Marginal Revolution: The Age of Turbulence

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The Age of Turbulence

Here is one summary of the book's contents. Here is Greenspan on Rand. Here is the WSJ review. Here is Paul Krugman on the book. Here is Brad DeLong's review. You'll get my thoughts soon.

Arrived is soon: The book is just boring, there is no reason to buy it, or so says my pre-lunchtime scan at Borders.

Posted by Tyler Cowen on September 17, 2007 at 10:37 AM in Books | Permalink

Comments

Greenspan's rep has taken a hit recently. I don't think that this book is going to do anything to improve it.

The Iraq war was about oil? What a jackass. If that were so, we would have taken the fields and sold them to Exxon and BP. That revenue alone would be enough to fund this war, the last war, and the next war!

Posted by: Buzzcut at Sep 17, 2007 11:29:14 AM

I just hope this new publication doesn't awaken interest in Ayn Rand or bring out her emotionally stunted defenders.

Posted by: Dirk at Sep 17, 2007 12:27:58 PM

Justice really ought to relent every now and then.

Posted by: Dan at Sep 17, 2007 12:44:41 PM

Mr. Greenspan recalls his amazement when an adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin asks him to discuss Ayn Rand, the libertarian philosopher with whom Mr. Greenspan had been friends.

This is pretty provocative: the Russian intelligence man trying to ferret out details of a person's deep ideology, and the American is amazed. Sounds like a pretty savvy guy.

Posted by: J. Goard at Sep 17, 2007 2:04:19 PM

"I just hope this new publication doesn't awaken interest in Ayn Rand or bring out her emotionally stunted defenders."

Funny, you rarely hear an attack on Rand's ideas, but instead you read angry insults. I think there are few better endorsements that you can give a philosophy than that.

Posted by: JoshK at Sep 17, 2007 2:04:46 PM

i think the iraq invasion was about oil, but not in the way he meant it (not that he said how he meant it). not to get it out of the ground, but to keep it IN. if iraqi oil hit the markets, a lot of people would lose a lot of money. instead, oil is trading around $80. and it explains the looting, the civil war, and a lot more.

Posted by: elfranko at Sep 17, 2007 3:32:09 PM

The one sensible explanation I've come across for why we invaded Iraq is in Victory and Recruitment by Michael Neumann in Counterpunch.

Posted by: TGGP at Sep 17, 2007 3:51:31 PM

If we sold the oil field to BP and Exxon how do you suggest they would enforce the contract?

Posted by: spencer at Sep 17, 2007 4:29:28 PM

Here is Greenspan expanding on his Iraq War/oil comments. I completely agree with him. Hussein invaded Kuwait to capture its oil fields, which were far more productive and profitable than Iraq's. In retreat, he set the wells on fire to try to create enough economic turmoil in Kuwait to annex it later. As much turbulence as and as high a premium that the invasion of Iraq has caused to oil markets, leaving Hussein in power to play silly international games would have been worse. He was obviously emboldened by the event on 9/11 in thinking Bush wasn't serious about transparency on WMDs, whether he had them or not, or believed he had them or not.

Of course it's entirely politically incorrect to identify oil as any part of the reason to invade Iraq. But of course it was an important factor in the decision. Economists of all people should be able/willing to discuss that.

Posted by: Brad Hutchings at Sep 17, 2007 5:03:47 PM

I'm not surprised your impression of the book was that it is boring. His appearance on 60 Minutes did not show him to be particularly sharp- maybe the economy benefited for years by not having a very sharp Fed chairman.

Posted by: Tom at Sep 17, 2007 5:49:47 PM

While the reason(s) behind the initial decision to invade Iraq in 2003 can be widely debated there is one thing that is very clear...the removal of Hussein has done little to nothing to stabilize the world market in regards to oil prices. http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/AOMC/Overview.html

Posted by: Matt at Sep 18, 2007 1:42:17 AM

Alan Greenspan says:

"My view is that Saddam, looking over his 30-year history, very clearly was giving evidence [in this decade] of moving towards controlling the Straits of Hormuz ..."

Uh, I realize I wasn't the most powerful unelected official in America for two decades like Mr. Greenspan was, and I lack his sources of inside information, but how exactly was this decade's Saddam Hussein, with no air force and rusty tanks, going to get to the Straits of Hormuz, which would require him to fight past American military bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman? A fleet of lateen-rigged dhows? A camel caravan marching for 20 waterless days across the Anvil of the Sun to attack from behind? A really long tunnel?

Posted by: Steve Sailer at Sep 18, 2007 2:51:47 AM

From the Bloomberg synopsis--
--He was aware of reduced credit standards on subprime mortgage loans, he says, ``but I believed then, as now, that the benefits of broadened home ownership are worth the risk.''--

That hardly seems consistent with the Fed's purpose of maintaining the stability of the financial system and containing systemic risk that may arise in financial markets.

Posted by: MH at Sep 18, 2007 9:45:05 AM

"The book is just boring.."

So says a purveyor of the dismal science?

Oh, I am so buying that (read it whichever way you will or want to)! ;-)

Posted by: Shefaly at Sep 19, 2007 4:24:58 AM

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