Podcasts about cafe hayek

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Formula for a Shortage, published by Zvi on May 19, 2022 on LessWrong. Previous coverage (not required in any way): Formula For Dying Babies Great Formal Workups of Much of This (Scott Lincicome): America's Infant Formula Crisis and the ‘Resiliency' Mirage. And another from Derek Thompson at The Atlantic. If you want a shorter summary, both of those are excellent. Also, together they fight crime did a podcast. Last week I chronicled that there is a shortage of baby formula, especially specialized baby formula, due to a combination of the same reasons that hold whenever there is a shortage of anything. The playbook never changes. Restrict supply and subsidize demand. Not only do we subsidize demand, we do so via the WIC in a way that forces market consolidation and inflexibility in support. Supply is restricted to begin with in both classic ways, onerous regulatory requirements and outright protectionism via tariffs and quotas, even with those with whom we have free trade agreements. On top of that the FDA is involved. If you're familiar with such dynamics none of this is surprising or all that new. This is written more as a reference post for the future, and for those who are not intimately familiar with how such things work. The memes come easily. There are a few more I saved for later on. I am going over this again, now that the full picture is clear and politicians have made various new insane statements, because the situation is so perfect. It's terrible, in the sense that mothers are panicking and having trouble finding formula to keep their kids alive. I'm quite unhappy about it happening. What I mean is that this is the perfect example of a situation in which all the things our government likes to do combine to create a mysterious completely unnecessary shortage of a vital product via driving out most potential suppliers. Then those forces combine to prevent the problem from being fixed, and those responsible then blame capitalism and corporations for a problem they would have handled quite well if they'd been permitted to do so. The short term crisis began with the Abbott plant in Michigan being shut down and staying shut down for months. It's being reopened now, but it will take six to eight weeks to properly resume production and get it onto store shelves – the FDA expects the situation to improve over the next couple of months. That's the good scenario. FDA Delenda Est So it is reasonable to start with asking what happened with this factory. Why did it take months to reopen a baby formula factory after it was shut down? One guess. That's right. The FDA. They make their priorities very clear, as illustrated in this letter sent to Cafe Hayek. I'm not sure if the FDA spokesperson meant to be this honest in responding to the infant formula shortage: “Our first and foremost priority is ensuring that any recalled product remains off the market and we are working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and manufacturers to ensure that parents have access to alternative, safe infant formula,” the FDA said in a statement to Fox News Digital on Tuesday. As Ian Fillmore put it when sharing the reference: Rephrasing that only slightly, “While we are working to ensure parents have access to infant formula, our first and foremost priority is ensuring that any recalled product remains off the market.” Exactly. The FDA does not exist to get products on the market. It exists to keep products off the market. They have no idea how to get a product to market; that's just not what they do. When the FDA says they are ‘working to get products on the market' it means they are hard at work keeping those same products off the market, but they are also considering doing slightly less of that at some point in the future. No promises. Here's a more official, they-posted-this-on-purpos...

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Formula for a Shortage, published by Zvi on May 19, 2022 on LessWrong. Previous coverage (not required in any way): Formula For Dying Babies Great Formal Workups of Much of This (Scott Lincicome): America's Infant Formula Crisis and the ‘Resiliency' Mirage. And another from Derek Thompson at The Atlantic. If you want a shorter summary, both of those are excellent. Also, together they fight crime did a podcast. Last week I chronicled that there is a shortage of baby formula, especially specialized baby formula, due to a combination of the same reasons that hold whenever there is a shortage of anything. The playbook never changes. Restrict supply and subsidize demand. Not only do we subsidize demand, we do so via the WIC in a way that forces market consolidation and inflexibility in support. Supply is restricted to begin with in both classic ways, onerous regulatory requirements and outright protectionism via tariffs and quotas, even with those with whom we have free trade agreements. On top of that the FDA is involved. If you're familiar with such dynamics none of this is surprising or all that new. This is written more as a reference post for the future, and for those who are not intimately familiar with how such things work. The memes come easily. There are a few more I saved for later on. I am going over this again, now that the full picture is clear and politicians have made various new insane statements, because the situation is so perfect. It's terrible, in the sense that mothers are panicking and having trouble finding formula to keep their kids alive. I'm quite unhappy about it happening. What I mean is that this is the perfect example of a situation in which all the things our government likes to do combine to create a mysterious completely unnecessary shortage of a vital product via driving out most potential suppliers. Then those forces combine to prevent the problem from being fixed, and those responsible then blame capitalism and corporations for a problem they would have handled quite well if they'd been permitted to do so. The short term crisis began with the Abbott plant in Michigan being shut down and staying shut down for months. It's being reopened now, but it will take six to eight weeks to properly resume production and get it onto store shelves – the FDA expects the situation to improve over the next couple of months. That's the good scenario. FDA Delenda Est So it is reasonable to start with asking what happened with this factory. Why did it take months to reopen a baby formula factory after it was shut down? One guess. That's right. The FDA. They make their priorities very clear, as illustrated in this letter sent to Cafe Hayek. I'm not sure if the FDA spokesperson meant to be this honest in responding to the infant formula shortage: “Our first and foremost priority is ensuring that any recalled product remains off the market and we are working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and manufacturers to ensure that parents have access to alternative, safe infant formula,” the FDA said in a statement to Fox News Digital on Tuesday. As Ian Fillmore put it when sharing the reference: Rephrasing that only slightly, “While we are working to ensure parents have access to infant formula, our first and foremost priority is ensuring that any recalled product remains off the market.” Exactly. The FDA does not exist to get products on the market. It exists to keep products off the market. They have no idea how to get a product to market; that's just not what they do. When the FDA says they are ‘working to get products on the market' it means they are hard at work keeping those same products off the market, but they are also considering doing slightly less of that at some point in the future. No promises. Here's a more official, they-posted-this-on-purpos...

