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Julian Morris Discusses European Bailout Fever on Fox Business

Tue, 24 Jul 2012 00:00:00 EDT

Reason Foundation’s Vice President of Research Julian Morris appeared on Cavuto to discuss increasing market turmoil in Europe and America and how bailouts and spending doesn't heal an economic crisis caused by bailouts and spending. Air Date: July 23, 2012.

Approximately 6.37 minutes.

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How Free Markets Will Beat Climate Change: Q&A with UCLA's Matthew Kahn

Thu, 05 Jul 2012 00:00:00 EDT

"My unsexy bumper sticker for adapting to climate change," says UCLA Professor of Economics, the Environment, and Public Affairs Matthew Kahn, "is 'Give free markets a chance!'"

Kahn, the author of Climatopolis: How Our Cities Will Thrive in the Hotter Future , argues that "well-meaning government actions" designed to combat the effects of global warming need to be scrutinized more than they have been. Despite the hostility to markets and economic development shared by many green activists, Kahn says that "free-market capitalism" provides the most flexible - and most progressive - solution to environmental issues. Climate change is coming, he avers, and raising the urban poor's standard of living and generating new technological innovations will do far more to improve things than top-down attempts to control energy use and consumption patterns.

About 7 minutes. Produced by Sharif Matar.

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Washington's Parasitic Economy with The Weekly Standard's Andrew Ferguson

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 00:00:00 EDT

Washington, D.C. "is basically a parasitic economy," says author and Weekly Standard Senior Editor Andrew Ferguson. "It sucks up the money from the rest of the country and puts people to work here."

In a recent Time magazine article titled "Bubble on the Potomac," Ferguson argues that D.C.-area residents are growing ever richer at the expense of the rest of the country, which has created a cultural disconnect that results in bad laws.

Ferguson sat down with ReasonTV Correspondent Kennedy to discuss his article, and the various ways in which D.C.'s riches are hurting the nation.

Ferguson is also the author of Crazy U: One Dad's Crash Course in Getting His Kid Into College and Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe's America. For more on those books and the author, visit http://www.andrewfergusonbooks.com/ .

Approximately 4:50 minutes.

Camera by Jim Epstein, Meredith Bragg and Joshua Swain. Produced by Bragg.

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In 2011 Reason's Nick Gillespie interviewed Ferguson and his son, Gillam, about Crazy U.

Surprise: Economic Mobility is Alive and Well in America!

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 15:18:00 EDT

"You can be concerned that there's not enough [economic] mobility or enough opportunity, but you don't have to also believe that things are getting worse."

So says Scott Winship of the centrist Brookings Institution.

Despite having a wealth of empirical evidence on his side, it's a lonely position. Researchers, writers, and politicians on the political right (think Charles Murray in his new book Coming Apart and former GOP Sen. Rick Santorum) and on the left (Timothy Noah in The Great Divergence and President Barack Obama) are convinced that economic mobility is shrinking.

In a series of provocative essays in a wide array of outlets, Winship demonstrates that while income inequality may indeed be growing (especially at the top end of things), mobility is not declining. As he wrote earlier this year in an article at National Review,

Using...two National Longitudinal Survey data sets, I can compare children born between 1962 and 1964 to children born between 1980 and 1982, observing their parents’ incomes when they were 14 to 16 and their own incomes twelve years later when they were 26 to 28.

In contrast to [President Obama's and other's claims] of declining mobility, I found that upward mobility from poverty to the middle class rose from 51 percent to 57 percent between the early-’60s cohorts and the early-’80s ones. Rather than assert that mobility has increased, I want to simply say — at this stage of my research (which is ongoing) — that it has not declined.
If I include households that reported negative or no income, the rise in upward mobility I find is only from 51 percent to 53 percent, which is not a statistically meaningful increase. But the data provide absolutely no evidence that economic mobility declined, whereas the president said it had fallen by ten percentage points.

Winship sat down with Reason's Nick Gillespie to talk about why people mistake growth in income inequality for decreases in economic mobility and how mobility might be increased from where it's been for the past 40 or 50 years.

About 5.28 minutes.

Produced by Anthony L. Fisher; camera by Jim Epstein and Meredith Bragg.

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Anthony Randazzo Talks Greece, Spain, and Euro Dissolution on The Alyona Show

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 00:00:00 EDT

Reason Foundation Director of Economic Research Anthony Randazzo appeared on The Alyona Show to discuss whether the Eurozone is on the brink of dissolution after a weekend of a narrow election victory in Greece and increasing bond yields in Spain. Air Date: June 18, 2012.

Approximately 9.22 minutes.

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Will Seattle Become the Capital of Social Entrepreneurship?

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 00:00:00 EDT

"I think there's every reason to believe that Seattle will be the capital of social entrepreneurship in the next ten years," says Brian Howe, an adjunct professor at Seattle School of Law and founder of Hub Seattle , which rents space to social entrepreneurs.

Reason.tv sat down with Howe and Michael "Luni" Libes, a "serial entrepreneur" who has helped build five technology start-ups, to talk about #SocEnt Weekendan an event modeled on the very popular Startup Weekend that endeavors to offer an environment for entrepreneurs to collaborate and bring their ideas to fruition.

Libes and Howe discussed the idea of the "social enterprise," which involves using for-profit enterprise to solve social problems.

"Business men and women think about, 'How am I going to take this small thing and create leverage? How is this going to scale?'" said Howe.

About 5 minutes. Interview by Zach Weissmueller. Filmed and Edited by Weissmueller.

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Hemp History Week: Ending the War on George Washington's Favorite Crop

Mon, 04 Jun 2012 00:00:00 EDT

"The main goal [of Hemp History Week] is to try to bring back hemp farming in the United States again," explains Eric Streenstra, President of the nonprofit advocacy group Vote Hemp.

Once hailed as a "New Billion Dollar Crop" by Poplar Mechanics, hemp farming was effectively shut down in the United States over confusion with its genetic cousin, marijuana. Though hemp carries no psychoactive properties, the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act defined hemp a a narcotic and that wording was subsequently adopted into the Controlled Substances Act of 1970. Current laws allow the importation of industrial hemp from outside the U.S., leading to an ever expanding list of hemp related products, but denies would be hemp-farmers the ability to grow industrial hemp on American soil.

Steenstra sat down with Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie to discuss the legislative fight to lift the ban on cultivation, hemp's long history in America, and why hemp lube is just one of the many benefits associated with the plant.

Approximately 4.48 minutes.

Camera by Jim Epstein and Meredith Bragg. Edited by Joshua Swain.

A. Barton Hinkle on hemp.

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Haiti's Pepe Trade: How Secondhand American Clothes Became a First-Rate Business

Wed, 23 May 2012 00:00:00 EDT

"Haiti has practically become a trash can," says Ketcia Pierre-Louis, "where everything people in other countries don’t need comes here."

Pierre-Louis is a businesswoman and affiliate of the Croix-des-Bouquets Chamber of Commerce, just outside of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Like many critics of imported second-hand clothing, which is known locally as "pepe," she believes the practice undercuts domestic businesses and industries. Some have even called for the government to ban the practice.

But Haiti's pepe trade is decidedly a business—not a charity. In fact, it starts with Haitian Americans buying goods at U.S. thrift stores and shipping products to Port-au-Prince and other ports. Pepe may include hand-me-downs, but the clothing is high-quality, stylish, and cheap. More important, average Haitians prefer the choice of wearing such apparel—and brands like Polo, Lacoste, and Converse—to not having access to such products at all.

Far from turning Haiti into a trash can, the market in pepe shows how buyers and sellers enrich each other through exchange.

Produced by Tate Watkins and Jon Bougher.

Approximately 4 minutes.

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Tom Easton on Dodd-Frank: "A Terrible Law"

Sat, 12 May 2012 00:00:00 EDT

"I think there's growing understanding of how terrible this law really is," says The Economist's Tom Easton of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010.

Dodd-Frank was passed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, and Easton is one of the very select few who have read the entire sweeping bill. He asserts that "the single most indicting read on Dodd-Frank, is to read Dodd-Frank itself."

To those who feel that the financial crisis was caused by a lack of regulation, Easton counters, "the argument that there needs to be more regulations (on banks) is frankly ludicrous if you look at how they were regulated before."

Runs about 4.14 minutes.

Produced by Anthony L. Fisher.

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The Vampire Economist and the Moral Molecule

Thu, 10 May 2012 09:00:00 EDT

In his new book, The Moral Molecule: The Source of Love and Prosperity, neuroeconomist Paul J. Zak discusses his research on oxytocin, aka the "moral molecule." For the past 10 years, Zak has been conducting the same kind of trust games that are common in experimental economics, but with a twist. Before and after the trust games, Zak has been taking blood samples with the goal of gaining a better understanding of how and why people trust others.

Zak's work on oxytocin, which Genome author Matt Ridley calls "one of the most revealing experiments in the history of economics," helps economists understand why people are often generous to complete strangers and why those complete strangers so often reciprocate. The key, Zak explains, is oxytocin. Our brains release oxytocin when we hug others, when we receive gifts and when we are trusted. Because elevated oxytocin levels in the blood make us more likely to trust others, oxytocin plays an essential role in all human interactions, including the process of wealth creation. As Zak puts it, "You can't induce your brain to release oxytocin, you can only give it to somebody else. If you give this gift, our biology has set us up so that people will return it to us."

Approximately 5.5 minutes.

Produced by Paul Feine & Alex Manning.

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Anthony Randazzo Discusse Restoring Trust in Mortgage Backed Securities on Fox Business

Thu, 10 May 2012 00:00:00 EDT

Reason Foundation Director of Economic Research Anthony Randazzo appeared on Fox Business to discuss how to increase private investment in mortgage-backed securities. Air Date: May 8, 2012.

Approximately 4 minutes.

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John Stossel on Journalism, How he became Libertarian & his new book "No They Can't"

Mon, 07 May 2012 00:00:00 EDT

"Some guy came up to me said, 'Are you John Stossel?...I hope you die soon,'" recounts Fox Business Network host and Reason contributor John Stossel. Thankfully Stossel found a more civil audience when he stopped by Reason's Washington, DC office to promote his new book No, They Can’t: Why Government Fails But Individuals Succeed.

During a lively Q&A session, Stossel took questions from the audience about his book, his time as a consumer reporter, and the power of the internet to communicate libertarian ideas.

About 6.30 minutes. 

Camera by Joshua Swain, Meredith Bragg and Jim Epstein. Edited by Swain.

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What We Saw at Occupy Wall Street's May Day Protest in NYC (feat. Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello)

Wed, 02 May 2012 09:00:00 EDT

Occupy Wall Street held a "General Strike" to commemorate May Day in New York City. Led by Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello, the "Guitarmy" of a few thousand people noisily marched 28 blocks down Fifth Avenue toward Union Square Park.

Reason.tv was on the scene to speak with Morello, USMC Sgt. Shamar Thomas (who became a viral video sensation after screaming at NYPD officers during an OWS protest last year), rival zombie marchers, and a few self-described lefties who've just had it with President Obama.

Runs about 5 minutes.

Produced by Anthony L. Fisher, with camera by Nathan Chaffetz, Sean McElwee and Fisher.

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Charles Murray: Why America is Coming Apart Along Class Lines

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 11:00:00 EDT

Charles Murray, one of America's most influential social policy thinkers, has come out with a widely discussed new book called Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010, which argues that Americans are splitting into two divergent classes, and that this growing divide could end American life as we have known it.

A self-described libertarian, Murray started his career as a liberal Democrat who spent six years in the Peace Corps and voted for Jimmy Carter in the 1976 presidential election. His political transformation came while he was researching his landmark 1984 book, Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980, which marshaled exhaustive evidence that American welfare programs were harming the very people they were supposed to be lifting out of poverty.

Losing Ground was fiercely denounced by the political left, but soon won mainstream acceptance that the War on Poverty was failing. The simple fact is there wouldn't have been welfare reform in the 1990s without Losing Ground.

The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life, Murray's 1994 collaboration with Harvard psychologist Richard Herrnstein, was more controversial. The book maintained that differences in genes contribute to differences in IQ, which in turn play a significant role in the life outcomes of individuals. Most controversially, Herrnstein and Murray argued that various ethnic groups have distinct in inherited intelligence. (Economist James J. Heckman reviewed The Bell Curve for Reason back in 1995.)

Murray has written more than 20 books, including What It Means to Be a Libertarian: A Personal Interpretation, and he's currently the W.H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute .

Reason's Ronald Bailey sat down with Murray in March for a wide-ranging discussion of how his earlier work informs Coming Apart, why he remains libertarian in his outlook, and whether younger Americans face an relentlessly negative future.

Approximately 35 minutes.

Written and produced by Jim Epstein.

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Matt Ridley on Ideas having Sex, Free Trade, & Apocalyptic Science w/ Reason's Kennedy

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 00:00:00 EDT

“[Some people] simply don’t believe that when two people trade one is not ripping the other off,” exclaims Matt Ridley, zoologist and author of The Rational Optimist. "A big problem with the world is that human beings find positive sum games difficult to understand."

Ridley sat down with Reason's Kennedy to discuss his thoughts on free trade, ideas having sex and the irrationality of apocalyptic science.

About 7 minutes.

Filmed by Anthony Fisher and Jim Epstein. Edited by Joshua Swain.

For more Ridley and Reason.tv click here and here.

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Matt Welch Discusses 2012 Election, Judicial Activism & "Social Darwinism" on Melissa Harris-Perry

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 00:00:00 EDT

Reason Editor in Chief Matt Welch appeared on MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry Show to discuss today's most heated political battles - Obama vs Romney on the economy, Obama vs SCOTUS on healthcare, & SCOTUS vs the public's privacy on strip searches. Air Date: April 7, 2012.

About 33 minutes.

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5 Keys to Restoring America's Prosperity: John B. Taylor

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 00:00:00 EDT

In his new book, First Principles: Five Keys to Restoring America's Prosperity, Stanford University professor of economics John B. Taylor, details the not-so-secret ingredients to rebuilding American's economic future: predictable policy, rule of law, strong incentives, reliance on markets, and a clearly limited role for government. "America can be great again, economically speaking," Taylor explains, "it's just more recently where we've gone off track."

Taylor sat down with Reason Magazine Managing Editor Katherine Mangu-Ward to discuss his book, the principles that underlie America's economic supremacy and what's gone wrong over the past decade.

Taylor is the Raymond Professor of Economics at Stanford University and the George Shultz Senior Fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution. He was Treasury Under Secretary for International Affairs from 2001 to 2005. His previous books include Getting Off Track: How Government Actions and Interventions Caused, Prolonged, and Worsened the Financial Crisis. You can watch a 2009 Reason.tv interview discussing the book with Taylor here.

Shot by Joshua Swain and Jim Epstein. Edited by Meredith Bragg

Approximately 5:30 minutes long.

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Matt Welch Discusses Obama's Symbolic Presidency with Varney

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 00:00:00 EST

Reason Editor in Chief, Matt Welch appeared on Varney & Co. to discuss how Obama's job policies are only symbolic gestures and argues that the unemployment crisis would be better fixed by good governance and congressional budget. Air date: March 8, 2011.

About 3 minutes.

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Julian Morris Discusses Whether Capitalism is "Outdated" & "Crumbling" on Freedom Watch

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST

Reason Foundation’s Vice President of Research Julian Morris joined a panel on Freedom Watch to discuss the World Economic Forum founder's quote that "capitalism... has no place in the world." The panel also discusses a new proposal for the federal government to overhaul foreclosures in robo-settlements. Air Date: January 23, 2012.

Approximately 7.40 minutes.

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Will The Supreme Court End New York's Rent Control Laws?

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:00:00 EST

"If you wanted to destroy a city’s housing - short of bombing - the best way to do it is rent control,” says Cato legal associate Trevor Burrus.

While most cities in America long ago got rid of rent control, New York remains a bastion of government-mandated limits on what landlords can charge renters. About 50 percent of New York’s rental market is affected by rent control or rent stabilization, policies that keep rents artificially low and produce housing shortages, higher overall housing costs, and all sorts of corruption.

The court case Harmon v. Kimmel may finally bring an end to rent control laws that have been on the books in one form or another since the 1940s. James D. Harmon owns a building in Manhattan where the tenants are paying rents that are about 60 percent below the going market rate. After losing various legal battles at lower levels, Harmon has petitioned the Supreme Court to hear his argument that rent stabilization is a form of takings that should be prohibited under the Constitution. The Court has not yet announced whether it will hear the case but has asked the state and city of New York to respond to Harmon's argument.

Cato's Burrus wrote a friend of the court brief on the case and explains why rent control and rent stabilization are bad at promoting affordable housing and abridgments of economic freedom.

About 2.34 minutes. Shot and edited by Joshua Swain.

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Ranking Economic Freedom with The Heritage Foundation's James Roberts

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST

"Economic Freedom peaked about seven or eight years ago in the U.S. and has been dropping since then," claims James Roberts, Heritage Foundation Research Fellow and co-author of the 2012 Index of Economic Freedom.

For over a decade the Heritage Foundation has been ranking countries based on a number of indices, including open markets, regulatory efficiency, and the size and scope of government. Due primarily to costly regulations and rapid government expansion, the tenth-place United States’ declined in the rankings for the fourth straight year, behind Hong Kong (#1), Australia (#3), Switzerland (#5), Canada (#6) and Ireland (#9). Even Maruritius, a small island off the coast of Africa, was seen as a more economically free.

Roberts sat down with Reason’s Matt Welch to discuss the Index, the state of free enterprise in the world, and the decline of economic freedom in Europe and North America.

About 6:30 minutes. Shot by Meredith Bragg and Joshua Swain and edited by Bragg.

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3 Reasons Conservatives Should Cut Defense Spending Now!

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 12:00:00 EST

The Congressional Budget Office projects that if we keep spending the way we have been, federal debt held by the public will grow from around 60 percent of GDP to a whopping 82 percent of GDP over the next decade, with no end in sight. That’s the sort of borrowing that can ruin a country's economy.

Conservative Republicans are happy to talk about cutting spending on the poor, education, and cowboy poetry readings, but they insist that spending on defense and homeland security be increased.

Given that spending on defense and homeland security accounts for a whopping 20 percent of the government’s budget, that’s a non-starter. As with every other legitimate function of government, we need to squeeze spending down to the lowest level possible that still gets the job done.

Here are three reasons conservatives – and all other red-blooded Americans – should cut defense spending now.

1. War is Over! Didn’t we just win – or at least end – the war in Iraq? And aren’t we winding down in Afghanistan? After World War II, Vietnam, and the end of the Cold War, military spending got cut, as it should have been.

More to the point, spending on the military and homeland security grew by 90 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars since 2000. If al Qaeda and most international terrorists groups have been largely vanquished, we should not just be bringing the troops home, but dollars too.

Unless, that is, conservatives want to seriously argue that nearly doubling outlays for the past decade haven’t yielded results that would allow us to dial down defense spending.

2. What price safety? The United States already accounts for about 45 percent of the planet’s military outlays – more than the next 14 countries combined. Most of those countries are our allies as well, so we should be able to stay safe while reducing our military spending.

It’s a conservative truism that government programs, even ones that are sanctioned by the constitution, tend to be bloated, inefficient, and incompetent. Surely that same logic applies to the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security. In fact, Republican Reps. John Mica and Paul Broun marked the 10th anniversary of the Transportation Security Administration with a report that concluded that after spending $56 billion in security measures, flying is no safer now than it was before the 9/11 attacks.

If conservatives can’t find wasteful spending and useless programs in defense and homeland security to cut, they’ve got bigger problems than terrorists to deal with.

3. Attacking the Military-Industrial Complex is a Republican Virtue – And Good Politics. It was a Republican president – the war hero Dwight Eisenhower – who sounded the alarm about the military-industrial complex’s insidious ability to grow and grow like a cancer on the American body politic. And right now, it’s Democrats such as Defense Secretary Leon Panentta leading the cry for a blank check despite admitting that there are tons of duplicative programs in his department.

In his proposed 2011 budget, President Barack Obama actually calls for bigger spending on defense and homeland security than the Republicans do. Obama’s recent announcement that he may trim some planned increases over the next decade doesn’t change that.

Americans are rightly tired not just of dubious, inconclusive wars that have led to the death of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of others. A growing number of us are tired of out-of-control spending by a Washington elite that is totally out of touch with everyday Americans.

If conservatives want to push forward on reducing spending on Medicaid and other domestic programs, they should show that they take their own limited government philosophy seriously by pushing for defense cuts between now and the 2012 elections.

About 3 minutes long. Scroll down for downloadable versions of all our videos and subscribe to our YouTube channel to receive automatic notifications when new material goes live.

Nick Gillespie is editor in chief of Reason.com and Reason.tv, and the co-author of The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What's Wrong with America. Follow him on Twitter: @nickgillespie.

Meredith Bragg is a producer at Reason.tv, a 2010 finalist for digital National Magazine Award for his video work, and an active musician and performer.

Ron Paul Expects "Dramatic Good News" Night Before Iowa Caucus

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST

"I'm keeping my fingers crossed," said Congressman and Presidential hopeful Ron Paul the night before the Iowa Caucus. "I think we may have some dramatic, good news for tomorrow night." Paul supporters at the Prime N Wine in Mason City, Iowa were in high spirits during his final stop on the Iowa Whistle-Stop Tour, which he embarked upon with his son, Senator Rand Paul.

Reason.tv was on the scene to gauge the mood and to investigate what it is about the Texas Congressman that inspires such a devoted following. Answers varied, but common themes were Ron Paul’s
consistency, his peaceful foreign policy, and his willingness to take serious steps to reduce the deficit.

Reason senior editor Brian Doherty , who is writing a Ron Paul biography , was also there to document the event and provide political commentary. “The interesting thing about Ron Paul fans that I found is that whatever hooks them first,” says Doherty, “once they’re hooked in, they decide, almost universally, that they like everything about him.” Perhaps because they value his logical consistency, most of Paul’s supporters told us that they would not be willing to support another Republican candidate should he fail to get the nomination.

While many pundits still consider a Paul nomination a long shot, Paul and his supporters feel optimistic about his chances in Iowa. “I definitely expect Ron Paul to come in over 20 [percent],” says Doherty. “Absolutely he’ll finish a strong second, and a win is definitely still a possibility.”

About 2.30 minutes.  Produced by Sharif Matar and Zach Weissmueller.

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Veronique de Rugy Talks "Automatic Budget Cuts" and Defense Spending on Freedom Watch

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 00:00:00 EST

Reason Foundation contributer and senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center Veronique de Rugy appeared on the Freedom Watch to talk about defense spending and the "automatic budget cuts".

Air Date: December 5, 2011.

Approximately 4 minutes.

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Peter Schiff Talks to The One Percent: "The Economy is about to implode...we're not even near the bottom yet"

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 10:00:00 EST

"You Got this Occupy Wall Street crowd that wants to have a communist revolution," says investment guru and outspoken defender of free enterprise Peter Schiff, "but hopefully we can have more of a free-market...second American revolution and understand all the pain we're about to endure is because of government. It's not because of capitalism."

Schiff caused a sensation last month when he visited New York's Zuccotti Park and argued with Occupy Wall Street protesters about the causes of and solutions to the Great Recession. In this video, he talks to "the 1 Percent," a group of wealthy individuals who gathered recently in the Bel Air home of Judd Weiss .

Regardless of his audience, Schiff's message in entirely consistent: Cronyism and government policies have distorted the economy and "we're not even near the bottom yet" in terms of the downturn.

About 6 minutes. Shot by Sharif Matar and Tracy Oppenheimer and edited by Oppenheimer.

To watch other Schiff videos and all of Reason.tv's Occupy Wall Street (and LA and DC!) videos, go here.

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Occupy Wall Street Removed from Zuccotti Park by NYPD (11/15/2011)

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 10:30:00 EST

Around 1 a.m. on November 15, the New York Police Department forcibly removed Occupy Wall Street protesters (OWS) from their months-long encampment in Zuccotti Park. Depending on how you feel about OWS, the clearing of the privately owned park was either long overdue or a violation of First Amendment rights. A new policy allows protesters to gather in the park, but they cannot sleep or camp there.

Reason contributor Michael Tracey captured live footage as the NYPD forced OWS participants out of the park and away from adjacent areas. This four-minute video is taken from about 35 minutes of footage and includes an interview with a protester explaining how the original clearing of the park took place. "Even like the legitimate press," he explains, "like CNN, they [the NYPD] wouldn't allow them in there."

Watch also NYPD Cop Punches Protester, similarly taken from Tracey's footage.

And check out our ongoing OWS videos and coverage here.

About 4:20 minutes. Shot by Michael Tracey; edited by Meredith Bragg.

Follow Tracey on Twitter at @mtracey

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Anthony Randazzo Talks Generation Jobless on Freedom Watch

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 00:00:00 EST

Reason's Director of Economic Research Anthony Randazzo appeared on Freedom Watch to discuss how government work projects of the past are increasing unemployment for young people today. Air Date: November 7, 2011.

Approximately 5 minutes.

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Peter Schiff Challenges "Phony" Growth Based on Spending on After the Bell

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 EDT

On Fox Business Network's After the Bell, Peter Schiff challenges recent economic growth saying it's based on how "spending money we don't have" instead on actual savings and investment. Schiff also discusses his time talking with the Occupiers on Wall Street. Air Date: October 28, 2011.

5.30 minutes.

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Julian Morris Talks Treasury's AIG Shares and Social Security Reform on Freedom Watch

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Reason Foundation’s Vice President of Research Julian Morris appeared on Freedom Watch With Judge Napolitano to talk about the US Treasury's overwhelming 77 percent stake in AIG and the politically tabooed topic of social security reform.

Air Date: October 31, 2011.

Approximately 7 minutes.

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Peter Schiff Discusses His Time Talking with the "99%" on Fox & Friends

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 00:00:00 EDT

"They should be frustrated with the government; that's what's wrecked the economy, not capitalism," says Peter Schiff on Fox & Friends. Schiff says he sympathizes with the Wall Street Occupiers' outrage but his understanding of the free market tells him anger should be directed toward Washington DC instead. Air Date: October 28, 2011.

About 4 minutes.

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Peter Schiff vs. Cornell West on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 00:00:00 EDT

"If they really want a bright future for this country, it's capitalism that will provide it, not government."

That's what Peter Schiff told Princeton University Professor Cornell West last night in a heated debate on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360. They were discussing Schiff's recent Reason.tv appearance, in which he engaged protestors at Occupy Wall Street with a sign that read, "I Am the 1%, Let's Talk." Air Date: October 27, 2011.

Here's the original video.

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Peter Schiff Represents "The 1%" at Occupy Wall Street

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 12:55:00 EDT

Last week, Reason.tv followed investment guru, radio show host, and unflappable defender of capitalism Peter Schiff as he spent three hours among the Occupy Wall Street protesters in Manhattan's Zuccotti Park.

An unapologetic member of "the 1 Percent," Schiff argued with all comers for the better part of an afternoon.

Schiff is no ordinary observer. As the prinicipal of the financial firm Euro Pacific Capital, he's a full-fledged and unapologetic member of "the 1 Percent." As an outspoken radio show host and commentator, he not only predicted the housing crash and financial crisis, he railed bank and auto-sector bailouts as they were happening. Schiff believes that capitalism offers is the only hope for young, frustrated people to have a vibrant and prosperous future. So he went to Occupy Wall Street to engage and debate the protesters.

Touring the Occupy Wall Street scene in New York with a sign that read "I Am the 1%, Let's Talk," Schiff spent more than three hours on the scene, explaining the difference between cronyism and capitalism, bailouts and balance sheets, and more.

"The regulation we want is the market," said Schiff. "That's what works."

Schiff describes himself as "sympathetic" to the plight of the OWS protesters, but thinks their anger is misdirected at legitimate business interests and should be better at the White House, Congress, the Federal Reserve, and the crony capitalists they've bailed out.

Check out Schiff's Euro Pacific Capital at www.europac.net

Listen to his radio show online at www.schiffradio.com

Buy his latest book, How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes, at http://www.amazon.com/How-Economy-Grows-Why-Crashes/dp/047052670X

Produced by Anthony L. Fisher. Camera by Nathan Chaffetz.

Runs about 19 minutes. Go to Reason.tv for downloadable versions of our videos and subscribe to Reason.tv's YouTube channel for automatic notification when new material goes live online.

For a two-minute version, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZr9c1zYaOE

For Reason's coverage of the Occupy movement in New York, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and elsewhere, go to http://reason.com/topics/occupy-wall-street

Here's a playlist of Reason.tv's always expanding video coverage of the Occupy movement: http://www.youtube.com/user/ReasonTV#grid/user/3E65B192ADEB84BD

"Wal-Mart Doesn't Hold a Gun to Your Head!": Peter Schiff at Occupy Wall Street

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 12:54:00 EDT

"Did a corporation end slavery, or did the government end slavery?!?!"

That's the sort of question investment guru and radio show host Peter Schiff fielded as he debated Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protesters last week in New York's Zuccotti Park.

Schiff is no ordinary observer. As the prinicipal of the financial firm Euro Pacific Capital, he's a full-fledged and unapologetic member of "the 1 Percent." As an outspoken radio show host (listen online here) and commentator, he not only predicted the housing crash and financial crisis, he railed bank and auto-sector bailouts as they were happening. Schiff believes that capitalism offers is the only hope for young, frustrated people to have a vibrant and prosperous future (get information on his latest book, How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes, here). So he went to Occupy Wall Street to engage and debate the protesters.

