WEBVTT NOTE Authors Forum: Meltdown 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.000 Ladies and gentlemen, I actually have three books that have come out since the last scholars' conference, 2 00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:11.000 so I'm going to have to rush through them a little bit. 3 00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:16.000 I'm going to spend most of the time on the one that really seems to be kind of hot these days, 4 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:20.000 and that's this book, Meltdown. 5 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:29.000 Now, it's my understanding that Dick Morris, the political consultant whose views on this crisis we all await with bated breath, 6 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:33.000 was actually planning to release a book called Meltdown this year. 7 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:40.000 It's now called Catastrophe, which is, I think, far stupider sounding than Meltdown, but anyway. 8 00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:43.000 So at least we won't have any confusion there. 9 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:49.000 The Nation magazine released a collection of their own crummy essays that they called Meltdown. 10 00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:53.000 So I have to compete with that, but so far there hasn't been too much confusion. 11 00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:57.000 We have exactly the opposite diagnosis and conclusion. 12 00:00:57.000 --> 00:01:08.000 So the title is Meltdown. The book contains a foreword by Ron Paul, and it is dedicated to Murray Rothbard and Ron Paul. 13 00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:23.000 I wrote it in great haste. That doesn't mean it's crummy, by the way. It just means that I work day and night. 14 00:01:23.000 --> 00:01:26.000 I sacrificed everything that was dear to me, pretty much, in order to get this out. 15 00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:35.000 The events that are covered in the book extend all the way through December 2008 and it came out February 9th. 16 00:01:35.000 --> 00:01:48.000 So I had the cooperation of a publisher that works very quickly and that was great because my hope was to have, if not the first book, then one of the first books on this crisis. 17 00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:54.000 And I do think it's the first one that actually gets through the bailouts through December 2008, tells that whole story. 18 00:01:54.000 --> 00:01:57.000 It's not just about the mortgage situation. There are a bunch of books on that. 19 00:01:57.000 --> 00:02:00.000 But it goes through December 2008. I think it's the first one. 20 00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:11.000 Because I thought it is absolutely inevitable that there will be an avalanche of rotten books by blockheads from now until the end of time on this crisis. 21 00:02:11.000 --> 00:02:19.000 And I thought, wouldn't it be unbelievable to actually, before the bad guys even have time to organize, there's already an Austrian book on this subject out there. 22 00:02:24.000 --> 00:02:29.000 So I'm happy to announce that I've also gotten the news for a week from this Sunday. 23 00:02:29.000 --> 00:02:35.000 The book will be entering its fourth week as a New York Times bestseller, so it is moving. 24 00:02:37.000 --> 00:02:43.000 The best thing that could possibly happen to me would be for Paul Krugman to denounce it. 25 00:02:43.000 --> 00:02:46.000 That would be the best thing, but I don't think I can hope for that. 26 00:02:46.000 --> 00:02:48.000 I think they're going to try to ignore it. 27 00:02:48.000 --> 00:02:53.000 The last time they reviewed one of my books, it totally backfired because all normal Americans thought to themselves, 28 00:02:53.000 --> 00:02:58.000 Well, this must be a great book. Crummy New York Times can't stand it. 29 00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:03.000 Well, now, part of the author's forum involves not just talking about the book itself, 30 00:03:03.000 --> 00:03:08.000 but we also have a chance, if we so desire, to say something about how it's been received, 31 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:10.000 what our experiences have been like and so on. 32 00:03:10.000 --> 00:03:13.000 Because I think you can get the gist of what the book is about. 