So let's begin our history there.

So if you look at the whole 20th century, 21st century, the great boosts in inflation were right at World War I and just after.

And that had a big impact on the mentality of policy people when the Second World War began.

They remembered that First World War, the inflation.

Inflation was a problem with the gearing up for the war.

Money was being spent, taxation, money was being spent, borrowed.

Clearly, inflation was on the horizon.

By the middle of the 1960s, really, it was spending on the Vietnam War that started to cause inflation to tick up again, right?

So what is going on in the United Order Workers of America?

Well, let me preface this by saying something that just struck me.

It seems obvious, but it's there.

Right now, there is a campaign for president of the UAW, and other officers are going on right now.

And many people have thrown in their hat in the ring.

There are, I don't know, half a dozen people running for president and other offices.

If you go onto the web, you'll see all sorts of... campaigning.

Regardless of what the politics of what they were doing, that would not.

How, in your opinion, is he balancing the promise of internal rank-and-file union democracy against the practical need to consolidate power and deliver at the bargaining table?

Oh, yeah, excellent question.

I mean, it is true right now that the UAW is – Its various mechanism structures is more democratically organized than at any time in the last 50 or 60 years.

And that's because there is a one person, one vote election process.

And just as we're speaking within a couple of days, a few days, ballots will go out to voters.

More than 400,000 members, maybe more than that, because retirees can vote.

And there's an open election.

Yeah.

Well, yeah,

yeah.

Yeah, I mean, no, I mean, I think of the 90s, the 90s.

In 1995, two revelations took place.

One, the editors of Fortune decided, hey, there are these retailers out there.

I think we should put them on the Fortune list of 500 most important companies.

And it turned out Walmart popped up number four, you know, and Sears number eight or something.

saying they shouldn't have been critical of it it was very bad in a lot of ways but actually like you know you see these new york times uh there was a new york times at a series on like how childhood poverty has been reduced from like by 60 since the 1990s and it has to do with tax transfers and all these other things so i think there is an interesting way in which like The initial highly negative reaction to his move there kind of blinded people to the actual material changes that were happening around these issues.

Well,

yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, no, I mean, I think of the 90s, the 90s.

In 1995, two revelations took place.

One, the editors of Fortune decided, hey, there are these retailers out there.

I think we should put them on the Fortune list of 500 most important companies.

And it turned out Walmart popped up number four, you know, and Sears number eight or something.

Well, one thing I've noticed, Nelson, and this will probably be in the book I'm writing about, I mean, I'm still working through it and looking at the data, but I think so much of our history of that welfare reform moment in the 90s is kind of colored by the initial left reaction to it by journalists and academic left people who are rightly i mean i'm not saying they shouldn't have been critical of it it was very bad in a lot of ways but actually like you know you see these new york times uh there was a new york times at a series on like how childhood poverty has been reduced from like by 60 since the 1990s and it has to do with tax transfers and all these other things so i think there is an interesting way in which like The initial highly negative reaction to his move there kind of blinded people to the actual material changes that were happening around these issues.

Okay.

Okay.I was, um, uh, well, that was the...

Yeah, I was there, and I was, uh, working on a, a biography of the labor leader Walter Reuther, uh, and I was about to go to Finland.

Well, that we would...

And actually, no, we...

Yeah, we then...

It was...

Yeah.

Before we dive into some specifics, what are your overall thoughts about Greenspan?

Well, he was.

You're right.

He was head of the Fed for 19 years from 1987, I think it was, to 2006.

That's a long time.

Got reappointed by presidents of both parties.

I think he presided over the Fed during this crucial period when really financialization became kind of at the core, really, of the American political economy.

He was a political operator in addition to being a central banker.