Touring the Occupy Wall Street scene in New York with a sign that read "I Am the 1%, Let's Talk," Schiff spent more than three hours on the scene, explaining the difference between cronyism and capitalism, bailouts and balance sheets, and more.

"The regulation we want is the market," said Schiff. "That's what works."

Schiff describes himself as "sympathetic" to the plight of the OWS protesters, but thinks their anger is misdirected at legitimate business interests and should be better at the White House, Congress, the Federal Reserve, and the crony capitalists they've bailed out.

If you dig this video, check out a 20-minute-long video from Schiff's day at Occupy Wall Street in which the unflappable defender of true capitalism spars with an eclectic mix of protesters and gets at least some of them to reassess where the blame for financial crisis really lies. That's at YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGL-Ex1CD1c

Produced by Anthony L. Fisher. Camera by Nathan Chaffetz.

Runs about 3.20 minutes. Go to Reason.tv for downloadable versions of our videos and subscribe to Reason.tv's YouTube channel for automatic notification when new material goes live online.

For Reason's coverage of the Occupy movement in New York, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and elsewhere, go here.

Here's a playlist of Reason.tv's always expanding video coverage of the Occupy movement.

Matt Welch Talks New Proposal to Exchange US Homes for Visas on Freedom Watch

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Reason Magazine Editor in Chief Matt Welch appeared on Freedom Watch With Judge Napolitano to talk about the federal government's new proposal to provide foreigners with visas if they purchase a US home for more than $500,000. Air Date: October 20, 2011.

Approximately 8 minutes.

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David Bernstein on Rehabilitating Lochner and the Freedom to Contract

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 00:00:00 EDT

“Either the Commerce Clause gives Congress a plenary power to regulate anything it pleases or it doesn’t; and let’s have that argument,” says George Mason University law professor David Bernstein.

Bernstein goes after progressive attempts to limit economic freedom and liberty of contract in his new book Rehabilitating Lochner: Defending Individual Rights against Progressive Reform, a history of the 1905 case Lochner v. New York. The decision nullified a state law regulating work hours for bakers and became the impetus for a 40-year period where American courts protected economic liberty.

A Lochner rehabilitation has not been easy, Bernstein admits. Many legal experts that see Lochner as on par with the infamous Dred Scott decision. The government's encroaching power under the Commerce Clause has also held the case for economic liberty back. But Bernstein remains hopeful and believes both liberals and conservatives have something to gain in reexamining Lochner's implications, which range from protecting the right to an abortion to striking down the health care act’s individual mandate.

Approximately 6.36 minutes.

Hosted by Nick Gillespie. Camera by Meredith Bragg and Joshua Swain; edited by Swain.

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Remy's Occupy Wall Street Protest Song

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 10:00:00 EDT

As the Occupy Wall Street movement spreads like a, well, financial contagion through global markets, intergalactic Internet sensation Remy and Reason.tv give the movement its anthem.

Written and performed by Remy and produced by Meredith Bragg.

About 2.45 minutes. Go to http://reason.tv for downloadable versions. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to get automatic updates when new material goes live.

For Reason's coverage of Occupy Wall Street, including video coverage from lower Manhattan, go here.

Follow Reason on Twitter.

For more Remy & Reason.tv vids, go here.

For even more Remy, go to his YouTube channel.

Lyrics to the "Occupy Wall Street Protest Song"

Come gather round people
come and join your hands
we're taking Wall Street
and we're making demands
and we're heeding the call
and we're crying for help
only 1% of us have wealth

but first we need posters
we need to make signs
but to do so it seems
that we need some supplies

We need poster board
I can't make it myself
but it's 10 cents a sheet
at the store it's on sale
an example of economies of scale
it's so evil

They're saying that freedom
has done little to stop
Corporations from keeping
the wealth at the top
But at what point in history
would a kid and a king
both have clean water to drink?

George Washington was
the richest man of his age
But he lost all his teeth
at a very young age
Because they didn't have Scope
and they all crapped in trays
we're not wealthy?

now there's fountains on streets
from which clean water pours
Four dollar generics
at all big box stores
a sultan and student
both have iPhone 4s
it's not fair

Come gather young people
come on everyone
and I'll tell you a tale
of a fortunate son

He's born in a country
and given vaccine
and rendered immune
to all kinds of disease
the Kardashians are on
all his TVs
it's not perfect

Banks don't need bailouts
on that we agree
so let's start up a group
and let's take to the streets
because if we do that then
you know what that means
we're racist.
[End]

How Housing Policy and Public Pensions are Bankrupting America: Anthony Randazzo and Adam Summers at FreedomFest

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 17:00:00 EDT

"The day that facts start winning in Washington is the day I don't have to do my job," says Reason Foundation's director of economic research Anthony Randazzo. Randazzo and policy analyst Adam Summers spoke at a panel at FreedomFest 2011 called "Shooting Elephants: Government Pensions & Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac."

At the heart of the current economic crisis is a housing meltdown that Randazzo says was underwritten by misguided government policies designed to increase home ownership rates. When you look at the data, he argues, there's little reason to believe that owning makes more sense than renting from a variety of perspectives. Yet the government's push to create an "ownership society" ended up first inflating an unsustainable market.

Summers focuses on the role that public pensions play in state and local budget shortfalls. Routinely based on "wishful thinking rather than what is reasonably foreseeable," Summers says public-sector wages and benefits need to brought into line with the private sector and that states such as Utah are providing a workable model of reform.

Shot by Jim Epstein and Zach Weissmueller and edited by Joshua Swain.

About 44 minutes long.

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Held every July in Las Vegas, FreedomFest is an annual gathering of about 2,000 free-market and libertarian enthusiasts. This year's speakers included Reason's Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch, Sen. Rand Paul, Judge Andrew Napolitano, and scores of others. Reason.tv conducted interviews with more than two dozen speakers, which we'll be releasing over the next several weeks. Our growing playlist can be watched online here.

The Failure of Crapitalism: Q&A with Barron's Economic Columnist Gene Epstein

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 12:00:00 EDT

At FreedomFest 2011, Reason's Nick Gillespie sat down with Barron's columnist Gene Epstein to talk about his book Econospinning and "the failure of crapitalism."

Held each July in Las Vegas, FreedomFest is attended by around 2,000 libertarians and advocates of limited government. Reason.tv spoke with over two dozen speakers and attendees and will be releasing interviews over the coming weeks. For an ever-growing playlist, go here now.

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Nick Gillespie Talks Unemployment and Stimulus on Freedom Watch

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Reason.tv editor in chief Nick Gillespie appeared on Freedom Watch, to discuss unemployment and what the federal government should be doing, or not doing, to promote job growth. Air Date: September 17, 2011.

Approximately 5:12 minutes.

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Matt Welch Talks Buffett Tax and Failed Tax Hikes on Freedom Watch

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Reason Magazine Editor in Chief Matt Welch appeared on Freedom Watch With Judge Napolitano to talk about the potential consequences of the Buffett tax, the ineffectiveness of stimulus on state economies and the failure of tax hikes to compensate for these inefficiencies.

Air Date: September 19, 2011.

Approximately 9 minutes.

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Peter Schiff on the Dismal Future of the U.S. Economy

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 08:00:00 EDT

"We have to cut $1.5 trillion out of this year's budget," says investment advisor, author, and radio host Peter Schiff.

Reason's Nick Gillespie sat down with Schiff at July's FreedomFest in Las Vegas.

Schiff, whose most recent book is How and Economy Grows and Why it Crashes, says that the economic downturn of 2008 is only a mild preview of what's in store for the U.S. economy in the future and predicts much higher unemployment and huge inflation over the next few years. The only way out of this mess, says Schiff, is for the government to get out of the way and let the inevitable market correction occur. "It would be painful to cut spending by that degree," he acknowledges, "but not nearly as painful as it's going to be if we don't cut spending by that degree."

Shot by Jim Epstein and Zach Weissmueller and edited by Zach Weissmueller.

About 5 minutes long.

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Adrian Moore Talks Federal Reserve on Freedom Watch

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Reason Vice President of Research Adrian Moore appeared on Freedom Watch to discuss government oversight of the Federal Reserve and the public's economic uncertainty. Air date: September 13, 2011.

Approximately 7 minutes.

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Creating a Libertarian "Wall-E" with "Silver Circle" Director Pasha Roberts

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 09:00:00 EDT

Tough question: How do you create a libertarian Wall-E, an animated film that packs a wallop of a message?

Tougher question: How do you create a film about monetary policy and still get the kids to watch it?

If you're Silver Circle auteur Pasha Roberts, you frame your animated feature within a larger science fiction story of "tyranny, explosions, monetary mayhem, romance and rebels." And you go easy on the lecturing. As Roberts explains, "There is no 78-page John Galt speech."

Reason's Nick Gillespie sat down with Roberts at FreedomFest 2011 to talk about Silver Circle and the political and technological developments that inspired it.

Approx. 2:50 min

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Anthony Randazzo Discusses Government Refinancing Bad Mortages on Freedom Watch

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 16:00:00 EDT

Director of Economic Research at Reason Foundation Anthony Randazzo appeared on Freedom Watch to discuss the federal government's hinted proposal to refinance bought mortgages which will break contract with investors, lose taxpayer money, and wouldn't even stop foreclosures. Air Date: August 31, 2011.

Approximately 3.25 minutes.

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George Gilder on "The Israel Test," the Internet, and...the Gays?

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 08:00:00 EDT

"What [President Barack Obama] is doing to the U.S. energy economy couldn't be done with a nuclear bomb," says author George Gilder, who adds that if "Newt [Gingrich] wasn't such a jerk," he'd make a great leader.

Over the past 40 years, Gilder has been not just one of the most influential public intellectuals but one of the most perplexing. He's a utopian visionary who simultaneously predicted the rise of the World Wide Web and the liberatory power of networked computing while fretting that the erosion of traditional gender roles is destroying the country; as co-founder of The Discovery Institute, he's a major proponent of intelligent design theory as well.

His 1981 best-seller, Wealth and Poverty, made such a persuasive case for what became known as supply-side economics that it became the bible of the Reagan Revolution. In it, Gilder used the work of anthropologist Marcel Mauss to argue that capitalism is a "gift economy" in which entrepreneurs create demand by offering up new goods and services, typically at a loss. Visonary volumes such as Microcosm (1989) and Life After Television (1990) anticipated the rise of the Internet as a mass medium that would replace hierarchy with "hetarchy" or distributed intelligence and power. His latest book, The Israel Test, argues that anti-Semitism and the anti-capitalist mentality are effectively the same thing and that Israel provides the best-available model of social organization, a blend of knowledge-based economy and group identity.

A proponent of intelligent design, he railed against Barry Goldwater's anti-intellectualism in 1966's The Party That Lost Its Head and argued that American society was committing "sexual suicide" in a 1973 book of the same name by embracing female equality. The supposed existential threat posed by unmarried men in American society is a recurring theme in Gilder's oeuvre, as is the dread fear that gays are actively recruiting boys to the "homosexual lifestyle." Fully appreciating how the World Wide Web has broken the monopoly of the culture industry in our lives, Gilder nonetheless bemoans the state of "secular culture" as "corrupt" and "depraved."

At FreedomFest 2011, Reason's Nick Gillespie sat down with Gilder to talk about the mix of the utopian and the apocalyptic in his work.

About 21 minutes. Shot by Zach Weissmueller and Jim Epstein and edited by Meredith Bragg.

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Matt Welch Discusses Hurricane Hype, Obama's Jobs Plan, and Ugliness on America's Nightly Scoreboard

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Reason Editor in Chief Matt Welch appeared on Fox Business Network's America's Nightly Scoreboard to discuss the media's reporting on Hurricane Irene, Obama hiring economist Krueger, and whether ugliness should be classified as a disability. Airdate: August 29, 2011.

Approximately 15.23 minutes

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Anthony Randazzo Discusses Congress and the Fed's Blame Game on the Alyona Show

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Reason Foundation's Director of Economic Research Anthony Randazzo discusses Ben Bernanke accusing Congress for a poor fisical policy and the plans for the foreclosured houses the government bought on The Alyona Show.

Approx. 10 minutes.

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Investor Don Smith on the Economy

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 10:00:00 EDT

At FreedomFest in July, Reason's Nick Gillespie talked with investor (and Reason Foundation donor) Don Smith about the economy and his outlook for the market. Smith expects the U.S. will continue putting off a meaningful resolution to its debt problem, but he's thrilled the issue is finally getting attention. Despite recent market woes, Smith is bullish on stocks: With money-market funds paying almost nothing, he says, where else are people going to put their money?

Shot and edited by Jim Epstein. About 4.30 minutes.

Held each July in Las Vegas, FreedomFest is attended by around 2,000 limited-government enthusiasts and libertarians a year. Reason.tv spoke with over two dozen speakers and attendees and will be releasing interviews over the coming weeks. For a playlist of videos released so far, go here.

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By the Gallon Or By the Mile? - Adrian Moore and Johanna Zmud Discuss Transportation Infrastructure

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 00:00:00 EDT

By the Gallon Or By the Mile?

On August 10, 2011, Reason Vice President Adrian Moore and Rand Corporation Transportation, Space, and Technology Program Director Johanna Zmud talk about the pros and cons and tricky issues of replacing fuel taxes with per mile road pricing as the main way to fund transportation infrastructure.

The event was held at Reason's DC office by the Transportation Research Forum, Young Professionals in Transportation, and Women's Transportation Seminar (WTS).

Approximately 43 minutes. Filmed and edited by Joshua Swain.

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Kathrine Mangu-Ward Discusses the Economy and Offshore Drilling on Freedom Watch

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Reason Senior Editor Katherine Mangu-Ward appeared on Freedom Watch to discuss the recent standoff between Exxon and the Department of the Interior over offhsore drilling as well as America's response to the European economic crisis. Airdate: July 18, 2011.

Approximately 7.13 minutes.

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Peter Suderman Discusses a Possible QE3 and Congress's Lowest Approval Ratings on Freedom Watch

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Reason Associate Editor Peter Suderman appeared on Freedom Watch to discuss the recent call for stimulus in the form of QE3 and what the lowest approval ratings for Congress mean for Obama and 2012 elections. Air date: 8/10/2011.

Approximately 7.42 minutes.

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Adrian Moore Discusses the S&P Downgrade and London Riots on Freedom Watch

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Reason Vice President of Research Adrian Moore appeared on Freedom Watch to discuss Congress planing to investigate S&P's decision to downgrade America's credit and whether the London riots are a sign for worse to come. Air date: August 9, 2011.

Approximately 7 minutes.

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Anthony Randazzo Discusses the S&P Downgrade on the Alyona Show

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Reason's Director of Economic Research Anthony Randazzo appeared on The Alyona Show to discuss S&P downgraded the U.S. to AA+ and Moody's statement that if the Washington gridlock continues they will also downgrade. Air Date: August 8, 2011.

Approximately 11.04 minutes.

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Matt Welch Discusses the Failed Debt Debate and the Market's Downturn on Freedom Watch

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Reason Editor in Chief Matt Welch appeared on Freedom Watch to discuss how the debt agreement failed to stop market fears and stop government intervention in the economy. Air Date: August 4, 2011.

Approximately 7 minutes.

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Anthony Randazzo Discusses the Markets Reaction to the Debt Deal on The Alyona Show

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Director of Economic Research at Reason Foundation Anthony Randazzo appeared on The Alyona Show to discuss how the debt deal has not easied uncertianity in the markets and how government can do little to change the economy. Air Date: May 10, 2011.

Approximately 8.48 minutes.

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Anthony Randazzo Discusses Job Creation, the Housing Market and if Walnuts are a Drug on Freedom Watch

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Reason's Director of Economic Research Anthony Randazzo appeared on Freedom Watch to discuss GE’s CEO who criticized companies for not hiring, the Obama administration potentially renting foreclosured homes, and the FDA's claim that walnuts are a drug. Air Date: April 29, 2011.

Approximately 12.15 minutes.

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Damon Root Discusses Myths Surrounding Unions and the Great Depression on Stossel

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Reason Associate Editor Damon Root discusses on Stossel how many "truths" about unions and the Great Depression are in fact myths, including the ideas of Hoover as a small-government zealot and unions helping minorities. Airdate July 21, 2011.

Approximately 9.07 minutes.

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Veronique de Rugy Discusses the Threat of America Losing its Credit Rating on Freedom Watch

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Reason columnist and Mercatus Center economist Veronique de Rugy appeared on Freedom Watch to discuss S&P's plan to downgrade America's AAA credit rating if there is no long-term deficit reduction package and whether this is avoidable. Airdate 7/21/2011.

Approximately 3.29 minutes.

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Do Parents Matter? Q&A with Bryan Caplan, Author of Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 13:00:00 EDT

In his best-selling book The Myth of the Rational Voter (2007) George Mason University economist Bryan Caplan demythologized the notion that American voters know what they are doing when they step into the ballot booth.

In his new book, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Why Being a Great Parent Is Less Work and More Fun Than You Think, Caplan does the same for the conventional wisdom about parenting. In a world of Tiger Moms and helicopter parents who monitor and agonize over every minor activity in which their children engage, the father of three says that parents actually have minimal influence over long-term outcomes for their children. Rather than fretting over whether junior is admitted into Baby Einstein violin programs, Caplan argues that parents should relax and learn to enjoy their kids' childhood.

Reason's Nick Gillespie sat down with Caplan to discuss the research behind and the reception of his unconventional theory.

Shot by Jim Epstein and Meredith Bragg. Edited by Meredith Bragg. About 7 minutes.

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Nobel Prize-Winning Economist Vernon Smith on Experimental Economics, Adam Smith, The Housing Bubble, and His Journey Towards Libertarianism

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 09:00:00 EDT

Vernon Smith is a pioneer, discovering a whole new way to study economics and winning a Nobel Prize for doing so.

Smith sat down with Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie to discuss a variety of topics, including growing up in Kansas during the Great Depression, his ideological journey from socialist to libertarian, how and why some of Adam Smith's most important intellectual contributions are overlooked, and what experimental economics has to say about the collapse of the housing market.

Interview by Nick Gillespie. Shot by Zach Weissmueller and Hawk Jensen. Edited by Weissmueller.

Approximately 24 minutes.

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Katherine Mangu-Ward Discusses the Debt-Ceiling Debate on Freedom Watch

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Reason Senior Editor Katherine Mangu-Ward appeared on Freedom Watch to discuss whether the debt-ceiling debate is more a deterrence for the economy's recovery rather than a safe guard against rampant government spending as Moody’s recently suggested. Airdate: July 18, 2011.

Approximately 7.19 minutes.

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Matt Welch Talks Budget Negotiations on Freedom Watch

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Reason Editor in Chief Matt Welch appeared on Freedom Watch to discuss negotiations over the debt ceiling and President Obama's unwillingness to compromise on tax hikes and spending cuts. Air Date: July 19, 2011.

Approximately 7 minutes.

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Anthony Randazzo Discusses what the Possiblity of QE3 Means on The Alyona Show

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Reason Foundation's Director of Economic Research Anthony Randazzo appeared on Russia Today’s The Alyona Show to discuss FED Chairman Ben Bernanke's proposing more monetary stimulus through QE3. Air Date: June 13, 2011.

Approximately 7.35 minutes.

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Economist Murat Yulek on Greek Debt, Turkish Growth, & U.S. Budget Woes

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 00:00:00 EDT

How bad is the Greek debt crisis? How will the U.S.'s inability to get its fiscal house in order impact rising countries such as Turkey? Economist Murat Yülek hails from Turkey and is a former Georgetown University professor and finance company CEO, who's worked with the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the Islamic Development Bank.

In early July, Yülek sat down with Reason Foundation's Director of Economic Research Anthony Randazzo to discuss how the Greek and American situations may just make it harder for countries such as Turkey to fully liberalize their economies.

Approximately 5.08 minutes.

Shot by Joshua Swain and Jack Gillespie. Edited by Swain.

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Anthony Randazzo Discusses Government Shutdowns and Tax Hikes with Judge Napolitano

Fri, 08 Jul 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Director of Economic Research Reason Foundation Anthony Randazzo appeared on Freedom Watch to discuss Minnesota's government shutdown, Obama's debt ceiling deal, and potential tax hikes and cutting tax breaks. Airdate: July 6, 2011.

Approximately 9.27 minutes.

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Veronique de Rugy: The Facts About Stimulus Spending

Fri, 08 Jul 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Editor’s Note: Reason columnist and Mercatus Center economist Veronique de Rugy appears weekly on Bloomberg TV to separate economic fact from economic myth.

Myth 1: Stimulus spending can jump start the economy and fix unemployment.

Fact 1: Recent experience suggests stimulus spending won’t help.

There’s no question President Barack Obama inherited a lousy economy. Yet even many prominent Democrats, including Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin and Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, now acknowledge that after two and a half years in office, the president owns the economy. Unfortunately for him, things still aren’t looking so so good. That’s why the president called on Congress last week to pass a series of spending measures that he said would boost the economy, including additional infrastructure spending and an extension of the payroll tax cut for another year.

With this in mind, I thought it would be interesting to update my chart on the level of stimulus spending and unemployment rates since 2009.

The chart is based on the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Center for Data Analysis. As you can see, the administration’s promise that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) would keep unemployment rates from reaching 8.8 percent and would create some 3 million jobs—90 percent of them in the private sector—did not materialize.

The unemployment rate started at 7.6 percent when President Obama took office and peaked at 10.2 percent in October 2009. Since the enactment of the stimulus bill in February 2009, the unemployment rate has not approached pre-ARRA levels, even though $382 billion has been made available by government departments and agencies (on top of tax credits and other tax-related items). In fact, unemployment recently edged up, from 9 percent in April to 9.1 percent in May.

Based on this data, it is hard to make the case that doing more of the same will help. Yet that is precisely what New York Times columnist Paul Krugman think we should do. In his view, these dire results are due to a stimulus that was too small. It’s difficult to imagine what level of stimulus spending would be large enough for Krugman. What I do know is that we have spent $666 billion to date, yet unemployment remains above 9 percent. And under even the rosiest of assumptions, which claim 2.4 million jobs created, each of those jobs cost $278,000 (see here).

Myth 2: Additional infrastructure spending is an effective way to stimulate the economy and create jobs.

Fact 2: In theory, infrastructure spending injects more money into the economy than other types of government spending. In reality, however, politicians rarely include infrastructure spending in stimulus bills. Instead, they spend money on items like transfers and tax cuts. Only 3 percent of the last stimulus went to infrastructure.

Economists on both sides of the aisles argue that one reason why the stimulus failed is that it wasn’t designed properly. Stanford University’s John Taylor, for instance, has argued that although much money was spent, very little stimulus money was spent in the form of actual government purchase. In a paper with he co-authored with John Cogan, Taylor finds that, out of the total $682 billion package, federal infrastructure spending was just $0.9 billion in 2009 and $1.5 billion through the first half of 2010—or less than four-tenths of 1 percent.

Taylor and Cogan also noted that most of the money generated by tax cuts was saved, not spent, and that the money that went to state governments was spent to reduce the states’ reliance on borrowing and on other “non-purchase” items, such as transfer payments, subsidies, and interest payments. In other words, the additional money that went to states and taxpayers didn’t change a thing. Taylor claims that a better-designed stimulus would have probably been more effective.

But experience tells us that the next stimulus won’t be any better. As the chart above shows, only 3 percent of the last stimulus went to infrastructure spending. Why? Because such programs are not political winners. For one thing, they take too long to produce results. Therefore they always take a back seat to politically-popular tax credits and transfers to the states.

Furthermore, while it may be true that additional infrastructure spending would have proved more effective than the current stimulus, that doesn’t change the fact that once the stimulus money goes away, the jobs and increased demand also disappear, and the government is left holding the debt.

Myth 3: Tax rebates will stimulate the economy.

Fact 3: The evidence says they don’t. First, people usually save the extra money. Second, even if tax rebates did increase consumption, companies don’t hire employees or build new plants because of a one-time boost.

This chart shows how personal disposable income jumped thanks to the 2008 tax rebate, the tax credits in the stimulus, and the 2010 payroll tax cut. It also shows that personal consumption did not increase noticeably as a result of these government actions. In fact, formal statistical work by Joel Slemrod, a professor of tax policy at the University of Michigan, has shown that rebates generally produce no statistically significant increase in consumption. Basically, tax credits and rebates produce greater savings, not greater consumption.

The theory that tax rebates and payroll tax cuts will result in an increase in consumption suffers from several serious problems. First, it assumes people don’t realize that the extra cash flow is temporary and that businesses don’t realize that the new consumption won’t last. Tax rebates, for example, assume that if people get extra money to increase their consumption, businesses will then expand production and hire more workers. But this is not true. Even if producers notice an upward blip in sales after the rebate checks go out, they will know it's temporary. Companies won't hire more employees or build new factories in response to a temporary increase in sales. Those who are foolish enough to do so will go out of business.

Contributing Editor Veronique de Rugy is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

Austrian Economics and Pedagogy: A conversation with Universidad Francisco Marroquin professor Albert Loan

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 00:00:00 EDT

What does Austrian economics have to do with teaching? What's the best way to teach students about dispersed knowledge? What can classical liberals learn from Maria Montessori?

We sat down with Universidad Francisco Marroquin professor Albert Loan to discuss UFM's ongoing experiments in pedagogy.

Produced by Paul Feine and Alex Manning.

Approximately 6.5 minutes.

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Shikha Dalmia Discusses The Aftermath of the General Motors Bailout with the Subcommitte on Regulatory Affairs

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Reason Foundation's senior policy analyst Shikha Dalmia testifies at the "Lasting Implications of the General Motors Bailout," held by the Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs, Stimulus Oversight and Government Spending. The hearing examined the aftermath of U.S. taxpayers' bailout of General Motors and sought to learn lessons about the lasting implications and unintended consequences of the federal government's intervention into business operations.

Hear Shikha Dalmia at the 20.45 minute mark.

Air Date: June 22, 2011.

Approximately 38.06 minutes

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Damon Root Discusses Government Intervention in the Housing Market and Libya on Freedom Watch

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Reason Associate Editor Damon Root appeared on Freedom Watch With Judge Napolitano to discuss how government intervention in the housing market is making for a difficult recovery and whether the military intervention in Libya is unconstitutional.

Air Date: June 16, 2011.

Approximately 7.24 minutes.

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Tim Cavanaugh Talks CA Budget on LA's Fox 11

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 11:00:00 EDT

Tim Cavanaugh, Reason columnist and Hit & Run contributor, talks to FOX 11 Los Angeles about CA lawmakers passing the state budget. Air date: June 14, 2011.

Approximately 3:57.

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Free or Equal?: Johan Norberg Updates Milton & Rose Friedman's Free to Choose

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Swedish economist Johan Norberg is the host of the new documentary Free or Equal, which retraces and updates the 1980 classic Free to Choose, featuring Milton and Rose Friedman. Like the Friedmans, Norberg travels the globe to look at the conditions under which prosperity and freedom flourish - and under what conditions they wither and die. Made by the same producer who created Free to Choose, Free or Equal will be appearing on PBS in 2011. For more information, a clip of the new documentary and the entire Free to Choose series, go here.

Norberg is the author of numerous books, including In Defense of Global Capitalism (2002) and Fiscal Fiasco (2009), a look at how the U.S. government's policies contributed to and have exacerbated the length and intensity of the Great Recession.

Reason's Nick Gillespie sat down with Norberg to discuss how the changes in the world since the Friedmans' earlier documentary effect their basic argument that individual economic freedom is a building block for a prosperous and open society. Overall, says Norberg, the Friedmans' basic insights hold true and some of the places they celebrated - such as Hong Kong, then under British protection and now part of the People's Republic of China - are still flourishing. But in countries and regions that continue to constrain economic and political liberties, reports Norberg, fear and privation still dominate.

About 6 minutes. Shot by Jim Epstein and Joshua Swain; edited by Swain.

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For an earlier Reason.tv interview with Norberg (about his book Fiscal Fiasco), go here.

Matt Welch Talks Housing Data on Freedom Watch

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 12:00:00 EDT

Reason Magazine editor in chief Matt Welch appeared on Freedom Watch to discuss new housing data as well as housing specifically around Washington D.C.

Air Date: June 1, 2011.

Approximately 4:32 minutes.

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Nick Gillespie Talks National Debt on FBN's Stossel

Fri, 27 May 2011 13:00:00 EDT

Reason.tv editor-in-chief Nick Gillespie joined Stossel to discuss ways of fixing the national debt. Air Date: May 26, 2011.

Approximately 5:00 minutes.

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Veronique de Rugy: The Facts About Social Security

Thu, 19 May 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Editor’s Note: Reason columnist and Mercatus Center economist Veronique de Rugy appears weekly on Bloomberg TV to separate economic fact from economic myth.

Myth 1: There is no crisis. Social Security will never be insolvent.

Fact 1: Under the best-case scenario, the trustees report finds that the probability of Social Security never becoming insolvent is less than 2.5 percent.

The only scenario under which the Social Security trust fund will never go insolvent is based on projections which the Treasury Department itself considers to be extremely unlikely.

The above chart plots the trustees’ projections of the future balance of the Social Security trust fund under three scenarios (expressed as a percentage of the annual cost of Social Security).

