Shows / Words & Numbers
Words & Numbers
Words & Numbers is one of the highest-rated economics podcasts in the world. Each episode, Antony Davies and James R. Harrigan dig into economics, political science, and current events to explain what’s actually happening and why it matters.
Episodes
Words & NumbersEpisode 414: Robovacs to Riches
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Words & NumbersEpisode 413: Power and Denial: Biden, Cognitive Decline, and the 25th Amendment
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Words & NumbersEpisode 412: What Do We Owe Each Other?
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Words & NumbersEpisode 411: Tax Cuts: The Good, the Bad, and the Irrelevant
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Words & NumbersEpisode 410: Mercantilism 2.0
Episode 410: Mercantilism 2.0 Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com See More Ant and James!…
Words & NumbersEpisode 409: Buy, Borrow, Die
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Words & NumbersEpisode 408: Be Thankful!
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Words & NumbersEpisode 407: Words & Numbers Live: After the Election (part 2)
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Words & NumbersEpisode 406: Words & Numbers Live: After the Election
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Words & NumbersEpisode 405: $22,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
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Words & NumbersEpisode 404: Dangers of Democracy
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Words & NumbersEpisode 403: Crime Data: Revising History?
This week, we address listener comments that the FBI crime data we reported in an earlier episode was flawed. Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now!…
Words & NumbersEpisode 402: Project Liberal
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Words & NumbersEpisode 401: 20-to-1, Political Indoctrination in Higher Education
Economist and author Bryan Caplan joins us to discuss how higher education has become a bastion of extreme leftist thought - so much so that professors that…
Words & NumbersEpisode 400: Population Problems
It was just a couple of decades ago that experts were wringing their hands over the coming population explosion that was going to kill us all. Now they are…
Words & NumbersEpisode 399: Lying Politicians
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Words & NumbersEpisode 398: Alliteration Time: Trump, Tariffs, and Taxes
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Words & NumbersEpisode 397: More on the Fed
This week, we address listener questions from our earlier episode on the Fed. We also make incorrect predictions about whether the September cut in interest…
Words & NumbersEpisode 396: Unrealized Capital Gains
The idea of an unrealized capital gains tax gains momentum every election season of late. This week, we take a look at what it is and why even the middle class…
Words & NumbersEpisode 395: The Fed
Episode 395: The Fed What does the Fed do and how does it do it? Foolishness of the Week: 06:38 Main episode: 08:51 Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion…
Words & NumbersEpisode 394: Candidates’ Attitudes
Episode 394: Candidates’ Attitudes Unfortunately, when it comes to elections, often a smile is all it takes. Foolishness of the Week: 06:55 Main episode: 11:32…
Words & NumbersEpisode 393: Why Is Economics Important?
This is a conversation James and I had concerning various topics in economics and current events. Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now!…
Words & NumbersEpisode 392: Could Unemployment Be a Good Thing?
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Words & NumbersEpisode 391: Attacked by a Gang Wearing Lab Coats
This week James shares some first-hand experience with the magic that comes out of modern health care. Foolishness of the Week: 10:22 Main episode: 12:43 Get…
Words & NumbersEpisode 390: Personal Finance
James is recovering from surgery this week, so we offer you this special episode on personal finance so as to not to leave you sad and alone on Words & Numbers…
Words & NumbersEpisode 389: Recession?
Are we in a recession? Americans say we are. The data say we aren’t. Who’s right? Foolishness of the Week: 05:30 Main episode: 10:50 Get Your Copy of…
Words & NumbersEpisode 388: Supply Chain III
Supply chain insider Mikhail Razner joins us again for what has come to be an annual update on the state of supply chains. Want to know why your boysenberry…
Words & NumbersEpisode 387: The Supremes' One-Two Punch
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Words & NumbersEpisode 386: Chase Oliver 2024
Foolishness of the Week: 05:13 Main episode: 12:18 Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com See More Ant and James!…
Words & NumbersEpisode 385: Gaming
Many of our listeners, and at least one of our hosts, are avid gamers, so it's natural that we'd come around to this topic eventually. Gaming companies are…
Words & NumbersEpisode 384: A Difference in Interest Rates
Canada’s central bank cut its interest rate. The European central bank cut its interest rate. But the Fed continues to hold its interest rate high. This will…
Words & NumbersEpisode 383: The Justice and Practicality of Reparations
If people who call for reparations for slavery want to be taken seriously, they must take their own arguments seriously first. And that requires bringing to…
Words & NumbersEpisode 382: The Value of College
We’ve argued before that the value of a college degree was questionable. That was before covid. Since then, the value proposition has deteriorated markedly…
Words & NumbersEpisode 381: $1 Trillion in Interest
The annual gross interest on the debt exceeded $1 trillion for the first time in history. Years ago, we warned that the combination of on-going deficits and…
Words & NumbersEpisode 380: Population Shrink
A generation or two ago, people wrung their hands over the population explosion. What will happen, they said, when we finally have too many people! It turns…
Words & NumbersEpisode 379: Of Millionaires and Homeless
Foolishness of the Week: 11:09 Main episode: 16:35 Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com See More Ant and James!…
Words & NumbersEpisode 378: The One Branch of Government
Clark Neily joins us again this week. This time, we’re talking about how we have come to muddle the separation of powers among the three branches of…
Words & NumbersEpisode 377: Real Estate Insider
The National Association of Realtors recently agreed to pay almost half a billion dollars in a class action suit involving sellers fees. This week’s guest…
Words & NumbersEpisode 376: Interest Rates Up, Down, or Sideways?
