Kevin Phillips on Bill Moyers [View All]

[arcadian]

September 19, 2008

BILL MOYERS: If you read only one book on the route to this financial meltdown, I recommend this one: BAD MONEY: RECKLESS FINANCE, FAILED POLITICS, AND THE GLOBAL CRISIS OF AMERICAN CAPITALISM. The author, Kevin Phillips, has a history of being way ahead of the curve. As a young man working for Richard Nixon, he wrote THE EMERGING REPUBLICAN MAJORITY, a book that uncannily predicted how the GOP would regain power in Washington. Kevin Phillips saw our current crisis coming a long time ago. And in one book of historical insight after another, laid out the clues he was tracking. As recently as last spring in the AMERICAN PROSPECT magazine, Phillips wrote that what he thought was about to happen would be "unusual and potentially tragic."

In the preface of his book, he has written that these things usually come to fruition in August and September. And sure enough, here we are coping in September with the effects of bad money. Kevin, it's good to see you again.

KEVIN PHILLIPS: Nice to be here.

BILL MOYERS: Is there any consolation in being right when the conditions are so bad?

KEVIN PHILLIPS: Well, I guess there is in one narrow, little niche. But I do have the feeling that this is going to be a big one, that I hate to use the term "innings." But let's say I don't think we're too far into the ballgame. I think we have more of a ballgame to go than we've had. So, yes, I think it's going to be a real problem.

BILL MOYERS: In a ballgame, there are referees. There are umpires. Who are the referees now? Who are the umpires in this critical game?

KEVIN PHILLIPS: Well, in a sense, I think some of the umpires are investors. Some are people overseas who wonder what they have to think of the United States. Do they want to keep investing here? Do they want to support the dollar? Do they believe in the government here and know what it's doing?


a lot more here...

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/09192008/transcript2.html?print