Unjerked Podcast

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In the final installment of the series on urban design, William Henderson and B. McGraw discuss how physical environments can create a sense of community. They talk about how designs like atriums or parks can help facilitate social interaction between neighbors. Following this, they go over the importance of social capital, and how people of different classes interacting can be good for social mobility in a city.

Then they discuss the housing crisis, and how Tokyo and Vienna's models show how to make housing affordable. They continue talking about ways to improve cities, to include best practice for transportation, for zoning, and for infrastructure.

Finally, they talk about the pros and cons of urban, rural, and suburban living. They then wrap up with a summary of what makes good city design.

01:42 — Urban form and social inequality

02:36 — Social capital and economic mobility

06:51 — Tokyo's permissive zoning model

09:41 — Vienna/Singapore public housing model

11:16 — Transit subsidization

14:03 — Grid streets, replacing stroads with arterials, bike lines, dedicated lanes

15:41 — Big-box stores vs. corner stores

18:13 — Elevated & daylighted intersections, roundabouts 

19:45 — Zoning: mixed use, densification, industrial separation

20:16 — How to fix bad zoning in a city you love

21:19 — Interest rates and development

21:57 — Modularized construction, utilities right-sizing, greenery

23:20 — Atlanta highway-cap park project

24:25 — Encouraging retrofittable buildings

24:54 — Example cities: Barcelona

26:22 — When do suburbs make sense

29:32 — Urban/rural political divide

Did you like this episode? Follow the Unjerked Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or wherever podcasts are played, so you won't miss a new one.

Did you like this episode? Follow the Unjerked Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or wherever podcasts are played, so you won't miss a new one.

B McGraw and William Henderson talk about best practices in urban design. What are the best principles of good urban systems? How do we reduce externalities related to urban life? This is part 1 of 2 episodes.

First we talk about the difference between urban design and housing or transit policy. Then we go over different externalities to manage. This includes urban heat, noise, mental health, traffic, carbon emissions, and more. We then talk about ways to minimize traffic accidents, the importance of grid pattern streets, and optimal zoning reforming. We then discuss densification of housing, dedicated bus lines, and the best ways to reduce noise. After this, we talk about policies that optimize mental health.

Overall, the key principles of good urban design include grid patterns, dense housing, public transit friendly streets, and lots of greenergy.

0:45: What is Urban Design? (vs. Housing & Transit)

3:16: Externalities that need to be managed

4:51: Traffic Accidents (2)

8:48: Grid patterns (2)

14:45: Zoning reform (2)

16:30: Densification (2)

17:00: Dedicated bus lanes

19:05: Noise (2)

22:40: Mental Health (2) (3)

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What are the different political positions which exist? What does it mean to be on the left vs right? Is the traditional political compass a good way to categorize politics?

Following this, we go over various common political ideologies. On the left, this includes left-neoliberalism, social democracy, green politics, and democratic socialism. On the right, we discuss additional movements. We then talk about

00:00 Introduction

00:13 Defining Social Policy

02:03 Culture vs. Social Policy

02:57 Environmental Politics

04:08 International Relations Axes

05:00 Democracy, Civil Liberties, Rule of Law

06:50 The Four Big Axes of Politics

07:14 Common Political Ideologies

8:45 Classical Liberalism

9:48 Neoliberalism

10:38 Libertarianism

12:09 Left-wing movements

12:35 Identitarian Left

12:42 Democratic Socialism

13:32 Social Democracy

13:54 Green Politics

21:44 Right-wing movements

21:44 neoliberal right

21:10 Christian Democracy

24:36 Burkian Conservatism

26:07 Neoconservatism

27:15 Identitarian Right

28:17 Voter Behavior and Party Coalitions

32:19 Fringe Ideologies

32:22 Fascism

32:27 Juntas

32:38 Absolute Monarchies

32:56 Anarchism

33:03 Marxism/Communism

33:11 Syndicalism

This is the Unjerked Podcast!

Did you like this episode? Follow the Unjerked Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or wherever podcasts are played, so you won't miss a new one.

What are the different political positions which exist? What does it mean to be on the left vs right? Is the traditional political compass a good way to categorize politics?

We first discuss what it means to be on the left vs right, the looseness of political beliefs, and the difference between party and ideology over time. We discuss the coalitions of ideologies in the context of parties as well. Then, we talk about the history of political ideology, and the growth of left vs right politics in the French revolution. Following this, we go over the modern definition of left vs right.

Then, we go over the consistency of people's political beliefs, and their symbolic vs operational beliefs.

Finally, we go over economic axes in politics, to include trade policy, fiscal policy, and monetary policy.

0:00 Intro

2:00 What it means to be left vs right

2:47 Economic, social, and international policy

3:56 Looseness of political beliefs (2)

4:20 Party vs ideology

5:00 coalitions within two party

6:47 History of political ideology

10:20 Left vs Right in the French Revolution

12:36 Modern definition of left vs right

14:07 consistency of political beliefs (2)

18:05 Symbolic vs operational ideology

22:00 Bundling of unrelated policy positions

23:00 Economic axis: trade policy (2) vs fiscal policy vs monetary policy

This is the Unjerked Podcast!

