Recent Podcast Episodes

Mark Thornton traces today’s tangled web of paper money, debt, war, and AI malinvestment—from John Law’s Mississippi Bubble to the Fed’s latest distortions.

As state control over forests and brushlands continues apace both in Spain and the US, the dangers of wildfires grows worse. Environmentalists, naturally, blame capitalism.

The Fed wants to keep interest rates low so the government can borrow on the cheap. But bond markets are driving up interest rates as inflation isn't going away.

Our economic future desperately depends upon entrepreneurs being free to act. Unfortunately, our ruling classes seem to prefer economic chaos.

Mainstream economics does a disservice when students are taught that money is a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a unit of account without explaining why and how money came to function in those categories.

Ryan, Connor, and Tho discuss a recent article from Daniel McCarthy that both criticizes the irrelevance of libertarianism and laments its influence on modern America.

Trump showed how effective it can be to simply declare success and let supporters believe it. Other politicians are taking notes, even as the problems they all pretend to have addressed continue to grow.

The California Energy Commission is mandating that starting in 2029, California drivers must purchase environmentally approved tires that are less safe than current tires. The results are predictable: higher costs for drivers and more fatal accidents.

No, covid was not the exception to the rule that liberty comes first. Just because the CDC insisted we give up our freedom for what turned out to be a false security did not justify the government’s heavy-handed approach, something that libertarians should have understood all along.

Bob talks with professor Matt McCaffrey about a soon-to-be-published, never-before-seen manuscript by Frank Fetter, surveying the history of economic thought from Adam Smith to John Stuart Mill.

The drive for military conscription has always depended upon the use of propaganda, since governments cannot make an honest and genuine case for the wars they start.

Mises Institute Senior Fellow Dr. Mark Thornton joins Lena Petrova to discuss Federal Reserve policy, rising government debt, and the risks of inflation and recession.

We are told that Americans live under a state that claims “consent of the governed,” but when does the government seek our consent for anything?

Dr. Joseph Salerno unpacks Hayek's 1949 essay "The Intellectuals and Socialism," which explains why the intellectual class is systematically biased toward socialism, and why classical liberals must recover their nerve to counter it.

Dr. David Gordon examines Hayek's reply to Galbraith, "The Non Sequitur of the 'Dependence Effect,'" showing why the claim that advertising-created wants are less "real" would, taken seriously, dismiss all of civilization.

Dr. Jonathan Newman explains Hayek's "The Meaning of Competition," which dismantles the neoclassical "perfect competition" model and recasts competition as a dynamic discovery process.

Dr. Jonathan Newman presents Hayek's "Why the Worst Get on Top", a critique of socialism distinct from the calculation and knowledge problems — showing that collectivism structurally selects the most ruthless for power.

Dr. Mark Thornton presents Hayek's "Choice in Currency," which diagnoses inflation as an ancient superstition revived by Keynes and proposes a radical remedy — letting people freely choose their money — now finding modern expression in cryptocurrency and the return to gold.

Dr. Peter Klein walks through Hayek's landmark 1945 essay "The Use of Knowledge in Society," showing how the price system communicates dispersed knowledge and why that makes comprehensive central planning impossible.

Mark Thornton argues the AI data-center bond boom is the latest techno bubble—cheap-money malinvestment dressed up as a new era.