Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchThe Great Depression: An Austrian Reply to WIRED
Episode 527
Bob walks through a recent WIRED video on “the economics behind the Great Depression,” correcting its claims on lax regulation, Hoover’s alleged inac…
5 months ago
Interest Is Not the Marginal Product of Capital
Episode 527
Bob revisits capital and interest theory to show why the textbook result “interest = MPK” only holds in a one-good world, and why in actual markets t…
5 months, 1 week ago
What Makes Economics Scientific?
Episode 526
Prompted by an online debate about whether economics belongs with the hard sciences, Bob reviews common defenses of mainstream practice and explains …
5 months, 2 weeks ago
Rethinking "Sticky Prices" and Monetary Disequilibrium
Episode 524
Dr. Jonathan Newman joins the Human Action Podcast to discuss his recent QJAE article disputing the claim that 'sticky prices' prevent markets from c…
5 months, 3 weeks ago
Is Paying Down Government Debt Bad for the Economy?
Episode 524
Is paying down the federal debt a recession trigger? Bob takes on the MMT claim and checks the record, citing US debt payoffs, Canada’s 1990s reforms…
6 months ago
How Congress Should Reform the Fed
Episode 523
Alex Pollock joins the Human Action Podcast to explain his recent Congressional testimony on the Fed’s growing insolvency and mandate overreach. The …
6 months ago
Yes, Tariffs Reduce Imports, but They Also Reduce Exports
Episode 522
In this episode of the Human Action Podcast, Bob unpacks Lerner’s Symmetry Theorem—the classic result that, under tight conditions, an import tariff …
6 months, 1 week ago
AI, Automation, and the Human Advantage
Episode 521
This week, Bob tackles growing concerns about artificial intelligence, automation, and mass unemployment. Using the principles of marginal productivi…
6 months, 3 weeks ago
The Importance of Time in Explaining Asset Bubbles
Episode 520
Jonathan Newman returns to join Bob in a critique of Eliezer Yudkowsky’s viral theory of investment bubbles. Yudkowsky states that the bad investment…
6 months, 4 weeks ago
Menger's Barter Theory of the Origin of Money Is Still Standing
Episode 519
Professor Georgy Ganev joins Bob to explain that, contrary to the claims of David Graeber and the MMTers, the barter origin of money has not been ref…
7 months ago