The Human Action Podcast

We've all heard about negative interest rates, but we may not really understand how and why they arises in recent years. Here to explain is our returning guest Dr. Patrick Barron, a longtime professor in the graduate school of banking at the University of Wisconsin. How and why would interest rates ever be negative, when everyone prefers current consumption to future consumption? Can the "natural" or market rate of interest ever be negative? What going on in Europe that would make negative-rate government and corporate bonds attractive to investors? Will the ECB be forced to raise rates back into positive territory if Janet Yellen continues to raise the Fed Funds Rate here in the US? And will Congress resist steady rate hikes that could radically spike its annual budget outlay for debt service?

Our last show for 2016 is bittersweet, featuring a lecture by our great friend and Senior Fellow Ralph Raico. Dr. Raico, who died earlier this month, was an intellectual giant known for his brilliant — and often revisionist — understanding of history. Speaking at Mises University in 2009, Dr. Raico delivered a witty and razor-sharp exposition of what liberalism really means. We know you'll find it worthwhile to spend an hour during this holiday weekend with the great mind of Ralph Raico.

As our great friend Dr. Bob Murphy said on an earlier show, knowledge of economics is necessary—but not sufficient—to be be a good investor. A new book entitled 'Austrian School for Investors' (https://mises.org/P11022), co-authored by our guest, Ronald Stöferle, bridges the gap between understanding the economy and understanding how to invest money, in a highly readable and succinct format. The book's co-authors are all economists and financial professionals, versed in both worlds. And, they've written a very different kind of investment book, one that doesn't tout stocks, sectors, industries, or complex timing strategies. It doesn't recommend specific equities or bonds. Instead, it's a fantastic primer on Austrian economics and its application to financial markets. By understanding money, value, interest rates, business cycles, and capital from an Austrian perspective, the smart investor knows far more about fundamentals than many fund managers and investment advisers. Most of those managers and advisers are dangerously ignorant of monetary policy, and don't understand inflation—so they're stuck trying to time booms and busts. This book won't only change the way you look at making money, but how you look at Austrian economics itself.

Statistics issued by the federal government about the economy—from CPI to GDP—are fake, and our guest John Williams of Shadowstats.com explains how and why. John is a vocal critic of modern economic reporting, which is manipulated to make the economy appear stronger than it is. So, he devoted his professional life to telling the real story, through statistics he painstakingly compiles himself. And, his statistics paint an alarming picture: virtually all "growth" in the US economy since the Crash of '08 has been artificially engineered by the Fed, while the risk of debt contagion has increased. Jeff and John discuss the "Fed tax," what a radical increase in the monetary base means for your financial future, and whether Janet Yellen will be forced to resort to more QE in 2017. This is a must-hear interview if you're interested in sober economic reality.

The western media's fawning treatment of Fidel Castro demonstrates the enduring mystique of socialism-- while recent Harvard and Rasmussen polls suggest that perhaps half of young Americans hold unfavorable attitudes toward capitalism. No matter how many millions perish in collectivist bloodbaths, the Left remains committed to its ideology of radical egalitarianism and enamored of murderous revolutionary figures like Che Guevara. Our great friend Yuri Maltsev, a victim of Soviet totalitarianism in his youth, joins us to explain how and why westerners still don't understand what socialism really means. He recounts his many trips to Cuba, and demolishes the myths surrounding that country's vaunted "healthcare" and "education" systems. He explains how socialism actually produces a superclass of elites and a form of socio-economic apartheid, rather than egalitarian nirvana. And he reminds us that the romantic vision held by western elites is best defeated by those who have lived through the ravages of collectivism firsthand.

