay go ahead take a stick to cash for clunkers it's it's again intuitive though on the book tour a woman came up to me and said intuitive is a lousy word that you use because intuition is generally right I said well what's a better word she said we're imprinted well I think she may be right and conditioned right yeah it's or instinct and the instinct is often right but when cash for clunkers came out a lot of people said oh yeah this makes sense the auto business is struggling path people three thousand dollars get rid of old cars and they pollute more will clean the air a little and stimulate the auto business but again government has no money of its own the $3,000 comes from somebody comes taken from the private sector now some of us might have bought a car that year some of us had our purchases sped up the money went to the auto companies it gave a bubble in car purchases but then that goes down on the other end more importantly what did they do with these junked cars they destroyed them it really shows government arrogance to think you can create wealth by destroying things Nancy Pelosi believed that and said that after the Haitian earthquake this will cause a boom in Haiti she said because of the construction work paul krugman no real price i was going to go ahead leave that said that about 9/11 but it will cause some construction but it's the Frederic Bastiat broken window fallacy a boy breaks a store window hey he's creating the job for a janitor and a glass maker but that's the scene benefit we can see that work right what we can't see is that that money is what that money might have been used for had the window not been broken maybe the storekeeper would have bought a shirt maybe even would have cured cancer John what about the great you've just batted away the 2008 crisis what about the great Keynes is it a crisis Matt the stock market fell a lot but in 82 the stock market was at 800 so we have the 14,000 and fell to 8,000 it had had an amazing run that's because you're working at Midtown instead of downtown so it wasn't a crisis it was horrible for them but crisis is the Revolutionary War soldiers freezing when the British are coming or the Civil War or the bubonic plague there if there's a crisis a VAR crises okay listen the great Keynesian example is the economic benefit to the United States of the second world war we can agree I think probably you and I do agree that the evidence amedy slays and her forgotten man the evidence that the New Deal actually lifted the economy is zero it moved things around it did favored some people didn't get thing but the Second World War comes along the country shifts to a war footing government spending expands enormous Lee and the economy hums how come if it's not government spending if it's not the Keynesian argument that the private sector is spending too little once the government kicks in even if it's war spending you get an economy humming it's a great question I'm not a student of that my understanding is you had great national purpose people worked together the economy really started humming after the war he may remember you may have read um when the soldiers were all coming home people said unemployment it's going to be hugely high and yet it wasn't those soldiers found new things to do and that to my understanding caused the boom but I'm not a student of that segment for john stossel's cold cold miserable heart no they can't quote my wife used to complain used to I'm interested in that used to complain that libertarian reasoning is cold-hearted since markets produce winners and losers and many losers did nothing wrong market competition is cruel she had a point didn't she market competition is cruel there are winners and losers but that's better than the alternative where there are only losers all right the President of the United States on simple fairness and you pay close attention to this please that means we have to make choices when it comes to paying down the deficit and investing in our future should we ask middle-class Americans pay even more at a time when their budgets are already stretched to the breaking point or should we ask some of the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share that's the choice the Buffett Rule the Buffett Rule rich people should be asked to pay at least the same proportion of their income as middle-class people transparent is transparently fair right it sure feels fair and I think it's a good political selling point it's a much harder point to say they're not going to pay it no matter what because the rich people are going to hire accountant and lawyer tricksters to escape it or move out of the jurisdiction or worse they're going to do less and some of them are the golden geese who provide opportunity for poor people my response Dupree and these are much tougher things to say in simple politics it's a tough battle there's Obama is very clever but I say to him give me a break you and Bush doubled spending under Clinton we spent two trillion now we're approaching four trillion it's the spending stupid don't talk to me about taxes and Milton Friedman was right he says the tax levels are not what count government spending is what's counts as a percentage of the economy doesn't matter if it's paid for in taxes or borrowing sooner or later will be paid for by us great ok a couple big facts about American history here's one Ronald Reagan broadly speaking cut taxes and roll back regulations and the economy boomed and then Bill Kent Bill Clinton resists the left in his own party essentially ratifying he raises taxes a little bit but he's essentially ratifying the Reagan program of relatively low tax regime relatively limited regulation and the economy continues to boom so we get in some modest way at least the John Stossel program 25 years ago and we get 25 years of economic growth as a result and now we have Barack Obama saying Obamacare is a good thing extending government control over one-sixth of the economy and by the way we need higher taxes democracy just doesn't work we don't learn we don't learn we have the example before our very eyes and we refuse to learn from it cheer me up no I'm not going to argue with you it's upsetting to me Thomas Jefferson said the natural progress of things government grows liberty yields so against that lamentable fact which distress is both of us you have the rise of the Tea Party you have John's this will surely be your third bestseller