chairperson will be. Do you have an opinion?

RP: Well we ought not to have one. 

NB: I knew you were going to say that.

RP: People push me: “You’ve got to pick between [Fed vice chairman] Janet Yellen and [former Treasury Secretary] Larry Summers.” And I say, well it really doesn’t matter much, they are really both Keynesians, they both believe in central economic planning, and they believe very strongly that banks have to be protected and insured to make bad mistakes. And then the tax payer will bail them out like they’ve been doing.

NB: Can we give monetary policy any credit at all for the country apparently climbing out of this recession?

RP: I don’t think we are out. I think we’re in serious shape. I think the unemployment rate is huge, there’s a lot more inflation then they admit, and we’re in the midst of a bond bubble. So yes stock markets are doing good and Wall Street’s doing good, the banks are doing well, and big corporations. But we’re not out, so they get zero credit. They should get all the blame for the bubble, and all the blame for the collapse. And yet they never warned us once that it was coming. It was only the Austrian economists who sensed that we had gross distortion and that the bubble will burst. And those same individuals are predicting that the bubble will burst when it comes to the dollar bond market.

NB: You’ve served two long terms in Congress, the last one marked by unbelievable gridlock. Do you see any hope for Congress becoming a more functional body? 

RP: Well as long as they’re promoting only bad stuff I hope not. [Laughs.] I’m voting for gridlock.