Arthur Laffer is far from an advocate of the small government I would like to see and his thirst to tax and generate government revenues is far greater than what I can tolerate, that said, he's pretty good during this inteview, especially when he beats up on Warren Buffett.
It's pretty despicable man that studies how much gov't can steal from people before their ability to provide the stolen wealth diminishes.
ReplyDeleteEveryone is jumping on the "attack the FED/Bernanke" bandwagon. When this is popular, there is a real possibility, however remote, for some real change to take place.
ReplyDeleteAnon @ 8:23,
ReplyDeleteLaffer isn't jumping on the bandwagon like Rick Perry. Laffer publicly called for Bernanke not to be renominated in January 2010. At the time, that was a gutsy move, especially for someone so entrenched in establishment circles as Laffer is.
There are lots of things you might say about Laffer's views and how they differ from (say) Wenzel's, but Laffer isn't all of a sudden jumping on the anti-Fed bandwagon because now it's cool.
(Disclosure: I used to work for Laffer.)
I agree it takes guts to say anything even slightly contrarian in his circles but he doesn't score many points in my book. January 2010 is still way after the bursting of the housing bubble, and as recently as 2006 (http://youtu.be/lYkFYdLTTw8), he was rallying wholeheartedly behind the FED's inflationary policies. Sorry to disagree, but to earn my respect and not be considered a wagonist, you have to be a little more consistent than Laffer has been.
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