At last, someone who points out the profligacy of relying on future income (taxation) to pay for present follies. He also implies that the position of successive chancellors on hypothecation (ring-fencing funds for their - apparently - intended purpose) is foolish, even fraudulent.
The effect of this and of the present ethos of financial dealings (to be covered, it seems, in another lecture) on society at large is summed up in a well-known song,
"I want it all and I want it now!"

I thought this was supposed to be a programme that fermented the best of thinking and outlined potential future directions. Instead the "unbiased" BBC has handed a neocon, neoliberal "thinker" huge amounts of unchallenged airtime to propagate the exact muddle-headed "solutions" that got us into this sorry pass instead.

How about a real alternative thinker who doesn't subscribe wholeheartedly to the Chicago school of economic wrecking? No. Bit too radical and non-Conservative for the BBC to consider, just as they never get alternative viewpoints on their news programmes or bulletins either. Pathetic - our greatest economists will be spinning in their graves.

This is completely the wrong format for his kind of content and it really does make you wonder what on earth the radio 4's editorial team are up to. When at the end of the lecture he essentially says the message of this lecture is to "vote conservative" , how can this be seen as anything other than 45 min political broadcast.

Don't get me wrong I disagree with Fergusson's views but they should be part of a debate on wider issues of economic history and policy. Wouldn't it have been much better, fairer and in keeping with the BBC's mission of impartiality to have had a series where Fergusson was in conversation with someone on the left such as Will Hutton, to provide both sides of the argument.

Niall Ferguson argues that the older generation are leaving unsustainable debts to the younger generation and suggests that budget cuts, logically to fall on older people, are the solution. The current generation of pensioners paid 40+ percent of income in direct taxes, as opposed to the 30 percent paid by current workers. Another solution would be to raise direct taxes. In any case UK government debt has been incurred by the bank rescue, not by government expenditure. The problems are too complex to deal with in four short lectures. Demonising pensioners, most of whom live on savings through pension plans, is no answer.

I was fascinated by Niall's analysis, based on the development and decline of the UK's institutional framework. In his next lecture he mentions the word 'Darwinian', and likewise he implies that these institutions are experiencing a Darwinian cycle of flourish, flower and decline.

I agree that the insertion of party-political comments is not helpful, and people tend to jump on this with arguments-by-assertion for and against. However if we listen to Niall's theories, they are fascinating enough to keep us out of the political mud-wrestling.

I'd like to hear the evolutionary analysis extended a bit. For example, if Darwin posits the survival of the fittest by natural selection ('fittest' being 'most adapted to the environment' and not 'best'), then what does that mean for the evolution of our institutions? How can we adapt them to improve 'outcomes'? Because after all we are part of the evolutionary process, and can affect it to a certain extent for better or worse. Maybe more will be explored in the next lecture.