My five minutes of fame

by Brad Setser
September 13, 2008

I was on CNBC Friday, plugging my new paper. I felt a lot better about this appearance than my previous CNBC interview — even if I didn’t manage to smile much during the interview.

Post a Comment8 Comments

  • Posted by Lowrie Glasgow

    CNBC is not worthy of your talent.I would like to see you on something like Charley Rose or a long Bloomberg program.

  • Posted by Blissex

    «But we’re too big to fail. Right? That’s what Great Britain thought when it backed down after Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal. As Setser writes, “The lesson of Suez for the United States today is clear: Political might is often linked to financial might, and a debtor’s capacity to project military power hinges on the support of its creditors.”»

    But it is flagrantly obvious that this is happening already: just as the 1st Gulf War was funded by Saudi Arabia, Japan and others in its entirety (the USA in effect rented its military for the duration), the 2nd Gulf War, the Bush tax cuts and so on have been funded entirely by colossal subsidies in the form of negative-real-interest rate purchases of US debt by Saudi Arabia, China and Japan.

    Without those truly colossal subsidies the wars in Iraq and in other countries would have had to be funded from domestic sources, making Republican tax cuts for their campaign donors impossible and the drugging of other voters with the huge housing bubble impossible too, and the electoral history of the USA would have been very, very different.

    It not just that a “debtor’s capacity to project military power hinges on the support of its creditors”, but that the capacity of a particular party of a debtor nation to pursue its electoral advantage hinges on the support of the country’s creditors.

    Think carefully about the consequences.

  • Posted by Wobble

    Did you get to ask out Maria?

  • Posted by bsetser

    wobble — i was never even in the same room as Maria …

  • Posted by Simon

    Good to see the anchor give special thanks for content.

  • Posted by Carlo Ponti

    Good thing you only used up 5 minutes of your allotment. You still have 10 left (at least according to Warhol)

  • Posted by Buzz P

    Brad – looked good – sounded good (voice quality, not content – you’re always good there) – one note: see how the other two guys held their heads level, while you seem to have your chin down slightly and as a result your eyes are angled to look directly at camera – keep your chin level, and you’ll be happier with your look on camera

  • Posted by bsetser

    buzz — good point. the monitor with the video feed was well below the camera, and it was hard not to look at the video feed and look only at the camera and trust the voice cues