Rethinking Politics

As Crypto currencies and other alternative currencies rise in popularity, the dollar becomes less and less secure. In today's episode we take a look at why the dollar is struggling, what the alternatives are, and how we got here in the first place. You can’t answer these questions without knowing something about the nature of money itself. So we answer questions like: what is the history of money, why do societies use money, why do certain goods become money vs others, and what that means for the current monetary landscape. We also address the common historical trend for money to be debased and eventually move towards paper and inflation to benefit agents of government.

Music: Beauty Flow by Kevin Macleod

Photo: Bermix Studio on Unsplash

The Texas Power outage was a massive failure of some kind, but what exactly caused it? While every Op-ed on the subject seems to already have their partisan answer, a closer look reveals just how messy it is. All of the simple answers for what caused this catastrophe; Wind Power, Fossil Fuels, Deregulation, and Texas’ Power Independence do not address just how inept the modern power grid really is. In this episode we discuss what went wrong, why the system is set up the way it is, and why power grids in the US will continue to struggle until major changes are made. 

Photo: Mathew Henry on Unsplash

In this episode, we take a look at the now tabled proposal to increase the federal minimum wage to 15 dollars an hour. The main reason people want to increase the minimum wage is to help the poor. The first half of our discussion focuses on sorting through the evidence to determine whether minimum wage does in fact help the poor at the expense of businesses as its advocates hope. In the latter half, our discussion shifts focus towards understanding poverty better by addressing the many misconceptions about "the poor".

Music: Beauty Flow by Kevin Macleod

As the question of student loan forgiveness is being discussed on the federal level, we thought it would be a good time to take a look at student debt. With almost 50 million people currently holding student debt in the US, this issue is a big one.  But the underlying issues are more complicated than the existence of debt, and simply forgiving that debt will not solve the problem. Instead of debating student loan forgiveness, we focus on the underlying reasons for the current student debt crisis and what we can do to fix it.

Well everyone, Dan has been stranded in Texas during the crazy storms and outages in Texas, so there will be no episode this week. The good news is that it will only be this week as power and water are stabilizing. We look forward to speaking with you again Thursday!

A lot has happened so far this month, and in this catch-all episode we try to hit on as many of them as we can. And as always, we bring our own take and offer some insight into the implications and importance of these many issues. We cover the impeachment trial, Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Stimulus Bill, Covid lockdowns, Gamestop, and Robinhood.

Music: Beauty Flow by Kevin Macleod   

(Episode Description Censored) 

Now that Trump is out of the White House and the Democrats have at least marginal control of Congress, what happens to the GOP? Normally, the next four years would be a chance for the party out of power to rally against the incumbent for the next election. But this time things are different. This time the GOP has fractured into two distinct groups that are going to have a hard time cooperating, even for an election. The likely result of this division is that the Republican party will not win the white house or gain control of congress for an unusually long time. Some of these political losses are unavoidable, but not all of them. In this episode, we discuss what can be done to fix this problem and other long term problems with the GOP at the same time.  

Music: Beauty Flow by Kevin Macleod

Photo: Jacob Morch on Unsplash

After the capitol riot and the ensuing media frenzy, wildly different accounts of the events have sprouted up like weeds. The problem today is not access to information, but discerning which information is accurate. In this episode, we discuss how to find reliable information in a world of information saturation. First, we need to understand our own biases and how they influence our thinking. We also need to understand the biases of our sources in order to assess the validity of their claims. Second, we need to learn to recognize the biases of the sources we listen to. We go through several specific political biases including: Love or Hate for Donald Trump, Anti-Racism, Anti-Sexism, Constitutionalism, Environmentalism, Anti-capitalism, Communism, Conspiracy Theorist, Pro-Freedom/Anti-Authoritarian, Elitism, and The Oppressed. Finally, we offer a few tips to identify reliable sources.

Music: Beauty Flow by Kevin Macleod

Photo: Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Given the recent events at the capitol building and the growing divide between Americans of different political persuasions, it is time to rethink power at the national level. As it is now, more power is centralized with every new president and we see more and more anger, despair, and violence as that power is exercised by each side in turn. This is a cycle that can only end with national civil war.. Months ago, we proposed a solution to this problem in the form of Federalism. In this episode, we address the essential detail that makes federalism functional: the right to secede. We argue that secession is a moral right based on the concept of self determination and rule by the consent of the governed. Without secession, federalism has no teeth. With secession, there is an out for citizens who are being oppressed. We also address the most common arguments against secession such as: 1: Secession is unconstitutional. 2: Secession is a threat to our national security 3: Secession is a tool of oppression or racist 4: Secession cannot be done peacefully. And More.