Messy Times

We are delighted to have Dr. Ken Dekleva join us for a deep and wide-ranging conversation across his areas of expertise. Ken covers a lot of intellectual and practical ground in his second visit to the studios . A prolific author as well as a Senior Fellow at the George H.W. Bush Center for U.S.-China Relations , Ken's experience spans the globe. His deep experience is not only represented in...

Florida is already the Last Free State in America. Because of that, it is attracting talent from all over the other 49, which is making it a bastion of free market innovation. It's obviously the best place to be, which is why  @MessyTimes  would never consider broadcasting from anywhere else. Aside from hosting rampant innovation in Enlightentainment, up and down the peninsula, many towns have...

China wants the world to accept the renminbi as a reserve currency. What are their reasons for suggesting an alternative to the US Dollar? Was Bretton Woods a mistake? Is Purchasing Power Parity a reasonable way to value a currency? Money is international but a currency is national; how many people care about that distinction? Has anyone ever gotten a date by using monetary theory as a pickup line...

It's a weird thing about history. One can visit, say, ancient European city centers and marvel at the architecture, in full knowledge of horrific war crimes and atrocities committed on the very streets one is currently strolling on, nibbling pastries and snapping selfies. All that happened a long time ago, so - to steal a line - at this point, what difference does it make that babies were snat...

City of London politician Mark Wheatley revisits the  @MessyTimes  studios for a brisk chat about The Coronation, current Great Power competition and to sort out who is lying to whom the most in the jockeying for geopolitical domination.   Pomp!  A really old throne!  An MP wielding an impressive sword for hours with nary a wobble!  Geopolitical considerations!  Snubs and divisions!  The manipulat...

Statistically normal people are exhausted and bored by the bizarre linguistic preoccupations of a tiny segment of the population, and are baffled by the weird insistence of the chattering classes that they "must" learn 65 new "pronouns" and 97 new "genders." This particular brand of neo-Marxist madness contributes directly to our decidedly Messy Times. In line with th...

Many early use cases of a technology in hindsight look pretty silly.  In 2000, Seventeen "dot coms" spent millions on ads for Super Bowl XXXIV - more web-based companies than have booked ads in the intervening twenty years.   Similarly with "blockchain" which I take a delightful hour to kick around with my guest Professor Michael Mainelli, Chairman of  @ZYenGroup  .  ...

We are delighted to be joined in the @MessyTimes studios for a philosophical and sociological deep dive seen from the point of view of an American #millennial. Justyna Czekaj is a credit to her generation, an accomplished, educated and thoughtful critic of the foibles which contributed so strongly to the madness we've lived with for going on three years. Join us for a hearty and wide-ranging discu...

Americans are obligated to provide all the assistance we can to our combat #veterans and their families. All who serve in our military deserve our gratitude and appreciation. We owe an especial debt to the members of our Special Operations teams, who go above and beyond the normal risks associated with war. Those individuals with the drive and commitment who volunteer for the hardships and augment...

Messy Times and the Brownstone Institute were both created to fight back against the tsunami of lies about the Wuhan Hysteria.  The Administrative State has not ceased in its Orwellian efforts to make everyone mouth insane lies.  The key to a complete governmental takeover of power is when a populace has been so beaten, bored and just wearied into mouthing the absurdities, if that is the...

Most people know the solar calendar has ticked over to 2023.  The cognoscenti are aware that a far more important milestone has been reached - the start of the 4th season of MessyTimes and all the glitteringly brilliant #enlightentainment that entails! Join #CraigWright and our Glittering Host for a rollicking ride starting with the ignominious and predicted collapse of #FTX and the lying fra...

Bill Rice, Jr. joined us in the Messy Times studios on 1 December 2022 for a fascinating dialogue.   His research indicates that the Wuhan Virus was present in the US population much earlier than the 2020 start date claimed by the Government.  Settle back with a mug of spiked eggnog and a plate of chocolate rugelach.  Allow us to Enlightentain you during this festive season.  ...

