Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
#1
..fascinating BBC series about economists.
The first was all about John Maynard Keynes and, given that it was the BBC, I was surprised to see that it was reasonably balanced. They did underplay some of the problems with Keynseyan economics though. Also when they identified Gordon Brown as a Keynseyan who adopted Keynseyan policies in 2007 when the slowdown started, they failed to mention that prior to that Brown had ignored the inconvenient side of Keynes prescription leaving the UK economy in an appalling position at that point in the cycle.
The next programme is about the great Freiderick Hayak of the 'Austrian school' and his alternative prescription who is a much greater and more successful economic figure than Keynes.
In post-war UK it was Keynes theories that dominated leading to a 'managed decline' of the UK. By contrast Germany adopted Hayek's theories leading to their economic miracle leaving them still the strongest European economy.
The third and final programme in the series is about Marx. A very strange choice. Talk of Marx being a 'Master of Money' is like describing Hitler as a 'great humanitarian'. In every country that adopted Marx they had to impose the ideas within the structure of a totalitarian state resulting in economic disaster. Adam Smith would have been a far better choice.
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
#2
"fascinating" I take it that that means the programmes are short.
Was is fascinating is that such programmes are on Public Broadcasting stations, even the Milton Friedman series was aired on PBS.
I feel a little (friendly) competition in the offing. Which Advertisers would be most likely to commission slots in such a programme?
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
#3
The only justification for having a channel paid for by a licence is to produce quality intelligent programming that will not attract the mass audience needed by advertisers.
I support a licence fee for this reason though I do not think it should be exclusively for the BBC but to commission quality programming from across the channels.
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
#4
But, but Barry.
Such 'quality' programming could only be aired in the dead of night by the commercial channels otherwise regular advertisers would be snubbed/robbed of some prime-time slot. Tsk, tsk.
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
#5
I answered that Tom. The licence fee cash can be bid for by commercial channels to enable quality programming to be shown at reasonable times. Indeed it can be part of the terms of the bid. People attracted to such programming will usually be 'upper end' by which they will tend to have more disposable cash and therefore be attractive to certain types of advertiser.
All of that is beside the point anyway - this is about an excellent series currently on tv.
Guest 683- Registered: 11 Feb 2009
- Posts: 1,052
#6
For those who can't spare the time to watch the series:
[URL][/URL]
The quotations at the end are very interesting!!
