Cato Event Podcast

Eight years ago, Barack Obama arrived in Washington pledging to reverse the dramatic expansion of state surveillance his predecessor had presided over in the name of fighting terrorism. Instead, the Obama administration saw the Bush era's "collect it all" approach to surveillance become still more firmly entrenched. Meanwhile, the advanced spying technologies once limited to intelligence agencies...

Eight years ago, Barack Obama arrived in Washington pledging to reverse the dramatic expansion of state surveillance his predecessor had presided over in the name of fighting terrorism. Instead, the Obama administration saw the Bush era's "collect it all" approach to surveillance become still more firmly entrenched. Meanwhile, the advanced spying technologies once limited to intelligence agencies...

Eight years ago, Barack Obama arrived in Washington pledging to reverse the dramatic expansion of state surveillance his predecessor had presided over in the name of fighting terrorism. Instead, the Obama administration saw the Bush era's "collect it all" approach to surveillance become still more firmly entrenched. Meanwhile, the advanced spying technologies once limited to intelligence agencies...

December 2016 marks the 25th anniversary of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the emergence of 15 independent post-Soviet states, including Russia. The political elite of the new Russia was to play a key role in a peaceful end of the communist empire that threatened nuclear Armageddon for almost half of a century. The world greeted the entry of an independent democratic Russia onto the inter...

North Korea’s nuclear ambitions have persisted through the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations. Indeed, the North is expected to possess as many as 100 nuclear warheads by 2020. Pyongyang is also developing the missile capability to strike U.S. bases in the Pacific and someday even the American homeland. Virtually no one believes that the Kim regime will voluntarily relinquish its growing ars...

In the years since the financial crisis, lawmakers and regulators have turned their attention to the financial sector, passing new laws and imposing new restrictions throughout the sector. Many of these provisions are now being challenged in the courts. In  MetLife v. FSOC , for example, the insurance giant has taken on the government’s controversial Systemically Important Financial Instituti...

The freedom of speech and the freedom of the press are at the core of a free society, yet we’re increasingly discovering that, while in theory, almost everyone believes in freedom of speech, in practice, few are committed to the policies that truly safeguard it. On the campaign trail, both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump called for “closing down” parts of the Internet as an anti-ISIS measure. Tru...

After another year of protests and unrest across the country, criminal justice reform remains a contentious issue. Some cities have experienced an increase in homicide rates, police departments are under intense scrutiny for their handling of police shootings, and prisoners are protesting living conditions. Meanwhile, policymakers are making scant progress to roll back mass incarceration. Given th...

After another year of protests and unrest across the country, criminal justice reform remains a contentious issue. Some cities have experienced an increase in homicide rates, police departments are under intense scrutiny for their handling of police shootings, and prisoners are protesting living conditions. Meanwhile, policymakers are making scant progress to roll back mass incarceration. Given th...

After another year of protests and unrest across the country, criminal justice reform remains a contentious issue. Some cities have experienced an increase in homicide rates, police departments are under intense scrutiny for their handling of police shootings, and prisoners are protesting living conditions. Meanwhile, policymakers are making scant progress to roll back mass incarceration. Given th...

After another year of protests and unrest across the country, criminal justice reform remains a contentious issue. Some cities have experienced an increase in homicide rates, police departments are under intense scrutiny for their handling of police shootings, and prisoners are protesting living conditions. Meanwhile, policymakers are making scant progress to roll back mass incarceration. Given th...

After another year of protests and unrest across the country, criminal justice reform remains a contentious issue. Some cities have experienced an increase in homicide rates, police departments are under intense scrutiny for their handling of police shootings, and prisoners are protesting living conditions. Meanwhile, policymakers are making scant progress to roll back mass incarceration. Given th...

Each year unelected federal administrators write thousands of regulations possessing the force of law. What do these civil servants know about the American people whom they ostensibly serve? Not much, according to this enlightening and disturbing study.   The authors surveyed federal agency officials, congressional and White House staffers, and employees of various policy-making organizations...