Justin Raimondo, editorial director of Antiwar.com, joins Jeff for a great discussion of what Trump's election really means for libertarians. Does 2016 mark the end of globalism's inevitability, or are Brexit and Trump mere speed bumps for progressive elites? Does Trump represent a real threat to the War Party, or will he succumb to neoconservative control over foreign policy? What are the best-case and worst-case scenarios for libertarians in the first year of a Trump administration, and will his cabinet picks contain any happy surprises? Nobody is better suited to untangle the Trump uprising than the no-holds barred Mr. Raimondo. Stay tuned. How We Will Win by Justin Raimondo: http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2016/11/15/how-we-will-win/

Jeff Deist and James Rickards to discuss 'The Road to Ruin', his latest book outlining what financial elites have planned for the next financial crisis. Rickards highlights a number of policy tools governments and central bankers have created for themselves, and points to their handling of recent crises in Cypress and Greece bail-in approach as patterns for the rest of the world. But, with the Federal Reserve and their peers around the world still unable to normalize their balance sheets following 2008, the real question is: “who is going to bail out the central banks?” Jeff and Jim discuss the answer to that question—and how people can protect themselves—in an interview you won’t want to miss.

On this week's Mises Weekends, Jeff Deist is joined by Allen Mendenhall of the Blackstone & Burke Center for Law and Liberty (http://allenmendenhall.com/the-blackstone-center) to discuss the aftermath of Donald Trump's surprising victory in this week's presidential election. Jeff and Allen discuss questions such as: Will Trump's election genuinely transform American politics? Why aren't progressives cheering the Republican Party being led by a cosmopolitan New York City protectionist? And, should libertarians celebrate the defeat of the Bush and Clinton political dynasties? Plus, Allen gives his analysis of Trump's proposed Supreme Court justices, and whether the importance of the Supreme Court is overstated by conservatives and libertarians.

On Mises Weekends this week, Jeff Deist joins Andy Duncan of the Fin Tales podcast (finlingo.com/podcast) to talk about next week's Presidential election. Going beyond the electoral horse race, Jeff and Andy also discuss the impact each candidate could have on the Federal Reserve, gold prices, and US foreign policy.

Our guest this weekend is Nomi Prins, a prolific writer and speaker on the subjects of central banking, financial markets, and Wall Street cronyism. She is a former managing director at Goldman Sachs and Bear Stearns, but left investment banking to speak out against what she perceives as global financial malfeasance by commercial, investment, and central banks. Nomi is a dedicated progressive who supported Bernie Sanders, but she's also a harsh critic of the Fed and sympathetic to Austrian depictions of malinvestment and artificially-created bubbles. Nomi and Jeff discuss the role of central banks in creating an unworthy financial elite, the revolving door between the Treasury Department, the Fed, and banks like Goldman Sachs, how the Fed is necessarily and unavoidably political, how central banks historically have financed interventionist wars, and how the Fed could be the great populist issue that further unravels the Left/Right paradigm. Learn more about Nomi at NomiPrins.com

Even well-read fans of Austrian economics often have a hard time understanding and conceptualizing what the Fed really does. So we asked our good friend Dr. Jeffrey Herbener to join us and make sense of it all. We cover the basic blocking and tackling of central bank mechanics: how commercial bank reserves are created, the difference between the monetary base and the money supply, and how the Fed Funds rate impacts lending and the structure of production. We consider how Austrian business cycle theory describes the distortions created by artificially low interest rates, and how interest rates ought to operate as price signals. Finally, we discuss how early recipients of newly created money and credit benefit in ways that ordinary citizens don't. This show is a great primer on the Fed from an Austrian perspective. 'Modern Money Mechanics: A Workbook on Bank Reserves and Deposit Expansion' is available at https://www.community-exchange.org/docs/ModernMoneyMechanics.pdf

Lew Rockwell, Chairman and Founder of the Mises Institute, delivered a moving message at our event in Boston, last week. Entitled "Our Prospects are Bright", Lew's talk serves to remind us that the future of true liberalism was much darker during the life of Ludwig von Mises. For most of the 20th century, only a handful of libertarian activists existed. Today, millions around the world interact and spread the message using digital platforms that would have been unthinkable even when Mises died in the early 1970s. Our ideas grow in popularity, while the tired Democrats and Republicans struggle to maintain legitimacy and relevancy. Rather than lament politics and the state, we should be heartened by how far we've come—and go forward confidently.

On Mises Weekends, this week, Jeff joins our friend John O'Donnell at Power Trading Radio to dive deeper into the the broken state of modern economics. Along with touching on what is really being taught in American econ programs today, Jeff and John discuss the college federal loan scam, and the unique role the Mises Institute plays in economic education.