MessyTimes is honored to have Jim Hawes visit us to discuss his experience in fighting the free-market capitalist corner over a long and exciting career.    Upon the expiry of his operation's classified status, Jim wrote a wonderful book about his work in Central Africa in 1965, Cold War Navy SEAL: My Story of Che Guevara, War in the Congo, and the Communist Threat in Africa .   We...

Dr. Alexander shares the Six Main Lies Fauci, Birx and the rest of these clowns told us all about the Wuhan Virus.  There are myriad little lies emanating from the big ones, but covering the Big Ones is exhaustive, exhausting and infuriating enough.   He is the author of the recently published book Presidential Takedown , writes for Brownstone and has a great substack called the Alexande...

Bruce de'Medici returns to the Messy Times studios to discuss the recent brilliant idea for the US government - meaning YOU, the taxpayer - to backstop massive insurance losses which insurance companies don't feel like paying when a cyber attack causes billions of dollars in damage to American companies.    Bear in mind both the attacked company AND the insurance provider entered into a...

Your Enlightentaining Host trusts a priori Craig Pirrong, Professor of Finance at the University of Houston and blogger https://streetwiseprofessor.com/ on the basis of his undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago.   Beyond that ironclad qualification of intellectual honesty, Craig has demonstrated repeatedly the fortitude to speak truth to power, when power is making serious mista...

There is a great deal to the colossal mess of the bankruptcy of FTX, the almost absurdly mismanaged "crypto exchange" run by Sam Bankman-Fried and, well, apparently no one else.  @Messy Times  is honored to host Fred Grede who aside from being a fellow University of Chicago alumnus is a very experienced exchange executive and the former bankruptcy trustee who for a decade worked out the...

Because the impacts from this colossal fraud will be felt for years and the bad news will continue to unfold, Joshua Henslee  and your Enlightentaining Host just couldn't resist sorting through the sordid stupidity a bit more.     The new CEO of #FTX is a very experienced workout executive who oversaw the Enron bankruptcy and wrote in his filing for FTX than he has never seen s...

FTX is the most recent example of why good financial regulatory guard rails are a splendid idea. In an ideal laissez-faire world, the market would sort out the criminals from the honest people.  In reality, every lying scumbag like Sam Bankman-Fried who stole billions from customers and gave $40 million to Democrats this election cycle (second only to George Soros) destroys confidence in the...

Freedom, Liberty and the sovereign right to self-defense are the small, unimportant ideas that occupy Laura DiBenedetto's day.  We are delighted she visited us in the   Messy Times   studios for an Election Day discussion covering many things ranging from the insane #Amnesty the Leftists so desperately want, after their destruction of children and damage to society over their manufa...

Hard on the heels of the ludicrous, offensive and insane article written by a professor at Brown University that we should "all" grant each other "Amnesty" for all the bad things "we" said to each other during the Wuhan Hysteria, Emily wrote one of the best rebuttals to that absurdity.  I am delighted to welcome her to the  Messy Times  studios to discuss why the Left ruined the cou...

This podcast was begun in the midst of the Wuhan Panic, its main topic being how insanely, blatantly and perniciously were public officials lying to us about nearly every aspect of this disease. We have since moved on to a range of other fascinating topics and guests, but we are especially delighted to have Dr. Harvey Risch join us in the studios to discuss his direct experience with the madness a...

Bret Stephens came by the Messy Times studios for a wide-ranging yet unified theoretical conversation.  Wide-ranging because we cover a range of topics from current themes in American censorship, the restriction of "accepted" thought in the public square, January 6th: The Musical! and the enduring uniqueness of the American Project.  Unified theoretically because despite holding some opi...

We're delighted to have Craig Wright of nChain back in the studios for some more organic Socratic give and take.  Extending beyond the nuances of Intellectual Property, how patents do or do not work and infusing the vicious political fights of our times are the ghosts of thinkers past. It's not just the battles over #Bitcoin as #BTC or #BSV.  When you hear people screaming in the public...

Harvey Silverglate visits the Messy Times studios only to discover there is no daylight between us.  Your Enlightentaining Host suspected that would be the case, having read and loved Harvey's brilliant book, Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent .  During a wide-ranging conversation between two free speech absolutists, we touch on a few topics of little controversy. Abo...