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 295: Must Government Control Money?
People - including some economists - are so used to governments establishing currencies that we are unaware that there are alternatives. Money is simply a tool…
Words & NumbersEpisode 294: Article I, Section 8, Pt.2
Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution lists the things the Federal government is permitted to do. Somewhere in our history, citizens have come to regard the…
Words & NumbersEpisode 293: Article I, Section 8, Pt.1
Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution lists the things the Federal government is permitted to do. Somewhere in our history, citizens have come to regard the…
Words & NumbersEpisode 292: When Are We Adults?
The “age of majority” is the age at which a person is considered, legally, an adult. Not only does the age of majority vary by state and over time, it also…
Words & NumbersEpisode 291: An Interview with Ant and James
This episode is an excerpt of an interview we gave with Dr. Anwar Dunbar for his YouTube channel, Big Discussions. Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion…
Words & NumbersEpisode 290: Loan Forgiveness and Lying to Pollsters
We discuss two topics in-depth this week: student loan forgiveness and lying to pollsters. There’s an interesting technique for distinguishing between what…
Words & NumbersEpisode 289: Woke-ism and Movies
Today’s woke-ism evolved from political correctness of the 1990s. While people have embraced many lessons about inclusion and empathy from the era of political…
Words & NumbersEpisode 288: What's a Recession?
Maybe we’re in a recession, but maybe we’re not. This week, we talk about what a recession is and what it means, practically, for people. Get Your Copy of…
Words & NumbersEpisode 287: Secession: Good for me but not for thee?
The Founders gave strong philosophical arguments for why secession from Great Britain was right and proper. Yet, when the Confederacy tried to secede from the…
Words & NumbersEpisode 286: Balance in Discussing Guns
Part of the reason we make little progress on this topic of guns in this country is that the pro- and anti-gun camps talk past each other. This is fueled by a…
Words & NumbersEpisode 285: What’s News in the Economy?
Oddly, there’s not a lot in the news this week. Given what we’ve all been through the past couple of years, that’s likely a good thing. This week, we sit back…
Words & NumbersEpisode 284: Phasing Out Social Security
Social Security has become a trillion dollar weight dragging down our economics and politics. On the one hand, according to the Social Security administration…
Words & NumbersEpisode 283: Americans Don’t Trust the Media
Recently, we talked about polls showing a serious erosion of trust in the branches of government. This week, we focus on the media. It turns out that Americans…
Words & NumbersEpisode 282: What Happened to Health Care
No matter what we do to tweak our healthcare system, we seem to end up with the same problems decade after decade. Proponents of socialized medicine say that…
Words & NumbersEpisode 281: Declared Independence
Historian Rob McDonald joins us on this Fourth of July week to talk about the events leading up to the founding, and his observation that the Founders thought…
Words & NumbersEpisode 280: The End of the Experiment in Unlimited Government
For one-hundred years, the United States has been conducting an experiment in unlimited government wherein politicians spend far beyond the government’s means…
Words & NumbersEpisode 279: The Pain of Drug Laws
Critics of drug laws focus on the costs, both in dollars and lives, of incarcerating people for an act that often hurts no one. Lost in the discussion is the…
Words & NumbersEpisode 278: Consumers' Hidden Profit
We all see the profits companies make when they sell things for more than it cost them to produce. Companies carefully measure these profits, and many are…
Words & NumbersEpisode 277: UNC Wilmington: Cooperation & Coercion, Pt. 2
James and I were invited to kick off UNC Wilmington’s annual Business Week with a live recording of Words & Numbers. The talk was loosely based on our book…
Words & NumbersEpisode 276: UNC Wilmington: Cooperation & Coercion, Pt. 1
James and I were invited to kick off UNC Wilmington’s annual Business Week with a live recording of Words & Numbers. The talk was loosely based on our book…
Words & NumbersEpisode 275: Economics Is About A Lot More Than Money
Most of what the public knows about economics is really macroeconomics - the field of economics that deals with interest rates, inflation, unemployment, and…
Words & NumbersEpisode 274: The CBO Predicts the Future
The Congressional Budget Office is the government entity that produces forecasts about the effects of new taxes and spending on the economy and the federal…
Words & NumbersEpisode 273: Markets With Limits, Pt. 2
There are some things that people have an emotional reaction to buying and selling: sex, body parts, votes. There are other things whose quality people aren’t…
Words & NumbersEpisode 272: Markets With Limits, Pt. 1
There are some things that people have an emotional reaction to buying and selling: sex, body parts, votes. There are other things whose quality people aren’t…
Words & NumbersEpisode 271: Our Dual Natures
Humans have dual natures. We are, simultaneously, individuals and members of a shared society. That each of us should be free arises from our status as…
Words & NumbersEpisode 270: A Conversation with Award Winning Students, Pt. 3
This is the final installment of our talk with the economics students of Mount Hebron High School. The students have won the state economics championship 16…
Words & NumbersEpisode 269: A Conversation with Award Winning Students, Pt. 2
This week, we talk with the economics students of Mount Hebron High School who have won the state economics championship 16 times, the national championship…
Words & NumbersEpisode 268: A Conversation with Award Winning Students, Pt. 1
This week, we talk with the economics students of Mount Hebron High School who have won the state economics championship 16 times, the national championship…
Words & NumbersEpisode 267: Ten Years of ObamaCare
Now that a decade has passed since the Affordable Care Act reached full implementation, it’s a good time to look back at what we were promised, what we got…
Words & NumbersEpisode 266: Subsidiarity, Solidarity, and the Common Good
The Catholic Church likes subsidiarity. Politicians like federalism. Economists like free markets. It turns out that, if you can adequately define “the common…
Words & NumbersEpisode 265: Higher Education Fraud?
