Gary Becker – The Economist's Economist

The U.S. economy grew incredibly from 1983 to 2008. And then it all collapsed. What happened?

Nobel Prize winning economist and University of Chicago professor Gary Becker weighs in on the state of the US economy. He gives the Bush Administration mixed reviews, but finds the current response of the U.S. Federal Reserve to the crisis troubling.

He argues that ObamaCare is a bad bill – it will increase costs and not address the real problems in the system (being that health care is employer based and out-of-pocket expenses are too low). Now, small businesses will be taxed if they don’t provide health care, forcing many businesses to take the tax to avoid the liability and cost of employer-provided care.

Lastly, Becker, like many Americans, is optimistic about the future not because of the power of government, but because of his faith in the American people. He says, “What I trust with the American people is that they have always had a lot of common sense. … And I think most Americans believe, and I think they are correct in that belief, that the private sector has shown that it performs better overall, not 100 percent, but…a lot better overall than the public sector does.”

Here is the full episode:

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