to the chagrin of the New York Times which will which will rue the print a test the ink it has to use to print it on the bestseller list do you sense the country in this election year moving into a kind of rebellion against this huge state or at least against Barack Obama it's it's nothing that's not the case though is it it's a close call is it it's a close call and the betting has sprockie Bhama likely to be reelected the tea party was exciting and some were holding the Constitution really we're going to go back to that I didn't even know people were interested and looks as though the Supreme Court might even go back to it if you listen to the oral arguments on Obamacare earlier but a lot of tea party people say don't cut my Medicare and nobody wants their programs caught on the other hand the positive side I didn't think welfare reform was possible right and we don't have to stop the growth of government we just have to slow its growth we could grow our way out of this and Paul Ryan issues his budget plan he gets portrayed as pushing grandma off a cliff and in seven months since he did that the country's changed now he says my plan was too timid I'm ready to do a little more so there's some movement right okay here's another big fact about American history from the New Deal on federal welfare spending is increased in real terms every year even during the Reagan years they shrink the growth rate but there's no actual cut in welfare spending it just keeps growing and Milton Friedman told us why Milton Friedman and James Buchanan uh and others have told us why it's built in to the structure you talk here about intuition what's built into us there's something that's built in the structure of the government namely a special interest will always have it in its interest to lobby for bigger for a more government if you're GM you're very happy to get bailed out if you're goldman sachs you're very happy to get bailed out if you're this or that insurance organization Abama care i'm a cotton farmer I'm gonna fight for my subsidies if I'm a consumer I'm only paying a buck or two and that's a hard it's not quite the problem intuition is wrong right because this is something where the rational actor who is responding to reality this interest group that interest group the other interest you it is they correctly judge it to be in their interest to push for more government so what do we do about that you're depressing me I don't know what to do Jonathan Rose called a demo sclerosis all I can say so there is one thing we can do to stop okay bye everybody a copy of nobody can get me on the bestseller list with Rachel Maddow and then the book gets discounted and these ideas get out ok so here's one more this is that this is the question it's still a question I don't know the I mean we've moved to the portion of the program we're asking questions where I don't I really don't suspect that I know the answer I really just want to hear what you have to say so set barack obama aside for a moment I feel like Henny Youngman take my wife play set him aside please Chris Christie in New Jersey takes the union's on frontal attack and his ratings are now up Bobby Jindal attacks the bureaucracy in Louisiana and it gets reelected by some 70 percent you see governor's taking mitch daniels in indiana now in it I think he's in his seventh year he's that deep into his second term cuts taxes gets a constitutional amendment to lower property taxes permanently and the guys ratings are in the 60 or 70 percent so why does it work at the state level at least when there is a governor who has real guts Ronald Reagan at the federal level but I mean oh but didn't now see here's the problem we're now we're creeping toward wanting heroes and you've already told us we shouldn't be looking for heroes well we need a strong person to cut that's true we shouldn't think of them as heroes but we want a strong person to cut and also Canada cut and Luis Fortuno in Puerto Rico fired twenty thousand workers Scott Walker in Wisconsin all that fuss he didn't fire anybody and when I interviewed Fortuno he said my advice to politicians do it early in your term like a band-aid rip it off and then like with Reagan we will you know people don't want to see cuts people don't want to see public sector workers fired I do but normal people don't but they will stay notice results so then we researched it yeah I mean there were these people you mentioned in John Engler of Michigan right and we couldn't find anybody else in recent history so I hope but couldn't I hope for Tonio gets to be popular in Canada it was a liberal government to do it it was like Nixon going to China right okay segment five our last segment john war and peace no they can't what intuition tempts us to believe lunatics want to murder us so we must kill them over there before they kill us over here what reality taught me such thinking leads to an over extended military close quote so here's where we probe the extent to which you as a libertarian are willing to make common cause with conservatives in the extent to which note you really are a libertarian and that leads to different conclusions so are you with Ron Paul the war in Iraq was a terrible mistake and we should get out of Afghanistan as fast as we can I mean I cringe to say this on your television show but yes okay and to be clear Ron Paul also says if we get attacked attack back and we were right to attack Afghanistan for harboring for harboring al-qaeda and I also begin the chapter by saying I'm nervous about this one I'm not a student of the military but I'm just a guy who watches government fail the Millett the military has a brownie recipe that's 25 pages wrong long government is inefficient that everything it does why would nation-building why would defense be different okay now because I so like you and admire your work John I'm going to work really hard to find but we you would grant this much I think excuse me you would grant this much I hope even our joint hero Milton Friedman would say that defense is one of the few legitimate absolute duties of the federal government okay so he is strong so is until the case I'm just thinking of just hoping that we can agree on a kind of little little tiny piece of intellectual framework err isn't it the case that whereas when it comes to domestic spending if you're not sure of the right amount to spend you should for sure or on the side of spending less defense is