Foolishness of the Week: 06:30 Main episode: 09:25 Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com See More Ant and James!…
Words & NumbersEpisode 375: Google and FedEx Anger James
James has an ax to grind. Google made him mad. FedEx made him mad. Many things make James mad. But this week, he tells us why. Foolishness of the Week: 16:22…
Words & NumbersEpisode 374: The Price of Baseball
James recently wrote an article on the price of admission and food at baseball fields over the years. To look at the prices, it appears that baseball has…
Words & NumbersEpisode 373: FDA: Friend or Foe?
We all know that the FDA saves lives by keeping bad drugs off markets. But far fewer of us understand that the FDA costs lives by keeping good drugs from…
Words & NumbersEpisode 372: Where’s the Middle Class?
Each election cycle, we’re treated to politicians and their supporters crying about the disappearing middle class. So many people repeat the mantra that most…
Words & NumbersEpisode 371: An Interview with Spike Cohen, pt. 2
Spike Cohen, 2020 Libertarian Party Vice-Presidential nominee, joins us this week for a two part series in which we discuss the upcoming election, the…
Words & NumbersEpisode 370: An Interview with Spike Cohen, pt. 1
Spike Cohen, 2020 Libertarian Party Vice-Presidential nominee, joins us this week for a two part series in which we discuss the upcoming election, the…
Words & NumbersEpisode 369: A One-Party System?
The United States has been a two party system almost since its inception. In modern times, this has led to the Democrats and Republicans having a virtual…
Words & NumbersEpisode 368: Hampden-Sydney College Q&A
Last week, we recorded live from Hampden-Sydney College. This week’s episode is the Q&A from that recording. Foolishness of the Week: 09:21 Main episode: 10:05…
Words & NumbersEpisode 367: Live from Hampden-Sydney College
Last week, we talked about the incongruity of not only having a majority of voters not like either major party candidate, but to have those two candidates…
Words & NumbersEpisode 366: What’s Up With the President?
Last week, we talked about the incongruity of not only having a majority of voters not like either major party candidate, but to have those two candidates…
Words & NumbersEpisode 365: Democracy Might Not Be a Good Thing
The Trump vs Biden election of 2020 was noteworthy because, for so many voters, it wasn’t a matter of selecting the person they thought was best suited for the…
Words & NumbersEpisode 364: $34 Trillion
People used to scared about the federal debt. But it's been so huge for so long that people have lost interest. Yet, despite people's lack of attention - or…
Words & NumbersEpisode 363: Labor and Marx
Many people share an intuition that “excess” profits are a sign of something having been stolen from labor. Karl Marx shared this intuition and formalized it…
Words & NumbersEpisode 362: Shareholders and Stakeholders
For whom does the corporation exist: investors, workers, customers, the community? Economists tend to answer, "investors." That's not to say that workers…
Words & NumbersEpisode 361: Degrowth
Economic "degrowth" seems to be the new socialism. Like the old, it promises all manner of wonderful things, from equality to a cleaner environment. And like…
Words & NumbersEpisode 360: Time is Money
Intuitively, people understand the value of time. We consider it every time we decide to put off something we want now for something better later…
Words & NumbersEpisode 359: A Conflict of Moral Principles
Colleges and universities, for years now self-proclaimed bastions of “safe spaces,” are allowing some students to express anti Semitism and call for genocide…
Words & NumbersEpisode 358: The Cost of the Good Life
We respond to an article that claims that “the good life” has become so expensive as to be beyond the reach of most Americans. We conclude that what is beyond…
Words & NumbersEpisode 357: Biden’s Wealth Tax
More frequently, politicians are talking about a wealth tax. As with the income tax back in the early 1900s, politicians promise that the tax will only be one…
Words & NumbersEpisode 356: Social Distancing and Masks: Again?
A new outbreak of a communicable disease in China has officials there calling for masks and social distancing. This week, we talk about what lessons we learned…
Words & NumbersEpisode 355: It's Time for Libertarians to Grow Up
We recently moderated the South Carolina Libertarian Party’s Presidential debate. We had a great time and the candidates were serious people. But the contrast…