In this episode we get to talk with George F. Will about his latest collection of essays, American Happiness and Discontents: The Unruly Torrent, 2008-2020, and also about his magnum opus, The Conservative Sensibility.  Joining in on the conversation are John Tamny, Vice President of FreedomWorks, editor of RealClearMarkets, and author of When Politicians Panicked,  and Don Boudreaux, Professor of Economics at George Mason University, research scholar at Mercatus Center, who runs the go-to blog for free market economic thinking, Cafe Hayek. Always witty and erudite, George offers up his views on today's pressing concerns, queried, challenged and amplified by John and Don, two very smart men.  Among our questions: How and when do Americans recover the liberties lost from over two years of government  lockdowns and mandates?  Why did so many libertarians acquiesce? Public choice theory says that people in government are not any different than people in the private sector. Is this still true? A prosperous and free society depends on trust. Will America's government health establishment be able to recover the public's trust? Can woke progressivism's long march through American institutions be reversed? And more: on families, voting rights, campaign finance, college campus fragility, social media's power, judicial restraint, closed questions in an open society, majority rule, self-regarding versus other regarding acts, China's future … almost everything except baseball. We'll get to that next time. Definitely worth a listen.

Sometimes a policy proposal comes along that is so bad, it has to be intellectually dismantled before it ever sees the light of day. Senator Elizabeth Warren is famous for such plans. Remember her mantra in the 2020 presidential campaign, “I've got a plan for that”? Thankfully, her [Accountable Capitalism Act](https://www.warren.senate.gov/download/accountable-capitalism-act-one-pager) – which would have ended capitalism as we know it – was rejected, along with her candidacy.But now Senator Warren is at it again. This time she is suggesting that inflation, and higher food prices in particular, are a result of "price gouging" by large grocery store companies. Her solution is to crack down on “Big Grocery” with antitrust legislation, claiming that chains like Kroger are earning monopoly profits while ordinary Americans pay the price. There's just one problem: grocery stores operate on razor-thin profit margins, and represent one of the most competitive markets around.Don Boudreaux alerted me to this story on his blog, Cafe Hayek, where I always start my day. He returned to the show to expose the fallacies at the heart of her proposal. Putting aside the more nuanced issue of price gouging (a topic I've covered with Don in the past), I couldn't let Warren's farcical claims about grocery store monopolies go unchallenged. We discussed whether the idea is born of ignorance, mendacity, or some combination of the two.

