Episode 34 – Julian Simon (Podcast)
With a human population larger than any point in history, we are consuming more natural resources than at any point in history. So, how can we ever expect to maintain this pace without running out of resources? As it turns out, the people who seriously sound these alarm bells are forgetting one thing. Throughout history, bigger problems have produced bigger solutions. Had those initial problems never arisen, neither would have the solutions. As noted scholar Julian Simon put it, “We need our problems. In some fundamental way we need bigger and better problems. That’s not to say we should run …
Dead Wrong® with Johan Norberg – Did Tariffs Industrialize the U.S.? (VIDEO)
Episode 33 – Culture War (Podcast)
What is liberalism? What is conservatism? The divide between the two opposing ideologies has widened recently, but why? It may have to do with the two sides not only believing that they are right, but believing they have the duty to impose their views on the other half. We’ve moved from an era from which politics and religion were separate. Now, we are walking the border of politics becoming religion. Will that shift result in a culture war, or are we already there? As theologian Dr. Kenneth Craycraft Sr. puts political ideology in terms of religion, “The problem is that …
Dead Wrong® with Johan Norberg – Oxfam Gets it Wrong Again (VIDEO)
Episode 32 – Consumer Behavior (Podcast)
Humans are irrational beings. Choices differ from person to person, and even from lab experiments to the real world. So, with all that differentiation, how can economists expect to understand how market forces will impact the decisions that individuals make? It turns out that most individuals go about making decisions the same way, but the results of these decisions vary wildly. Nobel laureate Gary Becker attempts to explain how that process works, “To me, maximizing utility simply means the following: that consumers can order all the opportunities they have available to them…possible choices. They can order them so they prefer …
Dead Wrong® with Johan Norberg – How to Fight a Trade War (VIDEO)
Episode 31 – High Cost of Bad Science (Podcast)
The vast majority of people agree that we should be doing what we can to help protect the environment, but are we doing it the right way? Regulations may be based in science, but they’re created by bureaucrats with only one singular focus. Whose job is it to look at the impact of these regulations on a larger scale? And is the situation being presented in a way to intentionally scare the public? Dr. Walter Williams would say so, as well as professor of environmental science Dr. Fred Singer, “We have in the federal government, agencies that look at things …
Dead Wrong® with Johan Norberg – Do Voters Reward Political Pandering? (VIDEO)
Episode 30 – The Federal Reserve Myth (Podcast)
The Federal Reserve was originally created to bring stability to our financial and monetary system. However, despite multiple failures, it has widely escaped criticism. There is a myth that the Fed is there to protect us. But upon closer inspection, does it? If you ask Nobel laureate Dr. James Buchanan, the answer is clear, “The Fed more or less just inherited this legacy of being a monopoly in control of a monetary institution. It’s not a constitutional body. It has never been explicitly examined legislatively. And yet it gets away with all this without any criticism because the criticism is …