Bob Murphy Show

Oren Cass is the executive director of American Compass, a conservative think tank that stresses the importance of family and domestic industry, in opposition to a singleminded devotion to economic efficiency. Cass was previously a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, and was the domestic policy director for Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign. Bob and Oren have a friendly discussion about their disagreements on economic policy.

Bob comments on various aspects of the response to the coronavirus. Although many libertarians are accusing the authorities of exaggerating the threat, it would also be a "libertarian take" to accuse them of downplaying the threat early on, misleading the public on how to stay safe. Bob also tries to clarify thinking about the Fed's repo bailouts and the outrage over hand sanitizer price gouging.

Winston Ewert is an up-and-coming researcher in the Intelligent Design movement, having co-authored articles with one of its leading lights, William Dembski. After explaining ID and relating it to creationism and the theory of common descent, Winston summarizes his research which applies insights from computer science to the biological realm.

Bob discusses the famous Kelly criterion, which is a rule for capital management relevant in both gambling and investing. Bob explains the appeal of the Kelly criterion but also details how professional economists have disputed its importance. Bob illustrates the points with references to his high school Blackjack days.

Larry Reed has been an organizational leader for liberty for decades, first at the Mackinac Center and then at FEE. He talks with Bob about Solzhenitsyn's ability to withstand the Soviet gulag, and more generally makes the case for optimism in the face of oppression.

Bob first gives some thoughts on the stock market crash and coronavirus, then discusses the jaw-dropping discussion between Brian Williams and a member of the New York Times editorial board regarding Mike Bloomberg's claimed ability to give every American $1 million.

On his podcast The Local Maximum, software engineer (and developer at Foursquare) Max Sklar has Bob explain Ludwig von Mises' distinction between class and case probability. They apply Mises' framework to other economic theory, and discuss Bayesian inference and machine learning.

Anticipating his forthcoming interview with Winston Ewert, Bob explains why the Intelligent Design movement will be to the natural sciences, what the Public Choice school in economics is to the social sciences. Bob predicts that the explanation for the observed complexity of the universe will ultimately be pushed back into the structure of mathematics itself.

Corey DeAngelis is the Director of School Choice at the Reason Foundation, and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom. He talks with Bob about the studies supporting school choice, and dispels the myths around it. The interview ends with Bob raising the possibility that government voucher programs could end up hurting school independence.

Following up on his two previous episodes firing off provocative questions for both progressives and conservatives, Bob now looks inside his own camp and raises issues for self-reflection. The tough questions for libertarians cover topics ranging from God to abortion to drag queens to tax incidence.