I Approve of This Krony Capitalism

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Andrew Wilkow of The Blaze interviews veteran TV producer John Papola, the creator of the brilliant “Kronies” video and toys, who previously produced the Keynes vs. Hayek rap videos you may have seen as well. As Papola tells Wilkow, “May these reach more people than kids who have The Road to Serfdom on their desk.” They also suggest that more videos are on the way, with possibly a GI Joe-style cartoon series running on Beck’s The Blaze channel, and/or a follow-up that explores corruption in local government, “The Muni Kronies.”

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Papola tells Beck himself in another interview that the goal with the Kronies was to send a message that transcends the canyon-sized left-right divide: “Whatever you think the role of government should be, you certainly don’t want it to be corrupt. The question is, and the center of the debate is, what’s the source of that corruption?”

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forgotten_man_graphic_novel_2-1-14-2Speaking of subversive ways to inculcate radical, way out there, lunatic ideas into, as Rush would say, “the yoot of America,” — i.e., freedom, democracy, and small government, Amity Shlaes really buries the the lede in her recent post at Ricochet. It’s titled “The Condescension of Paul Krugman,” but about 12-paragpraphs in, she offhandedly writes:

Despite the anxiety it produced in the private sector, the authorities seemed to relish playing with power. A feud over Dr. Krugman’s favorite area, monetary policy, illustrates this.

Marriner Eccles, the new chairman of the Federal Reserve, preached looser monetary policy. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, by contrast, favored budget-tightening. The Eccles-Morgenthau row infuriated their fellow officials, as artist Paul Rivoche shows in the drawing here, a cartoon picture from our forthcoming illustrated version of my own history of the era, The Forgotten Man (Click on the photograph to see a larger version). The two officials, especially Morgenthau, were more concerned with putting each other down than with what transpired outside Washington as a result of their squabble.

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I haven’t read a comic book since I sold off my Batman collection at age 13 (I know, a fortune p***ed away, to borrow an ’80s-era Elayne Boosler leitmotif), but a comic book — sorry, graphic novel edition of The Forgotten Man? Count me in. (To bring this post full circle, after World War II, General Motors once distributed a comic edition of Hayek’s Road to Serfdom — and then a quarter century later, completely forgot the advice they once proffered.)

Click over to Amity’s post at Ricochet to see a page from the upcoming book. For my interview last year with her on Coolidge, her “prequel” to The Forgotten Man, click here to listen.

And finally, if you missed it last week, here’s the original “Kronies” video. Each character also has his own video, online here:

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(Via RD Brewer at  Ace of Spades.)

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