Let's turn to the politics of the day for a moment. Thomas Sowell on Donad Trump; Quote: "What is remarkable is that, after six years of repeated disasters under a glib egomaniac in the White House, so many potential voters are turning to another glib egomaniac to be his successor." (close quote) Aw, come on... Aren't you being a little hard on both Barack Obama and Donlad Trump? I thought I was pulling my punches Donald Trump is simply not suited to be president? I think that's true as an understatement. All right. Nor is the current president. I was gonna say, Barack Obama is the president. Yes. "Glib egomaniac," how bad has he been? Where does Barack Obama rank in your mind --You, who know so much history -- among the worst American Presidents? He has displaced Jimmy Carter from that position. The worst. Worse than James Buchanan? Yes Worse than Richard Nixon? Yes. All right. Richard Nixon did not, after all, put us in danger of nuclear attacks. Probably within the lifetime of people living today. The Iran deal will do that? Yes. We're committed to stopping the Israelis from stopping the Iranians from getting a nuclear weapon. That's part of the deal. When I interviewed George Gilder about six or seven months ago, George Gilder, known to both of us... He contended that with the right policies, the economy, coming back to the international scene in a moment, but, the economy would actually turn around quite quickly. The American economy can be revived quite quickly. Cut taxes, peel back regulation, and you'd see another version of the early 1980s Do you agree? Yes. All we have to do is get out of the way in a certain sense? Yes, I mean, uh, uh... There was a--a-- When Warren Harding took office in 1921, The, uh, unemployment rate was around 12 percent; Warren Harding did absolutely nothing. As the, as the government's revenue fell, because of the downturn, He cut government spending. Now both of those things are things that drive the Keynesians crazy. Right. The following year, unemployment had fallen to about half that level. Within a year. Yes. And then a year after that, it fell yet again. Ah, you know, there is a history-- The first time the Federal Government intervened in the economy, to get us out of a downturn, was in 1930. Which means that, for more than 150 years, the Federal Government just stood by and twiddled their thumbs while the economy recovered on its own. And all that time, there was never a depression as bad as the 1930s depression, where there was all kind of intervention beginning with what Herbert Hoover (heaven help us). and then amplified by Franklin D. Roosevelt. So, in terms of you're looking at what happened as a matter of fact-- Again, there was no Federal Reserve prior to 1914. The Federal Reserve was created in order to One, cut back on bank failures, reduce inflation, and prevent deflation. All of those things reached historic highs, never seen before under the Federal Reserve. So the idea was wonderful; It's only the reality that didn't cooperate.
