Hawk Talk

Technology doesn’t just change things, it utterly destroys things. And that’s just fine. It happens so often that people barely even notice when it does. Think about all the new services that have come to market just over the past few years: Uber, Airbnb, Redbox … the list goes on and on. But that’s only half the story. In turn, the list of services replaced by these new ones is similarly long: taxis, hotels, Blockbuster, etc. And workers in these industries often lose their jobs in the line of creative destruction. We generally accept this as the price of innovation, but many people try to use the government to stop this by blocking the new services. Today we’re seeing this with more politically well-connected industries like taxis and hotels. Pressure is put on Uber and Airbnb, respectively, to “protect” the established industries they are upending.  This week, Ant and James talk about why this is always a mistake. Learn More: https://fee.org/articles/government-cant-stop-creative-destruction/

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There is no truly good way to measure unemployment, which makes it pretty easy for successive administrations to claim that unemployment is consistently improving. But when we do our level best to include all of the unemployed in the numbers, what we learn is that unemployment levels now are higher than they were at the beginning of the Great Recession. That’s the bad news. The good news is that things actually have been getting better over time. In this week’s episode, James and Antony take a look at the actual unemployment numbers to get to the bottom of what they really mean. Get the facts here: https://fee.org/articles/you-cant-trust-unemployment-statistics/

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This week, James & Antony tackle minimum wage laws and present some hard facts that might surprise a lot of people.  See below for links to all the data and ideas they're talking about in this episode.

Raw Data: http://www.governing.com/gov-data/economy-finance/youth-employment-unemployment-rate-data-by-state.html

https://www.bls.gov/web/laus/laumstrk.htm

https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat08.htm

http://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/state-minimum-wage-chart.aspx

https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2016/home.htm

Research:

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/001979399204600105

https://www.mercatus.org/system/files/Davies-minimum-wage-PIC.pdf

http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/XXXIX/2/425.short

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/00197939140670S307

https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=CC_FCgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=%22minimum+wage%22&ots=bMKtfq8dOr&sig=acUFMHlHCDLr2Jo5F6scbDXX4-A#v=onepage&q=%22minimum%20wage%22&f=false

Op-Eds:

https://fee.org/articles/the-minimum-wage-conspiracy/

https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/2013/10/21/raising-the-minimum-wage-kills-jobs-for-low-skill-workers

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/for-the-maximally-vulnerable-the-minimum-wage-is-always_us_58eea085e4b04cae050dc45d

http://triblive.com/opinion/featuredcommentary/7003069-74/federal-wage-workers

http://triblive.com/opinion/featuredcommentary/10183883-74/wage-minimum-workers

http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/commentary/20170409_Minimum-wage_hikes_a_way_to_buying_union_votes.html

http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2015/06/03/what_a_pittsburgh_college_could_teach_seattle_los_angeles__chicago_101690.html

Related Videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct1Moeaa-W8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQUdnnGLVJk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAwf-JdIr0o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aCpaON5NyE

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This week on Words & Numbers James and Ant talk about the “safe spaces” movement on college campuses. Spoiler Alert: they don’t think campuses should be all that safe…at least not for ideas. College is the one time in a person’s life when just about every idea is on the table, and we do no one a service by declaring certain topics settled or off limits in the name of making people feel “safe.”

Learn More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/5905d8ade4b03b105b44b95c 

https://fee.org/articles/the-campus-counter-revolution-against-liberty/

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This week, James and Antony take a brief departure from talking about the growing national debt, and our absurd tax system to discuss the numerous ways in which more economic and personal freedom has made people wealthier, more equal, and better off all over the world. We're actually living in pretty amazing times.

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This week, Antony and James are equal-opportunity offenders, discussing the way power not only changes hands from one party to another, but support for political ideas flips back and forth as well. Neither the right nor the left is immune to this kind of hypocrisy. Editor's note:  According to James, "All the other political philosophers will point at me and laugh, but I said Paine when I meant Madison." This heinous error is about 5 minutes in, and we apologize.

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In honor of Tax Day, Antony Davies & James R. Harrigan talk about the absurdity of the US tax code. If your tax situation is more complicated or more uncomfortable than you like dealing with, you can pay another human being to do your taxes so you don’t have to. There are dependents, mortgages, deductions from energy-efficient household additions, charity, student loan interest ... even with a Ph.D. in economics, it’s hard to understand!

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This week, Antony and James break down Bill Gates' recent suggestion that companies that use robots instead of human workers should pay employment taxes in order to fund new welfare programs.

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This week, James & Antony experiment with a slightly longer format, and get into the issue of government funding for the arts. 

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This week, Antony & James take on the idea of "victimless crimes" and discuss the odd and growing trend of governments regulating some private activities such as pornography, while others like smoking marijuana are increasingly allowed. People imposing their values on others seems to boil down to an inability to appreciate that others have different preferences, but it all results in Americans losing freedom and instead becoming a nation of pets.

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