Cato Events Podcast

By Cato InstituteNews Government News Commentary Politics

Cato Events Podcast episodes

September 23, 2022 FOIA and Government Transparency: A Report Card
In the more than 50 years that the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) has been on the books, it has helped revolutionize Americans’ understanding of how their government works in practice. But the agencies and departments of the executive branch that are covered by the FOIA have persistently attempted to thwart its effective implementation.
The most recent statutory update to FOIA took place in 2016, and with several years of experience with the revised law behind us, it’s fair to ask: Is FOIA working better now? If not, why not? What is it like to battle federal agencies and departments weekly to pry loose information dealing with immigration policy, telecommunications policy, and the national security establishment? What additional changes to FOIA are needed to truly make the law work as intended? Join our expert panel as we discuss these and related issues.
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1 hr 56 min
September 23, 2022 A Conversation with Jerome Powell - Cato Institute 40th Annual Monetary Conference
With massive U.S. debt and deficits, inflation at a 40‐year high, and popular/political pressure for expanding the Fed’s mandate, it’s time to assess the Fed’s performance and future. Please join leading scholars and policymakers to discuss “The State of Monetary Policy after 40 Years.”
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50 min
September 13, 2022Classified: The Untold Story of Racial Classification in America
Racial classification is ubiquitous in American life. Job applications, university admissions, government contracts, and much more involve checking a box stating whether one is black, white, Asian, Hispanic, or Native American.

David Bernstein has written a surprising and revealing book on how these classifications came about, with the federal government playing a leading role. It asks:
Should Pakistani, Chinese, and Filipino Americans be in the same category despite obvious differences in culture, appearance, religion, and more?
Why does the government not allow Americans to classify themselves as biracial or multiracial?
How did a dark‐complexioned, burka‐wearing Muslim Yemeni come to be classified as generically white while a blond‐haired, blue‐eyed newcomer is classified as minority if arriving from a country where Spanish is spoken?
Why does the government require biomedical researchers to classify study participants by official racial categories that have no scientific basis?

Bernstein’s provocative book ends with a call for a separation of race and state. Commenting will be Jane Coaston, host of the New York Times’s podcast The Argument, and Prof. Robert Cottrol, a scholar of race and legal history at George Washington University Law School.
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1 hr 9 min
September 13, 2022 Superabundance: The Story of Population Growth, Innovation, and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet
Generations of people have been taught that population growth makes resources scarcer. In 2021, for example, one widely publicized report argued, “The world’s rapidly growing population is consuming the planet’s natural resources at an alarming rate.… The world currently needs 1.6 Earths to satisfy the demand for natural resources … [a figure that] could rise to 2 planets by 2030.” But is that true? After analyzing the prices of hundreds of commodities, goods, and services spanning two centuries, Marian Tupy and Gale Pooley found that resources became more abundant as the population grew. That was especially true when they looked at “time prices,” which represent the length of time that people must work to buy something. The authors also found that resource abundance increased faster than the population―a relationship that they call “superabundance.” They conclude that, on average, every additional human being creates more value than he or she consumes. Please join us for the official launch of Cato’s latest book: Superabundance: The Story of Population Growth, Innovation, and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet.
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1 hr 29 min
August 23, 2022 Pandemic Policy Postmortem: Lessons from Sweden
The virus that causes COVID-19 has now become endemic after it first emerged two and a half years ago. In the pandemic’s early days, many countries’ public health officials curtailed economic and social activity to various degrees, prescribed social distancing, enforced lockdowns, required masking, and pushed for other nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce illness and death. Those NPIs imposed an enormous economic and social cost by greatly reducing individual liberty in exchange for promised health benefits. Elsewhere, most famously in Sweden, public health officials were fiercely criticized for implementing less‐harsh “light touch” NPI measures. Sweden’s approach presents a fascinating quasi‐natural experiment to evaluate the merits and demerits of the more liberal approach to managing the COVID-19 pandemic and to evaluate whether the loss in personal and economic freedom was partly compensated by a decrease in illness and death. Sweden’s outcomes on viral spread, excess mortality, and the socioeconomic consequences of COVID-19 compare well with other countries and suggest that strict NPI policies imposed more harm than good.

