On this edition of Parallax Views, Ari Rabin-Havt, deputy campaign manager for Bernie Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign, joins me for a brief 20 minute about his new campaign memoir The Fighting Soul: On the Road With Bernie Sanders. Rabin-Havt provides not only a behind-the-scenes look at the Sanders campaign but also a rare glimpse into the passionate Vermont Senator himself that gets beyond what one saw from him in televised appearances, town halls, and Presidential debates. Most of this conversation focuses on how Bernie developed a greater confidence in his foreign policy views and detailing his fight to pass the Yemen War Powers Act/Resolution alongside seemingly unlikely allies Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT). We also discuss Bernie’s 2018 lunch with then Iranian foreign minister Javad Zaraf, an anecdote about Bernie Sanders and America’s most prominent Israel lobby AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), Bernie’s love of mo-town, an exchange between Barack Obama and Bernie that illustrates Bernie’s principles, and an amusing story involving Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus. Be sure to pick of The Fighting Soul: On the Road With Bernie Sanders as this only covers a small slice of a book that is a fast-paced, rollicking read throughout.
In the second segment of the show, former Senior Federal Reserve official Thomas M. Hoenig joins me to discuss the aftermath of the global financial crisis and his opposition to Quantitative Easing, “Too Big To Fail Banks”, and support for a new, modernized Glass-Steagall Act to break up mega-banks. As listeners of Parallax Views may recall, Hoenig was recently featured as the main protagonist of recent guest Christopher Leonard’s The Lords of Easy Money: How the Federal Broke the American Economy.
In the second segment of the show, former Senior Federal Reserve official Thomas M. Hoenig joins me to discuss the aftermath of the global financial crisis and his opposition to Quantitative Easing, “Too Big To Fail Banks”, and support for a new, modernized Glass-Steagall Act to break up mega-banks. As listeners of Parallax Views may recall, Hoenig was recently featured as the main protagonist of recent guest Christopher Leonard’s The Lords of Easy Money: How the Federal Broke the American Economy.
In Leonard’s book, which covers the Federal Reserve’s policies in the years following the 2008 financial crisis, Hoenig is the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City who consistently (and in opposition to other Federal Reserve officials) votes “No” on proposed policies. Although painted as being merely an “anti-inflation hawk”, Leonard says this is a misrepresentation and that Hoenig saw how Quantitative Easing was hurting rather than helping the ordinary citizens of Main Street America.
In this conversation, Hoenig explains exactly how he saw policies like Quantitative Easing and the belief in “Too Big To Fail Banks” as having negative consequences for ordinary America. Hoenig is unfiltered in the course of our discussion and expresses his pro-market views, small “c” conservative views while also noting the ways in which some of his views have overlapped with liberal and left-wing figures like Bernie Sanders and Sherrod Brown. This conversation doesn’t get into a debate about politics, but rather allows Hoenig to express his views. All in all it is hope by Parallax Views that this is seen as a fascinating discussion with a former major figure from the Federal Reserve who now serves as a Distinguished Fellow for the Mercatus Center.
