Words & Numbers

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 Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com See More Ant and James! http://www.wordsandnumbers.org Show Your Support for Words & Numbers at Patreon https://www.patreon.com/wordsandnumbers Qui...

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 appear twice in back-to-back elections. This week, we explore what happens when a President is incapable of fulfilling the duties of the office. Foolishness of the Week: 11:01 Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperation...

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 appear twice in back-to-back elections. This week, we explore what happens when a President is incapable of fulfilling the duties of the office. Foolishness of the Week: 09:59 Main episode: 12:50 Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! ht...

  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 job so much as a matter of selecting the person they thought was least ill-suited. As if it isn’t weird enough that, out of 200 million or so adults, the best we could do was to bring Trump and Biden to the fore, here we are in 2024 appar...

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 perhaps, in part, because of it - the debt has continued to grow. For the past 50 years or so, it has been doubling every 8 to 9 years. Foolishness of the Week: 09:10 Main episode:  13:36 Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://w...

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 in his writings on the surplus value of labor. Foolishness of the Week: 05:48 Main episode: 11:55 Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com See More Ant and James! http://www.wordsandnumbers.org Show...

For whom does the corporation exist: investors, workers, customers, the community? Economists tend to answer, "investors." That's not to say that workers, customers, and the community aren't important, but rather that the corporation exists to further the interests of the investors. Where the interests of the workers, customers, and community coincide with those of investors, the corporation also...

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 the old, it will deliver nothing but misery. Foolishness of the Week: 10:24 Main episode: 13:35 Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com See More Ant and James! http://www.wordsandnumbers.org Show Y...

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. Psychologists call it, “delayed gratification.” But when we think about things like banks and landlords and Wall Street, we fail to see the time value of money driving people’s behaviors. Foolishness of the Week: 14:15 Main episode: 18:13 Get Your Copy...

Colleges and universities, for years now self-proclaimed bastions of “safe spaces,” are allowing some students to express anti Semitism and call for genocide. Should colleges allow this in the name of free speech, or should it disallow it in the name of protecting students? Congressional hearings into prominent universities appear to reveal administrators picking a third and worse option: selectiv...

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 the reach of at least some Americans is the ability to perform simple math. Foolishness of the Week: 05:33 Main episode: 09:16 Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com See More Ant and James! http:...

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 or two percent and will only apply to the rich. But, as with the income tax, if politicians can convince voters to allow the government to impose a tax on wealth, it will be less than a decade before that new tax hits the middle class. Fooli...

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 from the last go around and how people might respond in this country to a reprise of social distancing and masking.  Foolishness of the Week: 07:23 Main episode: 11:23 Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationand...

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 between our excellent experience in South Carolina and Libertarian party hijinx we’ve seen in the past spurred this conversation. Is the Libertarian Party a political party or a philosophical society? The latter’s goal is to delve deeply int...

Three former professors discuss the fraud that universities are perpetrating on students and taxpayers.. Foolishness of the Week: 11:59 Main episode: 15:20 Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com See More Ant and James! http://www.wordsandnumbers.org Show Your Support for Words & Numbers at Patreon https://www.patreon.com/wordsandnumbers Topic of th...

Over ten years ago, we predicted that, as the Federal government approached insolvency, the Federal Reserve would start printing money to monetize the government spending, and that that would give us sustained inflation in the 5% plus range. We saw the 5% plus inflation and, as the Fed fought it, we then saw interest rates skyrocket. Trillion dollar plus deficits are the new normal, Social Securit...

An elderly couple, an antiques dealer, and an African mask spark a conversation about fraud, fairness, and value. Foolishness of the Week: 11:00 Main episode: 13:14 Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com See More Ant and James! http://www.wordsandnumbers.org Show Your Support for Words & Numbers at Patreon https://www.patreon.com/wordsandnumbers Qu...

Composer and musician Josh Nichols was annoyed when, on an earlier episode, James referred to “high culture,” and Ant said, “you mean the snooty stuff?” Being a classical composer and, importantly, making money at it, Josh joins us to set the record straight as to why we should all be more appreciative of “the snooty stuff.” Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandc...

Fans are applauding Taylor Swift for contributing billions to the country’s GDP. Yet Taylor Swift (three-quarters of a billionaire) is doing less for the economy than what many billionaires, who we vilify, do. Why do we applaud one business person and vilify the other? Foolishness of the week: 09:33 Main episode: 14:24 Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercio...

More than a decade ago, experts decided to change how students are taught to read. Without testing whether the new method worked or, apparently, even checking in with actual teachers, the experts forced the change. What resulted was a generation of children with reduced reading abilities. The experts have now reversed course. People make mistakes like this all the time. When the people who are mak...

From time to time, listeners write to tell us what we’ve gotten wrong. This week, we go back through predictions and analyses we’ve made that have turned out to be wrong. Main episode: 12:09 Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com See More Ant and James! http://www.wordsandnumbers.org Show Your Support for Words & Numbers at Patreon https://www.patr...

Attorney Vince White joins us this week. Vince’s law firm does more workplace harassment and sexual discrimination cases than any other US law firm. His firm also handled some of the Harvey Weinstein cases. Interestingly, Vince is James’ former student. Foolishness of the week: 05:30 Main episode: 08:39 Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com See More A...

Robert Reich (not an economist) recorded a video recently in which he claims that the rich are not paying their fair share of Social Security. But the calculations he uses to prove his point are fundamentally flawed. Foolishness of the week: 09:54 Main episode: 12:57 Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com See More Ant and James! http://www.wordsandnumb...

Economist Bryan McCannon gives us two things to think about this week: his research into whether covid mask mandates saved lives, and that journal editors were afraid to publish his results. Foolishness of the week: 08:04 Main episode: 11:49 Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com See More Ant and James! http://www.wordsandnumbers.org Show Your Support...

Burning Man, a modern day Woodstock, occurs each year in the desert. This year brought 87,000 people together to live, if only for a few days, in a cooperative nirvana. We take some time to look at the Burning Man principles for living and ask whether they make any sense. Foolishness of the week: 05:21 Main episode: 11:44 Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoer...