Russ Roberts and I discuss current events. I felt awkward, and so I didn’t feel particularly good about it afterward. The bloggingheads folks think that the best clip is here. Constructive suggestions welcome.
Mar 9 2009
Behavioral geneticists will tell you that intelligence and personality are highly heritable. But at least for economists, intelligence and personality are mainly interesting insofar as they predict that variable that "really" counts - income. How heritable is that?Quite. This 2002 paper by Bowles and ...
Mar 9 2009
In today's Wall Street Journal, Laura D'Andrea Tyson has a defense of "Obamanomics." At least that's the title the Journal gave it. The article is worth looking at for a number of reasons: 1. In discussing President Obama's spending plans, Professor Tyson uses the term "investments" instead of the more-accurate ter...
Mar 9 2009
Russ Roberts and I discuss current events. I felt awkward, and so I didn't feel particularly good about it afterward. The bloggingheads folks think that the best clip is here. Constructive suggestions welcome.
READER COMMENTS
Eric Hanneken
Mar 9 2009 at 9:01am
I would suggest
The Sheep Nazi
Mar 9 2009 at 9:12am
This is for Russ: keep it shorter on TV. The excerpt starts with a typical discursive EconTalk-type question, which commences at 36:04 and does not wrap itself up until 38:18. That’s way too long to leave Arnold there staring mournfully down at the camera.
chipotle
Mar 9 2009 at 9:47am
I watch a ton of bloggingheads.tv–more than 50% of all episodes.
This is easily one of the best that I’ve ever seen.
Thanks so much!
(FWIW, I don’t actually “watch,” I listen.)
Ryan Snyder
Mar 9 2009 at 10:26am
I agree with chipotle. One of the best blogginheads episodes ever. I watch these diavlogs a lot, and this is one of the most informative I can remember. Maybe only Francis Fukuyama or Bob Kagan add more to my understanding of some things than what you and Russ Roberts did. Thanks for taking the time to do this.
shayne
Mar 9 2009 at 11:02am
My first and predominant sense was that you appeared thoughtful. I’m glad you took the time to do it and I hope your discomfort with it doesn’t discourage you from participating again.
Greg Ransom
Mar 9 2009 at 11:13am
It was a good discussion. You did fine Arnold. I didn’t notice any awkwardness.
ardyan
Mar 9 2009 at 12:27pm
I thought you were hilarious. Your discomfort added entertainment to the discussion.
craig
Mar 9 2009 at 2:58pm
keep camera at eye level, use hands free device, and (as said before) remove your image so you’re not self-conscious.
These discussions are exceptionally informative and helpful – especially to laymen like me. I watch alot of Bloggingheads and particularly enjoy such instructive diavlogs. Thanks so much and I hope you’ll do it again.
Brad Hutchings
Mar 9 2009 at 4:25pm
You did great. The only thing I’d recommend is getting a good headset and microphone and not have that headset in front of your neck. It was eerily reminiscent of Captain Pike from an early original Star Trek. Don’t ask why I thought that. I’m not even the slightest bit of a Trekkie.
I actually liked the EconTalk style long soliloquies. I thought the most amazing thing about this was how you guys spelled out the different schools (and schools of thought) you came from and arrived at pretty much the same place. That place you arrived at is where Taleb was a couple years ago, minus the accent and the attitude. The decade long evolution of Arnold’s thinking has been fun and educational to witness. Seeing Russ go from interviewing Taleb as it to show how cynical thinkers could get to becoming a pretty cynical thinker himself has also been interesting. My bet is that economists typically associated with Republicans (eg. Mankiw, etc.) will adopt this posture next. And then the Democratic economists who don’t want to be tarred as wing nuts will see it’s lower cost to take that position than take responsibility for the failures of central planning.
Robert W
Mar 9 2009 at 6:40pm
No need to be nervous! We all want to hear from you and it’s not a beauty contest =) Information is king to someone willing to sit through a diavlog like that…
Greg Ransom
Mar 9 2009 at 9:33pm
Goldberg does entertaining stuff while the other guy talks — picks up his cat, drinks his coffee, moves his eyebrows, etc. All this adds visual entertainment.
Maybe some juggling while Russ goes on one of his long ones … 😉 (joke).
Ed
Mar 9 2009 at 10:32pm
I am reading your blog right now because I was impressed when I listened to you on bloggingheads.tv. Both Russ Roberts and you did an excellent job of providing a background on the different schools of economic thought and why people affliated with those thoughts have the opinions that they do. I enjoyed your discussion.
In terms of content, I thought your discussion was excellent. What I have noticed is that on shows like Charlie Rose or Fresh Air on NPR, that on these longer interview formats, that they schedule a couple of intermissions. That gives the guests a chance to get a drink of water, use the restroom or just compose their thoughts. When the show is ran, they can edit out the intermission. If you didn’t feel comfortable with this format, perhaps next time you can ask for them to schedule an intermission or two.
Kartik
Mar 10 2009 at 3:59am
Offtopic :
Arnold,
Do you still believe the 21st century GDP growth projections that you discussed over here :
http://www.econlib.org/archives/2004/01/longterm_growth.html
Are you still expecting that level of growth in the 2020s, 30s, and 40s?
Jon D
Mar 10 2009 at 6:58am
You’re too good for bloggingheads.tv
It’s true. As my youngest daughter might paraphrase. “Bloggingheads is so totally yesterday.”
I’d like to see more Kling, indeed, but in a more distinguished forum. What the forum might be? I have no idea.
Fenn
Mar 10 2009 at 11:00am
Always enjoy the droll humor. You came across well. Roberts make a good foil. But he has a face made for radio, and a voice made for transcripts.
gappy
Mar 10 2009 at 5:29pm
I agree with Fenn’s comment! To be completely honest, I enjoyed the episode better while not looking at the screen. The subject and positions were not new for readers of EconLog and listeners of EcontTalk.In general, Arnold and Russ are very reasonable, urbane debaters, so it’s always a pleasure listening to them.
Charlie
Mar 11 2009 at 10:38am
I thought it was very strange how the two of you expressed a lot of humility at the beginning and then expressed very strong opinions during the podcast. Neither person showed any interest in really addressing opposing viewpoints. For instance, both people voiced skepticicism for bailing out banks, but neither tried to address seriously the objections to the alternative. If Bear, AIG, and Fannie and Freddie were all treated like Lehman, how would the world be different? A lot of people could point to very scary outcomes of such a scenario. To me, it is not obvious that a bankruptcy sale of all these companies would be a better situation. Yes, things are very bad; it is also possible they are not nearly as bad as they could be. I wish you had engaged that sort of oposition more directly. I feel like much of the podcast was just an echo chamber of agreement.
Comments are closed.