Recent Podcast Episodes

Mark discusses the latest government economic reports. What can be made of these confusing numbers?

One of the modern progressive buzzwords is "stakeholder capitalism," in which people with no direct connection to a firm somehow have a "stake" in what the firm does. It is an incoherent term.

The recent case of retired megastar Usain Bolt losing millions of dollars to bad investments highlights the importance of sound money management.

Mark Thornton takes a look back at US stock markets, the national debt, and Fed policy.

The government can't return the SS money it stole in the past. It's impossible. That money's gone. Taxing today's workers to "pay back" pensioners is just creating a new group of tax victims. 

For nearly three decades, the Japanese economy has slowly imploded under low interest rates and heavy government debt. It may soon be time to pay the piper.

China has created a crackdown cycle that is hurting the entrepreneurial spirit.

The fact the money supply is actually shrinking serves as just one more indicator that the so-called soft landing promised by the Federal Reserve is unlikely to be a reality. 

Mark discusses the accuracy of the Super Bowl Stock Market Indicator.

While President Joe Biden's White House continues to give happy talk about the economy, some major economic storm clouds are brewing. The future does not look good.

How do societies determine who their heroes are? We know that often those seen as heroes actually made a country worse off.

The empty shopping mall: a story of how government actions created a huge malinvestment in western Pennsylvania.

Jeff Deist and Allen Mendenhall discuss "stakeholder" capitalism and what we can do to push back against ideological purity tests.

Monetary authorities have come up with numerous clever ways of measuring money. However, they are unable even to define money, much less measure it.

Progressives like to claim that "America" has a "gun violence problem." However, the "gun violence problem" happens to exist in places where progressives dominate the government.

Ryan and Tho feel obligated to discuss the State of the Union address.

Americans often have defended the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as regrettable but necessary for ending World War II. The actual record tells us a much different story.

As life expectancy has risen, so have runaway costs. Raising the age won't make Social Security just, prudent, or wise. But cutting federal spending is always the right thing to do. 

In its unending quest for power, the state has no problem traumatizing the innocent.

A recession looks more likely every day, and the latest sign of this is slowing price growth in producer prices. After all, price inflation usually slows as the economy weakens and consumers run out of easy money.