On the heels of the Fed's annual meeting in Jackson Hole, "extraordinary" monetary policy may be the new normal. Janet Yellen refuses to raise rates for now, and Former Chair Ben Bernanke openly questions whether the Fed's Treasury-laden balance sheet—swollen after successive rounds of QE—will ever be unwound. Real growth is flat, real incomes are stagnant, inflation is higher than the government admits, and millions of Americans still haven't recovered from the Crash of '08. Is economics broken? Have we entered a new era of technocratic impotence, where mainstream economists simply have run out of monetary policy tools? Can we undo the damage caused by the Fed's relentless attack on savers? Do most professional economists understand the role of interest rates at all? And what kind of revolution is needed to save economics as a profession? Dr. Joe Salerno, professor of economics and Academic VP of the Mises Institute, joins us to makes sense of it all.

The Mises Institute is in Asheville, North Carolina, this weeked, celebrating our Supporters Summit. We thought you might enjoy hearing a talk that Jeff Deist gave entitled the "The Role of the Mises Institute". Here's a hint: it's not politics, it's not public policy, and it's not lobbying. But, rather, to be a school — a new kind of school — for the 21st century.

Our own Senior Fellow Dr. Mark Thornton recently appeared on Press TV to make the libertarian case for real free trade, as opposed to unholy negotiated trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Brent Budowsky, a journalist for 'The Hill' newspaper in Washington DC, also joined the show to present a pro-union, left-populist perspective. They both conclude that complex trade schemes, which often involve creating supra-national regulatory bodies, are bad for America and the economy — but for totally different reasons.

Our friend and former member of the European Parliament Godfrey Bloom rejoins us for a lively postmortem on the Brexit vote. It's been two months, and the sky hasn't fallen in the UK. In fact, markets are up—and new Prime Minister Theresa May promises that a withdrawal treaty will be negotiated in due time. Mr. Bloom dismisses this, pointing out that her new administration could act swiftly and unilaterally. He also point out that the Germans are unlikely to deny BMWs to British buyers, just as French wineries are unlikely to suspend shipments of champagne across the Channel. In other words, trade can be accomplished without bureaucratic help. All the common market needs is buyers and sellers, not complex treaties and byzantine regulations. How did "Leave" forces, overwhelmingly represented in the British countryside, defeat the bureaucratic class in London? And what does Brexit mean for the march of globalism generally? Mr. Bloom is an engaging speaker and a thoroughly pro-trade Rothbardian.

Dr. Tom DiLorenzo has a fantastic new book out entitled 'The Problem with Socialism' (http://store.mises.org/-P11032.aspx), and his talk summarizing it was a great hit recently at Mises University. This is Tom at his best: witty and provocative, but always bravely revisionist when it comes to skewering sacred cows like welfare, minimum wage, and progressive income taxes. His book—and this talk—are a must for anyone who wants a concise and easy refutation of the enduring myths surrounding socialism.

Jeff Deist discusses libertarian strategy with Adam Camac and Daniel Laguros of the "Wake Up Call" podcast (WakeUpCallPodcast.com). How can libertarians achieve a freer society, given the depressing state of politics, in both America and abroad? Jeff shares his thoughts on Liberland, the Free State Project, and how modern technology has become “the great leveler” in the battle of ideas.

Judge Napolitano, the great constitutional scholar and legal analyst for Fox News, recently gave a dynamite talk to our Mises U students on the real meaning of the 1st Amendment. While many protections in the Bill of Rights have been almost completely eviscerated by a lawless federal government, the Judge finds reasons to be optimistic about the current state of free speech in America. In fact, he suggests that 1st Amendment freedoms actually may be expanding—even as much of the Constitution becomes a dead letter. This is a compelling talk you won't want to miss.

Two of the Institute's Fellows—a Frenchman and a German—join Jeff Deist for a freewheeling discussion of the political and economic situation in Europe. Can Austrian economics revive Europe's liberal tradition, or will statist impulses thwart any hope for liberation from Brussels? And can the Mises Institute and its fellow travelers have an impact on academia on the continent? Sascha and Louis see hope for optimism, despite the bad news that seems to dominate European media.

