Hawk Talk

There are many people in this world who like to make the argument, "Correlation is not causation." And this oft-used expression is true. Correlation is not, in fact, causation. Just because two things tend to happen at about the same time does not necessarily mean that they have anything to do with each other at all. That said, lack of correlation does mean lack of causation. So what does that mean for economic freedom and "good" social outcomes? Join James and Antony as they unpack what economic freedom indices indicate and more on this episode of Words and Numbers.

Show Notes:

Employment rate almost full recovered from 2008 crash

TSA gets immunity

Foolishness of the week

Starbucks’ straws

Topic of the week: Economic Freedom

Equality, Liberty, and Prosperity

Fraser: Economic Freedom of the World

Fraser: Economic Freedom of North America

Heritage/WSJ: Index of Economic Freedom

Cato: Freedom in the 50 States

Contact us

Antony on Twitter

James on Twitter

Words & Numbers - Backstage

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Why are we debating the Supreme Court nominees as much as we are? Unbelievably, written requirements of the Supreme Court are non-existent. Where the Constitution lists age and experience requirements for both presidential and congressional candidates, only a tiny paragraph describes what the third branch of government should look like. All of those standards and regulations you think are law? None have been put in writing anywhere. In fact, judicial review, one of the most important parts of a Supreme Court Justice’s job, only started in 1803, established following the ruling of Marbury v. Madison. Join Antony Davies and James Harrigan this week as they discuss the surprising standards set for Supreme Court Justice candidates.

Show Notes:

North Korea executes a General for giving food to soldiers’ families

The United States fines people for giving food to the poor

Black men are succeeding in America

Foolishness of the week

Americans ask the FAA to regulate seat size

Topic of the week: The Supreme Court

Sotomayor on the idea of a living constitution

Scalia on the idea of a living constitution Congressional job approval

Agreement rates among Supreme Court Justices

 

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What do you know about the political party you disagree with the most? Who do you think makes the group up? Is it a bunch of “libtard snowflakes” who are all union-backed? Or is it a bunch of offensive alt-right wackos with too much money to know what to do with it? Either way, those perceptions are both completely off-base—caricatural, even—and dangerous. A study, titled, “The Parties in our Heads: Misperceptions About Party Composition and Their Consequences” discusses exactly how Democrats and Republicans perceive both themselves and each other, and shows exactly how inaccurate those perceptions are. From exaggerated numbers of union-affiliated democrats to impossible statistics of Republicans who make more than $250,000 per year, join us as we discuss the dangers of political misrepresentation and more in this week’s episode of Words and Numbers with James Harrigan and Antony Davies.

Show Notes:

Harley Davidson moving overseas

Largest U.S. nail manufacturer on brink of extinction

FDA approves marijuana-based drug

Foolishness of the week

US is the 10th most dangerous country for women

John Cleese and the BBC

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Topic of the week

Each party is wrong about the other

The Parties in Our Heads: Misperceptions about Party Composition and Their Consequences

 

 

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The criminal justice system presents a lot of issues, the least of which is discrimination. . . despite what the public may think. Over decades, prosecutors have slowly taken power and responsibility away from the jury and into their own hands, destroying the premise of “presumed innocent until proven guilty.” Statutory immunity, legal discretion and the opaqueness of the criminal justice system are all much bigger problems than discrimination, which is, in fact, a much less negative term than we generally think. But why are these things such big issues? Join Antony Davies and James Harrigan this week with special guest, criminal justice attorney Catherine Barnard as they explore some of the biggest issues with today’s justice system.

Show Notes:

Cure for diabetes

Republican proposal to balance the budget by cutting entitlements

Proposed 2019 Federal budget

Foolishness of the week

Sarah Huckabee Sanders kicked out of restaurant

Topic of the week: Equality under the law

Catherine Bernard

James and Ant on Twitter

@JamesRHarrigan

@AntonyDavies

 

 

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Which would you rather be, a member of the working class in America today or an 18th-century French monarch? The answer to that is almost certainly the former. A lot has changed in the last 200 years. Heck, a lot has changed in the last 20 years, for that matter, and with a few notable exceptions, those changes have been for the better. In the year 1800, 95 percent of the world lived in extreme poverty. Today, it's less than 10 percent, despite there being more than 6 billion more people living today. We carry in our pockets a supercomputer that allows us access to the sum total of human knowledge that we use to look at cat GIFs. Life is pretty amazing. So why do so few people believe that's the case? Join James Harrigan and Antony Davies as they talk about this and more on this week's episode of Words and Numbers.

