Recent Podcast Episodes

From backstage, the New Deal was an incredible confusion, unable, as Mr.

Where did Benjamin Strong - head of the Fed - come from? Rothbard continues to reveal the individuals who shaped our world and wars. Morgan's empire brought us the irrational and useless WWI. Foreign policy today rests upon this Morgan outlook.

State dominated cartels used intellectuals as apologists for the government. Big unionism was to transmit orders to the working class. Public utilities were government monopolies for fifty year terms, run without any checks by the public. It is the function of government to run everything.

The progressive period saw a re-alliance of church and state - secularized extreme Pietism (Protestant sects) with government as savior by intervening in markets. The Pure Food and Drug Act was a prototype for the whole progressive movement toward purity of body, mind and soul.

When pietists shift to the Republican party, they form the progressive movement of 1900-1920. Rockefeller- McKinley forms alliances with power brokers like Kuhn, Loeb & Co., and Harriman (versus the Morgans).

Economics is a constant fight between the market and the government. The railroad cartel did not work against the free market even with ideal conditions. Airlines were tightly regulated until the small airlines began to compete in quality. Deregulation followed.

The Sherman Act outlawed restraint of trade. The Clayton Act added to that. Anti-Trust hysteria came in the 1940-50s. Whatever you did would be considered monopolistic. The charges didn't come from consumers, they came from whining competitors.

Rockefeller's Standard Oil created a monopoly in kerosene refining by buying others out. A huge drop in the price of fuel followed, benefiting consumers, due to production efficiencies. Rothbard then discusses pietists, prohibitionists and the big political shift of 1896.

The railroads experienced both enormous growth and enormous government intervention. Land was closed off from settlement, causing farmers to oppose the privileged railroads. Markets were skewed. Waste and inefficiencies were high.

How does government intervene in the economy? What are the consequences? What are the motivations behind passing these interventions? The lives of the people involved explain why they do these things.

International trade routes revealed comparative advantages of the different shippers, whether New England or British. Merchants dealt with shippers with whom they had a history. Knowing market conditions was easier for local merchants. Crews were paid less in their home ports.

The Virginia Resolves said Virginia citizens should not obey the Stamp Acts. Intimidation of the tax collectors effectively nullified the Act. Colonialists felt that the Crown had violated their relationship. The Intolerable Acts were the final straw. They stated their grievances in the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.

Mises illustrates his case with a review of the fall of Germany, from the collapse of classical liberalism to the rise of nationalism and socialism

Colonial governments tried to manipulate the Spanish peso when they couldn't control the commodity monies. They increased the supply of pesos (inflation) and encouraged exports. Prices increased until the process was banned.

The private property method of settlement was more successful than the public method. But, moving people to the new world was difficult while life in Europe was better. Thus, indentured servants were a large group second only to religious refugees.

The Americans successfully used the different tactic guerilla warfare against the staid and rigid British soldiers. War caused a large increase in the paper money supply - the Continental -  triggering hyperinflation and loss of purchasing power.

Salutary neglect of the colonies spurred innovation and abundance in a spirit of freedom. Bitterness crept into the relationship after the French and Indian War when the British kept colonialists out of certain territories and began taxing them internally and increased tariffs.

If composers could set still-unmatched records of productivity without copyrights while earning a living, writers could do this in an environment t

In Ayn Rand and the World She Made Heller goes to bat for Rand as a fiction writer. Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right by Jennifer Burns is a poorer book because it is confused.

The Industrial Revolution and the development of the modern banking system were the two big things that happened in the Eighteenth Century in Britain. Why does the boom-bust cycle emerge? Is the cycle just a natural part of industry, or is it caused by the banking system?