Hawk Talk

Worries about mob rule have been around longer than our Constitution. Indeed, James Madison wrote about the problems of “factions” in what we’ve come to call the Federalist Papers. We like to think that our three branches of government with their checks and balances are impervious to the evils of faction. But today we may be living Madison’s nightmare. Join Antony Davies and James Harrigan as they discuss this and more on this week’s episode of Words and Numbers.

Show Notes

Controlling aging

Jeff Bezos donates $2 billion

What it feels like to be Jeff Bezos

Foolishness of the Week

Outlawing sitting and lying down

Topic of the Week: Political factions and mob rule

Madison’s warning about mob rule

Federalist 10

Federal debt as a fraction of GDP (1790 to 2050)

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Antony Davies on Twitter

James R. Harrigan on Twitter

Words & Numbers Backstage

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Imposing “price gouging” bans after a natural disaster doesn’t actually help anybody. On paper, it looks ideal. Shoppers who don’t have funds and didn’t prepare for the storm can still afford to buy everything, even if it’s completely last-minute and a bit of a race to the finish line. But the reality is that price-gouging laws don’t make things better, nor do they make things fairer. In the face of a category 1 hurricane like Florence, they just create more scarcity and destroy incentives to keep the supply chain moving. In the end, it doesn’t matter how low the price of your wares are if you can’t actually buy it. Join James Harrigan and Antony Davies as they delve into this topic and more on this week’s episode of Words and Numbers.

Show Notes:

Dominos’ CEO earned $8.6 million in 2016

Dominos will fix the roads

Foolishness of the week

Get a Dominos tattoo and get free pizza

Topic of the week: Price gouging

Cafeteria economists

Uber and surge pricing

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Antony Davies on Twitter

James R. Harrigan on Twitter

Words & Numbers Backstage

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Conservative and liberal: probably the two most commonly used words to describe a person’s political affiliations. And, of course, we all know that Republicans are all conservatives and Democrats are all liberals, and this is the way it’s always been. Right? Well, no, not really. The way that we’ve come to understand these terms currently has drifted pretty far afield of the way these words have been used previously. Join James Harrigan and Antony Davies as they get super-semantic about political labels and more on this week’s episode of Words and Numbers.

Show Notes:

California bill requiring women on boards of directors

California law easing restrictions on legally changing one’s gender

Elon Musk smokes pot on the air

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James R. Harrigan on Twitter

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The word “capitalism” has become incredibly loaded over the years. And since the term was actually popularized by Karl Marx to be the foil for his own ideology, that’s fairly understandable. It brings to mind all of the very worst aspects embodied by the elite, greedy, rent-seeking Gordon Geckos of the world, hoarding their capital resources like dragons on a pile of gold and profiting from the hard work of laborers while doing nothing productive themselves. This characterization, while incredibly common, is simply incorrect. Join Antony Davies and James Harrigan as they discuss the actual meaning of capitalism and more on this week’s episode of Words and Numbers.

Show Notes:

MIT study of commute times

Marchetti’s constant

Commute times in the 50 states

California requires companies to place women on boards

Foolishness of the Week:

Laura Ingraham wants Facebook to be a public utility

Topic of the Week: Capitalism:

Capitalism

Prices as signals

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Antony Davies on Twitter

James R. Harrigan on Twitter

Words & Numbers Backstage

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We’re experiencing the rise of a new kind of socialist. The original definition of socialism—state ownership of the means of production—is beginning to fall by the wayside. What self-proclaimed socialists are asking for now is for the state to control the means of production. While this might seem like a pedantic distinction, it’s an important one. But the rebranding of socialism by democratic socialists like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez still fails to take into account the most important aspect of sound economics: human behavior. Join James Harrigan and Antony Davies as they drill down into the pitfalls of socialism and more on this week’s episode of Words and Numbers.

Show Notes:

Half the world will be middle-class by 2020

World poverty rates

Madsen Pirie

High schooler faces prison for shooting zombies

Foolishness of the week

NASCAR driver loses sponsorship for father’s remarks

Topic of the week: Socialism

Socialism

Theory of pervasive shortages under socialism

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Antony Davies on Twitter

James R. Harrigan on Twitter

Words & Numbers Backstage

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Everybody vaguely familiar with basic economic concepts knows that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. It’s a great phrase and speaks to the principles of both opportunity cost and scarcity. That said, a “free lunch” refers to more than your afternoon repast. Everything costs something. And if you end up paying zero dollars for it, that only means it was paid for by someone else. This holds true for college tuition. It may cost a student zero dollars, and that student will certainly benefit from not having to pay for higher education herself, but what’s really been done is shifting the cost from the student—who is actually using the service—to the taxpayers—who certainly aren’t. So while there’s certainly a big problem with student debt in America, the solution isn’t “free” tuition. Join Antony Davies and James Harrigan as they get deep in the weeds about college tuition and more on this week’s episode of Words and Numbers.