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William Henderson and B. McGraw discuss U.S. agriculture subsidies—what they are, how they work, and the tradeoffs they create. The conversation covers the history and structure of these subsidies, as well as political and economic consequences.

We begin by examining the political durability of subsidies, driven in part by the disproportionate influence of rural states in the Senate. Despite the shrinking number of farmers, these programs remain deeply entrenched.

Next, we look at who benefits—mainly large agribusinesses—and contrast supply-side subsidies with programs like SNAP. We then explore New Zealand’s decision to eliminate subsidies in the 1980s, which led to higher productivity and stable employment.

We also consider national security arguments for supporting domestic food production, as well as the impact of consolidation, automation, and contract farming on labor and ownership.

Later, we question whether private markets (futures, insurance) could manage agricultural risk without government support. This leads into a discussion of grocery prices, inflation, and whether “greedflation” or broader economic forces are driving costs.

Finally, we touch on the unintended effects of subsidies on public health and the environment—like their contribution to obesity and monoculture farming—and explore climate policy, water use, and immigration’s role in farm labor.

The episode closes with a look at whether the current system is effective policy—or simply politically untouchable.

01:56 — Distributive effects and difficulty of reform

02:39 — Comparison to New Zealand’s reforms

03:03 — National security as justification

06:16 — Industrial consolidation and automation

04:20 — New Zealand outcomes and productivity

06:00 — Market price stability and crop insurance

7:44 — High prices and greedflation

09:27 — Inflation and COVID supply shocks

10:12 — National security and industrial policy

13:07 — Obesity and health outcomes

14:56 — Conspiracy theory

15:54 — Regenerative agriculture

21:52 — Environmental damage

23:58 — Subsidies and food prices

24:23 — Desert farms

27:47 — Immigration and labor supply issues

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William Henderson and B. McGraw talk about agriculture policy. What kind of subsidies exist and why? This is part 1 of 2 episodes?

We first briefly discuss the different types of farming, to include a completely free-market farming, subsidized farming, and collectivized soviet-style farming. Then, we discuss the comparison of subsidy levels between different countries. New Zealand is the lowest with a near 0% level of agriculture subsidies. On the other hand, many countries with high levels of subsidies include Iceland, Japan, and Norway. We then go over an article which discusses New Zealand's decision to pull subsidies in the 1980s. This led to an increased efficiency in farm production and did not lead to reliance on imports for food.

After all of this, we go over the farm bill and similar policies which help shape the system of farm subsidies in the US. This includes price loss coverage and agricultural risk coverage, which help pay farmers if commodity prices get too low. Marketing assistance loans are similar and involve lending money when prices get low. Crop insurance helps cover for issues like severe weather, crop failure, etc. Various conservation programs incentivize the use of environmentally friendly practices.

We then talk about disaster assistance programs, specialty crop support programs, and biofuel programs.

4:20 collective farming 

6:38 OECD white paper with country comparisons

9:57 CATO article on total subsidies

13:43 Farm bill (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13)

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William Henderson and B. McGraw talk about public transportation. What forms of transit make the most sense? This is part 2 of 2 episodes.

We first discuss gas taxes, both at the federal and state level, and how these are used to fund highway maintenance. We then discuss rail funding, which lacks a dedicated trust fund and is more volatile in availability. Then we talk about factors which increase rail transit use demand, to include neighborhood density. We then discuss congrestion prices, and the role they plan in controlling externalities associated with driving. Similarly, we go over the topic of dynamic parking pricing, which helps adjust demand for street parking.

We go over whether or not adding extra lanes is an effective method of reducing traffic. Then, we talk about various methods to reduce traffic accidents, to include more mass transit use, bicycle lanes, and fewer "stroads". Then, we discuss potential technology innovations in transportation. Finally, we go over the conspiracy theory of "15 minute cities", and whether or not this is a fair argument against walkable cities.

6:40 rail funding

12:47 density, transit, expenditures

bureacracy

culture

20:33 congestion pricing 

24:25 dynamic parking pricing

28:00 adding lanes

31:43 traffic accidents (2) (3)

41:10 technology

46:11 conspiracies

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William Henderson and B. McGraw talk about public transportation. What forms of transit make the most sense? This is part 1 of 2 episodes.

We first discuss the international perspective on transit. The US has less public transit usage compared to other peer developed countries, although even those countries do not have full public transit penetration. We then discuss the different approaches to rail use, to include government owned rails with private and public cars, fully private but highly regulated private rails, and private rails with public cars.

Then we discuss the issue with the speed of construction in the US. Afterwards, we talk about the different transportation methods which exist, and the pros and cons of each. These include auto, bus, light rail, heavy rail, high speed rail, monorail, flying, ferries, and more.. After this, we discuss the cost of these different methods, to include the externalized costs. Finally, we go over saftey, carbon emissions, and timeliness of different methods.

3:22 international perspective (2) (3)

12:03 Government vs private sector

17:41 Speed of construction

19:40 transportation methods

27:14 pros and cons of methods

29:24 Cost comparison of methods (2)

37:25 safety

41:09 carbon emissions 

43:44 time

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