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Episode 159: Missing the Marx
Season 1 Episode 159
Karl Marx’s thoughts on socialism are popular among politicians and humanities professors, but not so much among business people and economics professors. In this episode, Phil Magness, economic hist…
Published on 5 years, 10 months ago
Episode 158: Incivility
Season 1 Episode 158
We’ve all experienced incivility on the Internet. But today’s incivility is more than people being rude to each other online. Political leaders have become less civil toward each other, and political…
Published on 5 years, 10 months ago
Episode 157: Black Markets
Season 1 Episode 157
Many people imagine that, when the government bans something, the banned thing goes away. In fact, what banning does is to remove government protections against violence, theft, and fraud. Justificat…
Published on 5 years, 10 months ago
Episode 156: The Government’s Rosy Outlook
Season 1 Episode 156
The Congressional Budget Office is tasked with forecasting the federal budget. Over the past twenty years, the CBO has tended to over-estimate future tax revenues and under-estimate future government…
Published on 5 years, 10 months ago
Episode 155: David Schmidtz on Equality and Justice
Season 1 Episode 155
When most people say, “equality,” they mean income equality. Economists draw a finer distinction between income equality and wealth equality. Political scientists draw an even finer distinction betwe…
Published on 5 years, 10 months ago
Episode 154: Cracks in the Ivory Tower
Season 1 Episode 154
The rising cost of tuition is merely a symptom of a disease. The disease, which is much more complex, involves misplaced incentives from administrators to faculty to students to parents. Phil Magnus …
Published on 5 years, 11 months ago
Episode 153: Prohibition and Constitutional Constraints
Season 1 Episode 153
The 18th Amendment was ratified a century ago, beginning the United States’ fourteen-year experiment with prohibition. An Amendment was needed because the Constitution did not give the federal govern…
Published on 5 years, 11 months ago
Episode 152: Government Schools and the Freedom to Choose
Season 1 Episode 152
“School choice” is much more than parents being able to choose which schools their children will attend. It is also teachers being free to design and teach their own curricula. It is principals being…
Published on 5 years, 11 months ago
Episode 151: New Year Resolutions
Season 1 Episode 151
It’s the New Year, a time when people like to make resolutions. In this episode, James and Ant look at surveys on what Americans pick for their New Year resolutions, how many fall off their wagons, a…
Published on 5 years, 11 months ago
Episode 150: A Culture of Envy
Season 1 Episode 150
People tend to talk about income inequality as if it were necessarily a bad thing. In so doing, they often confuse inequality and poverty and, in the process, run the risk of justifying what is reall…
Published on 6 years ago