The Back Story

clipped from www.futureofcapitalism.com When Russell Roberts, an economics professor at George Mason University and a fellow at its Mercatus Center and at the Hoover Institution, was approached last April out of the blue by a total stranger, filmmaker John Papola, and asked if he wanted to make a movie, he replied, "Well, that'd be fun." But, Mr. Roberts told FutureOfCapitalism.com in a phone interview, he wasn't sure the movie would actually happen – he'd been approached before by other people for similar ventures only to see them sputter out. And indeed, the project that became the Hayek vs. Keynes rap "Fear the Boom and Bust" had some false starts. The economist and the filmmaker started out with the idea of a situation comedy So even though Mr. Roberts, who has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago, describes himself as "not a rap fan, particularly," they settled instead on a rap video "Video is cheap, but high-quality, high-end video like this is expensive,"