Joining us to discuss how well Sweden’s approach worked are Jeanne Lenzer, an independent investigative journalist and regular contributor to The BMJ who has studied this issue; Vinay Prasad, MD, MPH, an epidemiologist and public health policy analyst who is an associate professor at University of California San Francisco School of Medicine; Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, professor of medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine and coauthor of the Great Barrington Declaration that urged a pandemic policy of “focused protection”; and Johan Norberg, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, who resides in Stockholm, Sweden, and has studied as well as experienced his country’s pandemic policy. The discussion will be moderated by Cato Institute senior fellow Jeffrey A. Singer.
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1 hr 33 min
August 19, 2022 Bringing Civil Discourse to Your Classroom
Planning difficult conversations in your classroom this year? Join us for the last of our Summer with Sphere webinar series and learn techniques and how to plan for these conversations. Hear from a MS and HS teacher on how they prepare their students for civil discourse in their classes.
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51 min
August 19, 2022 America’s Great‐Power Opportunity Revitalizing U.S. Foreign Policy to Meet the Challenges of Strategic Competition
Since the early years of the Trump administration, “great power competition” has been Washington’s go‐to formula to describe its approach to foreign policy. The concept holds that Russia and China represent the biggest challenge to U.S. interests and demands a robust, competitive policy response. In a new book, Ali Wyne lays out a thoughtful critique of great power competition and proposes an alternative guiding framework for U.S. foreign policy that is proactive instead of reactive, mindful of the limits of Russian and Chinese power, and leaves greater room for great power cooperation on common threats. Please join us for a discussion with the author and a panel of experts.
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1 hr 31 min
August 18, 2022 The Taliban Today
The Taliban has held power in Afghanistan for one year. While the United States and its allies maintain sanctions on the group, Afghans are living through a humanitarian and economic disaster. The Taliban has made several promises, such as offering amnesty to soldiers who were members of the Afghan National Security Forces, working toward an “Afghan Islamic–inclusive government,” engaging other stakeholders in a “transition council,” and allowing girls to attend schools. However, the group also “grossly violated” its commitment not to give shelter to al Qaeda, according to the Biden administration, by allowing Ayman al‐Zawahiri to stay in a safe house in Kabul. What does the Taliban’s evolution (if any) mean for U.S. policy? Does the United States have tools available to push the group in the direction policymakers want it to go? What U.S. interests remain in Afghanistan? To discuss these questions, please join our distinguished panel of experts.
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1 hr 31 min
July 19, 2022 Tunisia’s Authoritarian Turn
More than a decade ago, Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution gave hope to the Arab world, showing oppressed peoples that longtime dictators can be peacefully ousted. That hope soon failed, brutally, in Egypt, Syria, and Yemen, but Tunisia kept on track throughout the 2010s, proving to be the best democratic hope in an otherwise autocratic and turbulent Middle East.

Yet since July 2021, Tunisia’s trajectory has taken an increasingly worrisome reversal as well. President Kais Saied suspended the parliament, claimed all executive power, prohibited public gatherings, arrested political opponents, and imposed travel bans. As Cato senior fellow Doug Bandow recently observed on a visit to Tunisia, this authoritarian turn risks the freedoms Tunisians have been enjoying in the past 10 years and can throw the country back to arbitrary rule by a strongman. The change is concerning for the broader Arab and Muslim world, where Tunisia used to be a rare example and source of inspiration. Join us as we discuss these changes and what Tunisia’s future may hold.
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1 hr 1 min
July 07, 2022 The United States of Anonymous: How the First Amendment Shaped Online Speech
Why did those opposed to or in favor of the Constitution write under pseudonyms? Why did Occupy Wall Street protestors wear Guy Fawkes masks? Why do so many people seek to maintain a level of anonymity in their online activities—including web surfing and posting on social media? In the debate over the right to conceal one’s identity versus the potential harms of anonymity, is it possible to strike a constitutionally sound balance? In his latest book, The United States of Anonymous: How the First Amendment Shaped Online Speech, Jeff Kosseff tackles these and other questions through primary‐source research and interviews with participants in the debates, as well as through court cases that have shaped the current legal and political climate impacting anonymous speech and the First Amendment. Join us for a discussion about Jeff Kosseff’s timely new book.

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2 hr 1 min

About Cato Events Podcast

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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…