You remember “Fear the Boom and Bust,” don’t you, the rap throwdown between John Maynard Keynes and F.A. Hayek produced last year for EconStories.tv? It was great, and now its creators are back with “Fight of the Century: Keynes vs. Hayek Round Two”:
At the risk of being a little meanspirited over a nonprofit labor of love, I’m wondering if I’m the only one who didn’t really care much for this sequel? I was put off from the very beginning, which uses the exact same joke as the first video, except even more extreme. I was reminded of movie sequels that figure the only way to top the original is to feature even more car chases and even bigger explosions. Meh.
Beyond that, though, the actual content of the video just isn’t as sharp as the first one. The production values are great, but the lyrics are kind of flat and there’s not really any sustained economic argument from either of the characters. In the end, I think the producers just didn’t have anything new to say. But they’ve got a ton of talent, and I hope that for their next video they ditch the Keynes vs. Hayek conceit and just do something completely new.