33 00:03:13.000 --> 00:03:19.000 It's an overview of the economic crisis with the discussion of Austrian business cycle theory 34 00:03:19.000 --> 00:03:22.000 and all this stuff explained in a way that the layman can understand. 35 00:03:22.000 --> 00:03:28.000 And everybody's been telling me that. I've been getting a lot of comments on my website about that. 36 00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:32.000 I can get it. It's written at my level. I appreciate that. 37 00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:38.000 One of the things I did was anything that seemed too technical even to me or a lot of lengthy quotations, 38 00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:41.000 I threw into the footnotes or the endnotes at the end. 39 00:03:41.000 --> 00:03:48.000 So sometimes there actually is some good meaty stuff in those notes, but just to keep the main text flowing more easily. 40 00:03:48.000 --> 00:03:54.300 Well, it's interesting to note that the gentleman who recorded the audio book for this, a guy 41 00:03:54.300 --> 00:04:02.040 named Alan Sklar, who is a professional voice man who's done quite a lot of voice work. 42 00:04:02.040 --> 00:04:05.240 In fact, he's done a lot of radio ads for new paperbacks. 43 00:04:05.240 --> 00:04:11.000 So he'll be the guy who will say, you know, John Grisham is back, that sort of guy. 44 00:04:11.000 --> 00:04:15.940 So he's the narrator of the book for the audio book and he's done such a fantastic job. 45 00:04:15.940 --> 00:04:21.660 But he called me, or he emailed me, simply because he wanted to go over a few pronunciation 46 00:04:21.660 --> 00:04:23.700 issues on some of the names. 47 00:04:23.700 --> 00:04:27.180 And when he emailed, he said, you know, I have to be honest with you, when I got your 48 00:04:27.180 --> 00:04:31.300 book and I saw it's published by, you know, like a right of center publisher, I thought 49 00:04:31.300 --> 00:04:36.260 to myself, here we go again, another stupid right-wing book I have to read. 50 00:04:36.260 --> 00:04:41.140 And he said, but I have to admit, he said, you make a very strong case. 51 00:04:41.140 --> 00:04:42.740 This guy's an Obama supporter. 52 00:04:42.740 --> 00:04:47.740 So I thought that is a pretty neat little bit of feedback to get. 53 00:04:47.740 --> 00:04:51.460 So then he actually called so I could pronounce some of the names for him, and I answered 54 00:04:51.460 --> 00:04:52.460 the phone. 55 00:04:52.460 --> 00:04:56.180 He knows he's got this perfect voice, so he exploits it at every opportunity. 56 00:04:56.180 --> 00:05:06.100 I answered the phone, and he said, Thomas Woods, yes, and he says, this is your conscience. 57 00:05:06.100 --> 00:05:12.620 I thought, yeah, where have you been? 58 00:05:12.620 --> 00:05:16.340 So far the reception has been good, almost eerily good though. 59 00:05:16.340 --> 00:05:21.120 There haven't been any negative reviews other than, you know, the occasional one-star Amazon 60 00:05:21.120 --> 00:05:22.120 review. 61 00:05:22.120 --> 00:05:25.460 I think the most recent one of those was, you know, the Fed had nothing to do with it. 62 00:05:25.460 --> 00:05:26.460 It was greed. 63 00:05:26.460 --> 00:05:27.460 It was greedy people. 64 00:05:27.460 --> 00:05:29.260 I mean, honestly, that's the review. 65 00:05:29.260 --> 00:05:31.900 It was greedy people, and that's no joke. 66 00:05:31.900 --> 00:05:35.660 So I mean, if that's the worst I'm going to get, that's fine, but I actually want to get 67 00:05:35.660 --> 00:05:41.220 beaten up a little bit, to get a little controversy going and push this thing a little more. 68 00:05:41.220 --> 00:05:50.220 I've done a lot of radio in support of the book, a little TV but a lot of radio and I've actually been on some programs with a fairly sizable audience. 69 00:05:50.220 --> 00:05:58.220 So I've been on the Michael Medved show a couple times and what's very interesting is, you know, Michael Medved and I don't see eye to eye on certain things to say the least. 70 00:05:58.220 --> 00:06:08.220 But he's always been very generous and kind with me. So I came on and you can always tell which hosts have actually read your book and which ones are just reading off the press release that came with it. 71 00:06:08.220 --> 00:06:13.220 And I understand that. I mean, obviously a radio host can't read every single book. I understand that. 72 00:06:13.220 --> 00:06:17.220 But he does. He basically does read the books. And it was so obvious. 