Cato Events Podcast

By Cato InstituteNews Government News Commentary Politics

Cato Events Podcast episodes

April 29, 2019Economic Inequality: Are We Measuring It Right and What Does It Mean?
Some political leaders are saying that income and wealth inequality are at unacceptable levels and need to be countered by higher taxes on the wealthy and more transfer payments. But the data used to support those arguments are often misunderstood and omit key elements of the picture. John Early will describe gaps in the official data used in the inequality debate and discuss alternative income measures that better capture the well-being of different groups. Early argues that policymakers need to get the facts right before imposing prescriptions on the economy.
John Early has twice been assistant commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, where he became an expert on these measurement issues. He has published a Cato study and a series of op-eds with former U.S. senator Phil Gramm examining the U.S. data on inequality. Following Early, Edwards will discuss the different sources of data on wealth inequality and the role of wealth in the economy.
Watch: Short video on economic inequality featuring John F. Early
Download the Power Point presentation (PPTX)
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58 min
April 24, 2019 Is Liberalism Good for Religions?
Liberalism, a political philosophy that grew out of the Enlightenment and champions reason, freedom, and equality, has lately been criticized by some religious thinkers in the West. Liberalism, in their view, only “atomizes” individuals, weakens society, and ultimately corrodes all faiths.Yet other religious intellectuals think that there are many reasons to appreciate liberalism, including the very freedom that the believers have found in liberal societies to practice and manifest their faith and to be free from the persecutions that have defined much of human history. Moreover, they think that under liberalism, religions flourish in healthier ways — through persuasion rather than coercion, and through civil society rather than state power.This discussion is particularly relevant for Islam, since Muslim opinion leaders are often ambivalent, at best, on whether they should accept liberal standards of human rights or rather reject them as alien and detrimental. If liberalism is rejected even by Western Christians, whose religious traditions have been much more at peace with liberalism, Eastern Muslims will not even consider it.
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1 hr 31 min
April 24, 2019 Two Roads to War: How (and Why) America and Britain Decided to Invade Iraq
The disastrous choice to use force to remove Saddam Hussein from power did enormous damage to the wealth, well-being, and reputations of the United States and Great Britain. To this day, the hangover of the Iraq war looms large over the politics of both nations. Yet how each of these “special friends” came to the decision to invade Iraq remains shrouded in mystery and mythology. Until now.
On April 24, Patrick Porter, author of Blunder: Britain's War in Iraq, and Michael Mazarr, author of Leap of Faith: Hubris, Negligence, and America's Greatest Foreign Policy Tragedy, will detail the motivations and ideas that drove two great democracies to a war of choice, and explain the lessons that must be learned to avoid similar disasters — today and in the future.
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1 hr 30 min
April 22, 2019 CyberWork and the American Dream
The perceived threat of artificial intelligence (AI) to the American workforce and society more broadly has become a common topic of discussion among policymakers, academics, and the wider public. But is AI a threat? And if so, are there appropriate policy solutions? History is replete with examples of disruption caused by past technological advances. Are the lessons from those advances applicable to AI? These are just some of the questions addressed by the PBS television documentary CyberWork and the American Dream.
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1 hr 40 min
April 22, 2019 The Simon Abundance Index: A New Way to Measure Availability of Resources
Are we running out of resources? That’s been a hotly debated question since the publication of Paul Ehrlich’s book The Population Bomb in 1968. The Stanford University biologist warned that population growth would result in the exhaustion of resources and a global catastrophe. University of Maryland economist and Cato Institute’s Senior Fellow Julian Simon, in contrast, argued that humans would innovate their way out of resource shortages. He believed that people were the “ultimate resource” that would make other resources more plentiful. On Earth Day 2019, David M. Simon will recall the humanism and optimism of his late father. Gale Pooley and Marian L. Tupy will present the updated findings from their recent paper “The Simon Abundance Index: A New Way to Measure Availability of Resources” and launch The Simon Project, a new www.humanprogress.org initiative. Finally, George Gilder will discuss the link between human ingenuity, innovation, and prosperity.
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1 hr 20 min
April 18, 2019 The Costs and Unintended Consequences of Beneficial Ownership Reporting
