Cato Events Podcast

The privacy Americans should enjoy over their financial information has been in steady decline for more than 50 years. Regulatory frameworks, such as the Bank Secrecy Act and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Consolidated Audit Trail, grant government access to Americans’ financial transactions. As financial services have become increasingly digitized, the volume of financial records to which the government has easy—and often unfettered—access has grown exponentially. And proposals for a central bank digital currency, which involve the government becoming more intimately involved in Americans’ use of money, have the potential to further erode the ability to transact without government surveillance.

As policymakers are confronted with questions about evolving technologies, the question of financial privacy must not be shunted to the side. It is time to rethink financial privacy. Does financial convenience have to come at the cost of financial privacy? Does the Constitution provide the protections needed to limit government access to financial information? Can decentralization provide privacy-protecting solutions? Join us for an outstanding program featuring leading policymakers and experts discussing financial privacy at Cato’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives annual conference.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Cato Institute continues its series of insightful conversations with reporters and scholars tackling today’s most pressing issues. This edition brings together Robert Delaney, the North American bureau chief for the South China Morning Post, and Cato Institute experts Eric Gomez and Clark Packard for a timely discussion on US-China relations, including the following:

• What signals is Donald Trump sending about his approach to China, and how should we interpret them?
• How does Trump’s current rhetoric compare to his first term and the Biden administration’s policies?
• What lies ahead for one of the most complex and consequential bilateral relationships in the world?

Don’t miss this opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the shifts, continuities, and implications of US-China policy from some of the field’s leading voices.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The privacy Americans should enjoy over their financial information has been in steady decline for more than 50 years. Regulatory frameworks, such as the Bank Secrecy Act and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Consolidated Audit Trail, grant government access to Americans’ financial transactions. As financial services have become increasingly digitized, the volume of financial records to which the government has easy—and often unfettered—access has grown exponentially. And proposals for a central bank digital currency, which involve the government becoming more intimately involved in Americans’ use of money, have the potential to further erode the ability to transact without government surveillance.

As policymakers are confronted with questions about evolving technologies, the question of financial privacy must not be shunted to the side. It is time to rethink financial privacy. Does financial convenience have to come at the cost of financial privacy? Does the Constitution provide the protections needed to limit government access to financial information? Can decentralization provide privacy-protecting solutions? Join us for an outstanding program featuring leading policymakers and experts discussing financial privacy at Cato’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives annual conference.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The privacy Americans should enjoy over their financial information has been in steady decline for more than 50 years. Regulatory frameworks, such as the Bank Secrecy Act and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Consolidated Audit Trail, grant government access to Americans’ financial transactions. As financial services have become increasingly digitized, the volume of financial records to which the government has easy—and often unfettered—access has grown exponentially. And proposals for a central bank digital currency, which involve the government becoming more intimately involved in Americans’ use of money, have the potential to further erode the ability to transact without government surveillance.

As policymakers are confronted with questions about evolving technologies, the question of financial privacy must not be shunted to the side. It is time to rethink financial privacy. Does financial convenience have to come at the cost of financial privacy? Does the Constitution provide the protections needed to limit government access to financial information? Can decentralization provide privacy-protecting solutions? Join us for an outstanding program featuring leading policymakers and experts discussing financial privacy at Cato’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives annual conference.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The privacy Americans should enjoy over their financial information has been in steady decline for more than 50 years. Regulatory frameworks, such as the Bank Secrecy Act and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Consolidated Audit Trail, grant government access to Americans’ financial transactions. As financial services have become increasingly digitized, the volume of financial records to which the government has easy—and often unfettered—access has grown exponentially. And proposals for a central bank digital currency, which involve the government becoming more intimately involved in Americans’ use of money, have the potential to further erode the ability to transact without government surveillance.

As policymakers are confronted with questions about evolving technologies, the question of financial privacy must not be shunted to the side. It is time to rethink financial privacy. Does financial convenience have to come at the cost of financial privacy? Does the Constitution provide the protections needed to limit government access to financial information? Can decentralization provide privacy-protecting solutions? Join us for an outstanding program featuring leading policymakers and experts discussing financial privacy at Cato’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives annual conference.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Modern presidents have an extraordinary amount of power that they primarily wield through issuing executive orders and other directives with the force of law. Successive Congresses have gradually delegated much of their power to the president or stood idly by as presidents have usurped more power that is legislative in nature and effect. The president’s power is now so massive that that alone justifies focusing on the office’s means of exercising it. In response to this lamentable trend, the Cato Institute published the Cato Handbook on Executive Orders and Presidential Directives to recommend revoking or amending several executive orders, proclamations, and other directives to move public policy in a more libertarian direction.

In the handbook, Cato scholars identify specific executive orders and other presidential directives that violate the Constitution and that conflict with the principles of individual liberty, free markets, limited government, and peace. The handbook suggests revocations and amendments to those executive orders that would affect the federal government’s operations and cover various policy issues like health care, immigration, foreign policy, trade, defense, and others. This handbook is not a comprehensive list of such executive orders but merely the lowest-hanging fruit and best places to begin the long journey back toward a constitutionally limited government.

Join several Cato scholars as we discuss specific executive orders and directives that the incoming Trump administration should revoke or amend that affect energy policy, environmental policy, health care, the federal workforce, foreign policy, defense, and other social policies.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Over the past two years, much of the conversation around technology has been focused on artificial intelligence (AI). While AI may have increased in popularity and already been used in a wide array of products, we are still only just discovering many of its beneficial applications.

AI is much more than popular products like ChatGPT and is truly saving and changing lives in fields like medicine and disaster response. But as we’ve seen in Europe, the wrong policy approach could prevent the development or deployment of many of these beneficial products.

Among the questions to be addressed are: How has policy supported or hindered US innovators and consumers in developing and accessing AI? What lessons might we learn from the policy approaches to past general-purpose technologies? Where does AI and AI policy go next?

This policy forum will start with a fireside chat with Rep. Jay Obernolte (R‑CA), a leading voice on AI policy and co-chair of the House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence.

Following that conversation, a panel of policy experts will discuss the future of AI, the potential impact of policy on this innovation, and more.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For much of the 21st century, public health officials and policymakers have blamed doctors for overprescribing opioids and causing the overdose crisis. In response, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued pain management guidelines aimed at reducing opioid prescriptions. Most states have codified them into law.

Federal and local drug task forces have arrested doctors whom they accuse of overprescribing opioids. This has led to a situation where many physicians either undertreat pain or choose to abandon their long-term pain patients. As a result, opioid prescribing has dropped below 1992 levels, while overdose deaths among nonmedical users have skyrocketed.

This crackdown has also created a population of “pain refugees”—chronic pain patients who have lost or were abandoned by their doctor and are left searching for a doctor willing to treat them. Many, out of desperation, turn to the black market for relief, while others resort to suicide.

Join us to discuss the pain refugee crisis, its causes, and potential solutions. Our panel includes a physician who treats and advocates for pain patients, an attorney who defends these doctors, a civil rights attorney who is also a patient advocate, and a pain refugee.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.