73 00:06:17.220 --> 00:06:21.220 He's citing things in here that he would have to have read it in order to know about. 74 00:06:21.220 --> 00:06:25.220 Callers are calling in. He's giving the answer half the time from the book. 75 00:06:25.220 --> 00:06:29.220 And he said, you know, you've changed my way of thinking on this. 76 00:06:29.220 --> 00:06:33.220 He's very critical of the Fed. He demands to know if we actually need this thing anymore. 77 00:06:33.220 --> 00:06:36.220 I could not get over it. And he's not the only one. 78 00:06:36.220 --> 00:06:38.220 I've been getting this time and again. 79 00:06:38.220 --> 00:06:43.220 Now, there are a lot of radio talk show hosts who want to stay in the area where they feel comfortable, 80 00:06:43.220 --> 00:06:47.220 which is Fannie and Freddie, Community Reinvestment Act, things like that. 81 00:06:47.220 --> 00:06:53.220 But I'm always careful to try to steer the conversation to the Fed and make sure we get that on the table. 82 00:06:53.220 --> 00:06:55.220 And I'm happy to say that's starting to happen. 83 00:06:55.220 --> 00:06:59.220 People are actually starting to ask questions about this institution. 84 00:06:59.220 --> 00:07:05.220 Now, one bit of happy news also about the book is that I've learned, frankly, 85 00:07:05.220 --> 00:07:10.780 and, frankly, something of how many friends I have, people who have come out to support 86 00:07:10.780 --> 00:07:12.380 this project. 87 00:07:12.380 --> 00:07:19.060 So one night I got a phone call from a gentleman who said, get on your computer and go to the 88 00:07:19.060 --> 00:07:25.980 following website, GetTomOnTV.com. 89 00:07:25.980 --> 00:07:31.700 They had designed a website where you sign up and you'll be on some kind of email thing 90 00:07:31.700 --> 00:07:34.780 to bombard people, to urge them to get me on the program. 91 00:07:34.780 --> 00:07:40.060 I have no idea this was being done, and when you go to that site, it's got a picture of 92 00:07:40.060 --> 00:07:47.420 me from when I was 18, they got from Facebook. And I'm actually holding a remote control 93 00:07:47.420 --> 00:07:54.180 in my hand, and I've got my stupid high tops, my stupid haircut. I'm wearing corduroys like 94 00:07:54.180 --> 00:07:58.260 eight years after people stopped wearing them. In fact, I'm sure some people in this room 95 00:07:58.260 --> 00:08:02.840 don't even know what corduroys are, but they made sure and used that photo. Well, thanks 96 00:08:02.840 --> 00:08:05.800 It's all a bunch, everybody, I appreciate that. 97 00:08:05.800 --> 00:08:11.440 But then, now recently on Facebook, there's the Facebook Meltdown Link Bomb you can join 98 00:08:11.440 --> 00:08:15.680 as a group where people are going to put links to the book and news items about the book 99 00:08:15.680 --> 00:08:16.680 on their site. 100 00:08:16.680 --> 00:08:23.000 So it's been very enjoyable, very, very pleasant and enjoyable, and I've been speaking now 101 00:08:23.000 --> 00:08:27.640 to university audiences, again, very favorable reception. 102 00:08:27.640 --> 00:08:30.040 So you know, I have no complaints. 103 00:08:30.040 --> 00:08:34.040 Well, I do have one complaint, and that is that I have no more time to talk about this book. 104 00:08:34.040 --> 00:08:41.040 The second book we have here, we don't have copies of in the store, but I have a pile of them. 105 00:08:41.040 --> 00:08:44.040 If you want one, you can come see me for a mere 20 smackers. 106 00:08:44.040 --> 00:08:50.040 You can get Who Killed the Constitution, which I co-wrote with Kevin Gutzman. 107 00:08:50.040 --> 00:08:56.040 And this came out in July, and it has some themes in it that are sort of Austrian related. 108 00:08:56.040 --> 00:08:59.040 One of the chapters deals with the gold confiscation in 1933, 109 00:08:59.040 --> 00:09:04.840 1933, an episode in American history people tend to have relatively few details about. 110 00:09:04.840 --> 00:09:09.120 We know it happened, but how did it happen, and what happened in the wake of it, and so 111 00:09:09.120 --> 00:09:10.120 on and on. 112 00:09:10.120 --> 00:09:13.640 That's a story that I thought would be interesting to tell, so that's one of the topics that 113 00:09:13.640 --> 00:09:16.160 we cover in some detail there. 114 00:09:16.160 --> 00:09:21.320 The power to draft people into the military is another issue we look at from a constitutional 115 00:09:21.320 --> 00:09:26.320 point of view, and not even so much from my point of view because the Constitution is 116 00:09:26.320 --> 00:09:33.320 This is some kind of a sacred document, but rather because this is the document these crumbs themselves say they're going to follow. 