Episodes

  • Episode 236: Bond Vigilantes, Bad Chart Readers, and False Prophets

    Episode 236: Bond Vigilantes, Bad Chart Readers, and False Prophets
    May 29 2025
    Is the U.S. bond market rejecting the fiscal state of the country? Is it declaring doom and gloom? Is it begging us not to do this “big, beautiful bill”? Or, is the fiscal state of the country deeply troubled? Is the new bill a big disappointment, but the bond market is saying no such thing (for reasons you deserve to understand)? In this very important Capital Record, David makes the argument that those wrongly declaring some form of bond market revolt are hurting the cause of fiscal reform, undermining credibility, and making it harder for the real needs we have to be addressed. This rejection of crying wolf comes at a very important time for this woefully managed country!
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    18 mins
  • Episode 235: SPAC Attack and Market Basics

    Episode 235: SPAC Attack and Market Basics
    May 22 2025
    Financial innovations are demonized all the time, and perhaps David should be grateful because a low regard for capital markets is what motivated the creation of this podcast. But today he looks at SPACs and the criticisms of them as an example of how fallacious defense of central planning works. He makes the case that protection against fraud is one thing, but protection against loss is another. And ultimately, he makes the case that a system of robust financial markets has gains and losses, and that is a good thing.
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    19 mins
  • Episode 234: Markets Are Not Imposed by Politics

    Episode 234: Markets Are Not Imposed by Politics
    May 20 2025
    There was a time conservatives all knew this, but the new right's fatal flaw is not just in the application -- the perpetual desire for more state intervention -- but rather in the very nature of things that they get wrong. Markets are not created by the state, but rather by voluntary, organic human interaction. David unpacks the relevance of this basic creational, economic, and yes, moral message, in today’s Capital Record.
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    13 mins
  • Episode 233: Conservative vs. Libertarian Economics

    Episode 233: Conservative vs. Libertarian Economics
    May 13 2025
    Populism seems to be the driving force of the new right’s economic philosophy. The new right has said that they want to take on “libertarian” economics and “free market orthodoxy.” Others have said that “libertarian economics is the same thing as conservative economics” (i.e., laissez-faire, low tax, low regulation, etc.). David suggests the need of the hour is not just more precise definitions, but a truly robust understanding of conservative economics -- one that goes where libertarianism didn’t, and goes where populism simply can’t.
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    19 mins
  • Episode 232: Protectionism vs. Free Enterprise

    Episode 232: Protectionism vs. Free Enterprise
    May 8 2025
    David takes on the idea that protectionism and globalization are chief rivals, and instead suggests that the chief rival of protectionism is free enterprise itself. He critiques Joe Nocera’s recent Free Press article suggesting that the protectionists have been vindicated, and instead suggests that the entire protectionist agenda is essentially the plight of the central planner. A careful critique of the tariff dogma, combined with a non-revisionist view of what has transpired in trade and culture over the last few decades!
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    24 mins
  • Episode 231: When Engagement Is Enjoyable and Valuable

    Episode 231: When Engagement Is Enjoyable and Valuable
    May 6 2025

    How One Family Aims to Break Liberals' Corporate Voting Power
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    17 mins
  • Episode 230: Transparency for Thee but Not for Me

    Episode 230: Transparency for Thee but Not for Me
    May 1 2025
    As the Trump administration and Amazon/Bezos almost duked it out over the “shocking” idea of disclosing the impact to prices from taxes on imports, those of us seeking to understand economic application out of cogent economic theory were given a great chance to relearn some lessons from master himself, Friedrich Hayek. It turns out price discovery is important in economics for the same reason transparency is important in political theory -- and this ought to be a very non-partisan belief!
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    15 mins
  • Episode 229: Two Ways to Hurt the Working Class

    Episode 229: Two Ways to Hurt the Working Class
    Apr 24 2025

    Veronique De Rugy’s phenomenal article
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    17 mins