Recent Podcast Episodes

The Left has often claimed that privatization is a neoliberal scam. But actual experience suggests privatization schemes have improved access to goods and services while raising productivity and real incomes.

Six hundred dollars, two thousand, or how about one million per person? How much money should a government give its people to get the wheels of commerce turning again?

There's no reason to assume 2021 will bring a reversal of 2020's trends. Many of the fights that began in 2020 are likely to intensify in the new year. 

The aims of the WEF are not to plan every aspect of production and thus to direct all individual activity. Rather, the goal is to limit the possibilities for individual activity—by dint of squeezing out industries and producers within industries from the economy.

Deficits still matter, largely because they require monetary policies that lead to bubbles, inequality, and the slow Japanization of the US economy. 

Tom Woods joins us for a special year-end show to make the case for becoming a serious reader in 2021!

Ideally, political elites would like nothing more than state-sponsored ethnic conflict. Having multiple groups pitted against each other in petty political squabbles makes effective opposition against the managerial class virtually impossible.

Murray Rothbard wrote, “The rate of interest is the price of ‘time.’” It’s safe to say the world’s central banks have manipulated and mispriced what time is worth.

Yes, capitalism is more efficient than socialism, but to build a compelling argument for free market capitalism, defenders of liberty must also articulate that it is a superior moral system.

There are ominous signs on the horizon that governments want to move toward mandating "socially responsible investing" for pensions and fund managers. This is a terrible idea, to say the least. 

What does "the consent of the governed" mean? In 2020, 53 percent of US residents either voted for someone other than Trump or Biden, or didn’t vote at all. It also means about 75 percent of the population did not vote for Biden. 

The attorneys for Betsy Fresse have filed a lawsuit claiming that Starbucks fired her for not wearing a “Pride” shirt while working at her New Jersey store.

The Boston Tea Party was an opening act in what came to be a violent culture war and war of national liberation. And it helps us understand how America in 2020 could become as bitterly divided as America during the revolution.

Joe Biden says: "I will work as hard for those who didn't vote for me as those who did." Does anyone actually believe that?

MacMillan's book provides many insights into the true vileness of war, although she strays into some dangerous areas when she accepts the faulty economic notion that wars bring economic benefits through government spending.

Recently Tim Poole alluded to the so-called “shopping cart theory” of why self-governance is impossible. Bob explains what’s wrong with this argument.

Market progress through entrepreneurship and innovation means increased production. In a world of scarcity, that benefits all of us in society. That makes it a positive-sum game.

Mario Rizzo is a professor in the Department of Economics at NYU–where he was Bob’s dissertation chair. He talks about how he found the Austrian School and his own contributions to economics.

Ryan McMaken and Tho Bishop debate whether Ebenezer Scrooge's words and actions teach us important economic truths, or if he's just an ignorant crank.