Employment data turn out to be the most controversial part of the New Deal discussion. Lee Ohanian testified before the Senate Banking Committee recently, laying out as clearly anyone why labor policy made the Great Depression worse in the 1930s.
Jack Torry of the Columbus Dispatch covered the Senate Banking Committee hearings on the 1930s and then did an interview on TFM. I’m glad I got to talk to him, not just for the interview but coz I like his angle: not a New Deal, but a better deal. Torry took a lot of trouble to figure out the data. All of us involved in the story appreciate that.
Also, one of the most interesting guests at our Second Look conference was Bob Higgs of the Independent Institute, father of the “Regime Uncertainty” concept. Higgs is on C-Span Book TV in a three-hour marathon session this weekend. To give Higgs this time was probably an idea of Peter Slen, one of the great innovators of C-Span. Higgs’s work is hyper-relevant to enterprise. It may be a marathon, but run with Higgs. His work explains a lot.
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