Podcast
The Human Action Podcast
Hosted by Mises Institute · EN
The Human Action Podcast features in-depth interviews on current topics in economics through an Austro libertarian lens.
27episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Greenspan's Legacy: Did the Fed Cause the Housing Bubble?
2w agoTap to summarizeIn the wake of Alan Greenspan's recent passing, Bob revisits two contested claims about his legacy: did the Fed under Greenspan fuel the housing bubble, and did that bubble cause the 2008 financial crisis? Related:Bob's Article from October, 2007, "The Worst Recession in 25 years?": Mises.org/HAP557aPeter Schiff was Right (2006-2007 Edition): Mises.org/HAP557bMark Thornton, 2004, "Housing: Too Good to Be True": Mises.org/HAP557cBob's 2008 Article, "The Importance of Capital Theory": Mises.org/HAP557dThe Charts Shown in this Episode: Mises.org/HAP557e
Transcribe →Slavery Was Propped Up by Government: A Misesian Analysis
2w agoTap to summarizeBob walks through what Ludwig von Mises wrote about slavery in Human Action, arguing that the institution was not — as the 1619 Project claims — the foundation of American capitalism.Related:Ludwig von Mises, Human Action: Mises.org/HAP556a
Transcribe →From 2008 to the Coming Reset: Larry Lepard's Case for Sound Money
3w agoTap to summarizeBob sits down with fund manager and author Lawrence Lepard to discuss his book The Big Print, which argues that the core problem with modern America is not corporate greed or partisan politics, but a monetary system deliberately structured to benefit those closest to the Fed at the expense of wage earners and savers.Related:The Big Print: What Happened To America And How Sound Money Will Fix It: Mises.org/HAP555a
Transcribe →A Harvard Economist Tests Austrian Capital Theory
4w agoSummary readyBob sits down with Harvard Economics Professor Pol Antràs to discuss his new paper applying Böhm-Bawerk's average period of production to international trade, testing whether countries with lower interest rates tend to export goods requiring longer, more roundabout production processes.Related:Professor Antràs' Paper, "An ‘Austrian’ Model of International Specialization": Mises.org/HAP554aBob's Article, "The Reswitching Question": Mises.org/HAP554b
SummaryThe Fed's Real Job: Propping Up Dollar Reserve Currency Status
Jun 13Summary readyBob sits down with economists Alexander Salter and Joshua Hendrickson to discuss their new paper arguing that the standard Austrian critique of the Fed while correct, is fundamentally incomplete. They argue that the Fed's actual institutional role is to backstop U.S. dollar hegemony: the deliberately constructed post-Bretton Woods system in which the dollar serves as the world's reserve currency, U.S. Treasuries as the global safe asset, and the Fed as buyer of last resort for sovereign debt worldwide.Related:Hendrickson & Salter, "Should We End the Fed? Can We?": Mises.org/HAP553a
SummaryA Scholarly Takedown of MMT: Emmanuel Maggiori on the Theory's Fatal Flaws
Jun 9Summary readyBob sits down with economist Emmanuel Maggiori to discuss his new book If You Can Just Print Money, Why Do I Pay Taxes?, a carefully researched, point-by-point critique of Modern Monetary Theory that engages MMT on its own terms, drawing on the MMTers' own textbook, papers, and responses to critics.Related:If You Can Just Print Money, Why Do I Pay Taxes?: Mises.org/HAP552aBob's Mises Daily Article, "The Upside-Down World of MMT": Mises.org/HAP552bJonathan Newman and Bob's MisesU Lecture on MMT: Mises.org/HAP552c
SummaryHow Future Supply Moves Today's Prices
May 22Summary readyThis week, Bob walks through three thought experiments to show how expectations of future supply changes ripple into present prices and production decisions in ways that purely mechanical monetary frameworks like MV=PQ can't capture.Related:How Can Mining Asteroids in the Future Make Us Richer Today?: Mises.org/HAP551aBob's 2008 Article on Oil Prices: Mises.org/HAP551bCelebrate Murray Rothbard's 100th birthday with a free copy of Anatomy of the State. Get yours at Mises.org/HAPodFree
SummaryWhy Socialism Fails: From Mises's 1920 Article to Today
May 19Summary readyBob sits down with Dr. Jonathan Newman to discuss his Mises Academy course for homeschooling families based on Lessons for the Young Economist, using it as a starting point to walk through the full Austrian case against socialism.Related:The Mises Academy: Mises.org/HAP550aDr. Newman's Course, Lessons for the Young Economist: Mises.org/HAP550bBob's Lessons for the Young Economist: Mises.org/HAP550cBob's Lessons for the Young Economist Teacher's Manual: Mises.org/HAP550dDr. Newman's Article, "Star Trek Is Wrong: There Will Always Be Scarcity": Mises.org/HAP550eCelebrate Murray Rothbard's 100th birthday with a free copy of Anatomy of the State. Get yours at Mises.org/HAPodFree
SummaryMaking Sense of the Trump Administration's "Hail Mary" on Iran
May 15Summary readyBob argues that many Austro-libertarians (himself included, initially) have been too quick to dismiss the Trump administration's foreign and economic policy as mere incompetence or corruption, without grasping the strategic logic behind it. His thesis: the U.S. national security establishment sees China's rise as an existential threat and believes the window to act is closing fast, making the current flurry of aggressive moves less like random chaos and more like a desperate Hail Mary pass.Related:The Charts and Graphs Mentioned in this Episode: Mises.org/HAP549aThe Bob Murphy Show, "LEAKED: Trump's Secret Strategy Briefing": Mises.org/HAP549bCore Insights, "China Quietly Built a 10,400km Railway to Iran — The US is Terrified": Mises.org/HAP549cThe Tom Woods Show, "The Venezuela Propaganda, with David Stockman": Mises.org/HAP549dCelebrate Murray Rothbard's 100th birthday with a free copy of Anatomy of the State. Get yours at Mises.org/HAPodFree
SummaryResponding to Geochartalism: Did Mosler Complete Menger?
May 4Summary readyBob responds to a new working paper from the Geo-chartalism project, which claims to offer a complete theory of the price level by combining insights from Menger, Cantillon, and Warren Mosler. Bob argues that the paper overlooks a crucial prior contribution: Mises' regression theorem, developed in The Theory of Money and Credit, which already solved the circularity problem in monetary theory that the paper claims required Mosler to resolve. Along the way, Bob also explains chartalism, Georgism, and Mises's explanation of the absolute price level.Related:Bob's Paper Critiquing Kevin Carson's Studies in Mutualist Political Economy: Mises.org/HAP548aGeorge Charles, “The Mosler-Cantillon-Menger Synthesis”: Mises.org/HAP548bMMT vs. Austrian School Debate: Mises.org/HAP548cThe Mises Institute is giving away 100,000 copies of Hayek for the 21st Century. Get your free copy at Mises.org/HAPodFree
Summary