It's almost two years on from the onset of the Covid virus and we know a lot now that we didn't then. Society should be healing. But we live in vitriolic and partisan times, and widespread disagreement abounds about what it was, what it is, what it isn't and how to cope with it.  Yet to those who understand how economies work, this much seems clear: governments' blunderbuss one-size-fits-all lockdowns and mandates have turned a manageable public health problem into a social, medical and economic catastrophe.  It did not have to be this way. Joining me on this episode to talk about the price we've paid and where we go from here are two of our most independent economic and social thinkers: Donald Boudreaux,  professor of economics at George Mason University, who runs the “go to” blog “Cafe Hayek” which has become a critical resource for facts about Covid and sensible response strategies. And John Tamny, editor of Real Clear Markets, a Forbes Magazine editor and the author of “The End of Work” and “When Politicians Panicked: The New Coronavirus, Expert Opinion, and a Tragic Lapse of Reason”.   John and Don cover a lot of ground: the damage done to our civil liberties, the labor market, the politicization of “science”, the madness of declaring businesses essential or non-essential, supply chains, social media censorship, how lockdowns were used to usher in the new era of mail-in ballots and how rule by experts - think Anthony Fauci - failed.  We needed leadership wise enough to let sensible Americans take the measures we used in every pandemic over the last century. Instead, we got draconian lockdowns and mandates. As Don clarifies, “No doubt, a lot of these people thought they were acting in the best interest of society, but it's completely antithetical to the principles of a free society.” Listen in here as we explore how to recover our Liberty.

Don Boudreaux is the perfect person to address the "you don't have a right to infect others" argument. Don is a professor of economics (among many other accomplishments), and he also has a law degree. So he has quite a lot to say about the nature of "externalities", both from an economic perspective and one grounded in law, and in common-law principles in particular.We also address the question of whether the perpetrators of the devastating lockdowns and other restrictions should be held accountable for the harm they have done via something similar to the Nuremberg trials.And in the end, I think I even manage to cheer him up a little regarding humanity's prospects for the future. Don writes about externalities here....and you can find more of his writings here, or on Cafe Hayek where he blogs regularly.Some of the LA fireworks videos we talk about are posted here.

Russell Roberts is an economist, a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and president designate of Shalem College. He is known for communicating economic ideas in understandable terms as host of the EconTalk podcast. Roberts categorizes himself as a proponent of classical economic liberalism. He has said, "I believe in limited government combined with personal responsibility. So I am something of a libertarian, but . . . that term comes with some baggage and some confusion." Roberts was awarded a B.A. in economics in 1975 from the University of North Carolina and Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago in 1981 for his thesis on the design of government transfer programs under the supervision of Gary Becker. Roberts has previously taught at George Mason University, Washington University in St. Louis (where he was the founding director of what is now the Center for Experiential Learning), the University of Rochester, Stanford University, and the University of California, Los Angeles. He is a regular commentator on business and economics for National Public Radio's Morning Edition, and has written for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Roberts also blogs at Cafe Hayek with Donald J. Boudreaux at George Mason University in Fairfax County, Virginia. Roberts writes and publishes videos on economics, some of which have been viewed millions of times.[16] One of the most widely watched videos is Fear the Boom and Bust, a rap battle between 20th century economists John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich von Hayek.

I ask economics professor and columnist Don Boudreaux what the Hell is going on. He doesn't know either. We commiserate.You can find Don at Cafe Hayek.His article "Why so Gullible About Government in the Face of Covid-19?" is here....and his other recent article, "Covid Collectivism" is here.

Don Boudreaux, GMU economics professor and blogger at Cafe Hayek, talks to us about the origins, purpose, and effects of antitrust laws in this two-part series about antitrust.

A must see and wide ranging conversation about all things economic with Donald Boudreaux, best-selling author, professor of economics at George Mason University who writes the popular blog Cafe Hayek and John Tamny, editor of Real Clear Markets, an editor for Forbes Magazine and the author of “The End of Work” and “They're Both Wrong.”   Even if, or maybe especially, you think economics is too abstract or arcane or harsh, this is a fresh and engaging take that everyone can learn from. I did. Some excerpts:   “Politicians are never very good about taking economic considerations into account when they make policy. They are especially bad at it now, with people frantic over COVID-19, so politicians who don't know much economics, have taken the easy way out, basically putting us all into house arrest, shutting down an incredibly complex system and set of processes for producing goods and services.”   “One of my favorite economists Thomas Sowell said that one of the first laws of economics is that reality is not optional, and the first law of politics is to deny the first law of economics.”   “When politicians declare this job or that job non-essential, they deny the dignity of work, the non-economic and spiritual value of work.”   “One of the beautiful things about the economy is that we all contribute our little small inputs into the larger output.”   “To understand financial markets, the essential thing to know is that capital has to be allocated from people who save it to places where it's productive.”   And my favorite:   “CEOs are like Michael Jordan. We haven't been taught to think of them that way, but when they can bring that kind of value, the advance they can bring to society more broadly is just stunning.”   There's a lot more in this fascinating and, I'm sure to some, controversial conversation and I hope you'll find the time to watch or listen.  

