The American Compass Podcast

The affordability crisis has become Washington’s favorite talking point, but the solutions proposed so far won’t solve it. From capital gains tax cuts pitched as relief to renewed enthusiasm for Chinese investment as a growth strategy, many policymakers are circling the problem without addressing its core drivers: stagnant wages, distorted incentives in trade and industrial policy, and an economy that has stopped reliably producing gains for working Americans.

Chris Griswold, policy director at American Compass, joins Oren to discuss how affordability is less about marginal tax tweaks and more about rebuilding the productive foundations of the economy. They also explain why proposals to deepen economic integration with China ignore the strategic and structural realities of a state-directed competitor. Finally, they explore what a more honest political message would look like heading into the midterms, one that connects affordability to wages, industry, and national strategy rather than short-term price relief.

The fight over net neutrality was supposed to determine the future of the internet. Advocates of net neutrality warned that repealing it would lead to censorship, higher costs, and the collapse of an open web. But nearly a decade later, those predictions never materialized, and the debate has taken on new significance as broadband, 5G, and AI become central to economic growth and national power. What was once treated as a moral emergency now looks more like a case study in regulatory overreach and political panic.

Ajit Pai, former chairman of the FCC, and current CEO of CTIA, joins Drew Holden to revisit the net neutrality battle and assess its legacy. They discuss why the backlash became so intense, what actually happened after net neutrality’s repeal, and how the policy shift affected investment in broadband and wireless infrastructure. They also explore the stakes of today’s telecom landscape, from the race with China over 5G and role of spectrum in AI development, and consider what it will take for the United States to maintain its technological advantage.

Artificial intelligence is advancing rapidly, but our ability to measure what these systems can actually do—and the risks they may pose—has lagged behind. Headline benchmarks and viral demos offer snapshots of a system's performance, but they say little about how AI behaves in complex real-world settings or how much autonomy models can sustain over time. As these systems take on more consequential roles, the challenge is not just building more powerful models, but developing credible ways to evaluate their capabilities and limits.

Chris Painter, president of Model Evaluation and Threat Research (METR), joins Oren to discuss how researchers are building new frameworks to assess AI systems and what those efforts reveal about the trajectory of machine intelligence. They explore “time horizon” as a measure of autonomy, the difficulty of evaluating alignment and sabotage risks, and the constraints posed by compute and organizational bottlenecks. They also consider what it will look like when AI systems begin contributing even more to their own development and their capabilities outpace our ability to measure them.

“Girlboss” feminism promised a world in which women could seamlessly balance ambitious careers and flourishing family lives. But in practice, that vision has proven far more brittle, often demanding total commitment to work while sidelining marriage, children, and the realities of time and tradeoffs. While many women are moving away from that all-consuming focus on a career, they're looking for something much different than what the Instagram tradwife has to offer.

Emma Waters, senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation and author of the recently released Lead Like Jael, joins Oren to explore what comes next. They discuss the backlash against career-first feminism, the rise and limits of “tradwife” culture, and the emerging case for a more flexible, family-centered approach to work. They also examine the class divide underlying these debates, the role of technology in reshaping women’s choices, and how policymakers and employers could better support a model that allows women to prioritize both work and family without forcing an all-or-nothing choice.

Further Reading:

• Buy Lead Like Jael by Emma Waters
• “Pursuing the Reunification of Home and Work” Erika Bachiochi, American Compass
• “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” by Anne-Marie Slaughter, The Atlantic

The financial industry is supposed to be our economy’s plumbing, quietly channeling capital to investments where it’s needed most. But in today’s system, that plumbing is leaking. From rising credit card rates and opaque lending products to the decline of local banking and the growth of speculative activity, the financial sector is increasingly disconnected from the real economy it was built to serve.

Rohit Chopra, former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, joins Oren to examine how finance lost its purpose and what it would take to restore it. They discuss the limits of regulation versus enforcement, the rise of non-bank financial products, and the growing concentration of credit markets. They also consider whether novel activities like online sports betting and prediction represent genuine innovation or simply new ways to extract more money from consumers.

