Cato Podcast

The pandemic has shown us that there is a price to be paid for failing to understand economic consequences. Ryan Bourne catalogs many of the missteps in his new book, Economics in One Virus: An Introduction to Economic Reasoning through COVID-19. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Islamic thinkers once inspired great Western thinkers. How can Islam fully embrace respect for science, reason, liberty, and other religions? Mustafa Akyol is author of Reopening Muslim Minds. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Local efforts at criminal justice reform can be preempted by state-level edict. How should states and localities work to get along? Rachel Elise Barkow, author of Prisoners of Politics, comments. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The authorizations that have enabled two decades of American-led war across the globe should be repealed. Congress may finally agree. Gene Healy and John Glaser explain why. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Biden administration hopes to spend trillions of new dollars on public infrastructure, and while it's at it, massively subsidize private infrastructure. Cato's Chris Edwards says it's utterly unnecessary. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act has a new piece of would-be reform legislation, though the proposal highlights just how hard it is to do content moderation at scale. Mike Masnick of techdirt and Cato's Will Duffield comment. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Understanding what systemic racism is requires an understanding of what it isn't. Jonathan Blanks of The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity details a few important distinctions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What does a former cop think about qualified immunity? Sonia Pruitt is head of The Black Police Experience. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Pollsters got it wrong again in 2020, underestimating support for Donald Trump and Republicans more broadly. How are they going to get it right? Emily Ekins discusses the theories. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The people who set the prices for a lot of Medicare-funded services point out many of the problems that leads Michael Cannon to conclude that the behemoth of government health care provides "junk" coverage. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Big players expanding telehealth offerings while a great deal of state regulation is temporarily suspended might mean a vast expansion of telehealth offerings going forward. Jeff Singer comments. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

California's poverty is dramatically more stark than in other states. Delivering on an inclusive economic recovery from a pandemic means addressing several underlying policy problems. Michael Tanner comments ahead of his conference in April. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Biden administration has ways to make good on pledges to treat young people crossing the border fairly. David Bier comments. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rick Perlstein's Reaganland: America's Right Turn 1976-1980 details a downtrodden GOP approaching irrelevance ahead of the surprising resurgence of Ronald Reagan. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stupid wars go back a long time, but the idea that war is stupid is relatively new. John Mueller explores the modern idea in The Stupidity of War. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When will President Biden withdraw all support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen? Does Joe Biden own the war in Afghanistan if he doesn’t stick to the current timeline for U.S. departure? Democratic Representative Ro Khanna of California discusses the Biden foreign policy so far. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fifty years ago this month, a group of anti-war activists broke into the FBI and revealed terrible crimes committed by that agency under the secrecy of COINTELPRO. Patrick Eddington details the history. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do judges feel undue influence from libertarian legal scholars? Sheldon Whitehouse may believe that's the case, and he'd like to change the way groups like the Cato Institute are allowed to engage with the judiciary. Ilya Shapiro comments. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A year after Louisville police killed Breonna Taylor, what's changed? Peter Kraska is a policing researcher at Eastern Kentucky University who worked on the Taylor case. He comments on police reform efforts now underway. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's easy to want to throw the book at someone who's engaged in some egregious conduct, but it's harder to understand what even seemingly minor punishments entail. Author and criminal justice scholar John Pfaff discusses the incentives inherent in the way criminal justice is carried out in America. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Trump administration made extensive use of national security justifications for restricting trade. It's time for the law that allows it to go. Inu Manak and Scott Lincicome comment. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Should online platforms get blamed for criminal behavior that occurs online, even when police fail to act? Will Duffield comments. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How governments have opted to distribute COVID-19 vaccines leaves a lot to be desired. And precisely what does the end of this pandemic look like? Comedian Andrew Heaton guest hosts in a conversation with Jeff Singer. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The last days of the Trump Administration saw an attack on the Capitol and an historic second impeachment for a sitting President. For Republicans who voted to bring that President to trial, what now? Republican Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler offers her thoughts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The domestic politics of global supply chains are full of unfortunate incentives even now, when the stakes are historically high. Scott Lincicome comments. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Texans are still dealing with the aftermath of that recent deep freeze. Peter Van Doren breaks down the relevant facts and provides some early economic analysis. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

America's longest war, Afghanistan, continues. Joe Biden has a unique opportunity to end it once and for all, thanks in part to Trump Administration efforts to shorten U.S. involvement. Doug Bandow and Will Ruger comment.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

