Cato Events Podcast

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Cato Events Podcast episodes

May 27, 2015 Proven Strategies to Restrain Spending: An International Perspective
Because of an aging population and poorly designed entitlement programs, the burden of federal spending is projected to increase dramatically over the next few decades. Some lawmakers have proposed versions of a balanced budget amendment to avert this future fiscal crisis, but evidence strongly suggests that spending caps are the most effective way to address the problem. The Cato Institute has brought together three experts to talk about the world’s most successful spending caps.
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56 min
May 26, 2015 The Global Village Myth: Distance, War, and the Limits of Power
According to Washington elites, revolutions in information, transport, and weapons technologies have shrunk the world, leaving the United States and its allies more vulnerable than ever to violent threats like terrorism or cyberwar. As a result, they practice responses driven by fear: theories of falling dominoes, hysteria in place of sober debate, and an embrace of preemptive war to tame a chaotic world. Patrick Porter pushes back against the decades-old globalist fad, arguing that technology has not overcome distance, and that the world has changed less than threat inflators suggest. He concludes by noting the disastrous policies the globalists have produced and by pointing the way toward a more sensible and restrained strategy. Please join us for a discussion of this timely and iconoclastic book.
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1 hr 7 min
May 22, 2015 Lessons from Baltimore
The death of Freddie Gray while in police custody has started a wide-ranging debate about policing and poverty in American cities. Does Congress need to spend more money on jobs programs and police body cameras? Should the Department of Justice sue the City of Baltimore for a pattern and practice of civil rights violations? Are better policy options available? Please join us for a discussion of these questions.
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1 hr 3 min
May 20, 2015 The State of Freedom in the UK
Despite many predictions to the contrary, the British Conservative Party, led by Prime Minister Cameron, secured a majority in the House of Commons in this month’s general election. The Liberal Democrats, who joined the Conservatives in government in 2010, and the Labour Party both suffered losses. In Scotland, nationalists took all but three of Scotland’s 59 seats.The Conservative victory raises a host of questions related to the future of freedom in the United Kingdom. Speaking the day after the election Cameron said that his government would deliver a referendum on the UK’s membership in the European Union, which will undoubtedly prompt debate on the merits of the free movement of goods and people. Cameron also said that his government will devolve powers to Northern Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, a commitment that will spur on discussion about localism and the role of central government. Despite winning a majority, the Conservatives will have to defend their economic plan, which will be strongly opposed by left-wing parties in the House of Commons.Mark Littlewood, the director-general of the London-based Institute of Economic Affairs, will join Cato scholars and Iain Murray, vice president for strategy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, for a discussion on the outcome of the election and what it means for the state of freedom in the UK.
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1 hr 29 min
May 15, 2015 Threats to the U.S. Energy Renaissance
Since 2008, oil production has more than doubled and natural gas production is up about 24 percent, according to the Energy Information Agency. Advances in technology have driven this remarkable achievement. Three major techniques that have revolutionized both onshore and offshore oil and gas production are directional drilling, horizontal drilling, and hydraulic fracturing, also known as "fracking." In addition, offshore drilling in a record 10,500 feet of water — and then through thousands of feet of sediment below the seafloor — has been made possible by radical new advances in offshore platform technology tied in with global positioning software. These advances in technology have required considerable capital investment that would have been less likely in a nation constrained by a cap-and-trade or carbon-tax system. Please join us for an informed look at recent successes in energy production and their implications for public policy.
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1 hr 7 min
May 13, 2015 Wasting a Crisis: Why Securities Regulation Fails
The recent financial crisis led to sweeping reforms that inspired countless references to the New Deal. Comparable to the New Deal in both scope and scale, the 2,300-page Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 also shared with New Deal reforms the assumption that the cause of the crisis was misbehavior by securities market participants, exacerbated by lax regulatory oversight. With Wasting a Crisis, Paul G. Mahoney shows that this narrative is formulated by political actors hoping to deflect blame from prior policy errors. Mahoney moves beyond this received wisdom, showing that lax regulation was not a substantial cause of the Great Depression. As new regulations were formed around this narrative, not only were the majority largely ineffective, they were also often counterproductive, consolidating market share in the hands of leading financial firms. An overview of 21st-century securities reforms from the same analytic perspective, including Dodd-Frank and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, shows a similar pattern and suggests that they too may offer little benefit to investors and some measurable harm.
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59 min
May 12, 2015 Economic Interdependence and War
Debates over economic interdependence and war are centuries old. Liberals have argued that interdependence creates interests on both sides of dyads that help prevent war. Realists have argued that the “high politics” of war and peace are rarely driven by the “low politics” of commerce. Dale Copeland’s new book offers a more supple, less categorical judgment. According to Copeland, leaders’ expectations of the future trade environment determine how economic interdependence influences the prospects of war and peace. Please join us for a discussion with other leading scholars on the subject—one that carries heavy implications for the future of U.S.-China relations, in particular.
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1 hr 29 min
May 11, 2015 The U.S. National ID Law at Ten Years
In 2005, Congress gave states three years to begin issuing driver’s licenses according to national identification card standards. The REAL ID Act sought to coerce states into using machine-readable technology with federally defined data elements in their cards, capturing digital images of identity-source documents, and providing other states electronic access to information contained in their motor vehicle databases. Confronted by this unfunded domestic surveillance mandate, state leaders across the country instigated the “REAL ID Rebellion” in 2006.
The Department of Homeland Security has never made good on the REAL ID law’s threat that Transportation Security Administration agents would refuse airport access to travelers from recalcitrant states. But the threat remains, and many states are inching toward putting their residents into the national ID system.
Please join us for a discussion of the prospects for the U.S. national ID law 10 years along, and its incursion on the common law treatment of names.
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1 hr 27 min
May 07, 2015 Toward a Libertarian Foreign Policy
For decades, libertarians have expressed pointed and principled opposition to U.S. interventionism, offering alternatives that have been largely ignored by policymakers in Washington. The promises of stability and peace from both Democratic and Republican administrations have yet to be fulfilled, and the costs of foreign wars in blood, treasure, and prestige have taken their toll. The American public is both tired and wary of intervention. Has the time finally come for a libertarian foreign policy? What would it look like? What would it mean for American security and America’s place among nations? Join us for a discussion of these topics.
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1 hr 4 min
May 04, 2015 South Africa: The Next Ten Years
“South Africa is sliding downhill while much of the rest of the continent is clawing its way up,” so wrote The Economist in 2013. For over two decades, South Africa has basked in the glow of a peaceful transition from apartheid to majority rule, but the country’s endemic corruption, high crime rate, and failing public services can no longer be ignored. Some even wonder if the misrule by the African National Congress could turn South Africa into a Zimbabwe-like failed state. Frans Cronje and Vukasin Petrovic will discuss the likely future of political and economic developments in South Africa.
“Outlook 2015: South Africa and the World,” PowerPoint Presentation by Frans Cronje
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1 hr 22 min

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The Cato Events Podcast brings you live recordings from the Cato Institute's events, where leading scholars, policymakers, journalists, and experts come together each week to discuss the ideas and…