The purple line plots the trust fund balance under high-cost assumptions, the red line plots the trust fund balance under intermediate assumptions, and the blue line plots the trust fund balance under low-cost assumptions. Which of these projections is most likely to occur?

To determine the likely balance of the trust fund in the future, the Social Security trustees performed stochastic modeling, estimating the likelihood of various exhaustion dates under different assumptions. This modeling concluded that there is less than a 2.5 percent chance that the trust fund will continue to exist beyond 2048. Instead, the middle of the road estimate is that the trust fund is exhausted by 2036.

Myth 2: Social Security won’t contribute to the federal deficit for decades.

Fact 2: Starting this year the program will run a cash flow deficit which will add to the federal deficit.

In theory, Social Security benefits are self-financing with a 12.4 percent payroll tax, but that doesn’t mean the money collected will pay for benefits. This is because when Congress changed the law in 1983 so that in any given year, current taxpayers pay more in taxes than the program needs to pay out benefits, Congress also required that the program invest the difference, or surplus, into a trust fund, which can only invest money in special-issue Treasury bonds.

So what has the Treasury done with the money? Well, the federal government has spent it on its daily consumption: education, loan guarantees, wars, etc. In other words, the government has already spent the money it received in exchange for the IOUs. The most recent projections say that, beginning in 2014, the program will begin permanently paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes. At that point, the program will start redeeming the IOUs in the trust fund and use them to pay benefits to current seniors until they run out. But remember, the money is not there anymore. So then what? In order to repay the program so it can continue to pay out benefits at the promised levels, the federal government will have to borrow more money, increase taxes to get more revenue, or print more dollars.

The only way Social Security payments to seniors won’t increase future deficits is if the federal government prints more money or taxes the American people a second time to pay back the money it owes to the trust fund. My guess is that the government will borrow more money.

Myth 3: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act fixed the funding problems related to Medicare.

Fact 3: Under the best economic assumptions, less than half of all future Medicare spending will come from dedicated sources.

Medicare is funded by two trust funds, HI (Hospital Insurance) and SMI (Supplementary Medical Insurance).

As we can see on this chart, even under the best assumptions about the success of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, over 50 percent of all Medicare spending will come from dedicated sources (premiums, tax on benefits, and payroll). By law, SMI spending comes from the general fund. Considering the growth in revenue needed for it, this means that other parts of the budget will have to be reduced or we would have to find other sources of revenue

Also, the HI program is already spending more than it collects while drawing on the assets in its trust fund. Contrary to last year’s projections, the trustees report finds that by 2024 (not 2029) the HI trust fund will be exhausted (see the purple above). At this time dedicated HI funds will be sufficient to cover 90 percent of HI costs, meaning that either taxpayers will be forced to make up the difference or the program will be underfunded by 10 percent.

The trustees—including Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius and the secretaries of the Treasury and Labor Departments—say “nearly all” of the improvement in the outlook of the HI trust fund is due to health-care overhaul legislation, which cut some costs, and will raise new revenue via an increased payroll tax and a new tax on investment income.

While Medicare costs over the next 75 years are projected to be 25 percent lower due to the health care law, these cost savings rest primarily on drastic reductions in the reimbursement rates for Medicare services—reductions in reimbursements that are extremely unlikely to happen in a world where politicians are subject to powerful pressures from their constituencies.

Therefore, as the trustees note, “actual future costs for Medicare are likely to exceed those shown by the current-law projections in this report.”

Contributing Editor Veronique de Rugy is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

Anthony Randazzo Discusses the Debt Ceiling on The Alyona Show

Wed, 11 May 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Director of Economic Research at Reason Foundation Anthony Randazzo appeared on Russia Today's The Alyona Show with co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research Dean Baker to discuss the postponed debt ceiling debate and how the politics may not cure the debt. Air Date: May 10, 2011.

Approximately 9 minutes.

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Anthony Randazzo Discusses the Debt Debate on Freedom Watch with Judge Napolitano

Wed, 11 May 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Director of Economic Research at Reason Foundation Anthony Randazzo appeared on Judge Napolitano's Freedom Watch to discuss the White House's push to increase the debt ceiling and the politics of cutting the debt. Air Date: April 29, 2011.

Approximately 8.09 minutes.

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Keynes vs. Hayek Rap Video, Round 2

Thu, 05 May 2011 11:00:00 EDT

In the 1930s, John Maynard Keynes, the most influential economist of the last century, and future Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek engaged in a legendary battle of ideas about the role of the government in ending and causing economic downturns.

Last year, George Mason University economist Russ Roberts and director-producer John Papola retold that debate in the form of a rap video, "Fear the Boom and Bust," in which Hayek and Keynes fight it out over the causes of the Great Recession.

In a new video, the battle continues: Should government juice spending via massive stimulus or "do nothing" once a recession is underway? And did World War II end the Great Depression? Whatever side you take, the video, which pulled over 500,000 views in its first week, is sure to entertain and edify.

Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie sat down with Roberts to discuss the ideas behind the latest Keynes-Hayek throwdown, and what his hopes are for the project.

Approximately 7 minutes.

Edited by Jim Epstein; Shot by Epstein and Joshua Swain.

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Veronique de Rugy: The Facts About the Corporate Income Tax

Thu, 05 May 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Editor’s Note: Reason columnist and Mercatus Center economist Veronique de Rugy appears weekly on Bloomberg TV to separate economic fact from economic myth.

Myth 1: We can collect more revenue by raising the tax rate on corporations or by increasing the top bracket.

Fact 1: The wealth of the economy is a much better indicator of corporate tax revenue than tax rates and tax brackets.

This chart shows the corporate tax collection as a share of the economy side by side with the top marginal corporate rate since 1981. During that time, the U.S. corporate tax rate has been as high as 46 percent and has gone down to 34 percent. Since 1993, the top rate has been 35 percent. The level of income covered by the top tax bracket has varied a lot too: from $100,000 in 1981 to $1.4 million in 1984, down to $335,000 in 1987 and up again to $18 million since 1993 (all dollar amounts in nominal terms).

This chart makes clear that the general state of the economy is a much better indicator of the tax collection than rate levels and the top bracket. It is particularly visible since 1993, since the rate and top bracket haven’t changed and yet tax collection varied a great deal, falling during recessions and rising during recoveries.

Myth 2: Corporations pay the corporate income tax.

Fact 2: First, corporations do not pay taxes, only individuals pay taxes. More importantly, economists have shown that a majority of the corporate income tax is borne by labor mainly in the form of lower wages rather than borne by shareholders.

This chart (overly simplified for the Bloomberg discussion) is based on academic work done by Aparna Mathur and Kevin Hassett in December 2010 and shows the link between corporate tax rates and the average manufacturing wage (in U.S. dollars) for 65 countries between 1981 and 2005. It shows a negative link between tax rates and wages, suggesting that higher corporate tax rates lead to lower worker wages. Mathur and Hassett test this point by using regressions controlling for other factors. They find that a 1 percent increase in the corporate income tax leads to almost a 0.5-0.6 percent decrease in hourly wages.

Interestingly, a chart from their original 2006 paper shows that when the sample of countries is restricted to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries, the negative slope is much more pronounced. That implies that higher corporate taxes have a stronger negative impact on wages in developed economies.

This is consistent with a growing body of work [see Arulampalam et al. (2007), Mihir A. Desai, C. Fritz Foley, and James R. Hines (2007), and Felix (2007)] that analyzes actual payroll data to see who in fact is bearing the corporate income tax. Such work finds a large impact of corporate income tax on labor—as high at 200 percent. The theoretical studies that followed found a lower but still large impact on wages from the corporate income tax. These studies show that from 45 to 75 percent of the cost of the corporate tax is borne by labor rather than shareholders, as has long been believed.

Here is the Congressional Budget Office’s William Randolph (2006) for instance:

Burdens are measured in a numerical example by substituting factor shares and output shares that are reasonable for the U.S. economy. Given those values, domestic labor bears slightly more than 70 percent of the burden of the corporate income tax. The domestic owners of capital bear slightly more than 30 percent of the burden. Domestic landowners receive a small benefit. At the same time, the foreign owners of capital bear slightly more than 70 percent of the burden, but their burden is exactly offset by the benefits received by foreign workers and landowners.

Myth 3: The United States is a friendly country for businesses.

Fact 3: Not really. While there is good access to capital, the U.S. has the top corporate income tax rate among OECD nations and a worldwide tax system.

In 2010, the top national corporate tax rates among the 31 members of the OECD ranged from 8.5 percent in Switzerland to 35 percent in the United States. Hence, within the OECD countries, the United States has the highest statutory tax rate at the national level. The picture changes only slightly when we add subnational or state-level corporate tax rates to the national rate. In the United States, the average top statutory rate imposed by states in 2010 added a bit over 4 percent (after accounting for the fact that state taxes are deducted from federal taxable income) for a combined top statutory rate of 39.2 percent. Among all OECD countries in 2010, the United States had the second-highest top statutory combined corporate tax rate, after Japan’s rate of 39.5 percent.

Interestingly, the U.S. corporate income tax raises little revenue compared with other taxes and this share has decreased over the years. It's not surprising, then, that the U.S. raises less revenue from the corporate tax than the OECD average. Corporations, like individuals, can and do use tax breaks to lower their tax burdens and, as a result, the effective tax rate is lower than the top rate.

However, these breaks shouldn’t be looked at independently of the corporate tax system. As it turns out, the U.S. not only imposes high rates, it also taxes corporations on a worldwide basis. So, for example, profits made by an American-owned computer plant are subject to U.S. taxes whether the plant is located in Texas or Ireland. Most major countries don’t tax foreign business income. In fact, about half of OECD nations have “territorial” systems that tax firms only on their domestic income.

As I explained a few years ago in Reason magazine, the combination of high rates, the worldwide tax system, and a competitive global marketplace makes the U.S. corporate tax system more punishing than it seems even on first glance.

Contributing Editor Veronique de Rugy is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

Chapman's David Porter on Solving University Parking Gridlock

Wed, 04 May 2011 09:00:00 EDT

Dr. David Porter was one of the professors tasked with solving Chapman University’s parking gridlock. He told an audience at Reason Foundation's annual Reason Weekend what his solution was: Auction off the spaces.

Porter is a professor of economics and mathematics at Chapman University and the Donna and David Janes Endowed Chair in Experimental Economics.

He says that the parking problem is a lot more complicated than letting price solve supply and demand.

"Well, supply and demand [is] not something that is static here. It's throughout the day. So the prices have to change throughout the day," says Porter.

Topics include: Dutch auctions; busy parking time for students; and complaints from faculty.

Approximately 24:00 minutes-long.

Filmed by Alex Manning and Paul Detrick; Edited by Detrick.

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Reason-Rupe Poll: 96% Worry About Federal Debt, 74% Want Spending Cap...

Tue, 03 May 2011 09:00:00 EDT

Los Angeles (May 3, 2011) — As the federal government rapidly approaches the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling, 96 percent of Americans say it is important to reduce the national debt, according to a new Reason Foundation-Rupe poll. Of those surveyed, 69 percent believe reducing the national debt is “very important.”

With the debt piling up, it is also clear that taxpayers do not trust the federal government to live within its means. In fact, the Reason-Rupe survey finds 74 percent of Americans support implementing a spending cap that would prohibit the government from spending more money than it takes in during a fiscal year. Only 19 percent oppose a government spending cap.

The most popular policy prescription for reducing the national debt is spending cuts: 45 percent of people say Congress should bring down the debt by reducing spending without raising taxes. Another 16 percent favor reducing the debt primarily through spending cuts, but are open to some tax increases; 14 percent prefer an equal emphasis on spending cuts and tax increases; 8 percent want to reduce the debt primarily through higher taxes with some spending cuts; 4 percent say current spending levels should be maintained and taxes should be raised as needed; and 1 percent of Americans say we shouldn’t do anything about the debt.

Open-Ended Questions on the Economy and Spending

The Reason-Rupe poll included several open-ended questions that allowed respondents to voice concerns and share their own ideas. When asked to name the biggest problem facing America today, 30 percent say the economy, 23 percent name jobs and unemployment, and 10 percent cite government spending, debts and deficits.

When given the opportunity to name any government program they’d like to spend less money on 22 percent of Americans suggest cutting military and defense spending. Welfare (10 percent) and foreign aid (10 percent) were the other most-named cuts. When asked, open-ended, what the government should spend more money on, 39 percent say education, 16 percent focus on helping the poor and needy, and 13 percent single out health care.

2012 Presidential Election

With the 2012 election season ramping up, frustrated voters appear ready to look beyond Democratic and Republican candidates. Eighty percent say they will or may consider voting for a third-party or independent presidential candidate in 2012. And an even higher number of independents (89 percent) and GOP voters (86 percent) say they will or may consider candidates outside of the two major political parties.

The willingness to look beyond Democrats and Republicans stems, in part, from voters’ lack of trust in them. When asked which political party they trust to govern responsibly, the leading answer was “neither,” at 35 percent, followed by Democrats at 31 percent and Republicans at 23 percent. The survey also found 58 percent of voters believe they’d either see “no difference” or be “better off” if Congress were only in session every other year.

Taxes

Having recently filed their federal income taxes, 56 percent of Americans support replacing the current complicated tax system with a flat tax. Forty-four percent also favor, and 36 percent oppose, giving up the mortgage interest deduction and other tax breaks if it results in a simpler system with lower overall tax rates. One tax change that respondents are against is a national sales tax. Just 33 percent of Americans support replacing federal income taxes with a national sales tax.

When asked about the amount of federal, state, local and property taxes they pay, 51 percent of Americans say they pay too much in taxes, 41 percent believe they pay about the right amount and 4 percent think they pay too little.

Public Sector Benefits and Pensions

Half of all respondents say that public sector workers receive better benefits that those with similar jobs in the private sector, but only 37 percent support cutting those public employee benefits to help balance state budgets.

Drug Legalization and Medical Marijuana

Forty-one percent of the country supports legalizing small quantities of marijuana for personal use, while 44 percent opposes legalization. And in the wake of federal raids on medical cannabis dispensaries in states where medical marijuana has already been legalized, 69 percent of Americans say each state should be allowed to regulate medical marijuana use within its borders.

Full Poll Online

The complete Reason-Rupe survey is online at http://reason.com/poll. That site also includes ongoing analysis of the poll results by director Emily Ekins.

This Reason-Rupe poll surveyed a random, national sample of 1,200 adults by telephone (859 on landlines, 341 on cell phones) from March 24 to April 9, 2011. The results have a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. The poll was conducted for Reason Foundation by NSON Opinion Strategy.

This is the first in a series of Reason-Rupe public opinion surveys dedicated to exploring what Americans really think about government and major issues. This Reason Foundation project is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Arthur N. Rupe Foundation.

About Reason Foundation

Reason Foundation is a nonprofit think tank dedicated to advancing free minds and free markets and publisher of the critically acclaimed Reason magazine and its website http://www.reason.com/. For more information, please visit http://www.reason.org/.

For press inquiries, contact Chris Mitchell.

Reason.tv interview conducted by Nick Gillespie; filmed and edited by Meredith Bragg. Go to Reason.tv for downloadable versions of all our videos and subscribe to Reason.tv's YouTube channel to receive automatic notification when new material goes live.

Moral Markets: Paul Zak discusses Oxytocin, Trade, and Human Nature

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 12:00:00 EDT

"Our biology really tells us that, at our hearts, we're libertarians." So says Paul J. Zak, who spoke recently at Reason Foundation's annual Reason Weekend.

Zak is the founding director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies at Claremont Graduate University and is credited with the first published use of the term "neuroeconomics," a new discipline that integrates neuroscience and economics. Zak discusses his "oxytocin argument," which he explores in the book Moral Markets: The Critical Role of Values in the Economy.

In 2004, Zak's lab discovered that the chemical oxytocin (best known for inducing labor in women) allows us to determine whom to trust in situations that require exchange. That's the same trust that makes trade possible and underpins modern economies.

Approximately 14 minutes-long. Filmed by Alex Manning and Paul Detrick; Editd by Hawk Jensen.

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Veronique de Rugy Tells the Truth About Health Care Reform and the Economy on Bloomberg

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Editor’s Note: Reason columnist and Mercatus Center economist Veronique de Rugy appears weekly on Bloomberg TV to separate economic fact from economic myth.

Myth 1: Health care reform will reduce the deficit.

Fact 1: Health care reform will increase the deficit.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act includes many provisions that have nothing to do with health care: the CLASS act, a student loan overhaul, and many new taxes. These provisions don't change the health care system. They just raise money to pay for the new law. Strip them away and the law’s actual health care provisions don't lower the deficit—they increase it!

The chart below uses data from Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to clarify the fiscal consequences of health care reform.

As you can see, from 2012 to 2021, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the health care act will reduce deficits by $210 billion (note that this estimate differs from the widely cited $143 billion figure used during the lead-up to the passage of the act). During this same time period, however, the actual health care reform provisions of the law will increase deficits by $464 billion.

Of course, one should not evaluate the health care legislation on its fiscal impacts alone. In theory we should get some fiscal benefits. But the key question is how they net out. Still, no matter what you think about the benefits of the health care legislation, it is incorrect to claim that health care reform will save money. It won’t.

Myth 2: The U.S. health care system is a free-market system.

Fact 2: Roughly half of all U.S. health care is currently paid for by the government.

Even in the absence of the health care reform law, government programs including Medicare and Medicaid already fund almost half of American health care. Roughly a third of the remaining expenditures are funded by private insurers—mainly through subsidized and highly regulated employee plans. Not exactly a free market.

As this chart shows, state and federal entities make up over half of the health insurance market. Of course, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will only increase the share of government involvement in the health care market.

Myth 3: Medicare spending increases life expectancy for seniors. Reductions in Medicare spending will therefore reduce their life expectancy.

Fact 3: Increases in life expectancy for seniors are due to increased access to health care, not to Medicare.

While Medicare spending has certainly decreased seniors’ out of pocket health care expenses (by 1970, Medicare reduced out of pocket expenses by an estimated 40 percent relative to pre-Medicare levels), the program’s effect on mortality is much less clear.

This chart compares mortality rates by age during the periods immediately before and after Medicare’s implementation. As you can see, there is little difference in the observed mortality of men and women during these time periods. This observation is supported by the economic literature.

Economists who examine the effects of Medicare on mortality have found little evidence of a causal relationship, especially in recent years. For example, MIT’s Amy Finkelstein and Wellesley’s Robin McKnight used several empirical approaches and found no evidence that Medicare played a role in the substantial declines in elderly mortality that followed its implementation. Instead, they write, their evidence suggests that,

the explanation lies in the fact that, prior to Medicare, lack of legal access—rather than lack of insurance—was the main barrier to receiving hospital care when individuals had life threatening, treatable conditions.

Other economists, writing at the Chicago Federal Reserve, have found that Medicare did reduce mortality rates immediately following its implementation. But they also found that the effects of Medicare on mortality have been diminishing ever since. These researchers found that by the mid-1980s, there is no evidence of Medicare having any effect on mortality. As legal access to the health insurance market for the elderly has expanded over time, whatever effect Medicare once may have had on mortality has since disappeared.

Contributing Editor Veronique de Rugy is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

Three Steps To Get Our Highways Moving Again

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 00:00:00 EDT

When rush hour traffic routinely turns a twenty minute commute into an hour and a half nightmare, we know we have a transportation problem. But how can we fix it? What can we do to get our cars -- and economy -- moving again?

Samuel Staley, Director of Urban Growth and Land Use Policy at Reason Foundation, has outlined three quick steps to improving mobility: (1) increase capacity, (2) support market oriented thinking and (3) employ comprehensive pricing.

Approximately 2 minutes.

Produced by Josh Swain, Jim Epstein and Meredith Bragg.

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Nick Gillespie, Veronique de Rugy Talk Budget Battles on Stossel

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 11:00:00 EDT

Reason's Nick Gillespie and Mercatus Center economist (and Reason columnist) Veronique de Rugy talk budget battles with John Stossel on Fox Business Network.

Gillespie and de Rugy argue that while Barack Obama's proposed budget for 2012 is not worth discussing, Rep. Paul Ryan's widely discussed GOP plan doesn't cut outlays enough either. More importantly, says Gillespie, a country as rich and yet as broke as ours needs a fundamental rethink of entitlement spending for the middle class and well-off.

Read de Rugy & Gillespie on Ryan's plan at Reason.com.

Air date: Thursday, April 7, 2011.

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Veronique de Rugy on Bloomberg Discusses The Truth About Spending Cuts

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Editor’s Note: Reason columnist and Mercatus Center economist Veronique de Rugy appears weekly on Bloomberg TV to separate economic fact from economic myth.

Myth 1: Spending cuts will derail the economy.

Fact 1: The academic literature shows that successful cases of fiscal adjustment relied overwhelmingly on spending cuts, not tax increases.

While the political debate heats up over the short-term effects of spending cuts, there is a wide academic consensus that spending cuts are a major factor for achieving lasting debt reduction. In particular, empirical studies have shown that fiscal consolidations based upon spending cuts have been more effective than tax-based consolidations.

This chart consolidates data from five peer-reviewed studies examining the ratio of spending cuts to revenue measures in successful fiscal consolidations. It illustrates that the average successful fiscal consolidation was comprised of 80 percent spending cuts and 20 percent revenue measures.

An independent analysis performed by the American Enterprise Institute economists Andrew Biggs, Kevin Hassett, and Matthew Jensen confirms the literature’s finding that fiscal consolidations that reduce ratios of debt to GDP tend to be based upon reduced government outlays rather than increased tax revenues. This result holds whether fiscal consolidations are defined in terms of improvements in the cyclically-adjusted primary budget deficit or in terms of pre-meditated policy changes designed to improve the budget balance.

Biggs, Hassett, and Jensen reviewed the extensive existing literature on fiscal consolidations. They also conducted their own data analysis to study that question. They used a large data set covering over 20 Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development countries and spanning nearly four decades to isolate over 100 instances where countries took steps to address their budget gaps. Some of these fiscal consolidations were spending-based while others relied more on taxes. Here is what they found:

Our findings are striking: countries that addressed their budget shortfalls through reduced spending were far more likely to reduce their debt than countries whose budget-balancing strategies depended upon higher taxes.

The typical unsuccessful fiscal consolidation consisted of 53 percent tax increases and 47 percent spending cuts. By contrast, the typical successful fiscal consolidation consisted of 85 percent spending cuts. These results are consistent with a large body of peer-reviewed research.

These findings are also consistent with the research of Harvard’s Alberto Alesina and Silvia Ardagna (here is another paper by Alesina on the issue).

The debate, of course, is far from settled. Yet as Biggs explained in his March 30, 2011 testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee:

[The debate] is not about whether spending-based fiscal consolidations are more likely to succeed than tax-based consolidations. Even using the IMF study’s methods, spending-based consolidations are more likely to reduce deficits and debt than tax-based consolidations.

Second, the IMF study does not dispute that spending-based fiscal consolidations generate superior short-term economic outcomes than tax-based consolidations.

In other words, the least we can say about fiscal consolidations comprised primarily of spending cuts is that they shrink both deficits and the debt. In that context it is worth pointing to the work of former Obama administration Council of Economic Advisers Chair Christina Romer and her economist husband David Romer, which shows that increasing taxes by 1 percent of GDP for deficit-reduction purposes leads to a 3 percent reduction in GDP.

Myth 2: We can’t balance the budget without raising taxes.

Fact 2: We can balance the budget simply by holding spending constant.

Fiscal balance can be achieved by holding spending constant, and by driving it toward its historical equilibrium.

In Reason magazine’s March issue, Nick Gillespie and I proposed a 10-year balanced budget plan that would systematically reduce the projected growth in outlays (spending that hasn’t occurred yet and hasn’t even been appropriated) so that it equals the 19 percent of GDP that the Congressional Budget Office projects the federal government will raise as revenue if the current tax system is left unchanged. Effectively, under this plan, spending is frozen at its current levels and allowed to grow only for inflation. See the chart below.

In other words, we can balance the budget over the next decade without raising taxes if we ratchet down spending from its current level of 25 percent of GDP to 19 percent -- a figure that would still leave spending well above the 18.2 percent of GDP that President Bill Clinton spent in his last year in office, a time when no one was complaining about a skin-flint federal government.

Another solution would be for Congress and the president to agree to reduce 1 percent from the federal budget each year until balance is reached. As my Mercatus Center colleague Jason Fichtner explains in this paper, the 1 percent reduction would be a real cut in spending, not just a reduction in the rate of growth of government. Once a balanced budget is reached, then spending could again be allowed to grow, but at rates consistent with the growth in the overall economy so that relative fiscal balance is maintained. A 1 percent reduction in spending does not necessarily mean a 1 percent cut across the board. Under this plan, Congress could still set priorities.

As Gillespie and I explained earlier this week in our piece assessing Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wisc.) Path To Prosperity plan,

if cuts such as these are not possible, it would be better to give up any pretense that we will ever restore the barest semblance of sanity to the federal budget and get on with fiddling as Rome burns. If we're going to continue hosting a party whose bill is unpayable, we might as well enjoy ourselves.

Myth 3: Paul Ryan’s plan will dramatically cut spending.

Fact 3: Ryan’s plan reduces spending between FY2011 and FY2012. After that it reduces the growth of spending. But overall spending grows by $1.1 trillion over 10 years under Ryan’s plan.

At first glance, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s FY2012 Budget Resolution is a step in the right direction. With a determined moniker, “The Path to Prosperity,” the Republican roadmap is oriented on spending cuts, debt reduction, and credible revenue expectations.

The plan is not too surprising to those of us who have followed Ryan’s previous budget crusades. It concentrates on cutting government spending--reforming two of our three largest autopilot programs, Medicare and Medicaid--while recognizing that attempts at raising tax revenue will not support economic growth or fix our spending problem.

The new plan realistically projects that tax revenue as a percentage of the economy will grow as a result of economic growth and not from tax rate hikes. Under Ryan’s plan tax revenue will consume 17.1 percent of the wealth created by American families, a number that is more in line with the government’s abilities to collect money. This is a serious improvement over the Deficit Commission’s plan, which called for reducing the deficit by raising tax revenue to an unprecedented 21 percent of GDP--an approach that is little more than wishful thinking on the part of its authors.

However, a look at the data shows that while the Ryan plan will cut spending the first year, it then proceeds to slow down the rate of spending. In nominal terms, spending increases from $3.6 trillion in 2011 to $4.7 trillion in 2021. That equates to a $1.1 trillion increase over that period.

Of course, you wouldn’t know that anything about those spending increases under the Ryan plan if you only read the recent headlines wailing about "the end of progressive government."

All things considered, Ryan’s proposal is a definite improvement over the Deficit Commission’s plan to increase spending by $1.6 trillion over 10 years and it’s also a big improvement over the president’s budget which increases spending by $1.9 trillion over the same period.

Contributing Editor Veronique de Rugy is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

Peter Suderman Talks Food Inflation and Fed Policy on Freedom Watch

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 09:00:00 EDT

Associate Editor of Reason Magazine Peter Suderman appeared on Freedom Watch with Judge Napolitano to talk about food inflation, Federal Reserve policy and whether parents should need a license to become parents. Air date: 4/5/11.

Run time approximately 10 minutes.

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Veronique de Rugy Discusses the Truth About Deficits and the Debt

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Editor’s Note: Reason columnist and Mercatus Center economist Veronique de Rugy appears weekly on Bloomberg TV to separate economic fact from economic myth.

Myth 1: Debt and deficits are a disease that can only be cured by raising taxes.

Fact 1: Debt and deficits are only a symptom. The disease is overspending. And tax increases are no cure. Besides, even if we could balance the budget by raising taxes it wouldn’t stay balanced so long as programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid remain unreformed.

Polls reveal that debt and deficits have become defining issues in American politics. While these issues are indeed important and the American people are justifiably concerned about the level of debt our nation is racking up, they are only symptoms of the real problem: overspending. America is living beyond its means and is projected to continue doing so into the foreseeable future.

The above chart compares tax revenues and government spending as a percentage of GDP from 1930 to the year 2084, using Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projections for the years 2011 to 2084.

As you can see, in the past, tax revenues have averaged 15.9 percent of GDP. During recent years, revenue collection has slightly increased, averaging 18.5 percent of GDP during the 1990s, and averaging 17.5 percent of GDP during the first decade of the new millennium. Notably, the federal government has never been able to collect 21 percent of GDP in tax revenues. It defies reality to think that it will be able to do so now. That’s why the CBO estimates that revenues will remain fixed at 19.3 percent of GDP into the future.

Yet the CBO anticipates that from 2012 through 2021, the federal government will spend, on average, 23.3 percent of GDP—a higher level of spending as a percentage of GDP than the government has ever been able to collect.

Myth 2: There is no relationship between high interest rates and deficits. And even if there was, interest rates remain at all-time lows.

Fact 2: That may have been true once, but the data now shows that investors anticipate an increase in both interest rates and deficits.

For the last 20 years, economists have looked for evidence that deficits lead to higher interest rates. In 1993, for instance, North Carolina State University economist John Seater surveyed the literature on deficits and interest rates and concluded that the evidence is “inconsistent with the traditional view that government debt is positively related to interest rates.” But George Mason University economist Arnold Kling argues that economists haven’t seen a correlation between budget deficits and interest rates because foreign investment in U.S. assets has increased over the years, dulling the impact of fiscal policy. The real question is what happens if that investment slows or stops.

