What was Ron's opinion of Paul Volcker?

[ronaldo23]

in the latest hearing Bernanke said that he knows that Ron has talked about his relationship with Volcker in the past. Looking on wiki, it says Ron has offered qualified praise to him (presumably because he kept interest rates high). I also remember Schiff saying Volcker was pretty decent

is there any video of Ron talking about him...and is the consensus that Volcker was a much better chairman than greenspan-bernanke (of course, better being a relative term)

[specsaregood]

in the latest hearing Bernanke said that he knows that Ron has talked about his relationship with Volcker in the past. Looking on wiki, it says Ron has offered qualified praise to him (presumably because he kept interest rates high). I also remember Schiff saying Volcker was pretty decent

is there any video of Ron talking about him...and is the consensus that Volcker was a much better chairman than greenspan-bernanke (of course, better being a relative term)

I take it you didn't read Ron's book.

From "End the Fed" pg 48-50


I expressed my concern to Chairman Volcker at a hearing that reserve requirements could be lowered to zero and the Federal Reserve could buy any asset, including foreign debt.

Volcker invited me to a private breakfast to dissuade me from my interpretation. Lew Rockwell, my chief of staff, went with me to breakfast. Interestingly, we arrived early and were talking with Volcker's aide when Volcker arrived. Before acknowledging Lew or me, he quickly went to his aide and asked, "What's the price of gold?"
........
........
At the end of the breakfast, Volcker finally agreed that my interpretation of the language was correct, but assured me he would never lower reserve requirements to that degree or buy up worthless assets. His argument was that the Fed wanted this authority to have free rein in raising reserve requirements at will, as he indeed did with interest rates that broke the back of the raging inflation of the 1970's.

As we were leaving, I said that, although I didn't expect the he would use these extreme powers, who knew if in the future we might just have someone who would.

[Tax the Fed]

in the latest hearing Bernanke said that he knows that Ron has talked about his relationship with Volcker in the past.

Not sure (and not surprised) that we could with any degree of certainty figure out
really just what bizarro Bennie B was referring to . . .

From 2008 financial crisis :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR8NYe1Ghn0

[Agorism]

I have a very favorable opinion of Volcker.

[ronaldo23]

From an old Volcker Interview...looks like he at least had some exposure to Austrian economics compared to Bernanke.

INTERVIEWER: Can we talk a little bit about your early influences as an economist? Were you exposed at all to the Austrian School of economy?

PAUL VOLCKER: I happened to have been exposed when I was an undergraduate, because my first teachers of economic theory came from the Austrian School, and this was in the late '40s. They were not all enamored of Mr. Keynes and the Anglo-Saxon traditions of economics, so I had a pretty good exposure to the Austrian School and Mr. Böhm-Bawerk and all his friends.


INTERVIEWER: How were you influenced by Hayek and The Road to Serfdom? How big an impact did it make on you?

PAUL VOLCKER: I don't know if I can quantify it, but it was a very persuasive argument -- the glories of a free-enterprise system, and at that time there was a pretty active debate about socialism, at least in the rest of the world, and to some degree it hit the United States. This would have been after World War II... and socialist thinking had gone pretty far. This was pretty big, this warning about where it might lead and possible excesses. I am not as conservative as Mr. Hayek's followers, but it was a very powerful story.

INTERVIEWER: When did you begin to have doubts? How early did you begin to become skeptical about things? (in reference to the dogmatic nature of his fellow Keynesian intellectuals)

PAUL VOLCKER: I was already skeptical. I guess I'm skeptical about everything. I've gotten worse in my old age, but I was a little bit turned off by the precision and certainty that these people attached to the doctrine. The analytic framework was very convincing, but this feeling they had, that they could press the right buttons and manage the economy pretty exactly, for some reason it turned me off. I was very skeptical that they were not overselling the precision of this theory and the precision [with] which they could run policy.

[Agorism]

INTERVIEWER: When did you begin to have doubts? How early did you begin to become skeptical about things? (in reference to the dogmatic nature of his fellow Keynesian intellectuals)

He's referring to the Phillips curve here. Traditional Keynesian economics has been rejected by everyone: Liberals, commies, conservatives, etc. What we have no is just kind of a mish-mash of stuff or neo-keynesians.