117 00:09:33.320 --> 00:09:38.320 So let's show that they can't even do that. They can't even follow their own document. 118 00:09:38.320 --> 00:09:44.320 So when it comes to the power to draft, there's only one time that this really appears before the Supreme Court. 119 00:09:44.320 --> 00:09:47.320 The Selective Draft Law case is around 1919. 120 00:09:47.320 --> 00:09:54.320 And when you read the arguments they make in favor of the power to draft, it's unbelievably pathetic. 121 00:09:54.320 --> 00:10:01.320 The Empire of Russia has the power to draft. The Empire of Japan has the power to draft. 122 00:10:01.320 --> 00:10:05.320 So the argument basically is, look, all the cool countries have this power. 123 00:10:05.320 --> 00:10:09.320 What, do you want to be one of them loser countries? Come on now. 124 00:10:09.320 --> 00:10:13.320 This is actually seriously advanced by the highest legal... 125 00:10:13.320 --> 00:10:15.320 Anyway. 126 00:10:15.320 --> 00:10:21.320 But I think maybe the most satisfying part of who killed the Constitution is the takedown of John Yoo. 127 00:10:21.320 --> 00:10:28.320 Who? John Yoo. Now, if you don't know who John Yoo is, then that's good. You've had a happier life than I have. 128 00:10:28.320 --> 00:10:37.320 But John Yoo was the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for a couple of years under George Bush, George W. Bush. 129 00:10:37.320 --> 00:10:43.320 Now, Deputy Assistant Attorney General sounds like the assistant to the assistant to the traveling secretary or something, 130 00:10:43.320 --> 00:10:47.320 but he made this office into something very significant because of the memos he wrote. 131 00:10:47.320 --> 00:10:54.320 and he's significant because he basically wrote legal briefs that said exactly what the regime wanted to hear 132 00:10:54.320 --> 00:10:59.320 about the powers of the president in war and what the president can get away with constitutionally. 133 00:10:59.320 --> 00:11:02.320 But John Yoo is actually of the opinion. 134 00:11:02.320 --> 00:11:08.320 The president is almost completely unrestrained in what he can do in terms of foreign policy. 135 00:11:08.320 --> 00:11:15.320 He actually argues that the president can in fact initiate force, the use of force 136 00:11:15.320 --> 00:11:27.320 The framers intended the president to be, in effect, unrestrained in the conduct of foreign policy, including the initiation of hostilities. 137 00:11:27.320 --> 00:11:31.320 And you may say, well, how does he get around the declaration of war by Congress thing? 138 00:11:31.320 --> 00:11:37.320 He explains that a declaration of war is just a declaratory thing. It's really just an empty gesture. 139 00:11:37.320 --> 00:11:43.320 Just saying, hey everybody, just so you know, we're fighting a war. It has no other effect other than that. 140 00:11:43.320 --> 00:11:45.920 He says that in the 18th century, that's all it meant. 141 00:11:45.920 --> 00:11:48.520 But in the 18th century, it could mean that, 142 00:11:48.520 --> 00:11:52.320 but it could also refer to the initiation of hostilities themselves. 143 00:11:52.320 --> 00:11:56.320 And his interpretation is totally unsustainable, 144 00:11:56.320 --> 00:12:00.120 because the Federalists, at the time the Constitution was drafted, 145 00:12:00.120 --> 00:12:02.820 who were trying to convince skeptical anti-Federalists, 146 00:12:02.820 --> 00:12:05.420 don't worry about the President under the Constitution. 147 00:12:05.420 --> 00:12:08.220 One of their arguments was, well, don't worry, 148 00:12:08.220 --> 00:12:11.020 because only the Congress can declare war. 149 00:12:11.020 --> 00:12:14.020 So don't worry, this president won't be like some crazy king. 150 00:12:14.020 --> 00:12:17.020 Well, what kind of assurance would that have been 151 00:12:17.020 --> 00:12:20.020 if the declaration of war was just simply a note that meant nothing? 152 00:12:20.020 --> 00:12:22.020 What kind of assurance would that have been if the Federalists had said, 153 00:12:22.020 --> 00:12:26.020 oh, don't worry about the president because the Congress will have power to write a little note 154 00:12:26.020 --> 00:12:28.020 saying, hey, the president has taken us to war. 155 00:12:28.020 --> 00:12:30.020 I mean, why would that comfort them? 156 00:12:30.020 --> 00:12:33.020 So there's no way this can be acceptable. 