Moreover, deficits have reached a level that economists haven’t really studied before. Current circumstances remind Kling of “a guy jumping out of a building from the 10th floor, passing the third floor, and saying, ‘It’s all fine so far.’” Deficits do not matter up to a certain level. But at what level do we hit the ground with a resounding splat?

Here is what we do know: To get deficits under control the federal government could cut spending, increase taxes, or do some combination of both. Neither of these policies is popular; hence the temptation to print money (or “monetize the debt”) to pay the bills. The resulting inflation would reduce the value of each dollar, and it would introduce high levels of uncertainty into the economy. Imagine what it would be like to try to calculate the net present value of your investment in an environment where you can’t predict what your dollars will be worth tomorrow. Such circumstances mean less innovation and less entrepreneurship, and therefore less economic growth and more hardship.

The Federal Reserve may be reluctant to take the inflationary route. But investors know that other central banks have done so in the past and that such a scenario could happen again. In exchange for extending more loans to a federal government that has become a riskier borrower, lenders will ask for an inflation premium.

As the chart below illustrates, a look at the yield curve signals that investors are indeed expecting inflation and an increases in rates.

The yield curve for U.S. Treasury securities, which reflects the functional knowledge of investors, provides a revealing look at investor expectations about the interest rates. In finance, the yield curve depicts the relationship between interest rates and the time to maturity of the debt. Normally, these curves slope slightly upward, reflecting investor tradeoffs between increased returns and time to maturity. However, when investors are concerned about inflation or economic uncertainty, the normally gently sloping curve can become much steeper, as investors turn away from holding securities long-term and thus drive yields higher.

Even now, the steepness of the yield curve for U.S. Treasury securities shows that investors expect interest rates and inflation to become higher in the future. Such expectations can lead investors to sell longer-term Treasury securities due to the predictable fact that when interest rates increase, bonds with longer maturities perform worse. In turn, that depresses the prices of those bonds and drives their yields higher.

Interestingly, in February China joined PIMCO (one of the world’s largest bond companies) in selling long-term U.S. Treasury bonds.

Understanding the relationship between maturity and interest rates sheds light on this behavior. Since 2007, China has been systematically transitioning its U.S. debt holdings to short-term debt. In June 2009, the most recent month for which data is available, China’s holdings of U.S. debt were 12 percent of its total holdings, up from 3 percent in June of 2008.

In future years, after more research about the current period has been done, economists may conclude that deficits did lead to higher interest rates.

Myth 3: Debt and deficits may be a problem, but we don’t have to fix it now.

Fact 3: Debt and deficits are having an immediate negative impact on the economy.

Even in the absence of a crisis, the effects of persistent deficits remain substantial. As the government borrows, some people delay spending and investment in anticipation of future tax increases. Others will not invest in the economy or start new businesses as government borrowing consumes a greater portion of the available capital. All of this hurts the economy. Economists use the term “crowding out” to refer to this contraction in economic activity that follows from deficit-financed spending.

The chart above uses data from two CBO papers forecasting the effect on GDP per capita that crowding out may have and contrasting that with commonly-used CBO projections. The red line, which uses data from a presentation to the Fiscal Commission in June 2010, shows per capita GDP growth simply shrinking around the year 2022 due to crowding out. The blue line shows another projection of the impact of crowding out that starts shrinking GDP per capita in 2034. The contrast with the black line, which uses data generally referenced by scholars and government officials, is striking.

In other words, regardless of whether CBO’s original or updated predictions materialize, it is very likely that the people of the United States will feel the negative impacts of high debt and deficits driven by overspending. Our country risks getting caught in a downward, potentially unmanageable spiral.

The chart above shows the scale of the spending cuts that would be required to close the fiscal gap, or to stop the debt from growing as a percentage of GDP, through 2035. These estimates are conservative; they do not incorporate the feedback effects of increasing debt and deficits on the economy. Nonetheless, the longer we wait the more dramatic the required cuts will be.

If action is taken this year, lawmakers could close the fiscal gap through 2035 by reducing primary spending by 4.8 percent of GDP; if this action is delayed another 4 years, primary spending would have to be reduced by 5.7 percent of GDP. If lawmakers wait until 2020, the necessary cuts would grow to 7.9 percent of GDP. In other words, legislative inaction equals billions of dollars in additional spending cuts.

Contributing Editor Veronique de Rugy is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

Veronique de Rugy Discusses The Truth About Nuclear Power on Bloomberg

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Editor’s Note: Reason columnist Veronique de Rugy appears weekly on Bloomberg TV to separate economic fact from economic myth.

Myth 1: Nuclear power is a cheap alternative to fossil fuels.

Fact 1: It isn’t.

As Jerry Taylor of the Cato Institute wrote in Reason magazine in 2009, “Nuclear energy is to the Right what solar energy is to the Left: Religious devotion in practice, a wonderful technology in theory, but an economic white elephant in fact (some crossovers on both sides notwithstanding). When the day comes that the electricity from solar or nuclear power plants is worth more than the costs associated with generating it, I will be as happy as the next Greenpeace member (in the case of the former) or MIT graduate (in the case of the latter) to support either technology.”

Until that time comes, producing nuclear energy remains a very costly business.

The chart above uses data from a 2009 interdisciplinary study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to compare the costs of generating a kilowatt hour of electricity using nuclear, coal, and gas power. Looking at this data, the cost differential is clear—nuclear-powered energy costs 14 percent more than gas to produce a unit of electricity, and it costs 30 percent more than coal. Furthermore, according to Gilbert Metcaf’s recent National Bureau of Economic Research paper on energy, this increased cost of nuclear energy includes a baked-in taxpayer subsidy of nearly 50 percent of nuclear power’s operating costs.

While the nuclear industry in the United States has seen continued improvements in operating performance over time, it remains uncompetitive with coal and natural gas on the basis of price. This cost differential is primarily the result of high capital costs and long construction times. Indeed, building a nuclear power plant in the United States has cost, on average, three times as was originally estimated.

The United States Energy Information Administration estimates that these cost trends will continue for the near future.

This chart compares the projected costs of generating electricity in the year 2016 using various sources. As you can see, nuclear power remains more expensive than other conventional forms of power.

As Taylor notes, this is why nuclear power has only flourished in countries where the government has intervened on its behalf.

Myth 2: Risk is the main problem with nuclear power.

Fact 2: Cost is the main problem, not risk.

Radiation is terrifying to most people. And like most things, the less you actually know about it, the more frightening it can be.

Safety is certainly a critical issue, as the tragedy in Japan makes clear. However, so far the death toll from the current nuclear crisis in Japan is zero.

The chart above uses data compiled from various sources to compare the deaths per terawatt of energy produced. Deaths resulting from the production of nuclear power are over 4000 times less than the rate of death resulting from the production of energy from coal.

Writing in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Bernard Cohen, a physics professor at the University of Pittsburgh, puts the risk from nuclear power into context, comparing the relative risk of nuclear power to other activities. He used a one-in-a-million chance of increased risk of premature death as a standard. His calculations indicate that if one lived at the boundary of a nuclear power plant for five years, there would be an increased risk of premature death from nuclear radiation of one in a million. That risk would decline significantly as one moved further away from the plant.

Put differently, Cohen found that the risk of living next to a nuclear power plant is comparable to the risk incurred from riding 10 miles on a bicycle, riding 300 miles in an automobile, or riding 1,000 miles in an airplane.

In fact, Steven Chu, President Barack Obama’s energy secretary, has made it clear he doesn’t think nuclear power is dangerous per se. When asked to compare coal and nuclear energy in 2009, Chu responded: “I’d rather be living near a nuclear power plant.”

That being said, what happened in Japan reminds us that while nuclear doesn’t kill people on a yearly basis, it has the potential to be very lethal under certain circumstances. However, the idea of risk-free world is unrealistic because unanticipated vulnerabilities are inevitable in any complex system. Future technologies may reduce the chance of some terrible disaster but it won’t ever eliminate it completely. Like all other sources of energy, nuclear power entails some risk.

Myth 3: The spread of nuclear power has stalled in the U.S. due to a hostile regulatory environment.

Fact 3: Nuclear power has stalled because it is simply not profitable.

Many Americans argue that government regulations are the real reason why nuclear power is so expensive. As evidence, they point out that in France, where there is more opportunity to build nuclear power plants, nuclear power is safe and affordable.

It is true that France gets about 75 percent of its electricity from nuclear power. It is also true that the country has avoided a large-scale disaster due to the many safety regulations it has imposed, most of which are similar to regulations enacted in the U.S.

However, producing nuclear energy in France is not any cheaper than it is here. The chart above shows, in U.S. dollars, the parity between the costs of generating nuclear power in the United States (which has a relatively strict regulatory regime) and France (which has a relatively loose one).

The chart presents a range of estimates of the costs of nuclear reactors in the two countries gathered by Mark Cooper, a senior research fellow for economic analysis at the Institute for Energy and the Environment at the Vermont Law School. As Cooper found, the ranges overlap: France’s estimated cost of a kilowatt of power is between $4,500 and $5,000; the United States’ estimated cost for this unit of power is between $4,000 and $6,000.

From the start of commercial nuclear reactor construction in the mid-1960s through the 1980s, capital costs (dollars per kilowatt of capacity) for building nuclear reactors rose dramatically. Although unit costs for technology usually decrease with volume of production because of scale factors and technological learning, nuclear power has gone in the opposite direction. This exception to the rule is usually attributed to the idiosyncrasies of the nuclear regulatory environment as public opposition grew, laws were tightened, and construction times increased.

As a result, no new nuclear power plants have been built in the United States in 29 years. Nuclear has proven to be a poor investment, producing far more expensive electricity than originally promised.

Myth 4: Nuclear power is the key to energy independence.

Fact 4: More nuclear doesn’t mean less oil.

On last Sunday’s Meet the Press, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) cited America’s need to get off of foreign oil as a strong reason for pursuing nuclear power.

Setting aside the misguided goal of so-called energy independence, Schumer is still wrong. Oil is primarily used in vehicles and in industrial production. Nuclear power is primarily used for electricity.

As the chart below illustrates, data from the United States Energy Information Administration shows that the vast majority of our electricity comes from non-oil sources.

Interestingly, according Michael Levi, a senior fellow and director of the program on energy security and climate change at the Council on Foreign Relations, it wasn’t always the case. “During the heyday of nuclear power, the early 1970s (45 plants broke ground between 1970 and 1975),” Levi writes, “oil was a big electricity source, and boosting nuclear power was a real way to squeeze petroleum out of the economy. Alas, we’ve already replaced pretty much all the petroleum in the power sector; the opportunity to substitute oil with nuclear power is gone.”

Perhaps more importantly, less than 1 percent of the oil used in the United States today goes to generate electricity while 70 percent is consumed by the transportation sector, with roughly 30 percent of oil being used by the residential and industrial sectors.

The bottom line is that more nuclear power would mean less coal, less natural gas, less hydroelectric power, and less wind energy. But more nuclear won’t mean less oil.

Am I against nuclear power? It certainly looks like nuclear can never be a sustainable source of energy because it is just too expensive. And while it is a safe source of energy overall, there are tremendous risks in those instances where something goes disastrously wrong. The probability of such a dire scenario may be low, but the need to build-in protections against it will always raise the cost of producing nuclear power.

But more importantly, what I am against is the government deciding that nuclear power must be encouraged and then subsidizing the industry. On that point, I leave the last word to Reason Science Correspondent Ronald Bailey.

“The main problem with energy supply systems is that for the last 100 years, governments have insisted on meddling with them, using subsidies, setting rates, and picking technologies,” Bailey observes. “Consequently, entrepreneurs, consumers, and especially policymakers have no idea which power supply technologies actually provide the best balance between cost-effectiveness and safety. In any case, let’s hope that the current nuclear disaster will not substantially add to the terrible woes the Japanese must bear as a result of nature’s fickle cruelty.”

Contributing Editor Veronique de Rugy is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

Anthony Randazzo Discusses a New Low in the Housing Market on The Alyona Show

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Director of Economic Research at Reason Foundation Anthony Randazzo appeared on Russia Today's The Alyona Show to discuss the latest drop in new home sales from the Commerce Department and how ending government intervention will aid the recovery. Air date: March 23, 2011.

Approximately 7.03 minutes.

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Walter Williams: Up from the Projects

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 11:05:00 EDT

In 1981, Secretary of Health Education and Welfare Patricia Harris wrote in the Washington Post that libertarian economists Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell are "middle class" so they "don't know what it is to be poor."

In fact, Williams grew up in a single-parent household in a poor section of Philadelphia. He was raised by his mother, who was a high school dropout. The family spent time on welfare, and eventually moved into the Richard Allen public housing project. (Sowell, whose father died before he was born, was the son of a maid.)

Drafted into the peacetime Army, Williams eventually earned a PhD from UCLA in the late 1960s and quickly became a sought-after researcher and public intellectual. His best known book, 1982’s The State Against Blacks, argues that a major cause of black unemployment is government intervention in the labor market.

Williams’ contrarian views have had wide exposure through documentaries, public appearances, and for the past 30 years, a syndicated weekly column. Since 1992, Williams has also been a frequent guest host of Rush Limbaugh’s radio show. Now a professor emeritus at George Mason University, Williams has taught at Temple University, California State University-Los Angeles, and other universities. (Go here for his personal web page.)

His new book, Up from the Projects: An Autobiography, is a fascinating look at his childhood, his half-century-long marriage to his recently departed wife, his unusual career path, and the genesis of his views on race, economics, and politics.

Throughout his career, Williams has used his own life to illustrate how government regulations often work to deny opportunities to poor blacks, and his memoir is no exception. For example, Williams recounts that when he was a teenager, he was fired from a great job at a hat factory when a fellow employee complained to the Department of Labor that his boss was violating child labor laws.

Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie recently sat down with Williams to talk about his life, how his experiences have informed his scholarship, his lead role in turning George Mason University into a center for libertarian scholarship, and whether the Obama presidency has improved the lives of blacks in the United States.

Williams is also an emeritus trustee of the Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that produces Reason.tv.

For more on Williams' new memoir, check out Damon Root's review, which calls the book "a revealing and sometimes hilarious account of his rise from Philadelphia’s Richard Allen housing projects, where his neighbors included a young Bill Cosby, to 'brown bag' lunches at the White House where he gave advice to President Ronald Reagan and his staff."

Produced, shot, and edited by Jim Epstein. Additional camera: Joshua Swain.

Approximately 30 minutes.

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Nick Gillespie Discusses Government Redundancy with Jeff Flake on Stossel

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Reason.tv editor in chief Nick Gillespie joined Jeff Flake (R-AZ) on Stossel to discuss the irony of the federal government not knowing the cost of a program that teaches financial literacy and how we could prioritize what government should be doing. Airdate: March 17, 2011.

Approximately 8.14 minutes.

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Veronique de Rugy Debunks Hedge Fund Myths on Bloomberg

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 00:00:00 EDT

Editor’s Note: Reason columnist Veronique de Rugy appears weekly on Bloomberg TV to separate economic fact from economic myth.

Myth 1: Hedge funds are highly leveraged.

Fact 1: The market exposure of most hedge funds is less than twice the percentage of assets under management.

Contrary to commonly-held belief, highly-leveraged hedge funds are the exception rather than the rule. Hedge funds use short sales and derivatives to manage risk and reduce losses when the market is performing poorly. In addition, hedge funds often borrow funds or use other forms of leverage to magnify gains.

Furthermore, hedge funds take no part in the process of underwriting new securities. Nor do they serve as brokers or dealers of securities and derivatives. These funds have a single line of business—asset management—and they typically use relatively small amounts of leverage to finance and profit from their investment activities.

A 2007 study of hedge fund leverage by Adrian Blundell-Wignall, a deputy director of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which included leverage from borrowed funds and implicit leverage from derivatives, estimated that average hedge fund leverage was 3.9-to-1 (which means that for every $3.9 in hedge fund assets, $1 was equity and the rest was borrowed (or the economic equivalent of borrowing was achieved by using derivatives), with the bulk of the leverage coming from derivatives. In 2008, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated that average global hedge fund leverage from borrowed funds had a ratio of 1.4-to-1.

The chart above is based on data from the McKinsey Global Institute; note that it measures leverage in a slightly different way than the OECD does (gross leverage here is assets plus liabilities divided by assets) but the overall outcome is quite similar. As you can see, even at its peak, total leverage in the hedge fund industry was not more that 3.5 times the level of assets under management—far below the leverage ratio of banks.

For context, consider that banks are typically leveraged at least 10-to-1 and investment banks are usually leveraged at least 20-to-1. In the case of investment banks, this means that for every dollar actually held by the investment bank, it had borrowed between $20 and $30.

More interestingly, as New York Law School professor Houman Shadab notes in his article “Hedge Funds and the Financial Crisis,” the contrast between the levels of leverage in these different components of the financial sector became even more pronounced in the lead-up to the financial crisis. For example, banking sector leverage usually ranged from 12-to-1 to 17-to-1 while major U.S. investment bank leverage became as high as 33-to-1 in recent years.

Myth 2: The hedge fund industry’s tendency to take excessive risks, combined with a lack of regulation, was an important cause of the financial crisis.

Fact 2: Not only did hedge funds not precipitate the financial crisis, they did nothing to exacerbate it. If anything, hedge funds have helped the economy to recover more quickly.

It is a fact that hedge funds are not as heavily regulated as other financial institutions. Also, they are not required to register with investment authorities or report on their activities. As a result, it is often alleged that hedge funds played a role in the emergence of the credit crisis, contributing to volatility through short-selling and by selling shares as a result of de-leveraging and redemptions.

The data, however, does not support such theories. While hedge funds have often seen greater payoffs than the larger financial industry, they have done so while taking fewer risks.

McKinsey Global Institute research shows, for instance, that a significant portion of hedge funds have delivered higher and less volatile returns than investments in public equities and bonds over time, including during the financial crisis.

McKinsey also found that since 1990 investors in hedge funds have earned higher returns than investors whose portfolios contain only equities and bonds. Between 1990 and 2008, an index of hedge funds outperformed a range of blended portfolios of U.S. bonds and equities. The hedge fund index produced 12 percent average annual returns over the period, compared with 7.8 percent for a portfolio of only equities and 7.2 percent for a portfolio of only bonds.

More importantly, hedge funds fared relatively better during the financial crisis than other firms in the industry. In 2008, as losses from the U.S. mortgage market turned into an international financial crisis, global equities dropped 42 percent. Yet hedge funds suffered worldwide losses of just 27 percent.

As the following chart from Shadab’s “Hedge Funds and the Financial Crisis” shows, hedge funds have systematically outperformed the stock market in downturns.

Why? These outcomes are attributable in large part to the legal regime under which they occur. First, federal law enables hedge funds to pursue innovative investment strategies through leverage, short sales, and derivatives. Second, contract law and the hedge fund structure provides fund managers with incentives to innovate while maintaining a relatively healthy balance between risk taking and risk management.

Take the hedge fund compensation scheme. Hedge fund managers are compensated by charging a management fee based upon the size of the fund (typically 1 to 2 percent for hedge funds) but they also charge an annual performance-based fee, typically 20 percent of profits. In addition, they frequently invest their own money in the funds they manage.

This compensation structure generally leads hedge funds to be more prudent in risk-taking than other financial companies. Most hedge fund managers seek to maximize asset size and put much more emphasis on low volatility at the cost of returns so that they can optimize assets under management and asset management fees.

Basically, it is a myth that hedge fund managers are risk takers who seek to maximize returns.

As Shadab notes, “a general lesson from the law and economics of hedge funds is that when a legal regime permits financial intermediaries to be flexible in their investment strategies and aligns the incentives of investors and innovators through performance fees and co-investment by managers, financial innovation is likely to complement investor protection without wide-ranging regulation.”

Myth 3: Most hedge fund managers are billionaires.

Fact 3: Who cares? But if you must know, the average hedge fund manager’s yearly earnings are $336,000.

We hear all the time that hedge fund managers are billionaires. This belief likely stems from a highly-publicized survey which revealed that in 2009, the 25 highest-paid hedge fund managers earned a collective $25.3 billion, beating the old 2007 high by a wide margin. Yet this number is not representative of the larger hedge fund industry.

The chart above uses data collected from a series of confidential surveys of fund managers and employees across a variety of firms, large and small. Average compensation of hedge fund managers in 2009 was around $336,000 with roughly 50 percent of this compensation paid as a bonus. Importantly, since compensation is so closely tied to performance, managers have the incentive to maximize performance and take judicious risks. In other words, they have some skin in the game.

While much has been made of super-rich hedge fund managers such as George Soros and David Tepper, compensation actually varies widely within the profession. On the low end, earnings fall within the $50,000 range; on the high-end, certain well-publicized partners, principals, and fund managers make over a million dollars annually. The majority of hedge fund managers surveyed in 2008 reported compensation in the $100,000 to $300,000 range. Less than 2 percent of hedge fund managers report earnings of over a million dollars.

Contributing Editor Veronique de Rugy is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

Cutting Government Spending: An Interview with Puerto Rico Governor Luis Fortuno

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 00:00:00 EST

Since coming into power in 2009, Gov. Luis Fortuño (R-Puerto Rico) has cut government spending by 20 percent, lowered taxes and raised the territory’s bond status to its highest rating in 35 years – all during a punishing economic climate.

Gov. Fortuño sat down with Reason Magazine Editor in Chief Matt Welch to discuss Puerto Rico’s turnaround, federal immigration policy, the drug war, education reform, his support of statehood and a possible future in mainland politics.

Interview by Matt Welch. Shot by Jim Epstein and Meredith Bragg. Edited by Bragg.

Approximately 29 minutes.

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Are We Broke Yet? Michael Moore Says No, Reality Begs to Differ

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 13:00:00 EST

"The nation is not broke, my friends," opines guerilla filmmaker and amateur accountant Michael Moore. "Wisconsin is not broke. Saying that the country is broke is repeating a Big Lie."

Relax, America, it turns out that all that talk about local, state, and federal government being broke is just total B.S. or, as The New York Times puts it, "obfuscating nonsense...a scare tactic employed for political ends."

Moore is a bit skimpy on evidence, simply asserting that all we need to do to make things right is to shake down rich people who "have diverted...wealth into a deep well that sits on their well-guarded estates." The Times' case isn't much more compelling. "A country with a deficit is not necessarily any more 'broke' than a family with a mortgage or a college loan," says the paper of record. "And states have to balance their budgets."

OK, but what should you call a family or a country that about 20 percent of GDP for each of the past 60 years while raising on less than 18 percent of GDP each year? And that is facing a massive balloon payment (let's call it entitlement spending on Medicare and Social Security) in the not-too-distant future? And has to keep borrowing money just to pay today's bills? And has no chance of increasing its take-home pay to cover its expenses?

It's a pretty safe bet that most of us would call that family or country broke. Or something along those lines.

Here are federal deficit projections from President Barack Obama's own proposed 2012 budget. He predicts that the red ink will continue to flow for as long he may be in office.

And what about the states? It's true that states have to balance their budgets each year by law. But that doesn't mean they don't spend more than they take in. Wisconsin alone is looking at a shortfall of $1.8 billion in the next year. Here's what the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says about the mismatch between spending and revenue: "2012 is shaping up as states’ most difficult budget year on record. Thus far some 45 states and the District of Columbia are projecting budget shortfalls totaling $125 billion for fiscal year 2012." Here's a picture that suggests broke is a pretty good description of state finances:

Then there's local government. The National League of Cities is estimating that aggregate revenue shortfalls between 2010 and 2012 will end up totaling somewhere between $56 billion and $83 billion.

As President Obama put it plainly in his State of the Union Address just a few weeks ago, "We have to confront the fact that our government spends more than it takes in. That is not sustainable."

So call us broke or call us flush with cash. Whatever. Unless you think our elected officials are like Charlie Sheen - able to cure our problems simply willing it - our fiscal reality isn't going to get better by pretending that we're not in deep trouble.

Maybe acknowledging that you've got a problem really is the first step to fixing it. If that's the case, we've still got a ways to go before we even start doing the hard work of cutting out of control spending at every level of government.

In the meantime, read "The 19 Percent: How to balance the budget without raising taxes," "Failed States: After a long spending binge, governors go begging for a handout. It won't be their last," and "How to Save Cleveland: Turning around America's dying cities is difficult, improbable, and necessary."

"Are we broke yet?" is written and produced by Meredith Bragg and Nick Gillespie. About 1.30 minutes long. Go to Reason.tv for downloadable versions of our videos and subscribe to our YouTube channel to receive automatic notifications when new material goes live.

Veronique de Rugy Explains Fannie and Freddie's Role in the Housing Crisis on Bloomberg

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 00:00:00 EST

Editor’s Note: Reason columnist Veronique de Rugy appears weekly on Bloomberg TV to separate economic fact from economic myth.

Myth 1: The government-sponsored housing finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had nothing to do with the housing crisis. They were simply innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire. Economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, for instance, has argued that Fannie and Freddie’s role in the housing market was insignificant between 2004 and 2006 because “they pulled back sharply after 2003, just when housing really got crazy.” According to Krugman, Fannie and Freddie “largely faded from the scene during the height of the housing bubble.”

Fact 1: Fannie and Freddie contributed to the housing crisis by making it easier for more people to take out loans for houses they could not afford. Beginning in 2000, Fannie and Freddie took on loans with low FICO scores, loans with low down payments, and loans with little or no documentation.

The federal government’s role in the housing market goes back at least to 1938, but that role changed fundamentally in the 1990s when the government made a push to increase homeownership in the United States. At that time, the federal government pursued several policies that were meant to encourage banks to lend money to lower income earners and to give incentives to low income earners to buy houses. The result, as we now know, was a gigantic amount of subprime mortgages at a time when house prices were starting to go down.

In 2010, Edward Pinto, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who has served as chief credit officer at Fannie Mae, issued a memorandum on the number of subprime and other high-risk mortgages in the financial system immediately before the financial crisis. In that memorandum, Pinto recorded that he had found over 25 million subprime mortgages (his later work showed that there were approximately 27 million). Since there are about 55 million total mortgages in the United States, it means that as the financial crisis began, half of all U.S. mortgages were of inferior quality and liable to default when housing prices stopped rising, as you can see in the chart below.

Freddie and Fannie were active players in this market.

For instance, as George Mason University economist Russ Roberts explains in his paper “Gambling with Other People’s Money”:

Fannie and Freddie bought 25.2% of the record $272.81 billion in subprime MBS [mortgage-backed securities] sold in the first half of 2006, according to Inside Mortgage Finance Publications, a Bethesda, MD-based publisher that covers the home loan industry.

In 2005, Fannie and Freddie purchased 35.3% of all subprime MBS, the publication estimated. The year before, the two purchased almost 44% of all subprime MBS sold.

In addition, lawmakers in both parties enacted policies directed at increasing home ownership rates, resulting in lower mortgage underwriting standards for Fannie and Freddie. Roberts notes that from 2000 on, Fannie and Freddie bought loans with low FICO scores, loans with very low down payments, and loans with little or no documentation. Contrary to Paul Krugman’s assertions, Fannie and Freddie did not “fade away” or “pull back sharply” between 2004 and 2006.

As the following chart from Roberts’ study shows, during that same time Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) bought near-record numbers of mortgages, including an ever-growing number of mortgages with low down payments.

Moreover, as the chart below shows, while private players bought many more subprime loans than Freddie and Fannie, GSEs purchased hundreds of billions of dollars worth of subprime mortgage-backed securities (MBS) from private issuers, holding these securities as investments.

The bottom line is that while Fannie and Freddie weren’t the only factor leading to the financial crisis, they played an important role in pushing up the demand for housing at the low end of the market, especially between 1998 and 2003. That in turn made subprime loans increasingly attractive to other financial institutions as housing prices rose steadily.

Myth 2: Fannie and Freddie’s role in the housing market increased homeownership, especially for first-time buyers and lower income earners.

Fact 2: The small increase in homeownership rates were temporary and artificial, driven by unsustainable incentives. In the best case scenario, Fannie and Freddie may have increased the homeownership rate from 63 percent to 69 percent, but the rate has now fallen back to 66 percent. Moreover, Fannie and Freddie did not make housing more affordable and even priced many first-time buyers out of the market.

When it was created in 1938 Fannie Mae’s mission was to stabilize the Great Depression’s battered home mortgage market by focusing on first-time homebuyers.

From 1940 to 1965, homeownership expanded from 44 to 63 percent. It’s debatable whether this increase in homeownership was good, bad, or even if it was the product of Fannie’s actions at all.

However, it is interesting to observe the role that government support has played in Fannie and Freddie’s actions. While Fannie and Freddie enjoy access to capital from the public equity market, they also benefit from exclusive privileges including a line of credit with the government, no oversight by the Securities and Exchange Commission, and a government guarantee that gives these entities a lower cost of funds than their private sector rivals.

As business journalist Bill Bonner explains in The Christian Science Monitor:

Armed with these advantages, GSEs increased their book of business from $13 billion in 1965 to $1 trillion by 1990 and $3.4 trillion in 2003. Once the great real estate bubble had concluded by year-end 2007, Freddie and Fannie combined had purchased $4.9 trillion of mortgages, repackaging 70 percent of these into guaranteed securities for the secondary market.

This (along with Ginnie Mae) gave the GSEs roughly half of the $11 trillion mortgage market, but their share of new originations has become near dominant.