In this interview with Don Boudreaux, GMU economics professor and blogger at Cafe Hayek, we explore policies that are loved by the public but are actually bad: price gouging, rent control, minimum wage, and tariffs. 

Last week I shared my curated COVID-19 reading list, which is keeping me relaxed and confident in my belief that we are overreacting. While we should worry about the incursions of civil and economic freedoms being brought about in response, people like Jacob Sullum of Reason and Jeffrey Tucker of AIER are doing a service by calming people down about the virus itself.Don Boudreaux over at Cafe Hayek also deserves special mention for leading me to most of my trusted sources with his blog's daily links. It's hard to keep up with all of the outstanding writing he's highlighted over the past weeks, including his own increasingly relevant review of Robert Higgs's Crisis and Leviathan for the American Institute for Economic Research, and a must-read article for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on Essential Questions about Essential Medicine.Twitter has reportedly begun to censor non-certified-expert advice on matters related to the coronavirus, so I will limit this Sunday's show to the subject of economics and politics where we are still free to opine (for now). I predict that future economics and political science students will look back in horror at this period – not for the mortality rate, which appears to be marginally higher than an average flu season – but for the acquiescence to draconian restrictions, unprecedented spending, and enlargement of state, local and federal bureaucracy (not to mention the failure of basic functions by the existing apparatus, i.e., FDA).Most media analysis misses what Frédéric Bastiat called “that which is unseen.” Dead bodies being carted away by truck to the morgue is a striking image, and is seen by millions on media loop. Business closures, economic hardship, and looming inflation are harder to see and thus get downplayed in the calculus.Trump's “VERY BIG & BOLD” $2 trillion stimulus produces highly visible benefits in the short-term, but the costs are unseen – postponed to be paid by future generations.Don returned to the show to help me settle the question on all thinking people's minds: is it worth it?Is it worth the loss of liberty?Is it worth trillions in damage to the economy?Is it worth the separation from friends, family, and the myriad economic relationships that have been severed?For the sake of argument, Don and I will assume that the more dire predictions about mortality are true.Join us in asking the hard but important questions on the show of idea - not attitude.

While the COVID-19 scare has forced many businesses to close, politicians around the world are having a field day. The people are scared, and once again seem more than willing to hand over their economic freedom in the name of safety. Ostensibly, the rationale of “lives not livelihoods” is beneath this stripping away of our liberties. It is only “temporary,” we are told – just as the income tax and PATRIOT Act - were merely temporary measures to address extraordinary circumstances of WWII and 9/11 respectively.In a recent piece, “An Epidemic Big Enough to Accommodate Everyone's Wish List,” (3/18/20) Reason.com Senior Editor Jacob Sullum notes how politicians from both parties are using the crisis to advance their agenda. Bernie Sanders is pushing Medicare-for-All, while Trump doubles down on his border wall.In doing so, government is complicit with the mainstream media, which happily spits out the most dire scenarios – reporting on every new case as proof the sky is falling while ignoring new data suggesting that we are overreacting.In response, I have limited my information intake to a select trusted group and am calm, relaxed, optimistic, and comfortable in the conclusions and observations I have made. Being selective has made a profound difference in how I feel about the world and the confidence I have in my own decision making.I invite you to try it. A few important reminders:Newly discovered cases ≠ new casesMainstream media hijacks our emotions to sell us advertisements"Temporary" restrictions on freedom are never temporaryGovernment always thinks about how to expand its power at the expense of the people during times of crisis.So, who should you follow? For starters, try Reason Magazine, Cafe Hayek, American Institute for Economic Research, and The Cato Institute.Jacob Sullum has been particularly prolific – covering all angles of the virus, from the unrealistic worst-case scenarios to the constitutional considerations of banning non-essential business.Jacob joined me for the full hour to discuss whether the aggressive control measure against COVID-19 are worth it. He'll also help explain why politicians – in the words of Rahm Emanuel – “never let a good crisis go to waste.”Jacob's writings over the past few weeks also reveal Governor Andrew Cuomo as the political opportunist par excellence, but he has plenty of competition. To get the complete picture (without the hysteria), join my conversation with Jacob Sullum, and learn my secret to staying sane as a libertarian on lockdown – this Sunday, 8-9am PACIFIC – on the show of ideas, not attitude.

Don Boudreaux is an economist at George Mason University who blogs at Cafe Hayek. He has a long history with the Austrian and Public Choice schools, and is in the trenches daily making the case for free trade. Mentioned in the Episode and Other Links of Interest: The YouTube video (https://youtu.be/yBWDFK-EBIU) of this interview. Don's blog, Cafe Hayek (https://cafehayek.com/) . Don's book, The Essential Hayek (https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/essential-hayek.pdf) . Help support (http://bobmurphyshow.com/contribute)  the Bob Murphy Show. The audio production for this episode was provided by  Podsworth Media (http://podsworth.com/) .

