Recent Podcast Episodes

While bankruptcy has a negative connotation in the business world, “Bankruptcy fulfills the crucially important social function of preserving the available stock of capital."

Life in American changed twenty years ago after the 9/11 attacks. Many Americans became enraged at anyone who did not swear allegiance to Bush’s antiterrorism crusade.

The federal government, along with pharmaceutical, alcohol, and tobacco companies have spent money trying to put the legalization genie back in the prohibition bottle, so any argument or propaganda will suit their purposes.

Jeff Deist and Allen Mendenhall discuss the academic pretenses and foibles punctured by Kingsley Amis in his seminal send-up of campus life, Lucky Jim.

Many landlords just received a crash course about how irrelevant their property rights are in Washington.

Canadian hospitals operate under fixed budgets dictated by the government. When this tax revenue is depleted before the end of the year, as often happens, new patients are put on a waiting list. This problem isn't getting any better.

In a free, unhampered market, businesspersons in the pursuance of their goals will not require macroeconomic indicators. Entrepreneurs require an entirely different kind of data than what government data provides.

There won't be a taper tantrum if the Fed seriously moves toward tapering. Investors now understand how the game works. Tapering doesn't actually mean the end of monetary inflation, and everyone knows it.

Because people strive to improve their condition, they exchange goods and, in this sense, they create the necessary conditions for the emergence of prices. Prices are simply an unintended consequence of the human quest to improve one's life.

Many Lithuanian politicians are embracing outright segregation of unvaccinated Lithuanians. Fortunately, many Lithuanians are resisting. This fight is not about opposing vaccines, but about protecting basic freedom of choice.

Eleven states ban happy hour. These laws restrict the sale of alcohol at discounted prices during specially designated times. Unfortunately, many citizens regard these backdoor price controls as perfectly legit.

Some think that beer's history of regulation begins with hops, but beer has been hemmed in by government red tape for much longer.

The gold standard supposed a limit to the fiscal voracity of governments, and suspending it unleashed the perverse proclivity of the states toward indebtedness and to pass the current imbalances on to future generations.

Gold was only included in the plans for the Bretton Woods system because of the veneer of solidity it gave.

Bob gives a brief history of money in the United States, explaining that the dollar was much “harder” in, say, 1810 than it was in 1910.

Robert Murphy joins the show for a fascinating look at Mark Spitznagel's new book Safe Haven. If you're interested in the intersection of investing and Austrian economics, don't miss this episode!

In 1971, Nixon used a fiscal crisis to justify severing the dollar's last connection to gold. It was the same old story: "we must vastly expand government power because of a 'crisis.'" The government never gives up these new powers.

The collapse of the monetary order in 1971 reflected the massive dislocations and malinvestment of resources that ultimately turned the decade into one crisis after another. Keynesians are doing something similar today.

Most Egyptians have lived their whole lives in a country where the government heavily subsidizes bread prices. But now the deeply indebted Egyptian state faces some tough choices, and Egypt's poor may suffer the most.