Many sources peg this at 70 percent, but an interesting take from TIME magazine business and economics columnist Justin Fox takes into account the impact of refinancing into GSE-backed loans. Juxtaposing GSE total volume ($ 539 billion) against new originations ($313 billion), GSE market share was 172 percent for the first quarter of 2008.

As the chart below shows, while homeownership topped out at 69 percent in 2004 and stood at 66 percent in 2010, it hasn’t really increased from its 63 percent level nearly 50 years ago when the government restructured the agencies to promote their growth.

Unfortunately, we also know that many of the government’s policies ended up increasing housing prices dramatically by increasing demand, thus pricing many first-time buyers out of the market.

Myth 3: Fannie and Freddie are essential for maintaining a working mortgage market. Without them, interest rates will increase and homeownership will plummet as more people are priced out of the housing market.

Fact 3: Interest rates are likely to go up. Yet it is not clear what impact this will have on homeownership rates. In the 1980s, interest rates on the average 30-year mortgage were significantly higher, yet homeownership rates were almost the same as they are today. Besides, the alternative to homeownership is not living on the street.

President Barack Obama has proposed allowing Fannie and Freddie to slowly fade away. This would certainly have consequences. For one thing, without federal backing, a 30-year mortgage with a 5 percent interest rate is unlikely to be replicated by any bank. In addition to charging higher interest rates, banks would also likely require a larger down payment.

However, it is wrong to assume this will mean a severe decline in homeownership. First, as the following chart shows, in the last 30 years, interest paid by homeowners has fluctuated quite dramatically while the rate of homeownership has remained steady.

In 1981, for example, interest rates were at an all-time high of 16.6 percent and the homeownership rate was 65.4 percent. In 2009, interest rates were at a nearly record low of 5 percent but homeownership held steady at 67.4 percent. The last time we had that homeownership rate was in 2000, and at that point the interest rate was 8 percent.

Furthermore, low down payments are a relatively recent phenomenon. In the 1980s and most of the 1990s, down payments had to be roughly 20 percent of the value of your home.

Finally, higher interest rates and higher down payments are not necessarily a bad thing for homebuyers. Both will incentivize new owners to keep and maintain their new property. If we have learned anything in the last decade, it’s that redefining the American dream to mean homeownership for everyone is a very risky endeavor. Besides, the alternative to homeownership is not life on the streets, it is renting.

For more information go to reason.com and the orginal post.

Contributing Editor Veronique de Rugy is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

To Surly, With Love: Are Teachers Overpaid?

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 10:00:00 EST

Public school teachers are at the forefront of protests against state budget cuts and restrictions on collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin, New Jersey, Ohio, and elsewhere.

Teachers have a lot to lose. According to Department of Education statistics, in 2007-2008 (the latest year available), full-time public school teachers across the country made an average of $53,230 in "total school-year and summer earned income." That compares favorably to the $39,690 that private school teachers pulled down.

And when it comes to retirement benefits, public school teachers do better than average too. According to EducationNext, government employer contribute the equivalent of 14.6 percent of salary to retirement benefits for public school teachers. That compares to 10.4 for private-sector professionals.

Those levels of compensation help explain why per-pupil school cost have risen substantially over the past 50 years. In 1960-61, public schools spent $2,769 per student, a figure that now totals over $10,000 in real, inflation-adjusted dollars. Among the things that threefold-plus increase in spending has purchased are more teachers per student. In 1960, the student-teacher ratio in public schools was 25.8; it's now at a historic low of 15.

Among the things all that money hasn't bought? Parental satisfaction, for one. Despite public teachers' much-higher salaries, parents with school-age children in public schools report substantially lower satisfaction rates than parents with children in private schools. In 2007, the percentage of parents with children in assigned public schools who were "very satisfied" with the institution was 52 percent. For parents whose children attended public schools of choice, that figure rose to 62 percent. Parents sending their children to private schools, whether religious or non-sectarian, were "very satisfied" 79 percent of the time.

It's little wonder that parents with little or no choice report the lowest-levels of satisfaction (about 90 percent of K-12 students attend public schools). Despite all the extra resources devoted to public school teachers and students, student achievement has been absolutely flat over the past 40 years. The National Assessment of Educational Progress is "the largest nationally representative and continuing assessment of what America's students know and can do in various subject areas." When it comes to 17-year-old students (effectively, high-school seniors), nothing has changed since reporting began in the early 1970s. In 1971, 17-year-old students averaged 285 points (out of 500) in reading. In 2008, that had risen to 286. For math in 1973, the average score was 304 (out of 500). In 2008, it was 306.

Public school teachers make about $14,000 a year more in straight salary than private school teachers; when you add in benefits, the gap widens even more. They teach fewer students than ever before and taxpayers at all levels spend increasing amounts of money on education. Yet for all that, the best you can say is that we're spending more than three times as much money as we were 40 years ago for exactly the same outcomes.

The National Governers Association says that states are looking at $175 billion in shortfalls over the next two years. Local governments are in the red too. As legislators look for places to cut or reduce spending, there's no question that public school teachers have a lot to lose in terms of compensation.

And there's no question that, even if there were no budget emergencies, the nation's public school system is failing to return much of anything on an ever-growing pile of tax dollars.

"To Surly, With Love" was written and produced by Nick Gillespie and Meredith Bragg. For data sources, go to http://reason.com/blog/2011/03/03/to-surly-with-love-are-teacher

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Porker of the Month for February 2011: Rep. Jerrold Nadler!

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 12:00:00 EST

Reason.tv presents Citizens Against Government Waste's Porker of the Month for February 2011:

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY)!

Rep. Nadler is pushing full steam ahead on a $53 billion spending spree for High Speed Rail projects. This of course is after the 8 billion spent on High Speed Rail in the stimulus bill. Both barely begin to cover the estimated $500 billion dollars required for the plan, which many state governments have already rejected due to the massive cost.

Congratulations Rep. Nadler, you are Citizens Against Government Waste's Porkers of the Month for February, 2011!

"Porker of the Month" is written and produced by Austin Bragg. Approximately 2 minutes.

For more info on Citizens Against Government Waste and the Porker of The Month, visit cagw.org.

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Nick Gillespie Appears on Varney & Company

Sat, 19 Feb 2011 09:00:00 EST

Reason.tv editor in chief Nick Gillespie appeared as a panelist on Fox Business Network's Varney & Company discussing everything from the public employee protests in Wisconsin to new tablet tech gadgets. Air Date: February 17, 2011.

Approximately 40 minutes.

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Veronique de Rugy Debunks Housing Market Myths on Bloomberg

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 00:00:00 EST

According to certain economists and political commentators, housing prices will have to reach pre-recession levels if the economy is going to recover. But as Reason economics columnist Veronique de Rugy explains, those pre-recession prices were a historic anomaly caused by easy credit and misguided government policy. In her weekly appearance on Bloomberg TV, Reason columnist Veronique de Rugy explains the truth about housing prices by separating economic fact from economic myth.

Myth 1: In order for the economy to recover, housing prices have to reach pre-recession levels. They cannot decline further. Therefore the government must continue to prop up housing prices or provide incentives to encourage people to buy homes.

Fact 1: Pre-recession housing prices were a historic anomaly based on easy credit caused in part by misguided government policy. Lower housing prices are not bad for everyone. They are also the only way to get rid of our bloated housing inventory.

Myth 2: We need a foreclosure moratorium to help those people drowning in debt who have had to default on their mortgages.

Fact 2: Defaulting on a mortgage does not necessarily reflect an inability to pay. The current crisis has produced a new phenomenon: homeowners who default by choice. A moratorium would eliminate the current penalty and thereby encourage more people who are still able to pay to walk away from their obligations.

Myth 3: There is a national foreclosure crisis.

Fact 3: It is a national problem, not a national crisis. It is a crisis in only a handful of states.
For additional information, see de Rugy’ s article “The Truth About Housing Prices.”

Approximately 6 minutes.

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Anthony Randazzo Testifies before the House Financial Services Subcommittee

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 00:00:00 EST

Director of Economic Research for Reason Foundation Anthony Randazzo testifies before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government-Sponsored Enterprises. He proposed ten ways to address near-term reform for the mortgage finance system while developing a long-term solution to fix the American housing market. Read the written testimony here and watch the full hearing here. Airdate: February 9, 2011.

Approximately 13.30 minutes.

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3 Reasons This Budget (and the GOP Response) Won't Win the Future

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 00:00:00 EST

President Barack Obama's proposed budget for 2012 outlines $3.7 trillion in spending during the next fiscal year and $8 trillion in new debt over the next decade. All without even a notion of how to pay for any of it.

What could possibly go wrong? Or right?

3 Reasons Obama's Budget (and the GOP Response) Won't Fix Anything is written and produced by Meredith Bragg, Austin Bragg, and Nick Gillespie, who also hosts. Approx 2 minutes.

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This video is based on this piece for AOL News by Veronique de Rugy and Nick Gillespie, reprinted below.

Opinion: This Is No Way to Win the Future

In his State of the Union address delivered just a few weeks ago, President Barack Obama pushed the banal conceit of "winning the future." To great partisan applause, the president channeled the reality show "Survivor" (slogan: "Outwit, Outplay, Outlast") and proclaimed that the United States needs to "out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the rest of the world."

With the release of his budget proposal for fiscal year 2012, we now know exactly what the president meant: We need to out-spend the world.

Sure, the United States government is already wracked with debt -- to the tune of about $9 trillion or 62 percent of gross domestic product -- and government spending is at or near post-World War II highs, about 25 percent of GDP using 2010 numbers. Obama's bold plan is to spend yet more without any ability to cover such new largess.

Far from winning the future, Obama has decided to punt on first down. Instead of dealing with federal spending that has ballooned by more than 60 percent in constant 2010 dollars over the past decade -- spending pushed by Republicans and Democrats alike -- the president has decided to stick with a status quo that is leading us to fiscal ruin.

In the broadest outlines, Obama proposes spending $3.7 trillion in 2012 (about the same as this year). Over the course of the coming decade, he claims that his spending plan would trim the deficit by about $1.1 trillion, with about two-thirds of theoretical savings coming from spending less than expected (such as a five-year freeze on non-security-related discretionary spending) and one-third from tax increases (on high-income earners).

Another way of putting this is that the president's plan for the next decade does nothing to balance spending and revenue; over 10 years, it adds about $8 trillion to the national debt.

The key reality here is that outlays keep growing from $3.5 trillion in FY 2010 to $5.7 trillion in FY 2021. If all goes according to plan, in 2021, debt held by the public will equal a whopping 77 percent of GDP. Of course, to that debt you have to add the money that the federal government has borrowed to various trust funds, like Social Security and Medicare, and also the trillions of dollars in unfunded promises made to the American people.

But there's absolutely no reason to believe that scenario. When he submitted his first budget, for fiscal year 2010 (ironically titled "A New Era of Fiscal Responsibility"), Obama promised that he would cut the deficit to $912 billion in 2011 and to $581 billion by 2012. The reality in just that short window of time is totally different.

Obama's original estimates were way off for the same reason his current scenario can't be trusted: He grounds most deficit reduction in the fantasy world of increased revenues.

Indeed, the president decrees that revenue will increase by $1.6 trillion over the next decade. Theoretically, this will come from two basic sources: ending the Bush tax rates on high-income earners and from an economy that the president believes will increase in real terms by 3.6 percent in 2012 and 4.4 percent in 2013. Those estimates are far sunnier than most private and governmental projections.

While rosy scenarios are great to project higher revenue, they are also useful on the spending side. Higher growth rates allow the president to foresee a reduction in unemployment from its current 9.3 percent to 8.6 percent next year. That means less unemployment benefits to pay out and it explains half of the projected reduction in spending from 2011 to 2012.

Yet even if the president's growth and revenues do materialize, we're still in deep trouble. We are still left with a $1.1 trillion deficit in 2012 and with a cumulative $7.2 trillion deficit over 10 years. That's $7.2 trillion that the federal government will have to borrow in the best-case scenario. And that explains why the debt held by the public is set to double in the next 10 years from $9 trillion in 2010 to over $18 trillion in 2020.

Nothing in Obama's budget addresses the nation's short- and long-term budget problems. He simply isn't serious about addressing the spending overload that is piling up debt at greater and greater velocity, and he has shown no interest in even discussing serious entitlement reform.

Sadly, there's little reason to believe that the Republican response will be any more substantive. Prior to the election, GOP leaders released their Pledge to America, which was both vague and uninspired, showing only the slimmest difference in spending than the president. Since winning a majority in the House of Representatives, Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has allowed that, as he said on "Meet the Press" on Sunday, "We're broke."

Yet neither he nor his fellow Republicans have laid out any way of addressing the shortfall, either by seriously cutting spending or by raising taxes. Instead, House Republicans continue to dilly-dally whether to cut a measly $100 billion for the remainder of fiscal year 2011.

This is no way to fix a bipartisan budget mess that was many years in the making. Worse still, it looks as if it will get much worse before either Democrats or Republicans are moved to real action.

Veronique de Rugy on the Truth About the Debt Ceiling

Wed, 02 Feb 2011 00:00:00 EST

The statutory debt limit, or debt ceiling, was designed to control congressional spending by limiting the amount of debt the federal government could accumulate. Clearly, it has not fulfilled its legislative purpose. In the last 10 years, Congress has increased the debt limit 10 times, raising the limit twice annually in 2008 and 2009. In her weekly appearance on Bloomberg TV, Reason columnist Veronique de Rugy explains the truth about the debt ceiling by separating economic fact from economic myth.

Myth 1: Failure to increase the debt ceiling is insanity. Unless we increase the debt ceiling, the U.S. government will default on its debt.

Fact 1: The federal government has other options. If the debt ceiling is not increased, the Treasury Department can make interest and debt payment its first priority to avoid a default. Then it can essentially put the government on a stringent pay-as-you-go basis.

Myth 2: These are extraordinary times. We have to increase the debt ceiling now and we will cut spending later.

Fact 2: In the last 10 years, Congress has raised the debt ceiling 10 times, sometimes twice in the same year. Congress has raised the debt ceiling 98 times since 1940. The government has lost its ability to monitor its spending. Having to raise the debt ceiling again is only a sign that Congress keeps failing to do what is necessary to get the nation’s finances in order.

Myth 3: Democrats are the big spenders and are the party of debt. We know this because they want to increase the debt ceiling while Republicans oppose the increase.

Fact 3: Historically, the party in power always wants to increase spending. As a result, lawmakers in power--regardless of party affiliation--overwhelmingly vote to increase the debt limit.

For additional information, see de Rugy’s article “The Truth About the Debt Limit.” http://reason.com/archives/2011/02/03/the-truth-about-the-debt-ceili

Approximately 6.30 minutes.

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Porker of the Month for January 2011: Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), and John Kerry (D-Mass.!

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 12:40:00 EST

Reason.tv presents Citizen's Against Government Waste’s Porkers of the Month for January 2011:

Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), and John Kerry (D-Mass.!

After the wasteful development work on the alternate engine for the Joint Strike Fighter was in danger of losing funding, these three urged the Pentagon to release even more taxpayer funds for redundant technology no one wants.

Congratulations Senators, you are Citizen's Against Government Waste's Porkers of the Month for January, 2011!

"Porker of the Month" is written and produced by Austin Bragg. Approximately 1.5 minutes.

For more info on Citizens Against Government Waste and the Porker of The Month, visit cagw.org.

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Porkers of the Month for December 2010: Sens. Lisa Murkowski and James Inhofe!

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 14:24:00 EST

Reason.tv presents Citizen's Against Government Waste’s Porkers of the Month for December 2010:

Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and James Inhofe (R-Okla.)!

After a lopsided election with a strong emphasis on fiscal responsibility, Senate Republicans agreed on a two year moratorium on earmarks. These two refused to go along with the plan, which isn't terribly surprising when you look at their earmark history.

Congratulations Lisa and James, you are Citizen's Against Government Waste's Porkers of the Month for November, 2010!

"Porker of the Month" is written and produced by Austin Bragg. Approximately 1 minute.

For more info on Citizens Against Government Waste and the Porker of The Month, visit cagw.org.

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Budget Chef Presents: How to Balance the Budget W/O Raising Taxes!

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 11:00:00 EST

Using just a big piece of pork, a large knife, and a small knife, the budget chef shows how to balance the federal budget by 2020.

As a special treat, he does it without raising taxes from the current Bush-era rates!

It seems like a complicated preparation at first, but it's so simple that almost any elected official should be able to pull it off like a pro!

Domestic and foreign investors will love this, and it will also help create a stable environment conducive to long-term, sustainable economic growth.

Between 2011 and 2020, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that total federal outlays - for defense, agriculture subsidies, Medicare, Social Security, you name it - will total a whopping $42.1 trillion (in 2010 dollars). To bring outlays down to revenue, we need to cut a total of $1.3 trillion in total expenditures over the next 10 years.

That sounds like a really tall order until you realize that it cutting just 3.6 percent a year for each of the next 10 years. To put it in dollar terms, it means cutting about $130 billion a year from budgets that will average over $4 trillion.

That's not so hard now, is it? By making small, systematic cuts to a federal budget that is larded up with more fat than an Ponderosa buffet, we can balance the budget without even nicking essential services.

"Budget Chef" is written and produced by Jim Epstein, Josh Swain, Meredith Bragg, and Nick Gillespie (who also hosts). Approximately 2 minutes. Scroll down for downloadable versions and subscribe to Reason.tv's YouTube channel to get automatic notifications when new material goes live.

This video is based on "How to Balance the Budget Without Raising Taxes," by Nick Gillespie and Reason economics columnist Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus Center. Read that December 5, 2010 piece for detailed breakdowns of spending amounts.

Nick Gillespie Discusses Obama's Tax Cut Deals on CNN's Parker Spitzer

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 00:00:00 EST

Editor in chief of Reason.tv and Reason.com Nick Gillespie debates Mother Jones' David Corn about Obama's recent tax cut deal how the adminstration's role in the economy has made recovery all the more difficult on CNN's Parker Spitzer. Air date: December 9, 2010.

Approximately 6.08 minutes.

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Great Moments in Unintended Consequences

Wed, 08 Dec 2010 13:00:00 EST

Reason.tv presents Great Moments in Unintended Consequences!

All actions have unanticipated side effects, but government acting through regulation or legislation is particularly adept at creating disastrous unintended consequences.

Great Moments in Unintended Consequences takes a look at three instances of epic government facepalm: Osborne Reef, Corn Ethanol Subsidies, and a particular clause in ObamaCare that is already doing more harm than good.

Approximately 3 minutes.

Produced by Austin Bragg.

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Anthony Randazzo Discusses Bernake Controlling Inflation on Russia Today

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 00:00:00 EST

Reason Foundation Director of Economic Research Anthony Randazzo appears on Russia Today's The Alyona Show to take issue with Ben Bernake's confidence that the FED can control inflation while continuing quantitative easing. Airdate: December 6, 2010.

Approximately 7.48 minutes.

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Richard Epstein on Barack Obama, his former Chicago Law Colleague

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 00:00:00 EST

Few legal scholars have blown as many minds and had the tangible impact that Richard Epstein has managed. His 1985 volume, Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain is a case in point. Epstein made the hugely controversial argument that regulations and other government actions such as environmental regulations that substantially limit the use of or decrease the value of property should be thought of as a form of eminent domain and thus strictly limited by the Constitution. The immediate result was a firestorm of outrage followed by an acknowledgment that the guy was onto something.

As Epstein told Reason in a 1995 interview, "I took some pride in the fact that [Sen.] Joe Biden (D-Del.) held a copy of Takings up to a hapless Clarence Thomas back in 1991 and said that anyone who believes what's in this book is certifiably unqualified to sit in on the Supreme Court. That's a compliment of sorts.... But I took even more pride in the fact that, during the Breyer hearings [in 199X], there were no such theatrics, even as the nominee was constantly questioned on whether he agreed with the Epstein position on deregulation as if that position could not be held by responsible people."

Born in New York in 1943, Epstein splits faculty appointments at the University of Chicago and New York University; he's also a senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, and a contributor to Reason. In books such as Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination Laws (1992) to Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995), and Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Case for Classical Liberalism (2003), Epstein pushes his ideas and preconceptions to their limits and takes his readers along for the ride. A die-hard libertarian who believes the state should be limited and individual freedom expanded, he is nonetheless the consummate intellectual who first and foremost demands he offer up ironclad proofs for his characteristically counterintuitive insights into law and social theory.

Indeed, Epstein's enduring value may not be any particular legal or policy prescription he's offered over the years but rather his methodology. He believes in robust and unfettered argument and debate as a way of gaining knowledge. If you don't put your ideas out in the arena, you can't be doing your best work, he argues. "The problem when you keep to yourself is you don't get to hear strong ideas articulated by people who disagree with you," he says.

Reason's Nick Gillespie interviewed Epstein at NYU's law building in October. The conversation was wide-ranging and high-energy--another Epsteinian virtue. They talked about legal challenges to ObamaCare, the effects of stimulus spending and TARP bailouts, and a former University of Chicago adjunct faculty member by the name of Barack Obama, with whom Epstein regularly interacted in the 1990s and early 2000s.

"He passed through Chicago without absorbing much of the internal culture," says Epstein of the president. "He's amazingly good at playing intellectual poker. But that's a disadvantage, because if you don't put your ideas out there to be shot down, you're never gonna figure out what kind of revision you want."

Filmed and edited by Jim Epstein with help from Michael C. Moynihan and Josh Swain.

Approximately 12.30 minutes.

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Nick Gillespie Discusses the Mid-Term Elections Impact on the Economy with Judge Napolitano

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:00:00 EDT

Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie appeared on Judge Napolitano's Freedom Watch to discuss how the Tea Party put more fiscally responsible canidates on the ballot than the GOP ever could -- and why Vice-President Joe Biden just doesn't get it. Air Date: Oct. 30, 2010.

Approximately 8.23 minutes.

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Where are the Jobs? The Parallels between Today and the Great Depression

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 11:30:00 EDT

The Great Recession officially ended way back in June of 2009, so why are so many Americans still out of work?

It's not because politicians were twiddling their thumbs. Indeed, from from bailouts to "Cash for Clunkers" to the massive stimulus plan, government has busied itself with trying to fix the economy. And, according to President Obama, this "bold, persistent, experimentation" has brought our country back from the brink.

Obama borrows that phrase from President Franklin Rooselvelt, and today's president has a lot in common with the original bold, persistent, experimenter. Like Obama, FDR was a charismatic Democrat who replaced an unpopular Republican during a time of crisis. And like Obama, FDR championed a slew of policies designed to get America back to work.

Today many Americans credit FDR with rescuing our nation from the Great Depression, but there's plenty wrong with that view, says Lee Ohanian, a UCLA economics professor who specializes in economic crisis. "What's wrong with that view is that private-sector job growth did not come back under Roosevelt," says Ohanian, who notes that Americans often forget how long the Great Depression lasted. Unemployment stood at 17 percent in 1939, a decade after the infamous stock market crash, and, although times were much worse back then, Ohanian sees troubling parallels between the Great Depression and the Great Recession. In both instances our nation emerged from a severe downturn with strong productivity growth and the banking system largely restored. We were poised for a recovery, but didn't get one. "So the key puzzle for both today and the 1930s is why aren't private-sector jobs being created at a much more rapid rate?"

Uncertainty may have something to do with it. "Uncertainty is an enemy of job creation," says Ohanian. "Because in a world with a lot of uncertainty there's a tendency to 'wait and see.'" Our nation's job creators wait and see what Washington's next experiment will be.

CEO Joanne Garneau has spent a year waiting for the Federal Trade Commission to announce a new regulation that will determine whether her company hires more employees or even stays in business. It's just one regulation, a tiny one by Washington standards. How will businesses end up being affected by ObamaCare or the 2,300-page financial overhaul? What if taxes go up? Today, like the 1930s, uncertainty reigns.

According to research conducted by Ohanian and fellow UCLA economist Harold L. Cole, FDR's anti-market policies actually prolonged the Great Depression by seven years . And what about Obama's policies? When the unemployment rate finally does improve will he receive credit for rescuing America from the Great Recession or blame for prolonging the crisis?

Approximately 6.40 minutes.

"Where are the Jobs? The Parallels between Today and the Great Depression" is written and produced by Ted Balaker. Field Producers: Paul Detrick and Zach Weissmueller; Production Associate: Sam Corcos.

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Porker of The Month for October 2010: Debbie Wasserman Schultz!

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 14:40:00 EDT

Reason.tv presents Citizen's Against Government Waste’s Porker of the Month for October 2010: Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz!

What do you do when you and your friends in Congress go on a taxpayer funded spending binge, only to see massive unemployment and a floundering economy?

Just say something that sounds good and has zero credibility.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) is CAGW’s October 2010 Porker of the Month for exaggerating the effect of the failed stimulus program, exaggerating jobs numbers, and lying to the American people about the true economic picture.

Congratulations, Debbie!

"Porker of the Month" is written and produced by Austin Bragg. Approximately 1.2 minutes.

For more info on Citizens Against Government Waste and the Porker of The Month, visit cagw.org .

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UPS vs. FEDEX: Ultimate Whiteboard Remix (Original Cut)

Fri, 22 Oct 2010 10:30:00 EDT

Starting with MSNBC, Reason has started airing commercials on cable news channels with the goal of bringing a new audience to Reason.com and Reason magazine

For our first TV spot, we chose a slimmed-down version of our popular and acclaimed 2009 video, "UPS vs. FEDEX (Ultimate Whiteboard Remix)", which was nominated for a digital National Magazine Award and explores the way in which federal labor classifications lead firms to jockey for political favors rather than customer satisfaction.

See the new 60 second version of the Ultimate Whiteboard Remix as seen on MSNBC here.

You may have heard the UPS is in quite the political fight with FEDEX. Though both are package-delivery companies, they're governed by totally different federal labor rules. As a result, UPS's workforce is much more heavily unionized than FEDEX's—and more than twice as expensive.

So now UPS is trying to get FEDEX reclassified under federal law as a way of screwing a competitor. That's horrendous, but it also makes a sick kind of business sense. And it also reveals the real villain: A government that is big enough to absolutely, positively guarantee it can screw any business. Overnight.

"UPS Vs. FEDEX" was produced by Meredith Bragg and Nick Gillespie (who also hosts). Approximately two minutes long.

This video is based on "Using Unions as Weapons," by Mercatus Center economist Veronique de Rugy, which appeared in the October 2009 print edition of Reason. Read that article here .

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Nick Gillespie Explains Free-Market Economics on CNN's Parker Spitzer

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 00:00:00 EDT

Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie appeared on the Political Party segment of CNN's newest talk show, "Parker Spitzer." The panel discussed whether or not politicians are worse now than ever before, whether it's government or markets that cause monopolies and whether or not Gillespie is a "mouthpiece for plutonomy." Air Date: Oct. 11, 2010.

Approximately 10 minutes.

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The Ins and Outs of Hoarding Ferraris: Q&A with Daniel Ben-Ami

Sun, 10 Oct 2010 00:00:00 EDT

Who the hell's against economic progress?

Author Daniel Ben-Ami tackles that question in his new book, Ferraris For All, which looks at how concerns over inequality, the environment, and excessive greed slow economic growth and hurt the poor. A regular contributor to the British online magazine Spiked, Ben-Ami believes these rationales are partially a cover for the real agenda of the super rich: keeping all the wealth (and Ferraris) for themselves.

Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie sat down with Ben-Ami to talk about the repercussions and ulterior motives of growth skepticism.

Approximately six minutes. Shot by Dan Hayes and Meredith Bragg. Edited by Josh Swain.

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Tim Cavanaugh Discusses CA Budget Delays on Fox 11

Fri, 08 Oct 2010 11:00:00 EDT

Tim Cavanaugh, Reason columnist and Hit & Run contributor, talks about the California state budget delays and puts them in historical context. He appeared on FOX 11 Los Angeles. Air date: Oct. 6, 2010 on KTTV.

Approximately 2:46.

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Hollywood Hates Capitalism - Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps Edition

Fri, 24 Sep 2010 08:00:00 EDT

Oliver Stone's uber-villain Gordon Gekko is back in the new film, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, which (surprise!) features greedy capitalists behaving badly. It might remind you of Avatar, Mission Impossible 2 or roughly a zillion other films in which capitalists destroy the environment, concoct killer viruses, harvest organs, and cover up murder in order to feed their lust of profit. Even when capitalism isn't the primary target, the representatives of commerce are often flat-out repulsive (think Jabba the Hutt).

Perhaps it's ironic that Hollywood filmmakers practice what they preach against. Sure he palls around with socialist dictators Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, but there's no doubt Oliver Stone hopes to rake in obscene profits with his new flick.

Approximately 1.35 minutes.

Written and produced by Ted Balaker; Associate Producer: Paul Detrick; Post Production Supervisor: Hawk Jensen

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Related: Killer Chic: Hollywood's Sick Love Affair with Che Guevara

Bracing for ObamaCare: Shirley Svorny on the Economics of Healthcare Regulation

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 03:30:00 EDT

ObamaCare expands coverage to millions of Americans, but, warns Professor Shirley Svorny, without stronger measures to expand the supply of healthcare providers and contain costs, we can expect a physician shortage and soaring premiums.

The California State University, Northridge economist suggests options for lowering costs and dismantling state-level regulations that restrain competition and innovation.

Approximately five minutes.

Interview by Paul Detrick. Shot by Alex Manning and Detrick. Edited by Austin Bragg.

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The Marijuana Policy Tipping Point: A conversation with author Christopher Fichtner, M.D.