In a rare point of agreement, both the New York Times Editorial Board and the Libertarian Party are criticizing Trump's tariffs.“Tariffs are Taxes that Americans Pay” reads the LP's new bumper sticker slogan.“Trump's Tariffs Are a New Tax on Americans” say the NYT editorial board.Put simply, a tariff is just a tax on imports. There's no getting around the cost to Americans, leading free market economists to observe that imposing tariffs is like poking ourselves in the eye to punish our trading partners.But it goes beyond this. Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary unintentionally made the point about the destructive nature of trade wars during an interview with Nick Gillespie for Reason TV:It's not an understatement when Don Boudreaux calls the trade war a “War on Trade.” O'Leary calls it a “brilliant” move by Trump to pressure Canada to arrest a powerful Chinese national's daughter in Canada to poison relations between the two countries.It was intended, O'Leary suspects, to prevent China from shifting its imports of raw materials from the U.S. to Canada, and it worked.China did halt imports from Canada, but it also retaliated by threatening to KILL two Canadian prisoners.Treachery breeds treachery. This won't end well.What's Wrong with Trumponomics?According to economists like Steve Moore, however, Trump's tariffs could effectively pressure countries like China to stop manipulating their currency. The long-term devaluation of the Yuan has helped spur the domestic economy — especially manufacturing — in China, and some credit the policy with China's overall growth and low unemployment (and simultaneous loss of manufacturing output in the U.S.).Listening to Moore, one can easily get the impression that we are merely experiencing a bump in the road en route to globally free trade.Not everyone is buying it, though.Boudreaux — a senior fellow at the Mercatus Center, GMU economics professor, and curator of the eminently readable Cafe Hayek—doesn't accept the argument that Trump's trade war will lead to “zero-zero” tariffs in the long run.Why not? First, because Trump doesn't indicate any understanding of free trade.Trump exalts “jobs” above the broader metric of prosperity. Boudreaux maintains that exports are costs Americans pay to receive the benefits of imports. In his view, there is no net benefit to having more jobs or industries in areas in which the Chinese have developed a comparative advantage. As he explained to John Stossel, the result of China's currency manipulation is an opportunity for Americans to specialize in more rewarding jobs in the service sector.Don Boudreaux explains the harms of a War on Trade and the benefits to Americans of trade with China.The ironclad Bob Zadek rule of Government intervention holds that whenever government declares “war” to solve a problem, the problem gets worse.The President has somewhat backed off of his tweet “hereby ordering” U.S. companies to stop doing business in China, but he seems stuck in the zero-sum thinking of his economic advisor Peter Navarro, who insists that the U.S. must mirror the mercantilist approach China has chosen to our own destruction.What John Bolton's advice is to foreign policy, Peter Navarro's advice is to trade — a misguided American exceptionalism that puts us a great risk of losing the traditions of peace and free markets that made us great.We also discuss the wisdom (folly?) and (un)constitutionality of executive orders regulating trade under The International Emergency Economic Powers Act.Lastly, I ask Don why conservatives are suddenly embracing a more powerful executive, and aligning themselves with Elizabeth Warren's “economic patriotism.”Do Trump's tax cuts and deregulation measures redeem his economic nationalism?

Donald Boudreaux is an American economist, author, professor, and co-director of the Program on the American Economy and Globalization at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. He is the author of the 2007 and 2012 books Globalization and Hypocrites and Half-Wits, respectively. He contributes a column twice a month to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and contributes to the Cafe Hayek blog. Check out the links, books and resources mentioned in this episode at www.economicrockstar.com/donaldboudreaux

Ron and Ed are thrilled to interview Donald Boudreaux. Prof. Boudreaux is an economist, author, professor, and co-director of the Program on the American Economy and Globalization at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Boudreaux was an Assistant Professor of Economics at George Mason University from 1985 to 1989. He was an Associate Professor of Legal Studies and Economics at Clemson University from 1992 to 1997, and President of the Foundation for Economic Education from 1997 to 2001. He is now Professor of Economics at George Mason University, where he served as chairman of the Economics Department from 2001 to 2009. His blog, Cafe Hayek, is considered must reading but both Ron and Ed.