Is there a massive class action suit awaiting colleges and universities that promise certain educational outcomes and don’t deliver? Colleges and universities…
Words & NumbersEpisode 264: Should Cities Invest in Sports Stadiums?
Politicians often argue the benefits of raising taxes to pay for sports stadiums, citing all the economic benefits that accrue from attracting major sports…
Words & NumbersEpisode 263: The Fall of Amazon
The life cycle of birth, maturation, death, and new life plays out in markets in the same way and for the same reasons. Entrepreneurs come up with new ideas…
Words & NumbersEpisode 262: David Friedman on the Gold Standard
David Friedman joins us to talk about the gold standard: why one existed at all, why we went off it, and what would happen if we reinstituted it. Get Your Copy…
Words & NumbersEpisode 261: $30 trillion
The federal debt recently crossed the $30 trillion mark, making the debt 50% larger than the entire US economy. Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now!…
Words & NumbersEpisode 260: Shortages at Home, Starvation Elsewhere
Americans are so used to having goods available to them at low prices, in expansive variety, and in apparently limitless quantities that sporadic shortages are…
Words & NumbersEpisode 259: The Chosen
The Chosen is a remarkable TV series on two counts. It is the largest crowdfunded effort of its type, having raised more than $10 million and attracted over…
Words & NumbersEpisode 258: Why the Anger?
Something odd is happening among Americans. People are generally quite nice to each other. Historically, Americans have been a generous people, and most have a…
Words & NumbersEpisode 257: The Time Value of Money
Even in the absence of inflation, a dollar in the future is less than a dollar today simply because it exists in the future. Humans have figured out how to use…
Words & NumbersEpisode 256: An Insider's View of the Supply Chain
Goods appear to be randomly missing in stores, and prices seem to be rising. Much of what we're seeing is due to disruptions in the supply chain. This week, we…
Words & NumbersEpisode 255: What is Critical Race Theory?
Phil Magness joins us to discuss critical race theory: what is it, and why is it controversial? Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now!…
Words & NumbersEpisode 254: Tradeoffs Audience Q&A
We had such good feedback from last week's live tradeoffs episode that we're including the audience Q&A session for this week's episode. Get Your Copy of…
Words & NumbersEpisode 253: Tradeoffs, Lockdowns, Climate Change, and Free Stuff
What do climate change, the covid lockdowns, taxing billionaires, free college, and free healthcare have in common? In each case, politicians would prefer that…
Words & NumbersEpisode 252: A Second Lockdown?
As events point to the possibility of a second lockdown, we ask what we have learned from the last one. Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now!…
Words & NumbersEpisode 251: Wealth, Income, Capital Gains, and Taxes
In response to record-breaking deficits, politicians, pundits, and concerned voters are discussing new sources of tax revenue. Unfortunately, they often…
Words & NumbersEpisode 250: Listener Questions, pt. 2
This week, we answer listener questions that cover a gamut of topics. Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com Show…
Words & NumbersEpisode 249: Listener Questions, pt. 1
This week, we answer listener questions that cover a gamut of topics. Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com Show…
Words & NumbersEpisode 248: The Nobel Prize and the Minimum Wage
David Card recently won the Nobel Prize in economics for his contributions to the study of labor markets and natural experiments. Some minimum wage proponents…
Words & NumbersEpisode 247: Pachyderms, Property, and Profit
The combination of property rights and a profit incentive yields good outcomes. Elephants provide an excellent example. Get Your Copy of Cooperation and…
Words & NumbersEpisode 246: The Link Between Politics and Economics
Politics, not partisanship, and economics are linked because both emerge from humans attempting to employ their abilities to satisfy their needs. In this…
Words & NumbersEpisode 245: Should We Fund Children or Institutions?
Corey DeAngelis, who has made himself the public gadfly of teachers unions, joins us to talk about how Americans’ attitudes about funding public schools…
Words & NumbersEpisode 244: The Nature of Exchange, pt. 2
Money is an excellent tool for facilitating exchange. It solves problems like how to save while avoiding spoilage and how to exchange with people who don’t…
Words & NumbersEpisode 243: The Nature of Exchange, pt. 1
Money is an excellent tool for facilitating exchange. It solves problems like how to save while avoiding spoilage and how to exchange with people who don’t…
Words & NumbersEpisode 242: What About Unions?
People who are pro-market often complain about unions. But unions are associations of people, just as corporations are associations of people. If it is…
Words & NumbersEpisode 241: The Death Tax for the Rest of Us
As politicians run out of revenue sources, they increasingly turn their attention from the rich to the middle class. Congress is considering a tax plan that…
Words & NumbersEpisode 240: Potluck #1
This episode is a potluck. There's no specific topic, we're just discussing things in the news that caught our interests. Get Your Copy of Cooperation and…
Words & NumbersEpisode 239: Who Ultimately Pays a Tax?
In an interesting twist of economics, it turns out that governments have no control over who ultimately pays a tax. Politicians can say they’re taxing…
Words & NumbersEpisode 238: Term Limits Revisited
Commonwealth Foundation Vice-President Nathan Benefield disagreed with our take on term limits from a couple of episodes ago. So we invited him to give…
Words & NumbersEpisode 237: Can the CDC Mandate Moratoriums?
The CDC has mandated a moratorium on evictions. Under the CDC’s rules, landlords may not evict renters who haven’t paid their rent. But it is unclear that even…
Words & NumbersEpisode 236: Errors We Repeat in Politics, Pt. 2
We all have a tendency to repeat things we hear. But when many people start repeating the same thing, we come to believe that the thing must be true…