Sorry for the misleading title, but I’m not going to comment on Alan Greenspan.  He’s plugging his new book so thoroughly, that you’ve probably had enough of him, so I’ll focus on the interviewer.

Jon Stewart’s interviewing technique has been criticised unsuccessfully before. So, in attacking his ridiculous questioning of one of the world’s foremost living economists, I won’t be the first or the last.

They’ve made a choice: “We would like to favour those that invest in the stock market, and not those that invest in the bank. That helps us.” … It seems to me that we favour investment, but we don’t favour work. The vast majority of people work, and they pay payroll taxes and they use banks.

And there’s this whole other world of hedge funds and short-betting. It seems like craps. And they keep saying, “No, no, don’t worry about it, it’s free market. That’s why we live in much bigger houses.” But it isn’t, it’s the Fed.

So, apparently, the Fed deliberately keeps the interest rate low to help rich people? Basic economics - nay, common sense - dictates that the opposite is true. High interest rates increase the return on capital, hence the value of money. By definition, the rich have more money.

As a result, wealthy people ‘benefit’ from high interest rates relative to the poor. That’s why the Guardian always bleats on about the Black Wednesday rate hikes; it hit their readership of poor students and failed artists hard.

Sadly, this sort of misrepresentation of economics is a hallmark of the left.  Whatever one thinks about state control of monetary policy, the accusation that the victims of the state don’t cut across wealth lines, and include only the poor, is absurd.

You’re a great comedian, Stewart. You’re just not the best economist. Stick to the funny stuff.  No matter how risible your politics, that doesn’t count.