Words & Numbers

Union membership in the private sector has been declining for decades, while union membership in the public sector has been increasing. This is consistent with workers voluntarily choosing not to unionize to the point that unions must turn to government jobs where it is easier to force workers to unionize. Foolishness of the week: 04:20 Main episode: 10:03 Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion...

The Republicans held their first primary debate. What they said wasn’t interesting. What they didn’t say was. Foolishness of the week: 07:00 Main episode: 09:10 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 Quick...

Economist Art Carden joins us this week to talk about his popular book, Strangers With Candy. Foolishness of the week: 04:27 Main episode: 18:01 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 Quick Hits https://for...

Michael Semanchik, Director of the Innocence Center, joins us to talk about freeing the wrongfully imprisoned, and reforming the criminal justice system to reduce the likelihood of wrongful convictions. Foolishness of the week: 06:13 Main episode: 07:09 Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com See More Ant and James! http://www.wordsandnumbers.org Show Y...

The point of communicating is to transfer thoughts from one person’s brain to another. In most forms of human communication, words are the tools we use. But if the two people don’t share common definitions of words, then communication becomes clouded. The most extreme case is when two people speak very different languages. But miscommunication often happens when both people speak the same language...

The Constitution sets lower age limits for members of Congress and the President, but sets no upper limits. Before modern medicine, this wasn’t as much of a problem as people’s bodies tended not to outlive their minds. Today, it’s becoming a problem. Foolishness of the week: 05:30 Main episode: 09:35 Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com See More Ant...

James and I both went to see the recent box office hit, The Sound of Freedom. I liked it. James didn’t. But we both were appalled at what appear to be seriously distorted claims made in the film about human trafficking. 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 & Number...

Howie Baetjer, Rob McDonald, James Stacey Taylor, and Clark Neily join us to talk about gun rights, canceling the Founders, and animal rights. 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 Words & Numbers Back...

This encore performance is of our most popular episode. This episode, in which we explore unintended consequences, first aired in September of 2019. Foolishness of the week: 06:19 Main episode: 10:54 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:/...

James and Ant field questions from students at Brookfield Academy on possible fixes for Social Security, the politics of taxation and spending, and how we’ve broken the separation of powers,  Foolishness of the week: 06:41 Main episode: 03:53 Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com See More Ant and James! http://www.wordsandnumbers.org Show Your Support...

James and Ant field questions from students at Brookfield Academy on possible fixes for Social Security, the politics of taxation and spending, and how we’ve broken the separation of powers,  Foolishness of the week: 06:41 Main episode: 08:18 Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com See More Ant and James! http://www.wordsandnumbers.org Show Your Support...

This week’s episode is a live recording of a panel discussion on free speech at the University of Washington. 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 Christin Gilmer https://www.linkedin.com/in/christingilme...

This week, historian Rob McDonald, Constitutional scholar and lawyer Clark Neily, philosophy James Stacey Taylor, and economist Howard Baetjer join James and Ant around a fire to discuss the indictments against former President Donald Trump. To accommodate the extended conversation, this week we forego our usual quick hits and foolishness of the week. We think you'll agree that, regardless of on w...

Weird things are happening. Retail sales have stagnated, savings are markedly down, yet unemployment is low, inflation isn’t as bad as it was. Have we reached a “new normal?” Foolishness of the week: 05:00 Main episode: 06:41 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 &...

For decades and where the law is ambiguous, courts have invoked the Chevron doctrine in allowing regulatory agencies to decide for themselves the meaning of the ambiguous language. Unsurprisingly, agencies invariably interpret ambiguous language in their own favors. The Supreme Court recently agreed to reconsider the Chevron doctrine. Overturning the doctrine could call into question decades’ wort...

People are saying that artificial intelligence will destroy jobs and enslave humans. We’ve heard this many times before. Before artificial intelligence, people said it about computers. Before computers, they said it about machines. Not only were people wrong before, they were spectacularly wrong. They’re likely wrong again. Foolishness of the week: 09:15 Main episode: 10:16 Get Your Copy of Cooper...

Episode 327: To Vote or Not To Vote This week’s episode comes live from Sandy High School in Sandy Oregon where James and I give arguments for and against voting. Foolishness of the week: 07:56 Main episode: 08:37 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 P...

We hear that women make 80 cents for every dollar that men make, and that blacks earn less than whites. This week, we delve into the data and find these claims far more complicated and interesting than they first appear. Foolishness of the week: 02:50 Main episode: 03:25 Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com See More Ant and James! http://www.wordsand...

One of the things that cryptocurrency has done is to prompt central banks to develop their own digital currencies. These will combine the downsides of private digital currencies with the downsides of government currencies. Foolishness of the week: 08:21 Main episode: 09:58 Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com See More Ant and James! http://www.wordsa...

The question, “How much do Americans earn?” seems simple. But there are so many moving parts below the surface that there is no single answer. For example, by “earn” do we mean “money from a job” or are we including interest income. What about Social Security retirement benefits? What about government welfare benefits? When we say “Americans” do we mean individual workers, or families, or househol...

What happens if the dollar is no longer a world currency? Financial expert Pete Earle joins us to discuss his recent article on the end of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Foolishness of the week: 05:42 Main episode: 07:39 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 Word...

Bank runs, green investing, doctor shortage in Europe, are people getting dumber? Foolishness of the week: 09:07 Main episode: 11:32 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 Apply for the Seminar on Classical...

Episode 321: Space and Property As humans venture out into space - not just under the auspices of government, but now as private citizens - establishing and adjudicating property rights will become ever more important. The treaty under which countries operate was signed back in the 1960s. It says that government may not lay claim to anything beyond Earth, but is completely silent about private cit...

Episode 320: Politics, Anarchy, and Baseball   Economist, former mayor, self-professed anarchist, and baseball fan Randy Simmons joins us this week to talk about government and politics through the eyes of someone who is both a skeptic of government and who served in elected office. We recorded this episode in January, but saved it for the opening of baseball season. You’ll hear why in the episode...

Many listeners have asked that we do an episode on the failure of Silicon Valley Bank and its implications for the rest of the banking sector. Peter Earle, economist and former Wall Street trader, joins us to talk about what happened, how it might have been avoided, what comes next, and whether the rest of the banking system is in danger. Foolishness of the week: 04:10 Main episode: 05:50 Get Your...