Richard Ebeling: Non-Intervention, America’s Founding Foreign Policy (34m)

This episode features a talk by ethics and economics professor Richard Ebeling from 2018. America is enmeshed in permanent, ongoing foreign wars and interventions. The results of foreign interventionism have been catastrophic, not only in terms of massive death and destruction abroad, but also in terms of ongoing, ever-growing destruction of liberty, privacy, and prosperity here at home. It is time for America to do some serious soul-searching. The best place to begin is by examining first principles — especially the founding principle of non-interventionism on which our nation was founded and which remained its guiding principle for more than a century.

Falling Back on Principle

Sometimes it takes awhile to fashion a topic, so I search Google for the keyword “politics,” using the “news” tab.  Now I’m struggling to define for myself what are the differences among a regular news day and a slow news day and a no news day and a fake news day.  But this is clear, there is no difference between yesterday’s news day and today’s news day.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

I am late for MLK’s birthday’s anniversary.  It happened a week ago according to a record source I have seen.  MLK’s real birthdate occurred on January 15, 1929.  Every year we are reminded of the contributions that Martin Luther King, Jr. made to our society. What I fear now is that we are doing it wrong.

Donald Boudreaux: Market Failure, Government Failure and the Economics of Antitrust Regulation (1h6m)

This episode features an interview of economics professor Donald Boudreaux from 2007 by Russ Roberts, host of EconTalk. They talk about when market failure can be improved by government intervention. After discussing the evolution of economic thinking about externalities and public goods, the conversation turns to the case for government’s role in promoting competition via antitrust regulation. Boudreaux argues that the origins of antitrust had nothing to do with protecting consumers from greedy monopolists. The source of political demand for antitrust regulation came from competitors looking for relief from more successful rivals.