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 10:00:00 EDT

Christopher Fichtner is a psychiatrist and the former mental health director for the state of Illinois. In his new book, Cannabinomics: The Marijuana Policy Tipping Point, Fichtner predicts that marijuana policy is about to change radically. As Fichtner points out, three public policy trajectories are converging.

The medical marijuana movement is gaining momentum. People are increasingly waking up to the fact that drug prohibition creates more public health problems than it solves. And, in the same way that the Great Depression caused people to reprioritize how we spend our public dollars, the current economic crisis has got people thinking that bringing the biggest cash crop in the US out into the open might not be such a bad idea.

Reason.tv's Paul Feine sat down with Dr. Fichtner to learn more about the imminent marijuana policy tipping point.

Approximately 10 minutes. Produced by Paul Feine and Alex Manning.

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3 Reasons The New Financial Regs Won't Fix Anything

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 11:20:00 EDT

The financial reform bill currently working its way toward President Barack Obama's desk for signing is being touted as the biggest overhaul of the banking and investment sectors since the Great Depression.

But the new regs won't be any more effective than the ones they replace in fixing anything or preventing the next major panic for at least three reasons.

1. New Watchdog, Old Tricks

They create a new watchdog consumer agency designed to protect consumers from their own supposed stupidity. You'll now be facing fewer choices when it comes to getting credit cards, loans, and doing other basic financial transactions.

2. Never Too Big To Fail

They replace "Too Big to Fail" with... "Too Big to Fail." One of the reasons why major financial institutions played Russian Roulette with the economy was because they were betting they would get bailed out. Which is precisely what happened. The new rules codify the idea that the government will make sure certain institutions can never fail. And if you think the big boys won't game that system, then you don't understand how well Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, et al have come through the current meltdown.

3. Housing Bubble Trouble

The financial crisis was set into motion by government policies that encouraged people to buy homes they couldn't afford at prices that were unsustainable. Between desperate attempts to keep people in houses and to keep interest rates below an effective rate of zero, the government continues to pour more money down the same rathole.

Markets work best when the risk and reward incentives are clear cut. When investors know they really can lose it all, they act responsibly with their money. If regulators think they can create a system that cushions us from bad decisions and doesn't encourage bad behavior, it's a delusion we'll all be paying for for a very long time.

Approximately 2 minutes. Produced by Meredith Bragg and Nick Gillespie, who also hosts.

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Former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker on The Federal Fiscal Crisis

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 14:00:00 EDT

David Walker, president and CEO of the Peter G.Peterson Foundation and former U.S. Comptroller General of the United States, sat down with Reason.tv Editor in Chief Nick Gillespie to discuss the deteriorating financial condition of the federal government and what needs to be done to put the country on a more prudent and sustainable path.

Approximately 10 minutes. Shot by Dan Hayes and Alex Manning. Edited by Josh Swain.

This discussion was part of Reason Weekend, an annual conference held by Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes Reason.tv. This year's event took place in New Orleans from April 15-18 in New Orleans.

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Sweden: A Supermodel for America?

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 17:00:00 EDT

To the American mind there may be nothing more quintessentially Swedish than the leggy, blond supermodel.

But there's another Swedish model that inspires almost as much admiration—the Swedish economic model. With a generous welfare state and high living standards, Sweden seems to prove that socialism works. Much of the hope that swept Barack Obama into the White House rests on the belief that America could reach new heights under a regime of enlightened progressivism, that we could be more like the Swedes.

Not so fast, warns Stockholm University sociologist Charlotta Stern: "If an American told me that the US should be more like Sweden I would say I don't think it's possible." The United States can centralize its health care system and pass other laws that mimic Sweden's welfare state polices, says Stern, but it's impossible to replicate a culture that allows those policies to operate about as smoothly as possible. Swedish bureaucracies inspire trust, but their American counterparts (DMV, TSA, IRS) inspire punch lines, if not outrage.

But America could emulate some of the Swedish policies that don't require extensive bureaucracies. Take school vouchers. Teachers unions in America regard the idea as free-market radicalism, but families in Sweden enjoy universal school choice. Sweden adopted its famously progressive policies during the 1970s, but after years of sluggish economic growth the land of ABBA altered its course in the 1990s, adopting a host of free-market reforms, from deregulation to tax cuts.

Although much of the disco-era welfare state remains, economist Andreas Bergh credits the free market reforms with reviving his nation's economy. "Sweden is moving in the market economic direction," says Bergh, "but that does not mean America should be moving in the socialist direction."

What if the two nations continue on in different directions? Maybe some day when America is looking for a way to rejuvenate its economy, pundits will point to a different kind of Swedish model. One that increases individual choice and competition.

"Sweden—A Supermodel for America?" is produced by Daniel B. Klein, and written and produced by Ted Balaker, who also hosts. Shot by Jonathan Liberman and Henrik Devell, with additional production support by Zach Weissmueller and Sam Corcos and post production by Hawk Jensen and Austin Bragg. Special thanks to Niclas Berggren, Martin Borgs, Nils Karlson, and the Ratio Institute.

Approximately 6.00 long.

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Mr. Carey Goes to Cleveland: Drew Carey and Nick Gillespie talk to the Cleveland City Council about how to save Cleveland

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 01:00:00 EDT

Reason Saves Cleveland with Drew Carey, a Reason.tv original documentary series that proposes viable solutions to some of Cleveland's biggest problems, premiered in March 2010. The release made the front page (twice) of the Cleveland Plain Dealer and ruffled the feathers of at least one local writer.

The film also caught the attention of the Cleveland City Council, who invited Drew and Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie to Cleveland to discuss the ideas raised in the documentary.

This short video is a collection of highlights from Drew and Nick's 2.5 hour conversation with the Cleveland City Council on May 27.

Read a transcript of "The Confrontation" from the October 2010 issue of Reason.

Approximately 10 minutes. Produced, shot and edited by Paul Feine and Alex Manning.

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Read Nick Gillespie's "How to Save Cleveland" and "Ideas for Saving Cleveland" in the June 2010 issue of Reason magazine.

Matt Ridley on His New Book, The Rational Optimist, & Why "Ideas Having Sex" is a Very Great Thing Indeed

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 13:00:00 EDT

Best-selling science writer Matt Ridley's latest book is The Rational Optimist, which explains why the author is upbeat on the prospects of a planet and a civilization that seems to lurch from one pending political, economic, or environmental catastrophe to another.

Doomsayers have it all wrong, writes Ridley, who argues that prosperity and innovation have outraced even the visions of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill.

The phrase diminishing returns is such a cliché that few people give it much thought. Picking out the pecans from a bowl of salted nuts gives diminishing returns: The pieces of pecan in the bowl get rarer and smaller. The fingers keep finding almonds, hazelnuts, cashews, or even—God forbid—Brazil nuts. Gradually the bowl, like a moribund gold mine, ceases to yield decent returns of pecan.
Now imagine a bowl of nuts that has the opposite character. The more pecans you take, the larger and more numerous they grow. That is the human experience for the last 100,000 years. The global nut bowl has yielded ever more pecans.

Reason's own science correspondent Ronald Bailey talked with Ridley recently in Washington, D.C. They discuss Ridley's book, his hopes for the future, and the policies that can improve - or undermine - the prospects for our future.

Past Reason articles by, about, and featuring Matt Ridley.

If you like what you see, then sign up for Reason's first-ever cruise in February 2011, which features Ridley, Bailey, Matt Welch, Nick Gillespie, Jacob Sullum, and other guest speakers for a week of relaxation and conversation. For details go here.

Shot by Dan Hayes and Meredith Bragg, who also edited the segment.

Approximately 10 minutes.

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Joel Kotkin: Why America Will Still Lead the World in 2050

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 12:00:00 EDT

What will America be like in 40 years, after it adds another 100 million people? With so much bipartisan handwringing about everything from illegal immigration to environmental degradation, it seems like many are expecting America to collapse before 2050. Enter urban historian Joel Kotkin, who offers a rare and optimistic take on America's future.

Kotkin is the Distinguished Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and the author of the new book, The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050. Topics include: immigration, suburbia, job creation, why America's demographic trajectory gives it an advantage over its peers.

Interview by Ted Balaker, shot by Paul Detrick and Zach Weissmueller, and edited by Alex Manning.

Approximately 9.35 minutes long.

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How to Save a Dying Ocean

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 04:00:00 EDT

The Gulf of Mexico continues to gush oil just as a whaling controversy threatens to land Australia and Japan in international court for killing protected species. Meanwhile, another less-publicized but arguably more cataclysmic oceanic disaster continues to worsen.

Overfishing threatens to destroy most of the world's fisheries within a matter of decades. But while it's proven difficult to save the gulf or save the whales, we know how to save the fish: Stop treating the ocean like a public bathroom, says Christopher Costello, a professor of natural resource economics at UC Santa Barbara.

Director Louis Psihoyos and his team of filmmakers embarked on an elaborate sting operation to expose Japan's illegal dolphin hunters. The result is a documentary called The Cove, which took home the Oscar for best documentary. And days after the Academy Awards Psihoyos was back stirring things up.

Using the same cameras that were used to expose illegal dolphin hunters, Psihoyos and his team busted The Hump, a Santa Monica, California restaurant that had secretly been serving sushi made from the endangered sei whale.

"Everything in the ocean from the great whales to dolphins to plankton is being jeopardized," Psihoyos tells Reason.tv. "We're raping and harvesting the ocean unsustainably."

Overfishing "could mean the end of certain species," agrees UC-Santa Barbara's Costello. He points out that about a third of the world's fisheries have already collapsed, and many more are heading toward the same fate. Costello says the world's fisheries are in such bad shape because of the same reason public restrooms are typically foul places: "Nobody owns them. Nobody has the incentive to keep them up."

One proven solution is a system called "catch share," in which fishermen have the right to a certain share of the total catch of a type of fish. This form of ownership gives fishermen an incentive to make sure fish populations grow, and according to Costello's worldwide research, it's the only thing that seems to work.

Environmentalists are often suspicious of the profit motive, but from Alaska to New Zealand, market forces have been harnessed not for plunder but for preservation. Fishermen like the system because they make money, and environmentalists like it because it supports sustainable practices. Expanding the catch share system may well be the best way to save a dying ocean.

"How to Save a Dying Ocean" is written and produced by Ted Balaker, who also hosts. The associate producer is Paul Detrick, the cameramen are Hawk Jensen and Alex Manning; Zach Weissmueller also helped to produce the segment. Animation by Hawk Jensen.

Approximately six minutes.

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Adrian Moore on C-SPAN Discussing Economic Instablity of U.S. and Europe

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 00:00:00 EDT

On May 10, 2010, Vice President of Research at Reason Foundation Adrian Moore appeared on C-SPAN's Washington Journal to talk about California and Greece's deficit and economic instablity.

Approximately 44 minutes.

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Is Hillary Clinton Right That The Rich Aren't Paying "Their Fair Share" in Taxes?

Sat, 29 May 2010 20:00:00 EDT

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently said that "the rich are not paying their fair share" of taxes in the United States and other developed countries.

Is she right? It depends on what you consider fair. Using 2006 data, The New York Times found that the richest 20 percent of households were paying 26 percent of their income to the federal government in the form of income, payroll, corporate, and excise taxes. The average for all familes? 21 percent.

And there's this: "In 2006, the top quintile of households earned 55.7 percent of pretax income and paid 69.3 percent of federal taxes, while the top 1 percent of households earned 18.8 percent of income and paid 28.3 percent of taxes."

Paying in a lot more than you get out? That doesn't seem fair.

The rich are different than you and me; they've got more money. And they pay more taxes.

Politicians are different too--they rarely say what they really mean. Perhaps what Secretary Clinton means is that the rich can always pay more than they're already paying.

That would explain why she and the president are lobbying to let the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of the year, a policy that would raise all sorts of taxes on all sorts of people.

Which doesn't sound all that fair either.

Produced by Meredith Bragg and Nick Gillespie.

Go here for documentation and graphs.

A Delicious Free Enterprise Video Contest Entry

Tue, 25 May 2010 03:00:00 EDT

"A Delicious Free Enterprise Contest Entry," directed by Reason.tv's Meredith Bragg, is a finalists for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's "I Am Free Enterprise" video contest. The winner of the $50,000 grand prize will be determined through online voting. You can vote and view the other finalists here every day until June 2nd.

Be sure to check out Tracy Foster's entry , which Reason.tv producer Dan Hayes helped craft.

Directed by Reason.tv producer Meredith Bragg. Featuring Jill Erber of Cheesetique , Rhoda Worku of Caboose Cafe and Bakery, and Steve Gatward of Let's Meat on the Avenue . Shot in Delray, Alexandria VA. Approx. 1:50.

Sweden's March Towards Capitalism

Wed, 12 May 2010 06:28:00 EDT

In The Capitalist Welfare State, Lund University economist Andreas Bergh explains how Sweden has managed to increase economic productivity despite its large public sector.

Bergh says that despite popular mythology, Sweden is not a socialist success story but instead owes its economic growth to the lowered tax rates and deregulation of the early 1990s, which allowed innovation and investment to flourish. Bergh also discusses how Sweden's national voucher program revitalized the country's educational system and warns that Americans who are hoping to emulate Swedish success by growing the public sector are learning the wrong lessons from Sweden.

Produced by Ted Balaker and Daniel B. Klein; filmed by Jonathan Liberman and Henrik Devell; edited by Zach Weissmueller; with special thanks to Niclas Berggren, Martin Borgs, Nils Karlson, and the Ratio Institute .

Approximately 10 minutes long.

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Adrian Moore Discusses Greece and California's Budget Woes on Fox Business' Varney & Co.

Tue, 11 May 2010 16:00:00 EDT

Adrian Moore, vice president of research at the Reason Foundation, discusses the economic collapse in Greece and how it may be similar to the deficit problems in California with Varney & Co. on the Fox Business Network on May 5, 2010.

Approximately 4 minutes.

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How The Hell Did GM Pay Back Its Bailout "in Full And Ahead of Schedule"? Well, It Didn't...

Mon, 03 May 2010 07:00:00 EDT

General Motors CEO Ed Whitacre has bragged in TV commercials and newspaper columns that GM has paid back its bailout "in full and ahead of schedule."

As with the Pontiac Aztek, an ugly exterior masks an ever darker problem: Whitacre is being fanciful to the point of deceit. GM received $50 billion in TARP funds (never mind that TARP was only supposed to cover financial institutions). About $7 billion of that came in the form of a straight-up, low-interest loan. And about $13 billion came in the form of an escrow account.

So how has GM, which lost $38 billion in 2007 even as it sold 9.4 million cars, paid back its debt? It took money from the escrow account to pay back the $6.7 billion loan.

Do you remember when you were a kid and your parents gave you $20 to buy them a Christmas present? You bought them something worth $3 and pocketed the rest? That's what GM has just done.

Oh, and do you remember when you hit your parents up for college? GM has applied for a $10 billion, low-interest loan from the government to modernize its plants so its cars will meet new federal mileage standards.

If you think all this constitutes paying back their debt in full and ahead of schedule, you might want to check out the new line of GM cars. And hope that the company's safety engineers are better at math than their CEO.

Anthony Randazzo on RT's The Alyona Show Discusses Greek Debt

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 10:00:00 EDT

The Reason Foundation's Director of Economic Research Anthony Randazzo discusses the Greek debt crisis and the similarities to the situation in California, on Russia Today's "The Alyona Show" on March 9, 2010.

Approximately 7.32 minutes.

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Matt Welch Discusses Bailouts on Fox Business Network

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 20:00:00 EDT

On April 22, 2010, Reason Editor in Chief Matt Welch, appeared on Fox Business' Bulls and Bears to discuss President Obama's new financial regulations and its effects on bailouts.

Approximately 4.15 minutes.

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Anthony Randazzo Discusses Potential FED Appointees on RT's Alyona Show

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 15:00:00 EDT

The Reason Foundation's Director of Economic Research Anthony Randazzo discusses the difficult choices President Obama will make filling three empty seats in the Federal Reserve on Russia Today's "The Alyona Show" on March 3, 2010.

Approximately 6 minutes.

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And watch Reason Saves Cleveland With Drew Carey: How to fix the "Mistake on The Lake" and other once-great American cities, an original six-part documentary series.

Taxes: The Price We Pay For Civilization

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 06:30:00 EDT

"Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society," said legendary Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

As students of Buck v. Bell could tell you, Holmes had a habit of being monstrously wrong, but if he's right about taxes and civilization, it's certainly worth asking whether we're getting what we pay for.

Approximately 1.06 minutes. Written and produced by Meredith Bragg and Nick Gillespie.

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To watch on YouTube, go here.

Obama and Free Trade: Q&A With Jagdish Bhagwati

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 09:00:00 EDT

Free trade is never more necessary—or vulnerable—than in times of economic distress. The current global downturn is no exception. Protectionist barriers have shot up all over the world, including the United States. Earlier this year, Congress killed a pilot program allowing Mexican trucks to transport goods across America and included “Buy America” provisions in the stimulus bill banning foreign steel and iron from infrastructure projects funded by the legislation. More disturbingly, President Barack Obama, after chiding Congress for flirting with protectionism, initiated his own ill-advised affair by imposing a 35 percent tariff on cheap Chinese tires.

If the world manages to avoid an all-out trade war of the kind that helped trigger the Great Depression after the U.S. imposed the Smoot-Hawley tariffs in 1930, it will be in no small part due to the efforts of one man: Jagdish N. Bhagwati, an ebullient and irreverent 76-year-old professor of economics at Columbia University. Bhagwati has done more than perhaps any other person alive to advance the cause of unfettered global trade.

A native of India, Bhagwati immigrated to the United States in the late ’60s after a brief stint on the Indian Planning Commission, where he learned first-hand the insanity of an economic approach that tried to modernize a country by cutting it off from world trade. Since then, he has devoted his efforts, both in academia and in the popular press, to showing that there is no better way of improving the lot of both advanced countries and the developing world than through free trade. His path-breaking contributions to trade theory have put him on the short list for a Nobel Prize in economics.

Though a dogged trade advocate, Bhagwati is anything but dogmatic. He is a free spirit who draws intellectual inspiration from many disparate ideological camps. A self-avowed liberal, he is also something of a Gandhian social progressive, though Gandhi himself supported economic autarky. Bhagwati works with numerous Third World NGOs on a host of human rights issues. Yet he has no problem taking on these groups—or his famous student, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman—when they question the benefits of trade. In fact, he devoted his 2004 magnum opus, In Defense of Globalization, to a point-by-point rebuttal of these critics. Although he doesn’t vote Republican because he dislikes the party’s nationalistic jingoism, he readily declares that Democrats pose a far bigger threat to international exchange than Republicans.

Last summer, Shikha Dalmia, a senior analyst at the Reason Foundation, interviewed Bhagwati in his New York office. For a transcript of that interview, go here.

This video interview was filmed on the same day and conducted by Dalmia, Reason Associate Editor Damon W. Root, and Reason.tv's Dan Hayes, who shot and edited the video. Approximately 6 minutes.

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Anthony Randazzo Discusses 2009's Economy and Beyond on RT's Alyona Show

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 07:00:00 EDT

On December 29, 2009, The Reason Foundation's Director of Economic Research Anthony Randazzo appears on Russia Today's Alyona Show to review the economy of 2009 and discuss the future economy of 2010.

Approximately 5.45 minutes.

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3 Reasons Why Public Sector Employees Are Killing the Economy

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 07:00:00 EDT

As unemployment stubbornly sticks near 10 percent and any sort of economic recovery seems a long way off, think about this: The one part of the economy that's going gangbusters is government work.

Indeed, since the Great Recession started in December 2007, over 8 million jobs have been lost in the private sector while the public sector has added at least 100,000 positions. It's time to recognize that public-sector employment is killing the economy for at least three reasons:

1. They cost too much. As USA Today recently noted, federal employees make on average almost $8,000 more than their private-sector counterparts. When you add in benefits, the gap spreads to about $30,000. State and local government workers make around the same as private-sector counterparts, but their health and retirement packages mean they make significantly more in the end.

2. We can't fire them. The private sector has shed positions in response to slackening demand and the economic downturn. That sort of adjustment is painful but necessary, as it allows the economy to adjust to changing circumstances and workers and employers to move into new activities. Because it is guaranteed certain amounts of tax revenue and has a non-market mind-set, the public sector is largely insulated from such forces and keeps or even adds workers despite changed conditions. The result? We keep paying for things that we don't use, need, or want.

3. They create a permanent lobby for expanded government and higher taxes. Look at California, where teacher unions have spent over $211 million dollars on elections in the past decade. One result is that 40 percent of California's budget must be spent on education, regardless of the number and needs of students. Over the last 10 years, taxpayer contributions to public-sector pension funds has increased by 2000 percent! Such sort of tax-based gladhanding is just getting started. For the first time in history, the number of public-sector union employees is greater than those in the private sector, so expect to see even more lobbying for the sorts of mandatory raises and permanent job security that most of us can only dream of.

Because the public sector gets its pay and benefits from tax dollars and public debt, every thing it gets means there's less for the rest of us to save, invest, or pay workers with. With the federal government and most states already neck-deep in red ink, it's time to cut public-sector pay and payrolls and return more money to the private sector. That will help spur the sort of investment and innovation that will get the economy moving and end the recession far faster than paying more and more money to government workers.

"3 Reasons Public-Sector Employees Are Killing The Economy" is produced by Meredith Bragg and Nick Gillespie, who also hosts. Approximately 3 minutes. Scroll down for iPod, HD, and audio versions.

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Adrian Moore Discusses California's Budget Woes on Varney & Co.

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 19:00:00 EDT

On March 19, 2010, Reason's Adrian Moore discussed California's budget problems on Fox Business' Varney & Co.

Approximately 3 minutes.

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Why The Stimulus Isn't Working

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 06:30:00 EDT

It's been a year since Congress passed a stimulus bill that will eventually dole out $787 billion in taxpayer money to lucky recipients across the country.

In California, stimulus money has been used to pay the salaries of cops, provide rental assistance to residents of Santa Monica, and subsidize homeowners who weatherize their homes. Were those good investments?

The University of California at Irvine was awarded $42 million in stimulus money to fund different research projects and, in one case, $2 million to "stimulate student interest in mathematics and computer science." Was that a good use of scarce public dollars?

To learn more, Reason.tv's Paul Feine spoke with UC-Irvine economist Richard McKenzie who, a year ago, predicted that the stimulus package wouldn't work.

McKenzie is the author of Why Popcorn Costs So Much at the Movies: And other Pricing Puzzles.

Shot by Paul Feine and Alex Manning; edited by Paul Feine.

Approximately 7.30 minutes.

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And check out Reason Saves Cleveland With Drew Carey: How to fix the "Mistake on The Lake" and other once-great American cities, an original six-part documentary series.

Bring Back The People: Reason Saves Cleveland With Drew Carey, Episode 6

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 06:00:00 EDT

No city can exist without people, and Cleveland has lost more than half its population since the 1950s. Yet the city still boasts amazingly affordable neighborhoods, down-to-earth charm, a rich history, a stunning and varied landscape, and diverse ethnic and cultural scenes. How can Cleveland become a destination where people flock to pursue their personal versions of the American Dream?

Reason Saves Cleveland with Drew Carey is written and produced by Paul Feine; camera and editing by Roger Richards and Alex Manning; narrated by Nick Gillespie; music by the Cleveland band Cats on Holiday. This is the sixth of six episodes which will air March 15-19, 2010.

Approximately 10 minutes long. Scroll down for iPod, HD, and audio versions of this video.

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The Decline of a Once-Great City: Reason Saves Cleveland With Drew Carey, Episode 1

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 07:00:00 EDT

Sixty years ago, Cleveland was a booming city full of promise, opportunity, and people. Today, the city’s population is less half of what it was in its prime and it ranks as one of the poorest big cities in the United States. Hometown hero Drew Carey reflects on how the city became “the mistake on the lake” and wonders about the city’s future. Is a Cleveland renaissance possible or is the city doomed to long, slow death?

Reason Saves Cleveland with Drew Carey is written and produced by Paul Feine; camera and editing by Roger Richards and Alex Manning; narrated by Nick Gillespie; music by the Cleveland band Cats on Holiday. This is the first of six episodes that will air between March 15-19, 2010.

The next episode, Fix the Schools, will go live at noon ET today.

Approximately 5 minutes long. Scroll down for iPod, HD, and audio versions of this video.

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Jacob Sullum, Virginia Postrel, & Nick Gillespie on Fox Business' Stossel

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:00:00 EST

On March 4, 2010, Jacob Sullum , Nick Gillespie and Virginia Postrel appeared on a special episode of Fox Business Network's Stossel devoted to prohibition to discuss drug laws, ridiculous media scare stories, and legalizing markets in human organs.

Approximately 30 minutes.

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Anthony Randazzo Discusses Banking Reform and Regulation on Al Jazeera

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 06:59:00 EST

The Reason Foundation's Director of Economic Research Anthony Randazzo joins a panel to discuss whether banking reform will avert another crisis on Al Jazeera on December 15, 2009.

Approximately 20 minutes.

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Tim Cavanaugh Talks Greece's Financial Troubles on Fox Business' Cavuto

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 07:27:00 EST

On March 9, 2010, Reason's Tim Cavanaugh discussed Greece's financial problems on Fox Business' Cavuto.

Approximately 5 minutes.

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Adrian Moore on Fox Business Channel Talking State Pensions

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:00:00 EST

On March 3, 2010, Adrian Moore , vice president of research at Reason Foundation , appeared on Fox Business with Stuart Varney to comment on California's prison guard pensions and the large issue of the Golden State's buget shortfalls.

Approximately 3.40 minutes.

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Matt Welch Discusses Financial Regulation on CNBC's Power Lunch

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EST

On March 1, 2010 R eason Editor in Chief, Matt Welch , appeared on CNBC's Power Lunch to discuss the Securities and Exchange Commission and whether financial regulation actually works.

Approximately 9 minutes.

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Nick Gillespie Discusses 'Reason Saves Cleveland' on Russia Today

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:00:00 EST

On February 23, 2009, Reason.tv 's Nick Gillespie appeared on Russia Today's The Alyona Show to discuss the upcoming series, Reason Saves Cleveland.

Approximately 8 and a half minutes.

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Anthony Randazzo Discusses the Greek Debt Crisis on RT

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:00:00 EST

The Reason Foundation's Director of Economic Research Anthony Randazzo discusses the Greek debt crisis and what it means for the E.U. and U.S. on Russia Today's Alyona Show, February 11, 2010.

Approximately 7 minutes.

Obama's Doublethink Doubletalk (State of the Union Remix)

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 09:00:00 EST

George Orwell defined doublethink as "the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

When it comes to war, spending, and more, President Barack Obama's 2010 State of the Union address showed that doublethink is alive and well in Washington, D.C.

Approximately two minutes. Written and produced by Paul Feine.

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Obama's Surprising Jobs Program Success

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:00:00 EST

During his first State of the Union address President Obama highlighted the jobs created during his first year in office. And it is clear that the president's policies are putting Americans back to work--especially bankruptcy attorneys, repo men, and government workers.

Written and produced by Ted Balaker. Director of Photography: Alex Manning; Associate Producer: Paul Detrick.

Approximately 40 seconds.

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Virginia is for (Liquor) Lovers!

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 12:00:00 EST

Bob McDonnell is a self-professed pinot grigio and white zinfandel drinker.

He's also the new Republican governor of Virginia and is taking aim at the commonwealth's oppressive and inefficient state-owned liquor monopoly. More than a dozen states still completely control the sales and distribution of all distilled spirits.

The result? Higher payrolls for state governments (state-workers are public-sector employees after all) and rotten selection and service for customers (state-sanctioned monopolies tend to diminish the shopping experience).

Despite a reputation as a social conservative, McDonnell thinks that state-run liquor stores are a bad idea from both pragmatic and philosophical perspectives. Given budget crises, says McDonnell, "we can't just do things the same old way.... Certainly there's nothing I gleaned from the [Virginia] constitution that would have me think it's better or required to have the government controlling distilled spirits."

States such as West Virginia and Iowa have gained millions of dollars in new tax and license revenues by privatizing liquor sales, says Reason Foundation policy analyst Len Gilroy. And they've also cut government expenditures by millions of dollars as well.

Will Virginia join them? McDonnell invited Reason.tv to come back in a year and check in with him. Sure thing, Mr. Governor. We'll bring the questions. You can bring the white zinfandel.

Approximately 4.30 minutes. Written and produced by Meredith Bragg and Nick Gillespie, who also hosts. Additional footage: Dan Hayes.

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Anthony Randazzo on The Alyona Show on Russia Today - 01/07/10

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:00:00 EST

Reason Foundation Policy Analyst Anthony Randazzo talks about the problems the economy will face this year and offers some predictions for 2010. He appeared on Russia Today's "The Alyona Show" on January 7, 2010.

Timothy P. Carney Analyzes "Obamanomics"

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 11:23:00 EST

In his new book Obamanomics: How Barack Obama is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses, Timothy P. Carney explains that Barack Obama's "progressive" rhetoric masks good old-fashioned crony capitalism, in which the favored few and politcally well-connected get all sorts of benefits paid for with public dollars. Whether the area is Wall Street, health care reform, union organizing, or K Street lobbying, the same pattern is everywhere: using the government's power to distribute goodies and rig markets.