President-elect Donald Trump has said that he will balance the federal budget and cut spending. During the election campaign, he complained about “waste, fraud, and abuse all over the place” and promised to “cut so much, your head will spin.” And he said, “We are going to ask every department head in government to provide a list of wasteful spending projects that we can eliminate in my first 100 d...

Housing prices are rapidly climbing in many American urban areas, pushing low-income and sometimes even middle-income people out of rental and home buying markets. American homeownership rates have fallen to the lowest levels since 1965, increasing wealth inequality and reducing productivity. Should urban areas respond to this affordability crisis by “growing up,” that is, building higher densitie...

The Cato Institute’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives invites you to join us at CATO’S 34TH ANNUAL MONETARY CONFERENCE. Leading experts will address the risks inherent in the unconventional monetary policies of the world’s leading central banks and the steps that need to be taken to restore long-run economic growth. The lack of any monetary rule to guide policy decisions has created...

The Cato Institute’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives invites you to join us at CATO’S 34TH ANNUAL MONETARY CONFERENCE. Leading experts will address the risks inherent in the unconventional monetary policies of the world’s leading central banks and the steps that need to be taken to restore long-run economic growth. The lack of any monetary rule to guide policy decisions has created...

The Cato Institute’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives invites you to join us at CATO’S 34TH ANNUAL MONETARY CONFERENCE. Leading experts will address the risks inherent in the unconventional monetary policies of the world’s leading central banks and the steps that need to be taken to restore long-run economic growth. The lack of any monetary rule to guide policy decisions has created...

The Cato Institute’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives invites you to join us at CATO’S 34TH ANNUAL MONETARY CONFERENCE. Leading experts will address the risks inherent in the unconventional monetary policies of the world’s leading central banks and the steps that need to be taken to restore long-run economic growth. The lack of any monetary rule to guide policy decisions has created...

The Cato Institute’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives invites you to join us at CATO’S 34TH ANNUAL MONETARY CONFERENCE. Leading experts will address the risks inherent in the unconventional monetary policies of the world’s leading central banks and the steps that need to be taken to restore long-run economic growth. The lack of any monetary rule to guide policy decisions has created...

The Cato Institute’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives invites you to join us at CATO’S 34TH ANNUAL MONETARY CONFERENCE. Leading experts will address the risks inherent in the unconventional monetary policies of the world’s leading central banks and the steps that need to be taken to restore long-run economic growth. The lack of any monetary rule to guide policy decisions has created...

The optimism that followed the end of the Cold War has been replaced by fear and pessimism. Russia is reasserting itself on the world stage, China continues to increase tensions in the Asia-Pacific region, and North Korea is inching toward a nuclear weapon capable of hitting the U.S. homeland. All of this has led many to believe that the world is more dangerous than ever before. Meanwhile, the gro...

For-profit colleges have been accused of deceiving students, fueling debt, and producing atrocious outcomes. Many big chains—most notably Corinthian Colleges and ITT—have gone out of business under heavy scrutiny from public officials. Are for-profit schools truly miserable, or are they being targeted for political reasons? And what do the election results bode for them? Join us for a free-flowing...

Since the Franklin Roosevelt administration, the vision of U.S. trade policy has been to expand global commerce by reducing government-imposed barriers. Ambassadors Kantor and Schwab played significant roles in that effort. Ambassador Kantor finalized the NAFTA, and also the Uruguay Round negotiations that established the World Trade Organization (WTO). Ambassador Schwab concluded trade agreements...

The 2008 collapse of Iceland’s grossly overextended banks added fuel to the conflagration in global financial markets and wreaked havoc with the country’s economy, which at one point saw its stock market lose 95 percent of its value and its unemployment rate rise above 25 percent. Since then the economy has recovered, the country’s unemployment rate today stands at just 2.5 percent, and the govern...