The Human Action Podcast

The great James Bovard addresses our annual research conference in Auburn on the dismal failures of government regulation — from farm subsidies to steel tariffs to FDA drug trials.

After watching students across the nation march this week against gun rights, are we seeing young Americans abandoning liberty? Joining Dr. Paul and Daniel McAdams on the Liberty Report, Jeff explains that he thinks the media exaggerates the appeal of the left to Millennials and their successors in "Generation Z."

Attorney General Jeff Sessions was at it again last week, insisting that the supremacy of federal law is "settled"—which is his way of saying nullification and secession are illegal. But Sessions is hardly alone in his thinking, which would be right at home on the pages of Salon or National Review. Michael Boldin of the Tenth Amendment Center joins Jeff Deist to discuss how we can fight back against the cult of federal supremacy, and why decentralization is a far more pragmatic and humane way to create greater freedom than trying to win national elections.

Economist Dan Mitchell joins Jeff Deist to discuss what might be the biggest threat of all to American prosperity: the shocking and unconscionable US government debt. What does $20 trillion in Treasury IOUs really mean for the private economy? Will the US government ever default and force bond holders to take a well-deserved haircut—or will the Fed continue to bail out Congress with low interest rates? Can this go on indefinitely, especially since other governments often have even worse fiscal and monetary policies? This is a sobering discussion of a reality politicians don't want to face.

The gun control debate is nothing more than a smokescreen: another divisive and emotional issue in a country obsessed with politicizing every human ill, all premised on the wildly irrational idea that we can get rid of 300 million firearms. But there is a market for safe schools and safe public spaces, a market security entrepreneurs could fill if government got out of the way. Mises.org editor Ryan McMaken joins Jeff to discuss private solutions to gun violence, the kind of solutions only available to private property owners with skin in the game. It's time to apply market incentives to school security.

North Korea is not the poorest country on earth, but it is undoubtedly the most miserable. Michael Malice has been there, and joins Jeff Deist to discuss the bizarre economics of life in a country with virtually no outside trade. China and Russia provide critical imports, especially oil and grain, without which the DPRK would truly grind to a halt. But this is foreign aid disguised as trade for worthless North Korean "currency." Beyond that a depressing form of autarky reigns, whereby the Central People's Committee creates economic plans that produce nothing but starvation and crumbling concrete. This is a fascinating conversation about "prison camp economics," and how concepts of exchange and calculation scarcely apply where market goods, technology, and price information are almost nonexistent. North Korea is a stark reminder of where omnipotent government leads.

With stock markets in turmoil earlier this week, the Mises Institute's resident expert on booms and busts joins Jeff Deist to make sense of it. Will new Fed Chair Jerome Powell do everything possible to prop up markets, or will he be more hawkish than Janet Yellen? What kinds of indicators does Mark look for to predict trouble (hint: it's not the VIX). Why does the volume of margin loans matter, and why is the Russell 2000 Index a better predictor than the Dow or Nasdaq? Are cryptocurrencies now bound up with macro trends? And is Austrian business cycle theory necessarily incomplete as a tool to help investors?

See Mark Thornton's 2004 article "Housing: Too Good to be True" at Mises.org/Thornton-Housing.

Daniel McAdams from the Ron Paul Institute joins Jeff Deist for an unbridled discussion of the true costs of war. We know the US spends more on "defense" than many big countries combined, but what are the actual numbers? How long can the federal budget sustain empire and entitlements? Will rising interest rates finally force Congress to stop expanding wars, building bases, buying useless weapons systems, and meddling around the world? And is Trump the president far more hawkish than Trump the candidate? This is a great conversation with one of the leading libertarian foreign policy voices.

Jeff Deist joins his friend "Mance Rayder" to discuss the political and economic state of the union, the endless fractures within libertarianism, a different way to look at immigration, and how Rothbard's fans and detractors alike benefit from reading him.

By every measure extreme poverty in Third World nations is decreasing rapidly. But what about the US and the West? Economist and mises.org editor Ryan McMaken joins Jeff Deist for a wide-ranging discussion of what makes people rich, and how economists should measure wealth. This great discussion explains the decline of real incomes and savings rates in the West, the moral hazards created by central banks, and how a happy combination of technology and market innovation often manages to outpace rapacious governments. Is deflation, horribly mischaracterized by economists, the real source of wealth in a society? And should we judge our personal finances in terms of net worth or lifestyle?