A columnist at the Washington Examiner and a non-partisan reporter, Carney also lays into the Republican Party for its massive contribution to the problem when it wielded power. Carney provides a game plan to take the country back and restore truly free markets that will benefit everyone.

Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie interviewed Carney in December 2009. Shot by Dan Hayes and Meredith Bragg; edited by Bragg.

Scroll down for embed code and downloadable versions. You can watch this video at Reason.tv's YouTube Channel (subscribe now). Approximately 9 minutes.

Be Happy!: Why this is the best holiday season ever.

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:00:00 EST

We're going through some tough economic times right now, but this holiday season, take a moment to appreciate how good we really have it.

Need proof? Just think about how much Christmas presents sucked in the 1970s compared to today.

Thanks to our market-based system, we're wealthier, we have more choices, and we enjoy more leisure time than ever before.

From all of us at Reason.tv, happy holidays!

Produced by Paul Feine and Hawk Jensen. Hosted by Nick Gillespie.

Approximately 1.45 minutes.

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From Poverty to Prosperity: Arnold Kling, Nick Schulz, and Economics 2.0

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 00:00:00 EST

Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie talks with economist Arnold Kling and journalist Nick Schulz about their new book, From Poverty to Prosperity (Encounter), which charts the fantastic increase in overall wealth despite recent economic troubles.

Taking a longer view that stretches back decades and even centuries, Kling and Schulz argue that we've entered the era of Economics 2.0, in which the key issue is innovation, transformation, and growth, not the divvying up of existing goods and services.

Schulz, the editor of the The American, and Kling, author also of the new Unchecked and Unbalanced, worry about a politics that is dangerously out of synch with the way the economy actually works.

Approximately 10 minutes. Shot by Dan Hayes and Meredith Bragg; edited by Bragg.

Watch this video at Reason.tv's YouTube channel.

Nick Gillespie on Fox News' Freedom Watch With Judge Andrew Napolitano, Dec. 9, 2009

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:00:00 EST

On December 9, Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie appeared on Fox News' Freedom Watch with Judge Andrew Napolitano to discuss auditing the Federal Reserve, health care reform, and the role of small-government libertarians in the Republican Party. Also appearing: Investment analyst and Senate candidate Peter Schiff.

This video is also available at Reason.tv's YouTube channel.

Nick Gillespie on Fox's Freedom Watch, November 17, 2009

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 10:01:00 EST

Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie appeared on Fox News' Freedom Watch With Judge Andrew Napolitano to discuss the legality and efficacy of the federal government's bailout of General Motors.

Original airdate: November 17, 2009.

Watch this at Reason.tv's YouTube site by going here.

Anthony Randazzo on Russia Today December 3, 2009

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 07:00:00 EST

Reason Foundation policy analyst Anthony Randazzo discusses President Barack Obama's "Jobs Summit" and plans to combat unemployment on Russia Today.

Original airdate: December 3, 2009. To watch this video at Reason.tv's YouTube channel, go here.

How to Fix Health Care

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 07:00:00 EST

Make no mistake about it. Health care reform is coming. But what's the best way to fix our health care system, which is an inefficient, complicated mess of private actors, third-party payers, public subsidies, and innumerable state and federal regulations? Should we place our faith in the government or in the free market?

ObamaCare supporters argue that the answer lies in more government—more subsidies, more regulations, a law mandating individuals buy health-insurance coverage and, of course, more taxes to pay for it all.

The alternative is to base reforms on what works in the other five-sixths of the U.S. economy, where choice and competition increase quality and drive down prices over time.

Can a market-based health care system work? We can begin to answer this question by looking at Lasik, a medical procedure that's not covered by health insurance. And has gotten better—and cheaper—over time.

"How to Fix Health Care" proposes three simple reforms that will put us on a path to a health-care system that's better, more affordable, and more accessible. And get this—these market-based reforms can be implemented without creating new government programs or raising taxes.

Approximately 8.30 minutes. Produced by Paul Feine and Meredith Bragg. Hosted by Nick Gillespie.

For downloadable versions of this video, scroll down. To watch this video at Reason.tv's YouTube channel, go here.

Nathaniel Branden on "My Years With Ayn Rand"

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:00:00 EST

Throughout Ayn Rand's career, no collaborator was closer to her than Nathaniel Branden, whom she once named her "intellectual heir." In Rand, Branden found a fearless advocate of individualism and of man as a heroic being. In Branden, Rand saw her vision come to life in flesh and blood. "She gave people a sense that they could be effective. That if they would persevere, stick by their standards, work hard, you could achieve something you can be proud of. Find that part in you—she would say ‘the hero in your own soul'—and work towards that," says Branden.

After a decade at the center of Rand's inner circle, Branden founded the Nathaniel Branden Institute with the goal of promoting her philosophy. The Institute was largely responsible for the spread of Rand's ideas during the 1960s, but came to an abrupt end when romantic conflict between Branden and Rand tore apart their professional association.

Despite the official and unreconciled split between the two, the 79-year-old Branden has remained true to the spirit of Rand's work during his prolific career as a psychologist of self-esteem. To this day, their legacies remain inseparable and in 2000, Branden authored My Years with Ayn Rand, his second memoir of his relationship to the author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.

Approximately 10 minutes. Nathaniel Branden was interviewed by David Nott, filmed by Alex Manning, and edited by Hawk Jensen and Alex Manning.

This video is part of the Reason.tv series Radicals For Capitalism: Celebrating the Ideas of Ayn Rand. Go here for more information, other videos, and related materials.

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Barbara Branden on The Passion of Ayn Rand

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 07:00:00 EST

Arguably, no two people were closer to Ayn Rand than Barbara and Nathaniel Branden, whom Rand once named as her "intellectual heir." Indeed, when the Brandens married in 1953, the author served as bridesmaid (Rand had also urged the pair to wed).

A decade later, the Brandens would collaborate on the first biography of Rand, Who Is Ayn Rand? In 1986, Barbara published a second biography, The Passion of Ayn Rand, which eventually was made into an award-winning Showtime movie starring Helen Mirren.

Despite the ruinous and controversial romantic affair between Rand and Nathaniel Branden, and her eventual ouster from Rand's inner circle, Barbara still feels fondly for the author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. As Branden, now 80, recalls in this Reason.tv interview, "I felt like she's answering questions that I've been looking for answers for, and nobody's been giving me any sort of answer until now."

Approximately seven minutes. Interview by Seth Goldin, camera by Alex Manning, and editing by Hawk Jensen.

This is part of the Reason.tv series Radicals For Capitalism: Celebrating the Ideas of Ayn Rand. Go here for more information, other videos, and related materials or scroll down for embed code and downloadable versions.

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Life, Liberty & Viticulture: Bryan Babcock on winemaking, Patrick Henry, & Ayn Rand

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:00:00 EST

Bryan Babcock is a cutting-edge winemaker named by the Los Angeles Times as one of the "Ten Best Winemakers of the Year" and voted "Most Courageous Winemaker of the Year." Part of his bold and daring reputation stems from his outspoken embrace of liberty and the ideas put forth by Ayn Rand.

"I don't walk around thinking about Ayn Rand, John Galt, or Atlas Shrugged every second of the day, thinking about how I can make this [vineyard] be like Galt's Gulch. But if it was Galt's Gulch, the government would not be permitted to take one step on the property," says Babcock. "John Galt is the guy in fiction that Patrick Henry [was in] real life....And the world needs a few of those. The world needs an Atlas to hold up the globe. The world needs a John Galt or a Patrick Henry to say, 'Freedom is a good thing, man needs freedom, we've got to be free.'"

Approximately 10 minutes. Babcock was interviewed by David Nott. The segment was filmed and edited by Alex Manning. Production assistants were Seth Goldin and Ryan Seals.

This video is part of the Reason.tv series Radicals For Capitalism: Celebrating the Ideas of Ayn Rand. Go here for more information, other videos, and related materials. Scroll down for embed code and downloadable versions.

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Goddess of the Market Author Jennifer Burns on Ayn Rand

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:00:00 EST

Reason Senior Editor Katherine Mangu-Ward recently sat down with Jennifer Burns, an assistant professor of history at the University of Virginia and author of the new book Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right.

Shot and edited by Meredith Bragg.

This is part of the Reason.tv series Radicals For Capitalism: Celebrating the Ideas of Ayn Rand.

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Reason Foundation Co-Founder Tibor Machan on Ayn Rand

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:00:00 EST

Tibor Machan was one of the founding partners in Reason Enterprises, which began publishing Reason magazine in 1971, three years after its creation. He became editor in the spring of 1971 and worked with the magazine through the '70s and '80s as an associate editor and senior editor. In 1978 he co-founded the Reason Foundation with Manny Klausner and Bob Poole. Today Machan holds the R. C. Hoiles Chair of Business Ethics and Free Enterprise at the Argyros School of Business & Economics at Chapman University in Orange, California.

"I think that for Ayn Rand to have survived and made a life for herself, she almost needed that edgy personality, otherwise she would have been destroyed," says Machan, who was born in Hungary in 1939. At 14 years of age, his father smuggled Machan out of the country, fearing the Hungarian communist government. His background helps give Machan insight into how the intellectual mind of Ayn Rand functioned. "Her unpleasantness," he says, "ultimately can be fully justified given the treatment she was given when she came out the Soviet Union, told the truth about that country, and nobody paid attention." In 2000, Machan wrote Ayn Rand exploring all the major themes of Ayn Rand's philosophical thought.

Approximately six minutes. Interview by David Nott, camera by Alex Manning, and editing by Hawk Jensen.

Reason Foundation Co-Founder Manny Klausner on Ayn Rand

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:49:00 EST

Manuel "Manny" Klausner was one of the founding partners in Reason Enterprises, which began publishing Reason magazine in 1971, three years after the publication's creation. He became editor in the summer of 1972 and a senior editor in June 1978. In 1978 he co-founded the Reason Foundation with Tibor Machan and Bob Poole. He remains on the board of the Reason Foundation today, is a stalwart supporter of the Federalist Society, and a libertarian lawyer extraordinaire.

"Rand is, I think, a very valuable resource in the movement for people who take liberty seriously," says Klausner. "When I was editor of Reason in the early 1970s, we got an article that was submitted that proposed a method for converting the world to libertarianism, and that was by going door-to-door and distributing to every household a copy of Atlas Shrugged. We rejected the article...but it was an example of the kind of impact Rand has had and continues to have on many many people."

Approximately six minutes. Interview by David Nott, camera by Alex Manning, and editing by Hawk Jensen.

This interview is part of the Reason.tv series Radicals For Capitalism: Celebrating the Ideas of Ayn Rand. Go here for more information, other videos, and related materials. Scroll down for embed code and downloadable versions.

Reason Foundation Co-Founder Bob Poole on Ayn Rand

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:00:00 EST

Robert W. Poole Jr. was one of the founders of Reason Enterprises, which began publishing Reason with its January 1971 issue (the magazine had started in 1968, under the direction of Lanny Friedlander). He co-founded the Reason Foundation in 1978 with Manny Klausner and Tibor Machan and has held many titles with the magazine, including editor, managing editor, executive editor, editor-in-chief, and publisher. He remains on the board of the Reason Foundation today and is the Searle Freedom Trust Transportation Fellow and Director of Transportation Policy.

"Rand really inspired a lot of people who otherwise might have become conservatives, like me," says Poole. "If you go back and look at surveys that were done of libertarians in the 1960s, '70s, and even the '80s, and asked what single book or thought leader most inspired you to become a libertarian, it was always Rand by a large large majority—always a plurality and usually a majority."

Approximately six minutes. Interview by Michael C. Moynihan, camera by Dan Hayes, and editing by Hawk Jensen.

This is part of the Reason.tv series Radicals For Capitalism: Celebrating the Ideas of Ayn Rand.

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Budget Deficits For Dummies: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love $1.4 Trillion

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:00:00 EDT

The U.S. budget deficit for fiscal year 2009, which ended in September, was a record-shattering $1.4 trillion, equal to about 10 percent of Gross Domestic Product. In case you're wondering, the previous record had been set in...2008.

$1.4 trillion dollars is a lot of money and it's hard to get your mind around that figure. One way to appreciate the sum is to think of it in terms of all the things that you could buy with that dough. The budget deficit, for instance, would pay for more than 1.2 billion nights at Rep. Charles Rangel's vacation condo in the Dominican Republic. And that's just for starters.

Don't worry if you have trouble doing the math, because you'll get another chance next year. The Obama administration has just released its estimate for the fiscal year 2010 budget deficit. The number? Another $1.4 trillion.

Approximately 1.30 seconds. Written and produced by Meredith Bragg and Nick Gillespie.

Natural Food Fight: Whole Foods and Health Care

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:12:00 EDT

In August, Whole Foods CEO John Mackey argued in the pages of the Wall Street Journal that the solution to America's health care crisis was to be found in "less government control and more individual empowerment." His own company's unique health care plan, Mackey wrote, covers 90 percent of employees, costs less than health insurance plans, aned provides a "very high degree of worker satisfaction." But for the sin of not supporting a government take over of health care, labor unions and left-wing activists called for a boycott of Whole Foods, claiming that Mackey's solutions were unworkable and his employees were unhappy.

Reason.tv talked to protesters, Mackey, and employees about "the Whole Foods alternative to ObamaCare."

Produced by Michael C. Moynihan and Dan Hayes. Edited by Dan Hayes. Approximately 5 minutes. (Full disclosure: Mackey has contributed to Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes this website.)

Realizing Freedom

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 10:00:00 EDT

Last month, Reason senior editor Michael C. Moynihan talked with Tom G. Palmer, senior fellow at the Cato Institute and vice president of international relations at the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, about his latest book Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice, why we are living in the freest time in human history, and the necessity of libertarian compromise.

Approximately 10 minutes. Shot by Meredith Bragg and Dan Hayes. Edited by Dan Hayes.

A Mystery in Which Everyone is Guilty

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 11:00:00 EDT

A loose monetary policy that created lots of cheap money, government interventions into the housing market, and the hubris of Wall Street firms deemed "too big to fail" combined to send the world economy into a tailspin, argues Swedish author Johan Norberg.

Reason senior editor Michael C. Moynihan sat down with author Norberg to discuss his latest book Financial Fiasco: How America's Infatuation with Homeownership and Easy Money Created the Economic Crisis, an overview of what caused the current financial crisis (and what did not) and how politicians of all parties and all ideologies helped make the problem much worse.

Approximately 10 minutes. Shot by Meredith Bragg and Dan Hayes. Edited by Dan Hayes.

LP Chairman William Redpath Tells All

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 10:00:00 EDT

At July's FreedomFest in Las Vegas, Reason magazine Editor in Chief Matt Welch sat down with the chairman of the Libertarian Party William Redpath to discuss what went right (and wrong) in the LP's 2008 electoral season, how the government's response to economic tumult is shaping policy, and the hopes for a freer, more individualistic society.

"Some people say, 'Don't you get kind of depressed sometimes,'" jokes Redpath, "and I say, "We'll have a libertarian society someday, when it's imposed on us by the Chinese government....Ultimately, if our politicians don't have the cojones to step up and make the tough decisions they need to make, our foreign creditors are going to make them for us."

Approximately 10 minutes. Shot and edited by Dan Hayes.

Live From The September 12 Taxpayer March on Washington

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 11:00:00 EDT

Are the Tea Party protesters a small group of radical freakazoids or a large crew of taxpaying regular joes who are fed up with government spending, Democrats and Republicans, and business as usual?

Reason.tv fanned out through the crowd and the backstage of the September 12 Taxpayer March on Washington, the controversial anti-government protest that drew somewhere between 75,000 and 1 million people, according to press reports.

We talked with folks from all over the country and snagged interviews with speakers and media including Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), CNN's Jeff Greenfield, actor Steven Baldwin, Freedom Works' Matt Kibbe, and many more.

What we found was a group of people united in their calls for less government spending and their disgust at the Republican and Democratic pols who made it all happen.

Interviews by Nick Gillespie, Matt Welch, and Michael C. Moynihan. Shot and edited by Dan Hayes and Meredith Bragg. Approximately 6 minutes.

For more Reason coverage of the protest, go to Reason.com.

The Flaw of Averages

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 08:00:00 EDT

Have you heard the one about the river-crossing statistician who drowns after determining that the water is, on average, only three feet deep? This, says author Sam L. Savage, is just one example of the flaw of averages.

But don't despair, Savage writes in The Flaw of Averages: Why We Underestimate Risk in the Face of Uncertainty. There are sensible ways to make judgments involving uncertainty and risk. Reason senior editor Michael C. Moynihan met up with Savage to discuss the "seven deadly sins" of averages and how a greater understanding of these flaws could prevent future financial meltdowns.

Approximately 4:30. Shot by Dan Hayes and edited by Meredith Bragg.

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Reason.tv on Health Care: Get Some!

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 06:00:00 EDT

As President Barack Obama "aims to take control of health care debate" via his big speech last night, ponder these offerings on the subject from Reason.tv. As the public option goes under the knife and polls keep plummeting, these are nothing less than essential viewing.

How to Fix America's Health Insurance Crisis: Get Some!

What if Government Ran Health Care?

Would ObamaCare Cover Sticker-Shock Treatment?

Obama to Citizens on Health Care: Send in All Fishy Emails!

Reason mag on health care.

Neuroeconomist Paul Zak on Markets and the "Molecule of Love"

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 10:00:00 EDT

"Markets are pro-social. Markets are about serving the needs of another—that is innately virtuous," says Paul J. Zak, professor of Economics at Claremont Graduate University.

Zak is the founding Director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies at Claremont and is credited with the first published use of the term neuroeconomics, a new discipline that integrates neuroscience and economics. He describes neuroeconomics as the "brain basis for decision-making" or simply put, "It's really about why people make bad decisions regarding money."

In 2004, Zak's lab discovered that the chemnical oxytocin (best known for inducing labor in women and giving us that warm fuzzy feeling when we hug someone) allows us to determine whom to trust in situations that require exchange. That's the same trust that makes trade possible and underpins modern civilizations and economies.

Zak discusses his oxytocin argument, presented in Moral Markets: The Critical Role of Values in the Economy and why even the most untrustworthy among us leads to a healthy and moral marketplace.

Approximately 10 minutes long. Produced by Hawk Jensen with Alex Manning as director of photography.

Scroll down for embed code and downloadable versions. If you have trouble embedding, check out the version posted at Reason.tv's YouTube channel (subscribe today!).

Too Big To Fail 2.0: This Time It's Personal Finance. And Just About Everything Else.

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:00:00 EDT

As the one-year anniversary of TARP chugs into view, Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie sat down with Reason Foundation policy analyst Anthony Randazzo to look at the next round of comprehensive financial regulations being crafted in Washington, D.C.

The short version? Get ready for government oversight of just about every burp, hiccup, and fart in the economic system, from payday loans to "systemic risk." Three major proposals are high on President Barack Obama's fall agenda and if pending legislation passes, says Randazzo, the government will create a multi-tiered system for identifying financial institutions that are explicitly "too big to fail." The likely result? Far less choice and innovation for consumers and industry alike, a slower and weaker recovery, and a huge bill for taxpayers.

For more details, read Randazzo's new study, "The Future of Too Big To Fail and Bailouts."

Related videos: George Mason University and Mercatus Center scholar Todd Zywicki on "The Next Great Leap Backwards for Consumer 'Rights'" and "Turning Japanese: Is America creating its own Lost Decade?"

Scroll down for embed code and downloadable versions. Approximately 9 minutes. Shot by Dan Hayes and Meredith Bragg and edited by Dan Hayes.

The Next Great Leap Backwards For Consumer "Rights"

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:30:00 EDT

Is your mortgage confusing to you? Are you bewildered by credit card offers? Do you crave the simplicity of "plain-vanilla" financial vehicles whose complete terms can be read in less than four minutes?

Be careful what you wish for: The Obama administration and members of Congress are pushing legislation that will create a new agency, The Consumer Financial Protection Agency, whose job would be to simplify and police all manner of financial transactions, from what sorts of mortgages could be offered to what sort of credit cards would be in your wallet to whether Wall Street could create new ways of buying and selling stocks. In the name of making your life easier and avoiding the next financial meltdown, the CFPA might just harshly limit how you spend your hard-earned (and dwindling!) dollars.

Would the CFPA do anything other than add another layer of bureaucracy and regulation on top of what already exists? Are consumers too bewildered by competing credit cards to make a rational choice? Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie recently sat down with George Mason University law professor, Volokh Conspiracy blogger, and Mercatus Center scholar Todd Zywicki to get answers.

"The agency is one of the centerpieces of the Obama regulatory reform act[s]," says Zywicki, "It goes far beyond how we've thought about consumer credit regulation for the past 30 or 40 years." More importantly, it will do nothing to address pernicious incentives that encouraged banks and consumers to take on more debt than was prudent.

Approximately 9.44 minutes. Scroll down for embed code and downloadable versions. Shot by Dan Hayes and Meredith Bragg and edited by Dan Hayes.

"It's Our Turn To Eat"

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:00:00 EDT

Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie recently sat down with Michela Wrong, author of It's Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle-Blower, a riveting and deeply disturbing account of John Githongo's tenure as Kenya's anti-corruption czar. Githongo made the mistake of taking his job title seriously—and quickly had to flee his homeland with evidence of wide-scale graft and tribal discrimination that has crippled Kenya since independence.

The author of I Didn't Do It For You: How the World Betrayed a Small African Nation and In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on The Brink of Disaster in Mobotu's Congo, Wrong brings a journalist's eye for detail to an unparalleled body of work that explores and explains why post-colonial Africa has struggled so greatly with economic, social, and political development.

"What the Kenyan case showed—and it's true of many African countries," says Wrong, who refuses to romanticize a continent she passionately cares about, "is that you cannot pretend to help a country if you do not cast a very critical eye on the politics of the day. And if you have a government that's busy stealing, there is no point in continuing to spout the sermon about helping and aid."

Approximately 10 minutes. Shot and edited by Meredith Bragg.

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Wayne Allyn Root Wants to Empower "The Citizen Revolution with God, Guns, Gambling, & Tax Cuts"

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 11:00:00 EDT

During Freedomfest, the annual mega-conference held in Las Vegas each July, Reason magazine Editor in Chief Matt Welch sat down online-gambling enthusiast, 2008 Libertarian Party vice-presidential nominee, and Conscience of a Libertarian author Wayne Allyn Root.

In a fast-paced and wide-ranging conversation Root examines the failure of the Barr-Root ticket to generate enthusiasm even among LP members, why online gambling (though admittedly a "minor" issue) is the gateway drug to increasing the number of small-government voters, and why California's political and economic meltdown is the model for a series of rolling "economic catastrophes" that will hit the rest of the country over the next few years.

Approximately seven minutes long. Shot and edited by Dan Hayes.

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More fun with Wayne Allyn Root: While running for the LP nod in 2008, Root, along with Bob Barr and Sen. Mike Gravel, discuss the "Future of Libertarian Politics" in the Reason DC HQ. Watch it here or click below:

Economist Richard Vedder on Why College Costs Too Much

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:00:00 EDT

In Going Broke By Degree: Why College Costs So Much, Ohio University economist Richard Vedder lays out in plain language why, well, college costs so much.

Vedder, also a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, sat down at FreedomFest in mid-July with Reason magazine Editor in Chief to talk about college costs and more.

Approximately nine minutes. Shot by Dan Hayes and edited by Meredith Bragg.

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What Do You Get When You Cross Ronald Reagan and Woody Harrelson?

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 13:00:00 EDT

Recently, Reason.tv's Ted Balaker sat down with California State assemblyman and U.S. Senate candidate Chuck DeVore.

While the Republican is aiming to Democratic incumbent Sen. Barbara Boxer, Devore discusses bipartisan state and federal spending sprees. California remains mired in permanent fiscal crisis because the state spends "every last penny and then some," say DeVore, while noting "the unprecedented increases in state spending under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger."

The novelist and former soldier addresses the historic Bush-era spending binge, but says the "big thing is the order of magnitude shift" under President Obama. "So instead of a multi-billion dollar program, now we're on to trillions."

Other topics include: ObamaCare, foreign policy, California's lax welfare-to-work rules, why the tea party movement is here to stay, and what it's like being a pro-hemp politician in conservative Orange County, California.

Producer is Ted Balaker, director of photography is Alex Manning, field producer is Hawk Jensen, and associate producer is Paul Detrick.

Approximately 8.30 minutes. Scroll down for downloable versions and embed code.

Matt Ridley on Evolution, Economics, and "Ideas Having Sex"

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:00:00 EDT

Matt Ridley, an Oxford-educated zoologist, turned to journalism in 1983 when he got a job as The Economist’s science reporter. He soon became the magazine’s Washington correspondent and eventually served as its American editor.

Ridley has written several acclaimed books that combine clear explanations of complex biology with discussions of the science’s implications for human society. In the reason.tv interview, Ridley discusses some of the themes in The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature; The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation; Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters; and Nature via Nurture: Genes, Experience, & What Makes Us Human; as well as his forthcoming book which seeks to understand how and why human progress happens.

Paul Feine and Alex Manning interviewed Ridley in the Milton and Rose Friedman Reading Room at Chapman University in Orange, California.

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Is Your iPod Unpatriotic?

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 07:00:00 EDT

Is your iPod unpatriotic?

Its 451 parts are made in dozens of nations, and creating the little doodads employs thousands of foreigners. Final assembly is done in China—a country that right-wingers and left-wingers alike fear is an economic threat to the U.S.

As the recession worsens, maybe patriotic Americans should be smashing foreign-made iPods in protest. Or at least hiring bikini-clad American women to do the job, which is exactly what Reason.tv did. Our patriotic, sledgehammer-wielding bikini bandits headed to California’s Venice Beach to smash some foreign-made iPods to make a political statement about saving American jobs.

Maybe the United Steelworkers Union (USW), one of the biggest “Buy American” backers would like to hire these patriotic ladies for their next rally.

“Every other nation during this economic downturn is directing their stimulus money inward,” thunders USW’s Billy Thompson at a rally in West Virginia. “Now if they can do it, why in the hell can’t we?”

Actually, we are. President Obama’s $800 billion stimulus package came equipped with a “Buy American” provision, and more than 500 state and local governments have signed “buy American” resolutions. And that may be just the beginning of the protectionist push.

Reason.tv went to a Washington, D.C. event where business owners and activists learned how to lobby for more protectionist laws. “If you want to sell it here, build it here,” says one participant who referrs to those who ignore the “buy American” imperative as “uneducated, ignorant people.”

And shouldn't we be patriotic purchasers? That’s what car ads, draped with Old Glory and heartland visuals, suggest. What could be more patriotic than buying a Jeep Patriot? With American automakers hurting so badly, that’s got to help America.

“That’s nonsense,” says George Mason University economist—and Cafe Hayek blogger—Donald Boudreaux.

“The Jeep Patriot, despite it’s name is actually less American than some Toyota products. It’s literally impossible—at least in any practical sense—to ‘buy American.’”

Boudreaux argues that Americans should buy whatever products they choose; neither guilt nor laws should push them to buy American. “The thing that is most distinctively American is freedom. To insist that Americans should not be free to buy good from foreigners that's very anti-American.”

And what about your iPod?

Even though plenty of foreigners have jobs thanks to it, so do 14,000 Americans whose duties include designing and marketing the little buggers. So the iPod is a product of America and the world, and these days that describes nearly all the items we buy.

Welcome to the iPod economy, where just about everything is made everywhere.

After hearing the whole story, Reason.tv’s bikini bandits decided to put down their protectionist sledgehammers. Will America’s people, pundits, and politicians follow suit?

“Is Your iPod Unpatriotic?” is written and produced by Ted Balaker and hosted by Nick Gillespie. Field producer is Hawk Jensen and director of photography is Alex Manning.

Associate Producers are Meredith Bragg, Paul Detrick, and Dan Hayes, with additional photography provided by Nathan Chaffetz and Dan Haas.

And introducing reason.tv’s Bikini Bandits: Alexandra Fulton, Chuki Lord, and Amber Waddick.

Approximately nine minutes. Scroll down for embed code and iPod, audio, and HD versions. If you have trouble viewing or embedding this video, go to Reason.tv's YouTube page.

Overstock.com's Patrick Byrne on Internet Sales Taxes, Naked Short-Selling & Regulatory Capture

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 09:00:00 EDT

Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie sat down recently with Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock.com, the online retailer famous for sexy ads ("It's all about the O"), low, low prices, and hyperattentive customer service.

Born in 1962 and now living in Utah, Byrne holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Stanford and serves as the co-chair (with Rose Friedman) of the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. He is the former manager of Blackhawk Investment, a cancer survivor, and a black belt in tae kwon do.

An outspoken critic of online sales taxes, Byrne is a self-declared libertarian who champions short-selling while adamantly opposing the more-controversial practice of "naked" short-selling.

From his journalistic perch at the blog Deep Capture, he and his colleagues regularly chart the ways in which regulators routinely stifle innovation and maintain a status quo that favors connected firms at the cost of competitors and consumers alike.

Raised in New Hampshire, Byrne describes himself as a former "Yankee Republican" who has never felt comfortable with anti-market Democrats and no longer recognizes the GOP as the party of small government and individual liberty.

In this 10-minute interview, Byrne explains why school choice is the key issue of our day, how bad regulations contributed to the current economic crisis, and why "the government should pave the roads, run the Post Office, and stay off my porch."