Policymakers on both sides of the aisle have proposed new regimes for small-business beneficial ownership reporting. The aim of such legislation is to eliminate opportunities for money laundering and financial crime. However, the proposals before Congress would place heavy new compliance costs on millions of America’s small businesses while continuing to provide opportunities for bad actors to engage in illicit financial activities. Beneficial ownership reporting would add to an already onerous anti-money-laundering/know-your-customer (AML/ KYC) regulatory burden, cited by community banks as the single most costly financial regulation. Furthermore, international experience with beneficial ownership reporting requirements suggests that it will be difficult to make such requirements work in the United States.
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55 min
April 17, 2019 The Twenty-Six Words That Created the Internet
“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider” (Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996).Those 26 words (and not a member of Congress) invented the internet as we know it. These words protect internet platforms from lawsuits based on user-generated content, allowing them to open their doors to a dizzying variety of sentiment and speech. Absent that sentence, social media platforms would have strong incentives to suppress any speech that might cause them legal woes. Or, in contrast, they might avoid legal liability by not moderating their forums at all, likely rendering them unusable. Jeff Kosseff tells the story of the institutions that flourished as a result of this powerful statute. He introduces us to those who created CDA 230, those who advocated for it, and those who were involved in some of the most prominent cases decided under the law. As section 230 and the platforms it protects face increasing scrutiny, Twenty-Six Words demystifies this little-known yet vital statute.
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1 hr 34 min
April 15, 2019 Why the Government Should Not Regulate Content Moderation of Social Media
Until recently, private social media companies have been free to moderate content on their own platforms. But accusations of political bias have caused some to call for government regulation of the efforts social media companies make to moderate content. Some have even suggested that social media entities ought to be nationalized to ensure they operate in the public interest. Is there a role here for government to play, or would government intervention create unintended consequences while simultaneously stifling free speech? These are just some of the questions addressed in John Samples’s recently published policy analysis, “Why the Government Should Not Regulate Content Moderation by Social Media.”
Join us on Monday, April 15, to hear from author John Samples and the director of Cato’s project on emerging technologies, Matthew Feeney.
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56 min
April 15, 2019 Zimbabwe: Africa’s Shame and Opportunity
Over the past two decades, Zimbabwe has been in a state of almost constant crisis. The once-prosperous nation now ranks among the poorest and most repressive countries in the world. Is there a way out of this predicament? Barry D. Wood, who recently traveled to Zimbabwe, will describe the current economic and political situation in the country. Steve H. Hanke will discuss steps that Zimbabwe’s government needs to take to achieve macroeconomic stabilization. W. Gyude Moore will explain the failure of African governments to bring Zimbabwe’s authoritarian government to heel and suggest steps that a more enlightened African leadership could take to break the cycle of violence and economic decline in Zimbabwe. Please join us for a discussion of this once promising and now deeply troubled country.
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1 hr 26 min
April 09, 2019 25 Years of Patient Power
A quarter century ago, the Cato Institute released a revolutionary book, Patient Power: Solving America's Health Care Crisis, by John C. Goodman and Gerald L. Musgrave. Patient Power introduced the United States to a bold and radical way of thinking about health care.
When third parties pay medical bills, Goodman and Musgrave wrote, providers come to view third-party payers as their customers, not the patients. As a result, instead of maximizing patient satisfaction, providers deliver care to maximize their revenue given third-party payment formulas. Instead of falling, costs rise. Third-party payment is the reason patients can't talk to their doctors by phone, email, or Skype. It is why patients don't have Uber-type doctor house calls at night and on weekends. Patient Power showed that if people controlled and managed their own health care dollars, the medical marketplace would change radically—almost overnight.
Indeed, Patient Power changed the world. Thanks largely to Goodman and Musgrave's work, more than 20 million people are managing their own health care dollars in health savings accounts. A roughly equal number are managing their medical spending through health reimbursement arrangements. And employers are experimenting with giving individuals complete financial control over everything from hip and knee replacements to blood tests.
Come hear the authors of Patient Power and other leading scholars discuss the book's impact on health reform and how its insights can still inform the debate.
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1 hr 25 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…