An amalgam of proposals from Democrats would strictly regulate online speech, and make more costly other forms of public communication on policy issues. Will Duffield comments on the proposal. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Supreme Court created and has long supported a tortured reading of federal law that helps public officials escape accountability for violating your rights. That may be changing in a small way. Still, Clark Neily and Jay Schweikert argue that qualified immunity will continue to protect malicious public officials until lawmakers step in to fix it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Some in the conservative legal movement view Trump's (and Mitch McConnell's) success at confirming judges as simply not worth the rest of the Trump presidency. Billy Easley, a senior policy advisor at Americans for Prosperity, is one of them. His new Libertarianism.org essay is entitled, “The Myth of Trump’s Judicial Success." Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Statistics are typically meant to influence, and influence can be achieved with bad statistics. Tim Harford tries to help you discern truth from fiction in The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why do so few defendants get their day in court? Kevin Ring of FAMM discusses The Vanishing Trial. You may also host a screening of the film. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

State budgets didn't suffer the fate that was so widely predicted as COVID-19 began spreading throughout the U.S. Why? Logan Kolas of the Buckeye Institute and Chris Edwards comment. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

State budgets didn't suffer the fate that was so widely predicted as COVID-19 began spreading throughout the U.S. Why? Logan Kolas of the Buckeye Institute and Chris Edwards comment. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When species recover, the feds should remove them from the Endangered Species List. But that's not how it often works. Jonathan Wood of the Property and Environment Research Center comments. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Despite a Supreme Court ruling nudging states in the other direction, Indiana is continuing its fight to lay excessive fines over small-time drug crimes. Sam Gedge with the Institute for Justice is representing Tyson Timbs against Indiana. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The minimum wage debate is rekindled as the Biden Administration plans its push for $15 an hour. Chris Edwards and Ryan Bourne discuss the side-effects and drawbacks. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tom Firey and Will Yeatman offer the soberest of sober assessments of the Trump regulatory record and a few thoughts on what's in store from Team Biden. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The second impeachment trial for Donald Trump ended up considerably more bipartisan than the last one, but “Citizen Trump" was nonetheless acquitted. So, have Republicans helped set a kind-of precedent by not issuing a conviction? Gene Healy dissects the trial. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield are the icons better known for Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Now they're focusing their notoriety on ending qualified immunity. Ben, Jerry, and Cato's Jay Schweikert comment on the campaign to end the powerful, court-invented doctrine that shields public officials from accountability. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

U.S. Marshals sometimes act like local police, but with more violence and less accountability. That's according to a new investigation led by the Marshall Project. Reining it in is no easy task, according to co-author Simone Weichselbaum. And the Marshals, like other federal cops, regularly deputize local cops. That makes accountability for misconduct even more difficult, according to Patrick Jaicomo, an attorney at the Institute for Justice. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"Fusionism," something of an ideological nonaggression pact between libertarians and conservatives, has fallen on hard times. Can it be reborn? Stephanie Slade of Reason discusses her new article on the subject. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The President's second impeachment trial begins with most Republicans agreeing that the whole proceeding is a "sham" and is unconstitutional. Gene Healy describes the arguments. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The fight over leadership at Bogazici University in Turkey again shows how fragile academic freedom can be. Mustafa Akyol comments. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The conflation of human trafficking and sex work is both destructive and counterproductive, and the Super Bowl offers another opportunity to end myths surrounding sex work. Sex worker advocate Kaytlin Bailey comments. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stuart Ritchie is author of Science Fictions: How Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype Undermine the Search for Truth. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Trump Administration rushed more than a dozen federal executions in its final months, but the death penalty itself is now historically unpopular even among conservatives. Hannah Cox with Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty discusses the broad trend away from support for one form of state-sanctioned killing. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How free should law enforcement feel to make use of new investigative technology without permission from political authorities? Matthew Feeney and Patrick Eddington discuss facial recognition tech in the wake of last month's Capitol attack. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How will regulating stock trades change following last week's big short squeeze executed by retail traders? Jennifer Schulp and Matthew Feeney comment. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There are plenty of fingers pointing after a wild week on Wall Street that left hedge funds bloodied, traders exuberant, members of Congress signaling support for whoever the good guys might be, and trading platforms in a well-earned PR bind. Jennifer Schulp comments. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.