James K. Galbraith
Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and Department of Government
The University of Texas at Austin

Richard Peet: Welcome to the talk. The speaker is James K. Galbraith who received his degrees from Harvard and Yale. He then worked for the Joint Economic Committee of the United States Congress. He is presently a professor at the University of Texas. James says some strange things. Just to give you a quick example. Invited to someplace in Ohio to give a lecture on Milton Friedman he said, quote, “I come to bury Milton, not to praise him.”
James, if you’re going to say naughty things like that … you’ve come to the right place. [Laughter and Applause]

That’s enough from me. James K. Galbraith, “The Economic Crisis and Obama’s Response”. And questions afterwards.

James K .Galbraith: Thanks very much indeed. It’s a great pleasure to be here. I have a peculiar credential for discussing the present economic situation. That is that I have been, for much of my career, a kind of ambulance chaser of financial crises. It is not a job one chooses, but in my case it fell upon me. I arrived at my first professional employment, on the staff of the Banking Committee of the House of Representatives, in 1975. One day the  chairman of the committee, a Congressman from Milwaukee named Henry Reuss, stopped by my desk that was just outside his office. He said, “Come with me. We must go to a meeting.” He took me through the tunnels of the House Office Buildings to a meeting room on the top floor of the Longworth Building where the entire New York City Congressional Delegation had assembled. They were deeply worried because the City had been
told by its bankers that they would not renew four billion dollars of short-term debts that were coming due in the middle of 1976. The City was faced with bankruptcy with what they anticipated would be chaotic consequences for services and for the city workers. They were anxious to enlist the support of their colleague, the Chairman of the Banking Committee, because the Administration—the Ford Administration at that time—was unsympathetic.