Money & Politics with Jim Pethokoukis

Welcome to Ricochet's Money & Politics Podcast with Jim Pethokoukis. You can find all episodes, new and old, here.

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Episode 10: Simon Johnson

January 22, 2013

Is it time for Washington to break up or shrink America's largest banks? On this week's Money & Politics Podcast, Jim's guest is economist Simon Johnson who advocates doing just that. Johnson, currently an MIT business professor, used to be the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund. He's also a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington and a co-founder of the financial blog BaselineScenario.

In addition, Johnson is a weekly contributor to The New York Times' Economix blog and a regular Bloomberg columnist. Along with James Kwak, Johnson is author of 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and The Next Financial Meltdown and White House Burning: The Founding Fathers, Our National Debt and Why it Matters to You.

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Episode 9: Michael Strain

January 17, 2013

On this week's Ricochet Money & Politics Podcast, Jim's guest is economist Michael Strain of the American Enterprise Institute. Strain began his career in the research group of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Before joining AEI, he managed the New York Census Research Data Center, a U.S. Census Bureau research facility.

Strain recently co-authored a study debunking the notion, now widely held in left-of-center circles, that top marginal tax rates could rise to 70%, 80%, or even 90% without crippling the US economy. Just as importantly, Strain argues the moral and values case against those levels of confiscatory taxation.Missing an episode of the Money and Politics podcast will cost you money. Subscribe here.

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Episode 8: Erik Brynjolfsson

December 21, 2012

On this week's Ricochet Money & Politics Podcast, Jim's guest is Erik Brynjolfsson, director of MIT’s Center for Digital Business at the Sloan School of Management.

Brynjolfsson is also co-author, along with Andrew McAfee, of Race Against the Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy. The 60-page ebook explores the apparent disconnect between a) rising innovation and productivity, and b) weak job and income growth.

The Financial Times called Race Against the Machine "compelling for its claim to explain two crumbling economic laws: the first that growth will create jobs; the second that rising wages will follow rising productivity. The authors think this stems from the erosion of a third pattern – that technology creates at least as many jobs as it destroys. Many intuitively doubt this idea, as the looms long ago smashed by Ned Ludd attest."

But Brynjolfsson argues Moore's Law means technology is advancing faster than humans can adjust, at least for now.

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Episode 7: Russ Roberts

December 11, 2012

On this week's Ricochet Money & Politics Podcast, Jim's guest is Russell Roberts, research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Roberts is also host of the weekly podcast series EconTalk and co-blogs over at Cafe Hayek with colleague Don Boudreaux.

In addition, Roberts is author of several books, including The Price of Everything: A Parable of Possibility and Prosperity (Princeton University Press, 2008). And his two rap videos, created with filmmaker John Papola and “starring” John Maynard Keynes and F.A. Heyek, have more than five million views on YouTube.

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Episode 6: Richard Burkhauser on Inequality

December 6, 2012

On this week's Ricochet Money & Politics Podcast, Jim's guest is Richard Burkhauser, economics professor at Cornell University. Prof. Burkhauser and his team at Cornell have done some amazing research that gives a much different perspective on the issue of income inequality. The mainstream media opinion holds that middle-class income have gone nowhere for 30 years while the income gap between the rich and everybody else has widened.

Underlying that thesis is the work of two economists, Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. According to them, median American incomes, adjusted for inflation, rose just 3.2% from 1979 through 2007.

But it’s just not true, according to Burkhauser. He finds that median household income – properly measured – rose 36.7%, not 3.2% as Piketty and Saez argue.

(Click images below to view in larger size)

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Episode 5: Medicare Guru Joe Antos

August 17, 2012

On this week's Money & Politics Podcast, my guest is Joe Antos, Medicare guru at the American Enterprise Institute. What is Paul Ryan's Medicare reform plan? What's Mitt Romney's? What's President Obama's? Antos gives a brisk tour of those plans, as well as providing a deeper dive into what's really wrong with America's government-run health system for seniors. You'll never read a New York Times story about Medicare or RomneyRyanCare the same way after listening to Antos.

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Episode 4: Inflation with Professor Scott Sumner

August 9, 2012

On this week's Money & Politics Podcast, my guest today Scott Sumner, professor of economics at Bentley University and author of the must-read TheMoneyIllusion blog.
Professor Sumner is probably best known for his contrarian critique of the Federal Reserve, that a) mismanaged monetary policy -- not the housing bust or Wall Street greed -- caused the Great Recession, and b) its continued tight money policy is a big reason why the economic recovery is so weak and unemployment is so high.

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Episode 3: University of Chicago's Luigi Zingales

July 21, 2012

This week, Jim Pethokoukis interviews Luigi Zingales, the Robert C. Mc Cormack Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance at University of Chicago, Booth School of Business to discuss the current state of European finances, how they can restore economic prosperity, and how U.S. style entrepreneurship can jump start the Italian and European economies. Be sure to pick up the Professor's new book A Capitalism for the People: Recapturing the Lost Genius of American Prosperity.

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Episode 2: "Unintended Consequences" with Ed Conard

July 10, 2012

Welcome to Ricochet's Money & Politics Podcast with me, Jim Pethokoukis, columnist and blogger at the American Enterprise Institute and official CNBC Contributor.

In this week's episode, I chat with Edward Conard, a former executive at Bain Capital and author of Unintended Consequences: Why Everything You’ve Been Told About the Economy Is Wrong. Conard explains why the U.S. economy needs the "one percent" -- and the innovation and entrepreneurship they generate -- as well as why the Obama-Dodd-Frank approach to fixing the financial system has only made things worse.

And once you're done listening to the podcast, you should check out Conard's legendary appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Here are some links to reviews of Unintended Consequences and other materials related to the book and our chat:

"Please Don't Soak the Rich" - Wall Street Journal

"The Purpose of Spectacular Wealth, According to a Spectacularly Wealthy Guy" - New York Times

Piketty and Saez vs. Burkhauser and Cornell: Who’s right on income inequality and stagnation? - James Pethokoukis, AEIdeas blog

Looking backward: The nostalgia economics of Barack Obama - James Pethokoukis, AEIdeas blog

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