different if you're not sure of the right amount to spend you ought to spend more don't you think sure okay but we need to reevaluate the mission I mean it's an automatic pilot the same amount every year Army Navy Air Force just about 30,000 troops in South Korea they're freeloading off of us 30,000 in Japan 50,000 right y-yeah okay the current political scene I have to note by the way they didn't know they can't your is rough on Republicans as you were on Democrats and you note that under george w bush the republicans engaged in the biggest increase in discretionary domestic spending since Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society and he hired 9,000 new regulators did he I didn't okay uh so the current scene during oral arguments earlier this spring on the constitutionality of Obamacare Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy made the following observation when the federal government tells the citizen he must purchase insurance or face penalties then quote that changes the relationship of the federal government to the individual in a very fundamental way close quote you'd agree yeah okay so how much of a problem is it that Mitt Romney enacted an individual mandate in Massachusetts and was willing to for the state government to do what Justice Kennedy said the federal government could not do without altering the relationship with the citizen fundamentally it's a problem for him it is a defense the defense he uses that we've got 50 dates don't we have 50 laboratories and so your person you're comfortable with that well no I think the mandate is a problem and I'd be the supreme court that what they're what they once ruled is this poor wheat farmer in Kansas was it he wasn't free to grow more wheat on his own land that he didn't even sell because it might affect the price elsewhere and they they get to control that I mean if the Supreme Court is now waking up and say this changes the relationship good okay overdue to see what what I'm poking around for here here we have a this marvelous by the way I should state that it's beautifully beautiful I did like the book it is really I keep quoting these summary statements but the argument the research is a it's a really wonderful book John and it's an indictment and what I'm trying to probe for here is how do you use the political system to fix some of this stuff and so what I'm looking for here is the stasi emitter how enthusiastic can you be about Mitt Romney as the Republican nominee I know your libertarian you'd prefer Ron Paul Ron Paul ain't going to be the nominee how do you he's going to catch on next week okay it isn't over yet people wake up and look I would prefer Romney over Obama but Romney says things like I'm going to cut the government workforce 10% by attrition he's quick to add I mean by attrition it's it's then the bad people stay the good ones lead that's not management they're easy so afraid of making hard decisions Jack Welch when he ran GE said it's the job of a manager to identify the bottom 10% and get them out it's creative destruction but Romney at least wouldn't blow government more as President Obama continues to propose okay a little hard to get elected if the slogan is Romney he's not as bad as the other guy though all right maybe not Oh again individuals should act not government so let me probe you again how should individuals who read this book think about their relation to the American political system and this is on my mind because it's a conversation I had just a week ago with friend who was a high tech mogul real started a big company here and I and like many of us he's distressed about the state of affairs here in California and I said well what do you intend to do about it and he said oh nothing I wrote off California years ago every bit of my energy I put into my company I've thought that's not just for profit it's the best way I can do good in the amount of time that I have left to me well on the one hand that the very bracing statement of the libertarian point of view on the other hand if all the good guys withdraw from politics things get worse immediately so what do you say about that well he's got a business so he has a good argument to say I'm good at helping people by expanding my business and that's wonderful that creates jobs and profits which do good things but you're right we need participation we need activists that's what I'm saying yeah we got to participate in politics go tell them no they can't and maybe when we watch other countries blow up and maybe California and Illinois will be our example of failure oh thanks a lot we're doing a good job of cheering each other up here John no they can't have last last question or a couple of questions here quote it didn't take me long to understand you're talking now about getting started in your career in television didn't take me long to understand that almost every news story should draw attention to some terrible problem homelessness illegitimate see the crack cocaine epidemic there was almost always just one answer government should do something that was the template for television journalism still it and it still is so what's your advice to the I don't know for all what's just the suppository Princeton graduating this June who's interested in journalism and wants to be like John Stossel what's your advice learn economics and look around see the miracles the private sector does that you can stick a piece of plastic in the wall and cash will come out so you can go to a foreign country and hand that piece of plastic to a total stranger doesn't even speak your language and he'll rent you a car for a week and when you get home Visa or MasterCard will have the accounting correct to the penny and government can't even count the votes accurately so stop saying government's got to do something government's got to do less the founders had it right America grew fastest when government was one or two percent of the economy let's move back in that direction let them leave us alone John Stossel author of no they can't why government fails but individuals succeed thank you and keep that put up the sign we should please one more time no they can't for uncommon knowledge I'm Peter Robinson

Channel: HooverInstitution

Views: 58,772

Rating: 4.863677 out of 5

Keywords: InstitutionHooverUK, government, taxes, economy, capitalism, libertarian

Id: s_oeBBU3xv4

Length: 45min 18sec (2718 seconds)

Published: Wed May 23 2012