Ron and Ed are thrilled to interview Donald Boudreaux. Prof. Boudreaux is an economist, author, professor, and co-director of the Program on the American Economy and Globalization at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Boudreaux was an Assistant Professor of Economics at George Mason University from 1985 to 1989. He was an Associate Professor of Legal Studies and Economics at Clemson University from 1992 to 1997, and President of the Foundation for Economic Education from 1997 to 2001. He is now Professor of Economics at George Mason University, where he served as chairman of the Economics Department from 2001 to 2009. His blog, Cafe Hayek, is considered must reading but both Ron and Ed.

Ron and Ed are thrilled to interview Donald Boudreaux. Prof. Boudreaux is an economist, author, professor, and co-director of the Program on the American Economy and Globalization at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Boudreaux was an Assistant Professor of Economics at George Mason University from 1985 to 1989. He was an Associate Professor of Legal Studies and Economics at Clemson University from 1992 to 1997, and President of the Foundation for Economic Education from 1997 to 2001. He is now Professor of Economics at George Mason University, where he served as chairman of the Economics Department from 2001 to 2009. His blog, Cafe Hayek, is considered must reading but both Ron and Ed.

Russ Roberts has taught at George Mason University, Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Rochester, Stanford University, and the University of California, Los Angeles. He is a regular commentator on business and economics for National Public Radio's Morning Edition and has written for the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.   Roberts also blogs at Cafe Hayek with Donald J. Boudreaux at George Mason University in Fairfax County, Virginia. He published the novel The Invisible Heart which conveys economic ideas in the context of a narrative. In 2008, Roberts released another novel, The Price of Everything, which addresses concepts such as spontaneous order, price gouging, and market economics in crisis situations.   Roberts’ podcast EconTalk is carried by The Library of Economics and Liberty and is a weekly talk show features one-on-one discussions with an eclectic mix of authors, professors, Nobel Laureates, entrepreneurs, leaders of charities and businesses, and people on the street. The emphases are on using topical books and the news to illustrate economic principles. Exploring how economics emerges in practice is a primary theme.   Russ’s Challenges; Try to think about your own biases and be aware of what you’re doing subconsciously. AND realize economics is not about money. Economics is about flourishing, choices and resources.   Book Recommendations Individualism and Economic Order by F.A. Hayek Fooled By Randomness by Nassim Taleb The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman The Path to Power by Robert A. Caro   Referenced Media Jonathan Haidt-Tyler Cowen Conversation   Connect with Russ   russroberts@gmail.com   If you liked this interview, check out episode 77 with Steve Patterson where we discuss philosophy and breaking away from academic institutions.

Most people tune out when academics speak in terms of regression analysis and ?agent-based modeling.? Nonetheless, we want to understand the long-term economic trends that these methods seek to illuminate in order to plan for the future. Don Boudreaux is a master of making complex economic ideas comprehensible to the layperson. He provides this service free of charge every day for the thousands of visitors to his blog, Cafe Hayek (currently down due to a malicious hacking attack). Boudreaux?s short but powerful letters to the editor are the stuff of any libertarian?s dreams ? the equivalent of a Total Knock Out in boxing. The larger battle for economic freedom is not fought solely in public discussion forums like the WSJ editorial page ? it?s being waged in academic journals and in the academic marketplace of ideas. Boudreaux recently edited the Fraser Institute?s *What America?s Decline in Economic Freedom Means for Entrepreneurship and Prosperity,* a volume of five essays, each thick with research that Don discusses with Bob and his audience. Find out whether it?s too late for America to change course.

Don Boudreaux of George Mason University and Cafe Hayek talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the intellectual legacy of Ronald Coase. The conversation centers on Coase's four most important academic articles. Most of the discussion is on two of those articles, "The Nature of the Firm," which continues to influence how economists think of firms and transaction costs, and "The Problem of Social Cost," Coase's pathbreaking work on externalities.

Don Boudreaux of George Mason University and Cafe Hayek talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the intellectual legacy of Ronald Coase. The conversation centers on Coase's four most important academic articles. Most of the discussion is on two of those articles, "The Nature of the Firm," which continues to influence how economists think of firms and transaction costs, and "The Problem of Social Cost," Coase's pathbreaking work on externalities.

Don Boudreaux of George Mason University and Cafe Hayek talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the intellectual legacy of Ronald Coase. The conversation centers on Coase's four most important academic articles. Most of the discussion is on two of those articles, "The Nature of the Firm," which continues to influence how economists think of firms and transaction costs, and "The Problem of Social Cost," Coase's pathbreaking work on externalities.