Immigration enforcement has long been framed as a question of border security, but the Trump administration's success at stopping illegal crossings has turned the public's attention toward removing illegal aliens who have become enmeshed in communities across America. Now, the administration's challenge will be enforcing immigration law in our labor market.

Daniel Kishi, senior policy advisor at American Compass, joins Oren to discuss what effective immigration enforcement actually requires. They explore why targeting employers may be more effective than high-profile raids, how weak enforcement distorts labor markets and suppresses wages, and what the administration’s shifting strategy reveals about the politics of immigration. They also examine the structural flaws in the H-1B visa program, from below-market wage rules to the lottery system, and consider whether temporary worker programs can truly serve the national interest. Finally, they turn to the trucking industry, assessing how relaxed standards and unauthorized labor reshaped the market and how recent crackdowns from the administration are beginning to restore wages, safety, and the rule of law.

Further Reading:

• "Fix the H1-B Visa Program" by Daniel Kishi

For decades, Americans were told that success was simple: graduate high school, enroll in a four-year college, and launch a career from there. But as college enrollment has expanded and costs have skyrocketed, the results have become increasingly difficult to justify. Many students never complete a degree, others graduate without meaningful skills, all while the system continues to push young people into a single pathway that often fails to match their talents.

Dan Currell, author of The College Question, joins Oren to discuss how the college-for-all approach came to dominate Americans' jump from high school to adulthood. They discuss the incentives that keep the system expanding, the gap between what colleges promise and what many students actually gain, and how cultural expectations push families toward this path even when better options might exist for their children. They close by considering what it would take to rebuild credible alternatives, from technical education and apprenticeships to employer-led training, that could offer young Americans more reliable routes into productive work.

Further Reading:

• “One Big Question: Hands-On Training or a Free Ride on Campus?” Oren Cass, Commonplace

Artificial intelligence continues to advance, but the debate over its economic consequences takes place mostly in two separate spheres: amongst the technologists developing the technology and the workers whose jobs may be transformed by it. As technology gets deployed, the question is no longer whether it will reshape the labor market, but who will benefit and who will bear the costs.

American Compass co-hosted a recent Labor + AI Summit in Washington, D.C., where Oren moderated a conversation between Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir, and Sean O’Brien, General President of the International Brotherhood of the Teamsters. They discuss how AI may shift labor demand away from white-collar professions, the risks of deepening economic inequality if workers are excluded from the conversation, and why labor must have a “seat at the table” as new technologies are implemented. They also explore the role of unions, the pressures globalization and immigration have placed on wages, and what it would take to ensure that AI strengthens rather than destabilizes the American middle class.

The Supreme Court’s recent decision to limit the president’s use of emergency tariff authority set off a wave of commentary declaring the end of Trump’s trade agenda. But one week later, the reality looks far more complicated than what the chattering class might lead you to think. If IEEPA is off the table, what tools remain? What happens to the deals already struck? And does this ruling mark a retreat from tariff policy, or will the administration simply a shift to firmer legal ground?

Mark DiPlacido, senior political economist at American Compass, joins Oren to assess where things stand. They delve into the alternative authorities available to the administration—Sections 232, 301, and 122; what a “balance of payments” means in practice; and how sectoral tariffs on steel, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, and critical minerals might reshape the next phase of trade policy. They also explore what a stable endpoint for Trump’s tariff strategy would actually look like and what Congress would need to do to make a better system of global trade permanent.

For decades, economists, armed with elegant models, powerful data, and firm conclusions about how markets should work, have claimed to be practitioners of a hard science. Yet in an era of financialization, political backlash, and rising skepticism of any “expert” consensus, many Americans are wondering whether the profession has grown too insular, too ideological, or simply too detached from reality.

Luigi Zingales, professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and director of the Stigler Center, joins Oren Cass to discuss what’s gone wrong. They explore the hierarchy of and conformity within the field, the temptation to defend models because of the conclusions they produce, and the gap between theoretical assumptions and real-world outcomes. The conversation closes with a look at whether a younger generation of economists is prepared to rethink the orthodoxy, and what it would take for economics to regain both its rigor and its relevance.