Show Notes:

11 year old hacker changes election results

California law would prohibit restaurants from listing soft drinks on menus

Foolishness of the Week

Cops taser 87 year-old woman

Topic of the Week: Public policy and financing higher education

Tuition discounting

Financing college through equity instead of debt

Student loan data

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Antony Davies on Twitter

James R. Harrigan on Twitter

Words & Numbers Backstage

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James and Ant have a lot of experience with both high school and college students. Most of the time, they’re extremely impressed with the high school students that they encounter. But something seems to be happening in the summer between high school graduation and beginning their first semester of college. Something… not ideal. And to a point, it’s perfectly natural. Young people are interested in exploring their newfound freedom, and that includes the amount of attention that they pay to their studies. Because of this, a great many otherwise intelligent students find themselves struggling with college. So, if you do decide to attend a college or university, how can you keep this from happening? Join James Harrigan and Antony Davies as the explore this and more on this week’s episode of Words and Numbers.

Show Notes:

Number of bachelor’s degrees conferred by field of study

Antony Davies on Twitter

James R. Harrigan on Twitter

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As the back-to-school season gets into full swing, hundreds of thousands of young people are heading back to class at their chosen college or university. On average, the simple dollar cost of tuition and fees for a four-year degree is about a quarter of a million dollars. A large majority of students will have to take on some kind student loan debt to cover these costs. But we've been told our whole lives that in order to have a good job and successful career, a college degree is both necessary and an automatic golden ticket, so it has to be worth it. Right? Join Antony Davies and James Harrigan as they drill down into the value of a college degree and more on this week's episode of Words and Numbers.

Show Notes:

Tuition and fees at 4-year institutions over time

30 million jobs in the US pay $55,000 per year and don’t require a college degree

High paying jobs sit empty while students go to college

Median income by education, 2017 (table 5)

Median income by education, 1997 (table 4)

Unemployment rate by education, 2017

Unemployment rate by education, 1997

Fraction of 15-24 year olds enrolled in college over time

Average pay by college major

FEE high school seminars

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Antony Davies on Twitter

James R. Harrigan on Twitter

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People tend to have a strange blind spot when it comes to government. We—or a lot of us, at least—tend to assume the best of intentions from our government. Our fellow civilians garner suspicion, but our elected officials are somehow magically benevolent and altruistic. When governments misbehave and act violently, we tend to think about these actions in terms of warfare. And yes, in the 20th century alone, wars have killed around 106 million people. That's a lot and not to be discounted. But in the same timeframe, governments have killed at least that many—and probably more like twice that number—within the confines of their own borders. We forget that a government is a monopoly on the use of force, and every time we ask our government to do something, even something as innocuous as putting up parking meters, what we're really asking them to do is to bring their force—their violence—to bear on our behalf. It's a sobering thought. Join James Harrigan and Antony Davies as they dive deep into this subject and more on this week's episode of Words and Numbers.

 

Show Notes:

Venezuela’s 1,000,000% inflation

Seattle’s street cars too big for their tracks

Foolishness of the week

Bank of America loses customers’ safe deposit boxes

Topic of the week: How many people do governments kill?

Soviet Union kills 20 million of its own citizens

China kills 65 million of its own citizens

Cambodia kills 1.5 to 3 million of its own citizens

20th century democide

Less than 500,000 people murdered worldwide annually by non-governments

US incarceration rates 1960-2012

Incarceration rates across countries

7 million Americans either in prison, on probation or parole

How We Thrive documentary

Antony Davies on Twitter

James R. Harrigan on Twitter

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Gallup recently asked 1,000 people about what the most important issue we’re dealing with is in the United States. You might think that the majority answered drugs and gun control, but you’d be wrong. Instead, the survey found that drugs only received 1% of votes as being the biggest issue, and a whopping 2% for gun rights, with those numbers only going as high as 4% since January. The only time those numbers changed was in March, when the media massively promoted the gun rights debate, culminating into the already-forgotten March for Our Lives movement. As much as we criticize the media, these numbers show how much they manufacture sensationalism. Join us this week as we discuss open-ended polls and the influence of media on people’s issues with James Harrigan and Antony Davies.

Show Notes:

Diamonds worth $31 septillion

Jeff Bezos worth $150 billion

Doctors give patients seconds

Foolishness of the week

Congressman calls for ban on cryptocurrency

Topic of the week: What’s the largest problem facing the country?

Gallup poll

School shootings not as common as the media portrays

Gun violence waning

 

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