Andrew Ross Sorkin: belief

Transcript context

…Sure, but it’s one thing to say Hoover made some policy mistakes — clearly true, big bad ones — but it doesn’t mean Hoover was wrong in saying that the low prices were caused by too much worry. It seems that the Great Depression was as bad and as international as it was, was quite unusual and surprising, that World War II was so catastrophic, was quite unusual and surprising, and that ex ante, Hoover on that particular point nonetheless was mostly correct. Well, but the question . . . and I think about this in terms of narrative, and people talk about story stocks. He, in 1930, 1931, 1932, had this view that he could almost jawbone the American public to believe. He thought that this was a psychological problem and that if he could just tell people to put a smile on their face, that somehow they would put a smile on their face and that they would become believers. I think that’s a very hard thing to persuade an entire country of in these kinds of moments. Then, when you marry that concept of trying to persuade people to be happy when they’re not happy with some poor policy choices, it becomes very difficult. By the way, I think we’re living with this. In the last couple of years, there was a period of time where inflation was super high, and we had a president, President Biden, who used to tell people all the time, “Don’t worry about that. You shouldn’t be thinking about the inflation.” People would say, “What are you talking about? I feel it. You can tell me all day long that things are better than they really are, but I’m the one living with these costs.” I think that’s very similar, in some ways, to what people were feeling, at least back then. If we look back to 2007 or 2006, can’t we now today say that in most parts of the country, there was not a housing bubble? The high prices were basically correct, maybe a smidgen ahead of their time, but they’ve come back and then some in most parts of America, maybe not every single part. Again, the people who said there was a housing bubble — they seemed so wise at the time, but now they’re just wrong. That’s not even having to wait 30 years.…

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