The De-Riggable Podcast

Look at a thick book of regulations and you're looking at a fossil record of desperation — every rule marks a spot where someone couldn't refuse a bad deal and the system had to step in. This episode traces regulation back to its real source: not bureaucratic appetite, but the moments where people had no power to say no.

Nobody designed the desperation economy. It evolved — through layers of policies, competitive pressure, and individually rational decisions that produced collectively irrational results. This episode asks whether that makes it evil, starting from a listener's sharp challenge to the show's position. The 2008 financial crisis serves as the full spectrum in one event: a homebuyer who can't say no to...

In this episode of De-Riggable, Ben and Steve name a force that quietly sets prices across the entire economy but rarely gets called what it is: desperation. Not demand. Not preference. The inability to say no without harm. Through the story of a bagel-shop worker forced to choose between healing a leg ulcer and paying his bills, they show how desperation suppresses wages, concentrates profits upw...

What happens when the loudest political voices belong to whoever has the most money? In this episode of De-Riggable , Ben and Steve argue that one of the most dangerous ideas in modern politics is the claim that money equals speech . Money is a tool for facilitating trade. Speech is a tool for facilitating democratic debate. When those two worlds collide, political influence becomes a commodity—an...

This week on De-Riggable , Ben and Steve try to pin down a slippery word: distortion . They separate “disruptions” (like hurricanes and broken ports) from enduring distortions we create through policy—especially laws that tilt markets long-term. Along the way, they wrestle with a thorny case: price gouging. Is outlawing it a distortion, or a moral guardrail that protects communities during crises?...

Ben and Steve use this episode of De-Riggable to explore a truth most people sense but rarely analyze: every tax rule distorts something. Focusing first on Texas’s new homestead exemption increases — including expanded breaks for homeowners 65+ — they examine how incentives shift for both long-time residents and younger families trying to enter the market. Reduced property taxes for some mean high...

In this episode of De-Riggable , Ben and Steve pull on a loose thread in the sweater of capitalism — and it starts to unravel fast. What begins as a joke about snake bars turns into a clear-eyed look at why income taxes quietly distort the entire value structure of labor . In this episode Ben and Steve break down one of the most overlooked distortions in modern capitalism: They explore why wages a...

We like to think value lasts — but what if it never does? In this conversation, Ben and Steve break down why “store of value” might be capitalism’s most comforting lie. They explore how money, wealth erode over time unless effort renews them — and why accepting that decay might be the key to building a fairer economy. Along the way, they mix humor, stories, and hard questions about what really giv...