Recent Podcast Episodes

Had Republicans not vastly expanded federal criminal law during the infamous Wall Street prosecutions 40 years ago, lawfare would not have become such a potent political weapon.

One of the important points made by Carl Menger in his 1871 Principles is that people ordinally rank their preferences, valuing some things more than others. While this seems to be a common-sense principle, it actually has important implications for economic theory.

Kamala Harris claims that she simply wants food prices to be lower. However, her de facto price fixing scheme would create food shortages and raise the real price of food. Of course, when that happens, Harris simply will blame capitalism.

In this review of Scott Horton's book, Enough Already, we see that the wars the US has waged for the past quarter century in the Middle East have been a disaster. Millions of deaths and a massive refugee crisis later, the unmistakable verdict is in.

Amy LePore joins Bob to talk about FEMA's poor track record in recent disasters but also going back to Hurricane Katrina.

Yes, college professors are 10-to-1 Democrats over Republicans.

The current civil war on the American right is only the latest chapter in a much older story.

Ryan and Tho examine the role that ideology and interest groups will have on Trump's administration and on his political appointees. 

Episodes that made a difference involved an ideological and philosophical battle about policy and the role of government. That’s what the Mises Institute is all about–we’re in the business of idea bombs.

Our troubles don't stem from quotas, set-asides, and the like. They stem from the presumption that the government should be monitoring discrimination in the first place.

The evidence is quite clear. It really doesn't matter who's in the White House long term. Spending will continue to go up, and they'll be using the tax code to manipulate interest rates.

The iron law of prohibition states that the more you attempt to enforce prohibition, the more dangerous and the more potent the drugs actually become.

Since 1956, few presidential candidates have managed to get more than 51 percent of the vote in national elections.

Even if whole regions of the country vote overwhelmingly against a president, they are still forced to submit to four years of that president’s rule-by-decree.

Lena Petrova interviews Ryan McMaken on World Affairs In Context.

John Maynard Keynes is the best-known economist from the 20th Century, that not being a good thing. At least he was more famous for his success in promoting his views than for his lack of success as an investor. His failures were an extension of his lack of economic understanding.

Contra Marx, the laws of economics are immutable and are the same no matter what historical epoch exists. Economies cannot flourish unless market prices, private property rights, and profits and losses are unhampered.

With Europe moving toward conflict in 1938, a number of economists and other intellectuals met in Paris to try to revitalize liberalism. Ludwig von Mises also was there as a lonely voice defending laissez-faire and the free market economy.

While the US Constitution made the US a large free trade zone, prohibiting states from erecting trade barriers against each other, it also empowered the central government to erect tariffs on goods imported from outside the country. 

Contra Marx, the laws of economics are immutable and are the same no matter what historical epoch exists. Economies cannot flourish unless market prices, private property rights, and profits and losses are unhampered.