Filmed by Dan Hayes and edited by Meredith Bragg.

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Turning Japanese

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:00:00 EDT

It wasn't that long ago that everyone in America believed that Japan would soon overtake the United States as the dominant economic force on the planet. When the Japanese stock market rallied to historic heights in late 1989 and Japanese investors even bought Rockefeller Center in New York, it all seemed like a done deal.

But then...the Nikkei Index tanked, the nation's economy collapsed, the government responded with an ever-changing mix of tax hike and tax cuts, stimulus spending on infrastructure, massive bailouts of businesses, and more. None of it worked and Japan entered what's been called its "Lost Decade," a seemingly endless period of economic stagnation.

What are the lessons for the U.S. from Japan's experience? Reason Foundation policy analyst Anthony Randazzo is the co-author of the recent study "Avoiding an American Lost Decade: Lessons from Japan's bubble and recession" and a July 2009 cover story for Reason magazine, "Turning Japanese: Japan's post-bubble policies produced a 'lost decade.' So why is President Obama emulating them?"

As Randazzo explains, both the causes of and official responses to Japan's bubble and economic slump eerily anticipate exactly what the U.S. government is doing. Worse still, the Obama administration and Congress seem dead-set against the sorts of policies—across-the-board taxes on personal and business income, reductions in long-term and unsustainable government debt, and allowing damaged firms to go bankrupt—that would help revivify the American economy.

Is America on the verge of its own lost decade? Sadly, the government seems to be doing everything it can to make that happen.

Approximately 3.30 minutes long. Produced by Dan Hayes and Nick Gillespie; graphics by Meredith Bragg.

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128 Days Later: It Can Always Get Worse

Wed, 27 May 2009 11:00:00 EDT

For all the talk about President Barack Obama's historic first 100 days in office, too little attention has been paid to what could happen next...

Now, from the horror masters behind The Auto Bailout, The Stimulus Package, and White House Poetry Night comes a story of true terror...

128 Days Later: It Can Always Get Worse.

Written and produced by Meredith Bragg, with Nick Gillespie. From a concept suggested by Katie Hooks and Jeff Winkler.

To embed this video on your site and subscribe to Reason.tv&'s YouTube channel, go here.

Privatization in the Age of Obama: Reason Foundation's Adrian Moore and Len Gilroy

Tue, 19 May 2009 12:00:00 EDT

As President Barack Obama and the federal government goes hog wild in terms of economic intervention, state and local governments are running record deficits despite massive increases in revenue over the past decade.

At the same time, many government units are moving ahead with large- and small-scale privatization programs to cut costs and improve services. During Reason Weekend, the annual event held by the nonprofit that publishes this website, Reason Foundation analysts Adrian Moore and Len Gilroy gave a detailed overview of trends in privatization and the massive benefits privatization holds for government and taxpayers alike.

Approximately 35 minutes.

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For more information on the policy work of Reason Foundation, go to Reason.org.

Shot by Roger M. Richards; edited by Meredith Bragg.

Wall Street Journal's Jason Riley on Immigrants: Let Them In

Fri, 08 May 2009 11:00:00 EDT

During Reason Weekend, the annual event held by the nonprofit that publishes this website, The Wall Street Journal's Jason Riley, author of the recent book Let Them In: The Case for Open Borders, gave a spellbinding presentation about the myths surrounding immigration.

Riley walks through the history of German, Irish, and Mexican migrants in rich and compelling detail, deflating nativist hype while also complicating easy narratives about the United States as a mythic destination for all the wretched of the world.

Approximately 30 minutes.

Go here for audio podcast.

Shot and edited by Roger Richards.

For more Reason.tv with Riley, go here.

Reason on immigration here.

Recovery.org vs. Recovery.gov: How The Private Sector, Not The Feds, Is Tracking Stimulus Spending in Real Time

Thu, 07 May 2009 14:00:00 EDT

Remember the day when President Barack Obama promised that concerned citizens would be able to track "every dime" of stimulus money online? He was talking about the official government website, Recovery.gov.

Which doesn't have any details about contracts or grants yet—and won't until October 2009 or, more likely, sometime next year, long after the thrill of living is gone and a huge chunk of the $787 billion stimulus package has already been frittered away on "shovel-ready" projects such as the John Murtha-Johnstown Cambria County Airport (pop. 20 passengers a day).

Thankfully, the folks at the information-services firm Onvia stepped in and created the site Recovery.org, which is already on the case and showing, as much as is possible, who is getting what.

Like Adam Smith's butchers, bakers, and brewers, it's not from Onvia's benevolence that the company is doing this, but from its self-interest: The company puts mostly small and mid-sized firms in touch with local, state, and federal agencies that need some sort of contract work done.

Which might well be the point: The private sector has eaten the feds' lunch on this precisely because they have to hustle in order to keep the wolf from the door. Even, ironically (and frankly disturbingly), when the project is all about chasing government dollars.

On Wednesday, May 13 6, 2009, Reason.tv caught up with Onvia CEO Mike Pickett and asked him about the reaction so far to Recovery.org, his hopes for government accountability and transparency, and whether sunlight really is the best disinfectant.

Approximately 5 minutes. Interview conducted and edited by Dan Hayes at the Heritage Foundation.

Obama's French Toast: Just Say Non

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 11:50:00 EDT

Download MP4 Version

By all accounts (including his own), President Barack Obama had a great time during his recent trip to France. And elite opinion at places ranging from Newsweek to The Economist to the Brookings Institution is urging Obama to make America more like France and Europe.

Should the United States become the next France, a land of high taxes, regulation, and government spending? And, not uncoincidentally, comparatively low economic growth?

In "Obama's French Toast: Just Say Non," Sorbonne-trained economist Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University argues that embracing the French way would be nothing less than a train wreck, leaving Americans with fewer jobs and less disposable income.

"Obama's French Toast" is a co-production of Reason.tv and the Center for Freedom & Prosperity.

Written and produced by Meredith Bragg and Nick Gillespie. Approximately three minutes long.

The Reason.tv Talk Show, Episode 16

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 13:30:00 EDT

Reason.tv's Michael C. Moynihan and Nick Gillespie sit down with Peter Leeson, author of The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates, and David Post, author of In Search of Jefferson's Moose: Notes on the State of Cyberspace, to discuss social contracts amongst pirates, Internet piracy, and whether or not 17th century pirates actually said "shiver me timbers."

Approximately 25 minutes.

For an audio podcast version, go here . For an archive of all Reason.tv Talk Shows, go here. Watch Nick Gillespie's interview with Peter Leeson here, and his interview with David Post here .

Jeffrey Miron on The Financial Crisis And The Case for Doing Nothing

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 13:00:00 EDT

During Reason Weekend, the annual event held by the nonprofit that publishes this website, Harvard economist and Reason contributor Jeffrey A. Miron argued that last year's bailout was a mistake and that any stimulus spending should consist of reductions in taxes, not increases in expenditures.

Miron is a senior lecturer and director of undergraduated studies at Harvard. Educated at Swarthmore and M.I.T., he has held positions at the University of Michigan and Boston University and he has written widely on the "economics of libertarianism," including a controversial and widely discussed cost-benefit analysis of the war on drugs that concluded prohibition's costs far outweigh any possible benefits.

Go here for podcast version.

Approximately 30 minutes. Shot and edited by Roger Richards.

3 Great Reasons to Pay Your Taxes (or Else)!

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 09:00:00 EDT

As April 15 approaches, Reason.tv is proud to present a little-seen IRS public-relations video that explains the benefits of paying your taxes—and underscores the dire outcomes for tax evaders and tax cheats.

Approximately 1.30 minutes. Produced by Meredith Bragg and Nick Gillespie.

Introducing the DMV Automotive Repair Center!

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Stop worrying about the warranty on your GM or Chrysler automobile.

President Obama has announced that your warranty will be backed by the US Government. Now, getting service will be as easy as a trip to your local DMV office

Introducing the Department of Motor Vehicles Automotive Repair Center!

The DMV Automotive Repair Center was written and produced by Ted Balaker with Alex Manning and Paul Detrick.

Frank Buckley on Libertarian Paternalism

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 12:00:00 EDT

Reason.tv caught up with F.H. Buckley of George Mason University to discuss his new book, Fair Governance: The Enforcement of Morals, and the appointment of "libertarian paternalist" Cass Sunstein as regulations czar in President Obama's administration.

Can certain rules make us more free? If opt-out rights are great, why not expand them? Are we becoming too risk-averse as a society? Is "libertarian paternalism" a dangerous oxymoron? Watch now for answers.

Approximately 5.30 minutes. Interview conducted by Nick Gillespie. Shot and edited by Dan Hayes.

Getting off Track

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 12:00:00 EDT

John B. Taylor, professor of economics at Stanford University, challenges the conventional wisdom that it was an excess of deregulation that precipitated our current financial crisis. In fact, he says, the exact opposite is true.

In January, he sat down with Reason.tv's Michael C. Moynihan to discuss his new book Getting Off Track: How Government Actions and Interventions Caused, Prolonged, and Worsened the Financial Crisis (Hoover Press) and explain what caused the collapse of the American economy.

Nick Gillespie: Why You're Living in the Libertarian Moment

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 11:00:00 EDT

On Saturday, February 21, Reason.tv and Reason.com Editor in Chief Nick Gillespie addressed a crowd of 200-plus attending the second annual International Students for Liberty conference, held in Washington, D.C.

Titled "Why You're Living in the Libertarian Moment And What You Can Do to Keep and Expand Your Freedom" and featuring a slideshow set to Sid Vicious's version of "My Way," Gillespie's talk argued that we are more free than ever despite massive increases in government spending, regulation, and controls over the past several decades. Due to huge growth in wealth, technology, and social liberalization, more individuals are more free to pursue their lives on their own terms than ever before.

However, warned Gillespie, for these positive trends to continue it is imperative that the zero-sum game of politics be kept in as small and limited sphere as possible. In an age of bailouts and big spending, it is vitally important to stop thinking of politics in terms of right vs. left or conservative vs. liberal. The best way to analyze public policy and social organization is in terms of choice vs. control. Does a given idea expand the ability of people to pick and choose among various ways of living?

The future of freedom, argued Gillespie, rests upon the shoulders of today's libertarian-minded youth, who must convince their peers to reject the played-out politics of the past and embrace a vision of an open-ended future empowered by "free minds and free markets." And it is up to students to invent the next great, decentralizing, DIY technology like rock 'n' roll and the Internet.

It is important to engage politics, said Gillespie, but it is even more important to remember that real life exists far beyond the petty strictures of the next election or zoning board meeting. "Live your life as a work of art and an act of discovery. Create your own identity, your own community, and your own meaning."

Approximately 40 minutes. Shot and edited by Dan Hayes.

For an audio podcast, go here.

The Washington, D.C. Tea Party

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:00:00 EST

On Friday, February 27, John O'Hara of the Heartland Institute and JP Freire of The American Spectator organized a Washington, D.C. tea party to protest the runaway spending and tax hikes recently unveiled as part of Barack Obama's stimulus package and fiscal year 2010 budget.

Reason.tv's Dan Hayes was on the scene, talking with the organizers and participants about the state of the economy and how the government should respond to the recession.

The Reason.tv Talk Show, Episode 10

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 14:00:00 EST

Reason.tv's Michael C. Moynihan and Nick Gillespie recently sat down with Julie Stewart, founder and head of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, and Mark Hemingway, a staff reporter at National Review Online.

In a wide-ranging and freewheeling discussion, Stewart and Hemingway discussed the rise of mandatory drug sentencing laws, right-wingers and marijuana use, conservatives vs. libertarians, just how bad President Barack Obama might turn out to be, and much, much more.

Approximately 20 minutes. Shot by Dan Hayes and edited by Roger Richards.

Go here for audio podcast.

Slumdog Thousandaire

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 07:00:00 EST

Perhaps the only people who don't like the hit movie Slumdog Millionaire are those who compete against it at awards shows. After all, it's already cleaned up at the Golden Globes, and the BAFTAs, and it's poised to repeat these feats at the Oscars.

The film follows an Indian orphan named Jamal who grows up and hits it big on the famous game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire? In important ways, Slumdog tells the story of India itself—a poverty-stricken underdog with its own rags-to-riches tales. British rule ended in 1947, and the economic woes America faces now are nothing compared to the widespread malnutrition and starvation India faced then.

Indians were enthusiastic about self-rule, but "the problem was that the Indian political leaders had this very Fabian Socialist idea," says Shikha Dalmia, a senior analyst at Reason Foundation and native of India. "And that completely thwarted the entrepreneurship of the country."

For decades would-be entrepreneurs staggered under the weight of corruption and bureaucracy. Want to import a computer for your business? You'd have to get permission from a bureaucrat. Want to sell food from a small cart? You'd need all kinds of licenses.

But in the 1990s, India emerged as a high-tech powerhouse. What changed?

"In the 1990s India started liberalizing its economy," says Dalmia, "and it did three things: cut taxes, liberalized trade, and deregulated business." Although they failed to cut the kind of red tape that entangled Slumdog's orphans, the reforms did make it easier for more Indians to start businesses and hire employees.

"One IT company doesn't just employ computer professionals," says Dalmia. "It also needs landscaping services, cleaning services, and restaurants. There was this tremendous spillover effect that allowed people to lift themselves out of poverty."

Since the early 1990s, India has cut its poverty rate in half. About 300 million Indians—equivalent to the population of the entire United States—escaped the hunger and deprivation of extreme poverty thanks to pro-market reforms that increased economic activity.

Yet here in America we're turning away from market reform. Says Dalmia, "It's just this great conundrum that at the same time that deregulation and markets have produced such dramatic results in India, they are falling into suspicion in America." Dalmia's prescription for India is at odds with what politicians have chosen to "stimulate" the United States. "What India needs to do is continue apace with its liberalization effort, but expand it to include the poor. Release them from the shackles of government corruption and government bureaucracy."

"Slumdog Thousandaire" is written and produced by Ted Balaker. The director of photography is Alex Manning.

Go here for an audio podcast version.

Bailing Out the Big Three

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 07:00:00 EST

2008 was an apocalyptic year for the American car industry, with sales of Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler cars all falling by 25 percent. Supporters of the Big Three automakers argue that the government needs to provide Detroit with at least $50 billion in taxpayer money in order to save the American car industry, on top of the billions of federally subsidized loans they've already received. President Barack Obama agrees, having attacked John McCain during last year's presidential campaign for opposing a bailout of Detroit.

But while many commenters and union advocates paint Detroit's economic troubles as a consequence of the financial crisis, necessitating its inclusion in the bailout sweepstakes, the financial troubles of the Big Three long predated the current mess. Indeed, in 2007, GM sold more cars and trucks than Toyota. Yet Toyota made almost $2,000 per vehicle while GM lost more than $1,000. So why does the United Auto Workers union and President Obama want taxpayers to reward Detroit—and punish her competitors—for making unprofitable cars?

Stimulis

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:00:00 EST

Are you an economy with performance issues?

If you find it hard to achieve and maintain growth, maybe Stimulis is right for you.

Take Stimulis once every election cycle or whenever you're in need of economic enhancement.

"Stimulis" is written and produced by Ted Balaker, and edited by Alex Manning.

The Reason.tv Talk Show, Episode 8

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 11:00:00 EST

On January 16, Reason.tv's Michael C. Moynihan and Nick Gillespie sat down with Karol Boudreaux, a senior research fellow at The Mercatus Center's Enterprise Africa! project and Stephen Schwartz, head of the Center for Islamic Pluralism and author of the new book The Other Islam.

In a wide-ranging and freewheeling discussion, Boudreaux and Schwartz disussed developmental economics, the role of Islam in world politics, trade policy, and whether President Barack Obama represents a clear break with the past or continuity with it.

Go here for an audio podcast.

Go here for past episodes of the Reason.tv Talk Show.

Shot and edited by Dan Hayes.

Agricultural Subsidies

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 07:00:00 EST

"The government is bailing out the banks...but who's going to bail out the government?" asks Texas cotton farmer Ken Gallaway, a vocal critic of agricultural subsidies that cost U.S. taxpayers and consumers billions of dollars a year in direct payments and higher prices for farm goods.

Agricultural subsidies were put in place in the 1930s during the Great Depression, when 25 percent of Americans lived on farms. At the time, Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace called them "a temporary solution to deal with an emergency." Those programs are still in place today, even though less than 1 percent of Americans currently live on farms that are larger, more efficient, and more productive than ever before.

Consider these facts. Ninety percent of all subsidies go to just five crops: corn, rice, cotton, wheat, and soybeans. Two thirds of all farm products—including perishable fruits and vegetables—receive almost no subsidies. And just 10 percent of recipients receive 75 percent of all subsidies. A program intended to be a “temporary solution” has become one of our government’s most glaring examples of corporate welfare.

U.S. taxpayers aren’t the only ones who pay the price. Cotton subsidies, for example, encourage overproduction which lowers the world price of cotton. That’s great for people who buy cotton, but it’s disastrous for already impoverished cotton farmers in places such as West Africa.

U.S. farm programs cost taxpayers billions each year, significantly raise the price of commodities such as sugar (which is protected from competition from other producers in other countries), undermine world trade agreements, and contribute to the suffering of poor farmers around the world. It’s bad public policy, especially in these troubled economic times.

"Agricultural Subsidies: Corporate Welfare for Farmers" is hosted by Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie and is approximately 8.30 minutes long. The producer-writer is Paul Feine and the producer-editor is Roger Richards.

For an audio podcast version, go here.

For more videos in Reason.tv's award-winning Drew Carey Project series, go here.

Politics & Culture in Obama's America

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 00:00:00 EST

At Reason Goes Hollywood, our 40th anniversary bash held November 14-15, 2008 in Los Angeles, Reason magazine Editor in Chief Matt Welch led a discussion with Reason Foundation Vice President of Research Adrian Moore and Big Hollywood's Andrew Breitbart about what's next in politics and culture in Obama's America.

Go here for an audio podcast version.

Perspectives on the Financial Market Crisis at Reason Goes Hollywood

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 00:00:00 EST

At Reason Goes Hollywood, our 40th anniversary bash held November 14-15 in Los Angeles, no topic generated more heat than the financial crisis and the government's seemingly endless (and endlessly revised) bailout plans.

In this hour-long panel, Reason's director of government affairs Mike Flynn leads a wide-ranging and intense discussion about just how bad the bailouts will be in the short- and long-terms—and whether the worsening economy might actually make some limited-government reforms more possible than not. Joining Flynn are Mercatus Center economist and Reason columnist Veronique de Rugy, former Los Angeles Times online editor and Reason contributing editor Tim Cavanaugh, and Reason Foundation director of government reform Len Gilroy.

Go here for an MP3 podcast.

And go here for a one-stop link to all of Reason's materials on the bailout.

The Reason.tv Talk Show, Episode 7

dan.hayes@reason.org (Dan Hayes) — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 14:00:00 EST

On December 16, Reason's Nick Gillespie and Michael C. Moynihan sat down with the journalist Jon Utley, the subject of the excellent new documentary about his father's death in a Soviet labor camp, Return to the Gulag, and economist Michael Munger, head of Duke University's political science department and the surprisingly successful Libertarian Party gubernatorial candidate in North Carolina.

The quartet spent about 25 minutes talking about the bailouts, how the Cold War still matters, whether libertarian ideas are on the march or in retreat, and much more.

For audio podcast, go here.

The SEC's Disastrous Distractions

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 14:00:00 EST

Appointed to the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2002, Paul Atkins was a persistent—and unfortunately prescient—critic of the agency's failure to execute its regulatory functions in an efficient and effective manner.

Instead of working to make financial markets more transparent, argues Atkins, who stepped down from his post earlier this year, the SEC spent its time and resources focusing on irrelevant or secondary issues, allowing all sorts of problematic behavior to flourish and grow.

In December, Atkins sat down with Reason's Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch for a wide-ranging 45-minute conversation about the proper role of government oversight in a free enterprise system, the dangers of regulation, and what's likely to unfold as the Democrats take over the White House.

For an audio podcast version of this conversation, go here.

Peter Wallison: The Roots of the Financial Crisis

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 00:00:00 EST

At Reason's 40th anniversary event, held in Hollywood on November 14 and 15, the American Enterprise Institute's Peter Wallison analyzed the roots of the current market meltdown and explained how government policies directly caused or massively exacerbated the housing bubble and the subsequent bust at the center of things.

The Arthur F. Burns Fellow in financial studies and codirector of AEI’s program on financial markets deregulation, Wallison is the author of several books including most recently, Competitive Equity: A better way to manage mutual funds.

Approximately 25 minutes.

Obama's New New Deal

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 00:00:00 EST

Nobel laureate economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman says he wants President-elect Barack Obama to enact "something like a new New Deal." Historian Douglas Brinkley has said that Obama could come to office with a "sweeping legislative agenda which will be Johnson-like or New Deal-like." An aide close to Obama told New York magazine that "A lot of people around Barack are reading books about FDR's first hundred days."

On the cusp of a deep economic recession, and with a staggering amount of bailout money being offered to struggling industries, pundits and political advisers are advocating that the incoming Obama administration construct a new New Deal.

But is the popular narrative about the old New Deal—that Keynesian economics and top-down planning rescued America from the Great Depression—accurate? Reason.tv's Michael C. Moynihan talks to UCLA economist Lee Ohanian, who argues in work written with colleague Harold Cole, that the New Deal's massive intervention into the economy actually prolonged the economic crisis by seven years.

"Obama's New New Deal" is written and produced by Michael C. Moynihan. Director of Photography is Dan Hayes.

Podcast available here.

Bjorn Lomborg Says Cool It!

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 00:00:00 EST

At Reason's 40th anniversary event, held in Hollywood on November 14 and 15, "Skeptical Environmentalist" Bjorn Lomborg kicked things off with an engrossing 30-minute presentation about man-made climate change and the best ways to prioritize and solve global problems ranging from water shortages to poverty to malaria.

The author most recently of Cool It, Lomborg is also the force behind The Copenhagen Consensus, a path-breaking approach toward effecting efficient solutions to the planet's most pressing issues. "At the end of the day," says Lomborg, "this is about saying, Yes, global warming is real. It's often massively exaggerated, which is why we need smarter solutions.... Let's pick them smart, rather than stupidly. And also, let's remember that they are many other problems in the world that we can fix so much cheaper and do so much more good....If this is really a question about doing good in the world, then let's do real good—and not just make ourselves feel good about what we do."

Go here for Reason magazine's recent interview with Lomborg, who has been named one of the "100 the most influential people on the planet" by Time, a "global leader for tomorrow" by the World Economic Forum, and "one of the 50 people who could save the planet" by The Guardian.

For Reason's coverage of Lomborg, go here. For our environmental coverage, go here.

To embed this video at your own site, go here.

For an audio podcast, go here.

Where's Sock Puppet's Bailout?

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 00:00:00 EST

Live from Congress, the infamous Pets.com mascot, Sock Puppet, comes to lobby Washington for a bailout.

Approximately two minutes and 20 seconds.

To embed this video at your website, go here.

"Where's Sock Puppet's Bailout?" was written and produced by Ted Balaker.

Economist Lee Ohanian

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 10:10:00 EDT

UCLA economist Lee E. Ohanian, coauthor of a startling new paper arguing that the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression by about seven years, talked with reason.tv about the past six weeks of apparent economic crisis and the government's bewildering bailout response.

Ohanian's main concern, and one that is never sufficiently appreciated: "Periods of crisis often beget bad policies."

Approximately seven minutes. Interview conducted by Justin Keppler and shot by Alex Manning.

Starbucks vs. the Little Guy

dan.hayes@reason.org (Dan Hayes) — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz recently announced that the company would close 600 of its approximately 12,000 American stores in the coming year, sending 12,000 managers and baristas to the unemployment line.

But as Starbucks contracts, many independent coffee shops are growing, beating the coffee giant in an upscale market it helped to create.

As anti-corporate crusaders are now discovering, instead of advocating for legal prohibitions on chain stores or attempting to zone the offending businesses off of Main Street USA, mom-and-pop shops can successfully combat the coffee behemoth by using old-fashioned market competition.

reason.tv's Michael C. Moynihan and Dan Hayes investigate.

Should the U.S. boycott the Summer Olympics in China?

dan.hayes@reason.org (Dan Hayes) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 03:34:00 EDT

Should the United States boycott the Summer Olympics in China later this year? What's the point of boycotts in general?

reason.tv's Dan Hayes hit the mean, sunny streets of Washington outside of reason's D.C. headquarters and took the pulse of residents in the nation's capital. Approximately three minutes.

What We Saw at the Mortgage Bailout Demonstration...

dan.hayes@reason.org (Dan Hayes) — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:35:00 EDT

On April 16 in Washington, D.C., the Ad Hoc National Network to Stop Evictions & Foreclosures organized a demonstration outside a meeting of the Mortgage Bankers Associaton at the Washington Court Hotel.

reason.tv's Dan Hayes and Michael C. Moynihan checked out the demonstration and talked with some of the activists, who quickly changed the subject from home loans to Castro's Cuban paradise, the need to free Mumia Abu Jamal, forgiving student loans, the Rothschilds (!), Haitians eating a mixture of dirt and oil (!?!?), and much, much more. Approximately six minutes.

For the full song used in the intro and outro, go here.

School House Rock! Tyrannosaurus Debt

paul.feine@reason.tv (Paul Feine) — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:01:00 EDT

To Americans who grew up in the 70s, "School House Rock!" is as familiar as "Sponge Bob Square Pants" is to children today. And now that the series is available on DVD as well as YouTube, a new generation can sing along to "Lolly Lolly Lolly, Get Your Adverbs Here," "Three Is a Magic Number" and, of course, "Conjunction Junction."

But even Generation Xers who were steeped in School House Rock! every Saturday morning may not be familiar with "Money Rock," a series created in the 90s when the "School House Rock!" band got back together for a revival tour.

As was evident in the "America Rock" series (see, for example, "No More Kings" and "Sufferin' Till Suffrage"), "Money Rock" emphasizes themes that libertarian-leaning folks everywhere can appreciate.

"Tyrannosourus Debt" is the hands down favorite in my house. Watch the ending closely and you'll see a cameo by "Bill."

(As of March 2008, the US national debt is $9.4 trillion--approximately $31,000 per US citizen. The debt is growing at a rate of $1.65 billion/day.)

Living Large

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 23:30:00 EST

To hear the Lou Dobbses and Bill O'Reillys of the world--not to mention politicians ranging from Ron Paul to Hillary Clinton--the middle class of America (however you define that term) has never had it so tough. Between credit squeezes, out-of-control immigration, rising costs of education and health care and everything else, it's all darkness out there for those of us who are neither millionaires nor welfare cases, right?

In "Living Large," Drew Carey and reason.tv examine the plight of the American middle class. What do they find? Click on the image above to find out.

Discuss this video at reason's Hit & Run blog.

Michael Shermer: Evolutionary Economics and the Google Theory of Peace

dan.hayes@reason.org (Dan Hayes) — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 09:45:00 EST

Michael Shermer is the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, a columnist for Scientific American, and most recently the author of The Mind of the Market: Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans, and Other Tales from Evolutionary Economics.

Shermer's new book--which The Washington Post says "has earned the right to our attention"--seeks to explain "how evolution shaped the modern economy and why people are so irrational about money."

Shermer, who lives and works in Southern California and is the author of previous books such as Why Darwin Matters and The Borderlands of Science, sat down with reason.tv to talk about the intersection between evolution and capitalism, trust in a globalized world, his "Google theory of peace," and his ideological journey toward libertarianism.

And why it's extremely tough to convince left-wingers who believe in evolution that capitalism is a good thing and conservatives who believe in free markets that evolution is real.

Discuss this story online at reason's Hit & Run blog.

The Incredible Train Market

paul.feine@reason.tv (Paul Feine) — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 14:53:00 EST

Even a train can't stop these Bangkok traders from doing business!

Milton Friedman on Greed on Donahue

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 11:36:00 EST

Via economist extraordinaire Don Boudreaux comes a reminder that Milton Friedman died a year ago Sunday--and a clip of Friedman on the old Phil Donahue show wherein our hero defends "greed." Or more accurately, how free market systems harness self-interest in such a way as to benefit everyone, especially the poor.

reason had a long and warm relationship with Friedman, who contributed to our pages and, far more importantly, to the increase in freedom the world has seen since our first issue hit the stands in May 1968. Beyond any ideolgical issues, Friedman remained the paradigmatic public intellectual. As I wrote in our February ~~2006~~ 2007 issue:

He provided an all-too-rare example of a public intellectual who was scrupulously honest, forthright, and fair in every debate he entered. As such, he provides a model that all of us might follow, whatever our
ideology.

When I heard the news of Friedman’s death in November, I thought of the haunting eulogy of the great Finnish runner Paavo Nurmi: “When nature removes a great man, we explore the horizons for a successor. But none comes and none will, for his class is extinguished with him.”

I hope not.

Go here to read "Quotations from Chairman Milton," selections from his reason contributions.

And go here for more reason articles by and about Milton Friedman.

Phase 3: Profit!

paul.feine@reason.tv (Paul Feine) — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 01:32:00 EDT

In the 30th episode of "South Park," Harbucks comes to town and threatens to put a coffee shop, owned by Tweek's mom and pop, out of business. High on caffeine with a current events report due, the kids struggle to make sense of market processes with the help of the Underpants Gnomes. Happily, the Gnomes are "geniuses at corporations."