157 00:12:33.020 --> 00:12:36.020 And you, of course, as the guy who, when he was asked, 158 00:12:36.020 --> 00:12:40.020 suppose the president decided that he wanted to crush the testicles 159 00:12:40.020 --> 00:12:58.020 So, it gave me great satisfaction to go through line by line, as if this were necessary, and smash this guy to smithereens. 160 00:12:58.020 --> 00:13:03.020 So, anyway, a mere 20 smackers, come see me and we'll make that happen. 161 00:13:03.020 --> 00:13:13.020 Finally, We Who Dared to Say No to War is an anthology that I edited with Murray Polner, a guy on the left, who is an absolutely great guy. 162 00:13:13.020 --> 00:13:17.020 We got to know each other on Long Island and we decided we're going to put this together. 163 00:13:17.020 --> 00:13:24.020 We're going to put together the best, most compelling anti-war writing from all the major American wars from 1812 to the present. 164 00:13:24.020 --> 00:13:31.020 We've got people all over the spectrum here. The only thing is you can't be a fascist or a commie. Otherwise, we'll put you in there. 165 00:13:31.020 --> 00:13:34.220 These are not just, oh, aren't these pretty speeches, and that's wonderful. 166 00:13:34.220 --> 00:13:41.020 We've got speeches, articles, book excerpts, poems, cartoons, whatever, all this stuff in here. 167 00:13:41.020 --> 00:13:45.020 But it's not just that they're beautifully written, which they are, these pieces. 168 00:13:45.020 --> 00:13:51.220 But the content is great because they'll also expose where the propaganda is in all these wars 169 00:13:51.220 --> 00:13:53.820 and what the real truth was about these wars. 170 00:13:53.820 --> 00:13:58.620 In fact, for example, we've got Congressman Samuel Taggart 171 00:13:58.620 --> 00:14:01.320 and his Denunciation of the War of 1812 in Congress. 172 00:14:01.320 --> 00:14:04.120 No one's ever read that. That's not available anywhere. 173 00:14:04.120 --> 00:14:08.720 But he is repeating arguments we hear all the time about the Iraq War. 174 00:14:08.720 --> 00:14:10.720 And so he's got to answer those arguments even then. 175 00:14:10.720 --> 00:14:14.420 The argument that, well, as soon as American troops march into Canada, 176 00:14:14.420 --> 00:14:17.720 Canadians will rise up and welcome their liberators. 177 00:14:17.720 --> 00:14:21.520 But if they don't, well, then they're just a race of debased paltrunes 178 00:14:21.520 --> 00:14:23.820 who deserve whatever American troops shall out to them. 179 00:14:23.820 --> 00:14:26.120 I mean, it's the same thing over and over again. 180 00:14:26.120 --> 00:14:30.420 In 1849, the Congregational Minister William J. said, 181 00:14:30.420 --> 00:14:34.920 We have been taught to ring our bells and illuminate our windows and let off fireworks 182 00:14:34.920 --> 00:14:40.420 as manifestations of our joy when we have heard of great ruin and devastation and misery and death 183 00:14:40.420 --> 00:14:45.420 inflicted by our troops upon a people who never injured us, who never fired a shot on our soil, 184 00:14:45.420 --> 00:14:48.620 and who were utterly incapable of acting on the offensive against us. 185 00:14:48.620 --> 00:14:50.720 That's from 1849. 186 00:14:50.720 --> 00:15:00.720 So this is one of the few anthologies that would include, basically, Murray Rothbard and Eugene B. Debs in the same cover. 187 00:15:00.720 --> 00:15:04.720 And as you go through it, it's not just something that you can use as a reference on your shelf. 188 00:15:04.720 --> 00:15:10.720 Actually, we picked things that people would actually want to read the thing all the way through, all through the major wars. 189 00:15:10.720 --> 00:15:14.720 And as I say, these are long forgotten things. Some of these are old, ripe people. 190 00:15:14.720 --> 00:15:18.720 Fascinating stuff. We were so delighted to have the opportunity to do this project. 191 00:15:18.720 --> 00:15:27.720 And I guess I'll just conclude on this by saying, you know, I hope you enjoy this as much as we did putting it together. 192 00:15:27.720 --> 00:15:36.720 And I was kind of on the fence on intellectual property till I realized how hard it is to reprint 20th century material when the people are dead. 193 00:15:36.720 --> 00:15:41.720 You don't know where their heirs live. You don't know what to do. So that's why Norman Thomas isn't in here. 194 00:15:41.720 --> 00:15:45.720 All right. So thank you all very much. See you later.