Applying History in Real Time: A Tale of Two Crises - Niall Ferguson

[angusmcangus]

I see a Niall Ferguson lecture and I click on it. He is ALWAYS worth listening to.

[marksteele]

"I was amazed at how much like our current experience in Iraq it [the US entry into Vietnam] was." And Ferguson was amazed that his correspondent was amazed. I guess the correspondent would have his mind blown if he studied the US war against the independence of the Philippines from 1899-1903+.

[mpetry]

wide ranging and thought provoking. how will we apply these insights to the challenges that now confront us ?

[notlimey]

A good, solid analysis of these two dangerous situations. His purpose, of course, was to use them to illustrate how depth perception (aka 'History', the careful and non partisan analysis of evidence for helpful analogies) can give better data to use when important decisions need to be made. In this age of the culture war I was relieved to encounter an objective, evidence based talk no matter how disappointed culture warriors might be.

[davidshaw]

Agreed, on two points.1. History teaching discipline/perspectives are overly compartmentalized. 2. Economics and Foreign Policy History are largely divorced. These are major opportunities. Thanks IAS

[stevegodenich]

@34-35 Passive-response was used in the 1920 Crash, but you don't hear about that crash because it went away in a year or two, ... unlike the active-response that was used in the 1929 crash. Contingency planning is, indeed, common sense in any situation. I don't believe another round of coordinated QE/ZIRP/IOER (inflation bubbles) or the OECD's recommendation for fiscal stimulus(sovereign debt) is the best thought-out plan. That is unless a spontaneous coordination of tar, feathers, rails, pitchforks and martial law are the objective when the bill comes due.

With that said, I agree there is room for an historical school in economics and finance combined with historical analysis in the evolution of world affairs. I'll add that a rube goldberg tax system, not mentioned, has been imposed upon us all and is in dire need of being reformed given the increasingly iniquitous politico-economic results of tax havens, e.g. a decentralized form of Edgar Feige's APT tax.

[vaultsjan]

In the QA section, not too sure that we hear applied history.

[slop]

Only 25 years into my life and have already lived through three "once in a life time" "black swan" events. Perhaps this is a secular trend?

[jonathanjones]

I've saw a number of this guy's talks. His nickname should be "captain hindsight"

[Marian_Rusnak]

who is the lady on the stage standing all the time next to him and what is she doing there?

[jimmymichaud]

What would the world economic situation look like if a Chinese economic crisis comparable to our own Great Depression takes place today, with the scale of such a crisis the Matched by the misery of the world

[isabellaliu]

The online payment system is only good when electricity supply goes 100 percent right and for a country exercise huge surveillance on its ppl in every aspect of their lives, but without electricity guaranteed supply, it could have huge disaster caused to the economy and the lives of ppl, suddenly, no cash available, no transactions could be operated. Well it’s better to allow online payment as well as cash both at the same time as cash could be a contingency back up in face of disaster!

[isabellaliu]

I think the trade war perhaps allot of ppl see that there is harm to both sides but long term it’s good for America. Not only that America will not only rely on China supply chains which has proven that is a very dangerous thing todo from the pandemic, but also they way could bring factories or supply chains back to America, the trade deficit and unfair trade terms and conditions due to national subsidies from China will only help China accumulate more wealth but hurt America in the long term.

[lamarravery]

What happened to the green economy revolution? Weren't we going to fire up the factories and build new EV vehicles, creating jobs like in WW2 where we were building planes and tanks? Then we have a global supply issue, we don't have the materials or people with skills to do it. It turned into a pipe dream.

[johnhanamy]

Ferguson treats two of the worst catastrophes of the 21st century like some kind of natural disasters, a flood or hurricane requiring swifter responses or smarter planning, more up to date drills or procedure. Totally missing is the human cost and moral consequences.

[mattc]

While Niall Ferguson's conclusion about applying historical analysis to crises is a good one, I believe his talk really missed the key points of the two crises in question: 9/11/2001 and 9/15/2008. He focused on the reaction to the events. He should have focused on why the events were allowed to happen in the first place.

Why did the financial crash of 2008 happen? Many people made a lot of bad decisions. Suppressing the crash simply allowed all those people who made bad decisions to keep their jobs. And in the future, after things settle down, they can work their magic all over again. And they have been working their magic again. Now we have to worry about an even bigger crash coming.

Why did 9/11/2001 happen? The rise of political correctness and all the baggage it contains. By not addressing the political correctness issue the country remains vulnerable to some other kind of attack. I'm thinking about an attack from another great-power.

Societies crash just like forests do. It is well known that suppressing crashes (putting out fires) in a forest just make things worse in the future. So too with societies as I just showed above. Failure to respond appropriately to 9/11/2001 and 9/15/2008 means the situation is now much worse. Let's see:

1. Talk of a civil war.
2. Talk of another big financial crisis within a couple of years.
3. Talk of a trade war with China
4. Talk of another cold war.
5. Talk about the possibility of a great-power war.

The West is a forest that is ready to burn down to the ground. Now we wait for a hot, dry summer and a spark.

[firstlast]

The ones that can - do, the ones that can’t- teach.

[gardenfornutrition]

When someone starts talking about 9/11 by assuming the official explanation is true, I know they are not being realistic and I can take what they have to say with a very large dose of skepticism,

[poliorkitis]

Ferguson: more of a politician than a scientist, full of empathy against socialism or even social liberalism, and an absolute imperialist; what to say more? his books would be far more interesting if he was less Britain-centered and cynical

[chrisgreene]

Lack of applied histories is an institutional failure. It does lead to amnesia ie Vietnam and then Iraq. Lessons unlearned trillions wasted and pointless death Neocon influence on American foreign policy for the last 20 years has been an unmitigated disaster