Dr. Robert Higgs delivered one of our most popular and most-watched Mises U speeches in 2013, a terrific exposition entitled "The State is too Dangerous to Tolerate". It's an intellectual tour de force from Higgs, where he demolishes many of the popular misconceptions about (and justifications for) the state in one compelling talk. This is Dr. Higgs at his most formidable, and well worth an hour of your time, this weekend. It's the kind of content that you won't hear anywhere else.

Jeff joins Daniel Ameduri of FutureMoneyTrends.com for a no holds barred discussion of current events, including Trump vs. Hillary, Gary Johnson's chances, the symbolic importance of Brexit, and why the leftwing focus of groups like Black Live Matter will make society more violent, not less.

The UK is poised to vote on Brexit next week, deciding for the first time since 1975 whether to leave the European Union. The Brexit vote mirrors populist, nationalist, and anti-globalist trends around the world, and if successful it raises serious questions about the viability of the Euro itself. The whole world is watching, and markets are nervous: rarely is globalism so directly challenged. Here to discuss Brexit is Godfrey Bloom, the great un-PC British politician who was a member of the European Parliament—where he sometimes quoted Rothbard to an uneasy audience of continental technocrats. Jeff Deist and Bloom discuss the odds of whether the "leave" campaign will be successful, whether the ECB's failure to prevent sovereign debt crises in Europe influences the vote, whether Brexit would cause actual Eurozone countries to follow suit, and what Mises had to say about theoretically taking self-determination and secession down to the individual level. For further reading, see "The UK's EU referendum: All you need to know" by Brian Wheeler and Alex Hunt (http://bbc.com/news/uk-politics-32810887). Also, watch Godfrey Bloom cite Murray N. Rothbard in "The State is an Institution of Theft" (http://youtu.be/CBVFpYN0iNo).

Conservatives once stood for judicious use of government power and minding our own business in foreign affairs. Today, 100 years after the beginning of the progressive revolution, conservatives don't conserve anything. They vote for big-government schemes, favor globalism over real capitalism, and advocate an aggressive foreign policy that installs American troops around the globe. They've lost any claim to the mantle of "limited government," and lost every battle concerning abortion and social issues. Worst of all, Republicans have created a bloated jobs programs for themselves—Conservatism, Inc.—that shows nothing but contempt for its own voting base. Is the GOP the next Whig party, consigned to history? For further reading, see Murray Rothbard's 'The Betrayal of the American Right' (mises.org/Betrayal), Justin Raimondo's 'Reclaiming the American Right' (mises.org/Reclaiming), and "The Coming Conservative Dark Age" by Matthew Continetti (mises.org/DarkAge). See also Mises.org/AmericanMercury.

Mises defined "liberalism" as rooted in property. Modern progressives and social justice warriors—mislabeled as "liberals"—attack property as an impediment to their program of radical egalitarianism. In their view, all human conduct must be viewed through the filters of identity politics, privilege, and undefinable concepts of social justice. Disagree with them and you'll find your campus building or political rally attacked by angry demonstrators who view dissent as hate. Where does libertarianism fit into this equation? Should we adopt the premises, language, and goals of progressives, but argue for achieving them through capitalist means? Should we inform our worldview using utilitarianism? Should we side with SJWs in the culture wars? Or, should we make the case for a nonpolitical world, one grounded in Misesian private property and Rothbardian natural law ethics? Jeff Deist makes the case that the real issues confronting us are war and peace, central banking, and state power—not inequality or racism or sexism. And, he argues against adopting leftist language used to advance the libertarian message. For further reading, see Mises's 1927 classic 'Liberalism' (mises.org/Liberalism) and Jeff Deist's recent "Notes on the LP Convention" (mises.org/NotesLP).

It's Memorial Day weekend, a time when we (hopefully) reflect on war rather than celebrate it. So it's the perfect opportunity to revisit an inspiring antiwar talk from our own Senior Fellow Tom Woods. You may not know it, but Tom was once a neocon who considered the libertarian position of noninterventionism unrealistic and naive. But his mind was changed by none other than the late Murray Rothbard, who convinced Tom that peace and liberty cannot be severed, that empire abroad leads to socialism at home, and that foreign policy should be front and center in a libertarian worldview.

