Benson Interviews Henderson on COVID, Lockdowns, and Monetary Policy

I posted last month on my Substack, “I Blog to Differ,”  the first part of my interview with financial planner Drew Benson, a former student of mine in the Masters Macro class I taught at San Jose State University in early 2009. I posted on the last 35 minutes today on Substack and have decided, for the first time, to post the same thing here.

Here’s the last 35 minutes

Some highlights.

3:50: Lockdowns led to a less-robust civil society.

5:35: Connection between lockdowns and George Floyd riots.

6:25: How our daughter adjusted to the San Francisco lockdown and our fear of getting caught going to see her.

8:10: Judge Steve Williams dying in the hospital alone.

8:48: Why Bryan Caplan would be proud of Drew Benson.

10:10: The huge cost of lockdowns to people in poor countries.

11:40: The worldwide decline in extreme poverty and its brief reversal during lockdown.

14:30: Risk from COVID by age.

15:00: I referred to Heritage Foundation; I meant Hillsdale College.

15:40: Multiple co-morbidities.

17:30: Fed behavior, 2008-09 and 2020-21.

19:00: Fed mistake—paying interest on reserves.

19:50: Bernanke broke his promise made at Friedman’s 80th birthday party.

21:25: Who predicted low inflation in 2009 and high inflation in 2021? Jeff Hummel.

22:15: Taking Jeff Hummel’s Masters in Monetary Theory class. Getting the highest grade.

24:10: Commodity money.

24:30: How Hummel’s class helped me write the Wall Street Journal article in which I criticized Diamond/Dybvig model.

25:59: Has WSJ ever dialed me back?

27:10: Having my WSJ article count equal my age.

29:10: Inflation: True and False.

30:00: What Alan Greenspan did in 1987 in response to a greater than 22% fall in Dow-Jones in one day. (The biggest fall in our history.)

31:30: The 1951 Treasury/Fed Accord is dead.

 

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