Qualified Opinions

In this episode, Vero De Rugy sits down with Paul Mueller and Dave Hebert, senior research fellows at AIER, to discuss trade and national security.

The conversation dives deep into the complex—and often manipulated—tension between market efficiency and national defense. While free traders acknowledge legitimate security exceptions, the trio explores how "national security" is frequently used as a pretext for protectionist policies that come with a steep, often hidden, economic price tag.

Key highlights of the discussion include:

• Vigilante Justice on the World Stage: Paul and Dave discuss their "Batman" analogy for current trade policy—exploring the consequences of bypassing international norms like the WTO to "dole out justice" through unilateral tariffs.

• The China Dilemma: A look at whether "decoupling" from the Chinese economy is a realistic goal or a demographic and logistical impossibility.

• The Net Assessment of the Current Administration: Vero proposes a provocative theory: Could the "background" wins in energy deregulation, AI framework, and crypto policy outweigh the "foreground" chaos of trade wars and market uncertainty?

• The Cost of Credibility: Why market uncertainty and capricious policy shifts might be more damaging to long-term growth than the actual tariffs themselves.

Whether you are interested in the granular details of the WTO enforcement mechanisms or the broader philosophical questions of individualism versus the new collectivism, this episode offers a candid look at the trade-offs required for American prosperity in a globalized world.

As Social Security approaches its 90th anniversary, the program faces a looming identity crisis and a massive fiscal deadline. In this episode, host Veronique De Rugy sits down with Romina Boccia, Director of Budget and Entitlement Policy at the Cato Institute and co-author of Reimagining Social Security: Global Lessons for Retirement Policy Changes.

Together, they dismantle the most persistent myths surrounding the U.S. retirement system, from the "lockbox" illusion to the reality of the 2032 trust fund depletion. Romina explains why a program designed in the era of the Great Depression is struggling to keep pace with modern capital markets and 21st-century life expectancy.

Key topics discussed in this episode include:

• The Pay-As-You-Go Reality: Why 1 in 4 Americans believe they have a personal account, and the truth about intergovernmental IOUs.

• The 2032 Deadline: How recent legislative changes have accelerated the timeline for automatic benefit cuts.

• Lessons from Abroad: How countries like Sweden and Canada successfully modernized their systems by leaning into private accounts and flexible savings.

• Universal Savings Accounts (USAs): A proposal to fix the "double taxation" on savings and empower lower-income workers without the sting of early withdrawal penalties.

This conversation offers a candid look at how we can move beyond "tweaks" to build a more secure financial future.

In this episode, Veronique de Rugy and Luke Foster peel back the layers of the "French political soul," and explore the intellectual roots of the Franco-American relationship.

Foster, a professor and co-founder of Academia Tocqueville, argues that Tocqueville's emphasis on civil society as a check on central power remains the ultimate diagnostic tool for modern governance.

De Rugy and Foster also discuss the high stakes of 21st-century geopolitics, centered on Foster's recent critique of the NATO alliance, "We Need Friends, Not Flatterers." They dissect the Gaullist concept of strategic autonomy, questioning whether the American security umbrella has inadvertently stunted European state capacity and led to a "crowding out" of defense spending by the welfare state.

From France's nuclear grid to the surprising efficiency of its fiscal bureaucracy, De Rugy and Foster challenge the assumption that the American model is always more efficient, ultimately calling for a partnership built on honest realism rather than convenient dependence.

Host Veronique De Rugy is joined by Peter Boettke to discuss his recent work on the "marvel" of the market and why modern economics has lost its way. Centered on F.A. Hayek's landmark essay, The Use of Knowledge in Society, this episode explores how prices serve as a vital vehicle for learning and coordination that no top-down planner can replicate. They discuss the transition of economics from a tool for "social understanding" to a failed instrument of "social control" and the dangerous consequences of treating economic science like "social physics".

This episode of Qualified Opinions features a provocative discussion with Russ Greene on the topic of "Total Boomer Luxury Communism." It's a system where wealth is systematically transferred from younger, less affluent generations to the most prosperous cohort in US history through entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

Vera and Russ dive into the structural unfairness of age-based benefits, explaining how the pay-as-you-go system, coupled with misleading "property rights" language, burdens current workers with debt, inflation, and a compounding housing crisis—all to sustain benefits for seniors, regardless of their net worth. Discover the hidden mechanics behind this intergenerational transfer and why many Americans are shocked by the reality of these programs.

Dive into a provocative discussion with host Veronique De Rugy, John Cochrane, author of The Fiscal Theory of the Price Level, and Tom Hoenig, a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Veronique and guests challenge the notion of Federal Reserve independence, arguing that independence is not an absolute virtue, but a limited grant tied to obeying strict rules—namely, sticking to inflation and employment. They explore the history of independence, arguing its true purpose is a pre-commitment against the temptation to print money to monetize government deficits. You'll hear why restoring the Fed's limited mandate may be more crucial than its independence alone.

Hoenig and Cochrane provide a crucial historical perspective, detailing how the Fed has "failed in many ways and exceeded its authority." Hoenig argues the Fed violated its primary mandate by effectively monetizing massive government debt through quantitative easing and keeping interest rates at zero, enabling increased fiscal spending and resulting in widespread inflation (including asset inflation). The episode draws parallels to the 1951 Fed-Treasury Accord as a past example of reestablishing boundaries. Learn how the current refusal of the Fed leadership to address fiscal policy and the deficit echoes a dangerous pattern, and why the solution must come from Congress being crystal clear about the Fed's limited role.

As the Supreme Court reviews one of the most consequential economic and constitutional cases in decades, questions loom over how the president can wield emergency powers to reshape trade policy. At the center of this debate is the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEPA) and its use by President Trump to impose tariffs.

Today, Veronique sits down with Donald J. Boudreaux, Senior Fellow at the Mercatus Center and economics professor at George Mason University, and Scott Lincicome, Vice President of General Economics at the Cato Institute and adjunct professor at Duke Law School. Together, they explore what is truly at stake: not only the future of U.S. trade policy, but the balance of power between Congress and the executive branch.

Today, Brian Albrecht joins Qualified Opinions to discuss his recent writings on tariffs, why economists find them uniquely frustrating, and how simple supply and demand principle still does a remarkable job at predicting the effects of policies.

Brian Albrecht is the Chief Economist at the International Center for Law & Economics.

Graduate student unions are on the rise, and they're not like the workers' unions of the 1950s and 1960s—they are something all their own. At the heart of these unions sit many of the issues sending our universities into decay: social justice activism, radical politics, and woke culture.

Jon Hartley joins to discuss the battle against these institutions.

Jon Hartley is an economist specializing in finance, labor economics, and macroeconomics. He is currently a Policy Fellow at the Hoover Institution, an economics PhD Candidate at Stanford University, a Research Fellow at the UT-Austin Civitas Institute, and an Affiliated Scholar at the Mercatus Center.

Jon is also the host of the Capitalism and Freedom in the 21st Century Podcast, an official podcast of the Hoover Institution

Free market ideas are waning on both sides of the aisle in modern American politics, but the justifications for this sit on shaky ground. In The Triumph of Economic Freedom, Donald Boudreaux and Phil Gramm debunk seven economic myths about American Capitalism.

Donald Boudreaux joins the show today to discuss.

Donald Boudreaux is a Senior Fellow at the Mercatus Center, Professor of Economics at George Mason University, and one of the most compelling public defenders of free market principles.