Jeff Deist joins Joshua Bennett on the Patriots Lament show (KFAR AM 660, Fairbanks) and gives his thoughts on the 2016 election. Jeff discusses how the ultimate outcome of any election season is greater division among society, and argues that libertarians should focus on making the case for decentralizing power. Liberty will never come from the White House, but from winning over the hearts and minds of our friends and neighbors in our own communities.

This weekend, Jeff Deist and John O'Donnell discuss central banking and culture. We tend to think of central banking as a dry subject for professional economists, rather than a cultural and even moral issue. But the Fed and other central banks create huge moral hazards, degrade longstanding social mores like hard work and thrift, and encourage economic hedonism today at the expense of tomorrow. Every healthy society is built on capital accumulation and building for a future beyond lives, whereas central banks encourage consumption and turn us into zombie debtors. What happens to the future when ultra-low interest rates mean saving is for chumps? And why have we allowed Greenspan, Bernanke, and Yellen to hide the Fed's harmful cultural effects behind a wall of technical Fed-speak?

Thirty-five years ago, Ron Paul and Lewis Lehrman published 'The Case for Gold', their minority report from Reagan's gold commission. Today, Jim Rickards has written 'The New Case for Gold', an uncompromising call for using gold as money and reestablishing a gold standard for central banks. In this wide-ranging interview, Jeff Deist and Jim Rickards discuss gold in the context of current geopolitics and enduring myths about monetary growth. While the "anti-gold reflex" is strong among older generation monetary economists in the west, a new gold-friendly order is emerging in Asia. Jeff and Jim even discuss whether Hillary will be indicted, leading to a Joe Biden/Elizabeth Warren ticket. This is a fascinating interview that you won't want to miss.

Our guest is Daniel McAdams, head of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. Daniel is a foreign policy expert, having worked for many years on Capitol Hill and as an election monitor in eastern Europe. Daniel and Jeff discuss the role Dr. Paul played in creating the noninterventionist populism visible in both the Trump and Sanders campaigns, and how the public now sees the Iraq war as a mistake. Daniel also discusses the depth and reach of the "war party" lobby, marked by well-funded think tanks, a revolving door of hawkish congressional staffers, and brazen manipulation of the federal budget by defense contractors. How do neoconservative interests get their hooks into members of Congress? How do people like Bill Kristol (who never seems to be right about anything), maintain their grip on the US foreign policy establishment? And, how do ordinary people reclaim the narrative from those who would recklessly expand US intervention in Syria and Iran?

At this year's AERC, Dr. Michel Accad, who practices cardiology and internal medicine in San Francisco, presented a fascinating paper fusing Misesian insights with medicine. Dr. Accad highlights how viewing "the body as a machine" has played a major role in the rise of medical paternalism and one-size-fits all treatment. Dr. Accad instead proposes a praxeological framework for medicine, with health being defined "as the state that is present when one's physical and mental conditions allow the pursuit of one's chosen ends." Dr. Accad's talk is a brilliant application of Austrian theory to real world practice.

Weaving Austrian insights together with firsthand knowledge of technological innovation, Hunter outlines how the technology of the “cognitive assistant” can help empower entrepreneurship and usher in a new age of individualism.

Dr. Guido Hülsmann joins us this weekend to discuss the ongoing migrant crisis in Europe. We consider what Mises, Rothbard, and Hoppe have to say about borders, migration controls, organic nations, and culture. Dr. Hülsmann also explains the critical difference between nation and state, and why so-called "public property"should be controlled for the benefit of taxpayers. Are the arguments for the free movement of goods necessarily applicable to immigrants? Are libertarians overly dismissive of culture arguments, narrow-mindedly seeing individuals as bound to each other only by market exchange? And is the modern version of open borders just a big-government construct?