Show Notes:

Iraq is getting safer

Empty seats at the world cup

Foolishness of the week

Netflix’ 5-second rule

Topic of the week: The world is getting better every day

Louis CK, everything is amazing and nobody is happy

Cafe Hayek: Most Americans are richer than Rockefeller

Pew survey on perceptions of gun violence

Media and cognitive biases

Living conditions in the United States

U.S. Firearm deaths 2012-2016

U.S. Firearm deaths 1975-1994 (chart 5.1)

U.S. non-fatal firearm violence 1993-2011

Military and civilian deaths due to armed conflicts since 1945

Child labor rates 1950-present

Global income inequality 1800-present

Gender inequality 1995-2015

World poverty 1820-2015

Animation showing longevity and income by country 1800-present

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 It's a well-established fact that Social Security and Medicare are in serious trouble and have been for a while. The newest projections released last week have Social Security being insolvent in the year 2034 and Medicare in 2026. A fair amount of this trouble can be laid at the feet of the federal government and its seemingly insatiable habit of spending money it doesn't have. It's gotten to the point that there isn't really anywhere else in the world that has the amount of money the US government needs to borrow. It seemed so easy to just take that money from the Social Security and Medicare trusts at the time, but with federal spending now higher than it's ever been (regardless of whether you adjust for inflation or simply count it as a percentage of GDP), it seems very unlikely that that money will—or even can—ever be paid back. So, what's a government to do? Join Antony Davies and James Harrigan as they talk about this and more on this week's special live-from-FEEcon episode of Words and Numbers.

Show Notes

Anthony Bourdain

Charles Krauthammer

Country Time comes to the rescue of children’s lemonade stands

Lemonade stand shut down 1

Lemonade stand shut down 2

Lemonade stand shut down 3

Foolishness of the week

Bernie Sanders believes socialist ideas are winning

Topic of the week: Federal bankruptcy

Historical CBO projections

Debt myths debunked

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The jobs report for the month of May has recently been released, and Republicans—particularly President Trump—have been very busy congratulating themselves about the rosy unemployment rate. In fairness, unemployment is currently the lowest it's been since the turn of the millennium, which is nothing to turn one's nose up at. But there's more to a healthy economy than a low unemployment rate. So, what does the May jobs report actually say? And what do those numbers really imply? Join James Harrigan and Antony Davies as they unpack the May jobs report and more on this week's episode of Words and Numbers.

Show Notes:

Dog buys food with leaves

Bare-knuckle boxing

Foolishness of the week

Bernie Sanders says Disney needs a moral defense

Topic of the week

Unemployment numbers

On twitter

@AntonyDavies

@JamesRHarrigan

 

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If there's something that progressives agree on, it's that inequality exists and that it's a problem. But what do we mean when we say "inequality"? Is it that some people have more "stuff" (money, goods, access to services) than others? Is it that some people are more skilled, more talented, better looking, or just plain luckier than others? In a relatively free society with fairly consistent equality of opportunity, the result is inevitably going to be inequality of outcome. And this is not necessarily a bad thing. Why is a certain amount of inequality a good thing? Should we care about numerical inequality indicators such as the Gini index? Should we take legislative action to "level the playing field"? Join James Harrigan and Antony Davies as they talk about this and more on this week's episode of Words and Numbers.

Show Notes:

• Seattle’s tax on jobs
• France bans throwing away unsold clothing
• France bans throwing away unsold food
• Hillary Clinton wants to be Facebook’s CEO
• Federalist 10
• Equality in the consumption of goods and services (1)
• Equality in the consumption of goods and services (2)
• Inequality rising over time
• Taxes and transfers reduce income inequality by 25%
• All the quintiles are getting richer
• Much of the inequality we observe is due to differences in ages (Table H-10)
• Income mobility across generations

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This week on Words and Numbers, it's all about you, the listener. Join James Harrigan and Antony Davies as they answer questions from listeners posed in the Words and Numbers: Backstage Facebook group. Don't miss out on the next opportunity to have your questions answered on air! Join the Words and Numbers: Backstage Facebook group, where the conversation continues.

Show Notes:

• Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Datasets
• Do we have the right to silence speech?
• Is there a case for progressive taxes?
• What is causing the youth unemployment?
• Why does government only grow?
• How can markets encourage us to use scarce resources judiciously
• Will prostitution ever be legal?

 

 

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Adam Smith is widely regarded as the "father of economics," but what isn't as widely known is that he never considered himself an economist. He thought of himself as a philosopher. And, indeed, in the tradition of the Scottish Enlightenment, he was one. In the Scottish Enlightenment, study was largely divided into two categories: natural science and moral science. Natural science largely explains itself, but moral science was an attempt to ground ethics and morality in as much scientific reality and fact-based reasoning as possible, and it's from that branch of study that the subject of economics bloomed. If you want to make moral statements, if your heart is in the right place, then you need to have your facts straight. And while, over time, we've seen a more and more tightly defined division of labor and specialization, particularly in academia, perhaps it's time to get back to a more holistic form of study when it comes to economics and ethics. Join Antony Davies, James Harrigan, and special guest David Schmidtz as they discuss this and more on this week's episode of Words and Numbers.

Show Notes:

• Manipulating matter at the atomic level
• People are fleeing California’s taxes
• Jim Bakker
• David Schmidtz

 

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