As much as I’m fascinated by the idea of an Austrian critiquing Timmy’s Dog & Pony Show, I’m still concerned that this is intended to be a trap, all in order to promote Geithner’s solution as the only rational one. (Thatcher’s TINA, once again)

I’m assuming Steve Lies-man will be there pushing the Keynes/Friedman doctrine of inflation disguised as growth? And Larry Kudlow, who will ensure there is absolutely no clear airspace for any non-sanctioned opinions.

Hmmm… I was not planning on watching this, but now it just might be worth it.

Good Luck, Mr. Murphy! Methinks yer gonna need it.

Awesome! Kudlow let Bob say that everything Geithner said was the opposite of what really happened! It was sweet!

If this were a more ideal world, the panelists would’ve been given a full hour or more to talk about their views. As it stands, that was a farce. It ends with the NYTimes drone using the same old Bernanke-esque line of ”had they not done this, things would have most certainly been much worse”.

Par for the course on CNBC I suppose.

I also have to laugh at the fact that three pro-government heads were there to argue against Murphy. How about putting things on a more even keel next time, Kudlow?

Line of the night goes to Mr. Murphy, when he said “I think the only thing I believed of what he said is when he said he’d never held a real job.” this was doubly funny for me because when Geithner said that a very similar train of thought went through my head.

Andrew Ross Sorkin finished with the typical clap-trap of saying if Geithner and crew had not done what they did things would have gotten worse. Doesn’t he understand that when Paulson-Geithner did their thing that things are worse than they have been since the Great Depression. The evidence is that their schemes have not made anything better and have probably made them worse.

Blitzkrieg, the video cuts right when they change the subject and Murphy doesn’t get to say anything for the rest of the clip. The whole point was to leave it at Sorkin saying what no one really believes. It’s as if winding down the bad banks in an orderly fashion and letting good banks take over would have caused catastrophe. Sorkin was begging for consensus.

Lester,

That Murphy got on CNBC, in prime-time, is extraordinary. Yes, it’d be great if Jeffrey Tucker controlled programming at NBC. That ain’t the world we live in. “Our” guys need to take any opportunity to get in front of a national audience.

Murphy’s point was that commercial lending is down since 10/08 and it is. This is quite likely one of the reasons we’ve seen unemployment continue to rise.

In late 2008, the story was that there are all these businesses who rely on loans just to make payroll. We were told that if they didn’t get access to the easy credit they were accustomed to they would have to shed workers/close their doors. Guess what? Banks are sitting on the Fed’s funny money; unemployment has risen. Coincidence?

You’ll notice the bobbleheads on Kudlow didn’t provide any counter-evidence to Murphy’s claim. Rather, they all just repeated the usual “Well, everyone knows things would have been worse if the gov’t had done nothing” clap-trap.

I’m quite fond of Bob Murphy’s work here, so it pains me to break with the rest of you.

I think that his comments on the consequences of the TARP post-October 2008 weren’t very persuasive and “the token black guy” had a smooth response to it that I think – if I could put myself in the shoes of an impressionable, undecided CNBCouch potato – was persuasive and confident.

On the whole, I don’t think it was a good enough argument one way or the other to seize upon and I would have preferred Murphy to have chosen a different aspect of Geithner’s speech to discuss. I realize that with about twenty seconds alloted to you, the pressure’s on to make a good, clear argument and that the format invites surprise and unpredictability.

In regards to that Andrew Ross Sorkin clown, he’s on a first-name basis with the Treasury Sec (so it’s “Tim” now?) and his only comments regarding the content of the man’s speech were confined to a gushing appraisal of his performance that stretched credulity. If people are more perceptive than I generally give them credit for, hopefully whatever audience Kudlow had that night can figure out that that kind of chumminess ought to give them pause when considering the validity of anything that Sorkin has to say.

It’s always awkward seeing Austrian discuss economics with political hacks (wanna-be Keynesians). The Keynesians never know what the hell we’re talking about.

Caveman- well wasn’t the problem that banks were making loans more or less indiscriminately?

don’t care to defend the bailout but I’m not sure that the number of loans being lower means what Murphy says it means.

sometimes libertarians will be lke ‘there is no glbal warming because look at these charts” and it’s like yeah okay. tell that to people in greenland who have found tons of natural resources under all the melted ice they’d laugh at you if you said there was no global warming.

not to derail the conversation into THAT. just saying I’m not sure Murphy’s point was really relevent.

On fast money the other day Tim Seymour was listening to Pater schiff go through his usual litany and he asked “so what’s your trade?” schiff didn’t really have one. That’s sort of my problem. I trade to eat.CNBC is for money not politics.

Speaking of P.I.G. Guide to Capitalism, I just had my copy signed by Robert Murphy last month along with a copy of the Man, Economy, State study guide.
But just curious, how did Murphy, and economists in general, get these gigs? As a performer I usually have to go around passing out demo CDs to get work, but for some reason I don’t see Murphy giving out CD lectures on economics.

I very much appreciated the suggestions in this blog that you share with us…