Central banks — and central bankers — are in uncharted waters. They don't know how to create economic growth, they don't know how to fight the great bogeyman of deflation, and they don't know how — or if — they'll ever be able to return to a time of "normal" monetary policy. Their pretense of knowledge, of being able to effectively control currencies used by billions of people, is coming to an end. But it's not just an academic issue — all of us are affected by the possibility of negative interest rates, prohibitions on cash, and bank bail-ins. Will you be able to get cash out of your bank or money market account if the economy suffers another crash like 2008? Will governments force us into cashless, digital-only payment systems, tracking our every purchase and creating black markets in the process? Will you have to pay your bank, in the form of negative interest rates, for the privilege of holding your money? And will your deposits take a haircut if your bank suffers losses from its bad loans? I recently joined my friend Jay Taylor on his radio show to discuss how both central banks and commercial banks are poised to change your life in some very unpleasant ways.

On this week's episode, we feature a past talk given by Hans-Hermann Hoppe highlighting some of the key points he makes in his book 'Democracy: The God That Failed'. The subject seems particularly topical as American elites have become increasingly comfortable dropping the façade of democracy, with the Washington establishment becoming increasingly transparent in their intentions to undercut the success of populist campaigns, such as Donald Trump’s. Hoppe’s lecture not only shows how democratic elections often lead to bad results, but illustrates how political democracy is often incompatible with human liberty. True democracy is instead found in the marketplace, with voluntary actors free of the threat of government force.

Murray Rothbard would have celebrated his 90th birthday this past week, so the Mises Institute held a reception in his honor at the ISFLC conference in Washington DC. Joining us to explain why Rothbard remains so relevant today is University of Manchester professor Matt McCaffrey, a former Mises Institute Fellow and editor of our new Rothbard Reader (https://mises.org/RothbardReader). Matt discusses Rothbard's amazing range of interests and knowledge, his relationship with Mises, his great opus Man, Economy, and State — written in his early 30s — and his enduring legacy in a sea of forgotten mainstream economists. To read Professor McCaffrey's and Professor Joe Salerno's introduction to the Rothbard Reader, see http://mises.org/blog/introducing-rothbard-reader. And order your copy here: http://store.mises.org/Rothbard-Reader-P11018.aspx

This weekend, Jeff recaps his recent talk in Houston entitled "Socialist Left vs. alt-Right: What it Means for Liberty" (https://youtu.be/NxkV-A5dBZc)—a talk which generated plenty of comments from libertarians, progressives, and the alt-Right. Jeff discusses why we should celebrate the death of supposed "democratic consensus," why the progressive left doesn't care about winning votes, how the alt-Right turns identity politics against social justice warriors, and what libertarians should learn from populism and even demagoguery.

The concept of negative interest rates, already adopted in Japan, is now under serious consideration in Europe and the US. Here to make sense of this bizarre environment is Paul-Martin Foss, head of the Carl Menger Center and a regular contributor to mises.org. Paul-Martin explains how Mises and Rothbard understood the function of interest rates, as opposed to how central bankers use interest rates as a tool to stimulate aggregate demand. Can our economic problems really be fixed by forcing banks to make more uneconomic loans to already-insolvent borrowers? And can individuals be forced to spend money by punishing them for leaving it in the bank?

The late Murray Rothbard is in many ways the godfather of the modern libertarian movement, starting with the publication of his great tract 'Man, Economy, and State,' back in 1962. And of course, Rothbard played an instrumental role in helping Lew Rockwell get the Mises Institute off the ground. This weekend's show features a great panel discussion about Murray—not just the economist and the intellectual scholar, but also Murray the man. The panel features David Gordon, Walter Block, and Joe Salerno—all three of whom worked with Murray, and knew him personally for many, many years prior to his death in 1995. So, if you're a fan of Rothbard, you will enjoy this free-wheeling discussion of what Murray was like not just as an intellectual and a scholar, but also as a person.

On this week’s episode, we feature a talk by Dr. Ron Paul at the Mises Circle in Houston. Dr. Paul gives a great speech on the ideas of liberty, and also includes a reference to how Bernie Sanders doesn’t seem to understand that the Plymouth colony experiment in America was actually a failure.

On this week's episode we feature a 2011 talk at the Mises Institute given by Hans-Hermann Hoppe on the subject of praxeology: the science of human action. It's a term and topic that can be intimidating to some people — and at nearly 50 minutes, Hoppe's talk is quite a bit longer than our usual weekend show — but it is vitally important to understand why praxeology is the proper economic methodology. Listeners will enjoy and benefit from Hoppe's razor-sharp discussion.

