Today’s podcast is titled “An Intimate Conversation with Jim Lehrer, Part Two.” Recorded in 2007, Dennis McCuistion, former Clinical Professor of Corporate Governance and Executive Director of the Institute for Excellence in Corporate Governance at the University of Texas at Dallas, continues his interview with Jim Lehrer, anchor and executive editor of PBS’s The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Listen now, and don’t forget to subscribe to get updates each week for the Free To Choose Media Podcast.
The Monopsony Problem: When Government Is the Only Buyer
In our last post, we explored how government spending creates unavoidable trade-offs by redirecting resources from private uses to public ones. Today, let’s examine a specific type of market distortion that makes these trade-offs even more problematic: monopsony. Most people are familiar with monopolies—situations where there’s only one seller of a particular product or service and multiple buyers. But the flip side, monopsony, gets much less attention despite being equally important. A monopsony exists when there’s essentially only one buyer for a particular good or service. In truly free markets, monopsonies are almost impossible to maintain naturally. Imagine if there …
Episode 245 – An Intimate Conversation with Jim Lehrer, Part One (Podcast)
Today’s podcast is titled “An Intimate Conversation with Jim Lehrer, Part One.” Recorded in 2002, Dennis McCuistion, former Clinical Professor of Corporate Governance and Executive Director of the Institute for Excellence in Corporate Governance at the University of Texas at Dallas interviews Jim Lehrer, anchor and executive editor of PBS’s The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer”. Listen now, and don’t forget to subscribe to get updates each week for the Free To Choose Media Podcast.
Melanie Perkins on Turning Wild Dreams into Reality
Building a successful business often starts with what seems like an impossible dream. Melanie Perkins, CEO of Canva, knows this better than most. She transformed a “crazy” idea about democratizing design into a platform now used by over 100 million people monthly and valued at $32.5 billion. In a recent keynote address, which you can watch below, Perkins shares the journey from Canva’s humble beginnings with a team that could fit around one table to becoming a global design powerhouse with 3,300+ employees worldwide. What makes Perkins’ story particularly compelling for entrepreneurs is how she approached the seemingly impossible. She …
Government Spending: The Ultimate Economic Trade-Off
If recent events have taught us anything, it’s that the United States government spends an eye-wateringly large amount of money every year, and it’s not always clear where exactly all that money goes or why. Leaving aside the printing and borrowing of money (for the time being), the main way these gargantuan budgets get funded is through extracting money from other people—that is, taxes. Taxes come in a variety of forms, from income taxes to tariffs and everything in between. Some are baked into consumer pricing (like tariffs), some get automatically drawn from every paycheck (like Social Security withholding), and …
Episode 244 – The Morality of Capitalism (Podcast)
Today’s podcast is titled “The Morality of Capitalism.” Recorded in 2007, Dennis McCuistion, former Clinical Professor of Corporate Governance and Executive Director of the Institute for Excellence in Corporate Governance at the University of Texas at Dallas, Tibor Machan, Hoover Institution research fellow, professor emeritus of philosophy at Auburn University, professor of business ethics at Chapman University, and co-founder of Reason magazine, and Tom Palmer, Senior fellow at the Cato Institute, discuss the morality of capitalism. Listen now, and don’t forget to subscribe to get updates each week for the Free To Choose Media Podcast.
You’re Thinking About the System Incorrectly
“The economy is struggling.” “Capitalism exploits workers.” “The market has decided.” We use phrases like these all the time, and they sound perfectly reasonable. But there’s a linguistic problem hiding in plain sight. We’re talking about abstract concepts as if they were people capable of making decisions and taking action. In our last post in this series exploring what capitalism actually is, we touched on why systems can’t be racist. Only individuals can hold racist beliefs and make racist choices. Today, let’s dig deeper into the economic principle behind that insight, one that fundamentally changes how we understand everything from …
Episode 243 – Examining Income Inequality in America (Podcast)
Today’s podcast is titled “Examining Income Inequality in America.” Recorded in 2007, Dennis McCuistion, former Clinical Professor of Corporate Governance and Executive Director of the Institute for Excellence in Corporate Governance at the University of Texas at Dallas, Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor under President Clinton and professor at UC Berkeley, and Byron Schlomach, chief economist for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, discuss income inequality and the American middle class. Listen now, and don’t forget to subscribe to get updates each week for the Free To Choose Media Podcast.
Why Procrastination Might Be Your Secret Weapon in Business
Every entrepreneur has been there: Staring at a looming deadline, knowing you should have started weeks ago, feeling that familiar wave of guilt about procrastination. What if that guilt is misplaced? What if your tendency to delay might actually be fueling your best ideas? Organizational psychologist Adam Grant discovered this counterintuitive truth after initially passing on investing in what would become Warby Parker—a billion-dollar company. His mistake? Judging the founders’ procrastination as a weakness rather than recognizing it as a creative advantage. In his compelling TED Talk, which you can watch below, Grant reveals research showing that moderate procrastinators consistently …
Is Capitalism Racist?
“Capitalism is structurally racist.” You’ve probably seen this claim in think pieces, academic papers, or social media debates. The argument suggests that capitalism, as an economic system, inherently creates and perpetuates racial inequality. It’s a serious charge that deserves serious examination. But before we dive into whether capitalism promotes or prevents racism, we need to establish something important: racism describes thoughts, feelings, and behaviors—things that only individuals possess. Systems don’t have thoughts, feelings, or behaviors. They don’t possess the agency required to be “racist” or “not racist.” Yes, this might sound like we’re splitting hairs. And no, pointing this out …