Our guest this weekend is Dr. Mark Thornton, a senior fellow here at the Mises Institute, and our topic is booms and busts. Falling stock prices are in the news lately, so Mark and Jeff talk about how and why central bankers don't understand deflation, whether they are really Keynesians or some variant thereof, what a "crack-up boom" might look like, and what the Skyscraper Index and other forms of irrational spending might tell us about the future of the global economy.

Our guest this weekend is Dr. Joe Salerno, academic vice president at the Mises Institute, and professor of economics at Auburn University. Jeff and Joe discuss monetary policy and gold on the heels of yet another GOP presidential primary debate. It appears that not even Rand Paul is going to be able to generate much interest in the Fed or in monetary policy, generally, in the 2016 cycle. Ted Cruz has at least alluded faintly to the idea of a gold standard, for which he was promptly savaged by the media — both left and right — for even bringing it up. As Joe and Jeff discuss, a gold standard is hardly something that needs to be imposed on anyone. It is something that can develop in the market place on its own, and it can develop alongside competing currencies. In other words, gold could be used as money in America alongside the US dollar. They also talk about how the Fed's interest rate targeting — and really the entirety of its open market operations only serve to obscure what is really going on with the most important metric, which is the money supply. And, finally, Jeff and Joe consider how to sell to the general public (like Ron Paul did so successfully) some sort of anti-Fed populism.

You may have heard about the Swiss referendum to end fractional reserve lending by Swiss commercial banks. It's a fascinating development for Austrians and libertarians, and it's another example of how average Swiss people can use referenda to force both their central legislature and the twenty-six Swiss cantons to consider their proposals, merely by gathering 100,000 signatures within an 18-month period. Here to help us understand this from a Swiss perspective is Claudio Grass, a good friend of the Mises Institute, a principal with the Swiss company Global Gold, and a Rothbardian with a great understanding of money and Banking issues.

Our show this weekend features Judge Andrew P. Napolitano, Distinguished Scholar in Law and Jurisprudence at the Mises Institute and Senior Judicial Analyst at Fox News. In this talk presented at the 2014 Mises Circle in Costa Mesa, California, Judge Napolitano lays out the difference between Natural Law and Legislative Law.

Our guest this week is Judge John Denson, the great war historian and lawyer who helped Lew Rockwell found the Mises Institute in the early 1980s. In celebration of Christmas, Judge Denson and I discuss the infamous World War I truce that took place between British and German soldiers in December of 1914 — and how the 20th century may have been radically different, and radically less bloody, if that truce had brought about an early end to the war. We also discuss the critical importance of historical revisionism, and why a more peaceful future depends on all of us questioning official history and state propaganda. Stay tuned for a great and hopeful interview.

This weekend, we feature a lecture by Dr. Robert Murphy that was recorded at our inaugural Mises Boot Camp this past summer, where Bob gave an introductory talk that sets the Austrian framework, and lays out how we should go about understanding economics. It's a great refresher for those who are familiar with the Austrian school, but it's also a great primer to share with your friends who are no so familiar.

In honor of the 24th anniversary of the Soviet Union's collapse, our guest this weekend is our old friend Dr. Yuri Maltsez, a senior fellow here at the Mises Institute and a professor of Economics at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Yuri is famous for having been a Soviet economist during the Gorbachev era and defecting to the United States. Yuri and Jeff discuss Trump-ism, the Bernie Sanders phenomenon, and Western progressives' silly and enduring love affair with socialism. They also discuss what the often-misused terms 'socialism' and 'fascism' really mean.

Our returning guest this weekend is Łukasz Dominiak, a professor at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Poland, and also a former summer fellow at the Mises Institute. Jeff and Łukasz discuss the recent elections in Poland, as well as the street protests that you might not have heard about in western media. There is actually something very different happening in Eastern Europe, especially in Poland, as compared to Western Europe. The media characterized its recent electrons as a triumph for the right-wing — dismissed as xenophobic nationalism in Poland and other European countries. But the truth as Łukasz explains is quite different: it's a strange mix of both left and right politics in a country that is not afraid to embrace its Catholic roots and its cultural identity.