Words & Numbers

People spend a lot of time talking about the debt and deficit, but most are unaware of the mechanics involved. This week, we cover some of those mechanics with a discussion of Treasury notes, bills, and bonds.   Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com See More Ant and James! http://www.wordsandnumbers.org Show Your Support for Words & Numbers at Patreon https://www.patreon.com/wordsandnumbers Quick Hits https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/21/tax-revenue-spending-budget-deficit-drop-deficit-00062923 https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-collections-inflation-surging/ https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/oct/23/salman-rushdie-has-lost-sight-in-one-eye-and-use-of-one-hand-says-agent https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/17/salman-rushdie-survive-attacker-00052549 Foolishness of the Week https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/2022/08/30/dea-warns-brightly-colored-fentanyl-used-target-young-americans Topic of the Weekhttps://www.treasurydirect.gov Join the Conv

This month, the world takes stock of international poverty, and James and Ant put poverty into perspective both across countries and across time.   Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com See More Ant and James! http://www.wordsandnumbers.org Show Your Support for Words & Numbers at Patreon https://www.patreon.com/wordsandnumbers Quick Hits https://slashdot.org/story/22/10/08/2234213/paypal-says-it-wont-fine-customers-2500-for-misinformation https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-election/-check-walker-acknowledges-giving-700-ex-denies-claim-knew-was-abortio-rcna52252 Foolishness of the Week https://nypost.com/2022/10/17/home-asking-prices-tumble-at-record-pace-as-mortgage-rates-surge/ Topic of the Weekhttps://foreignpolicy.com/2012/02/27/were-all-the-1-percent/ Join the Conversation Words & Numbers Backstage https://www.facebook.com/groups/130029457649243/ More James at Smoke & Storieshttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjILow4-ZJpBV-NnmSusZJ_vCuz

All of economics boils down to a single fact: people respond to incentives. The first step to thinking like an economist is to take that fact seriously. Once you do, the world never looks the same.   Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com See More Ant and James! http://www.wordsandnumbers.org Show Your Support for Words & Numbers at Patreon https://www.patreon.com/wordsandnumbers Quick Hits https://fortune.com/2022/10/03/how-to-get-stimulus-check-california-inflation-relief/ Foolishness of the Week https://www.theguardian.com/music/commentisfree/2022/oct/07/kanye-west-white-lives-matter-tucker-carlson Topic of the Weekhttps://mscee.org Join the Conversation Words & Numbers Backstage https://www.facebook.com/groups/130029457649243/ More James at Smoke & Storieshttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjILow4-ZJpBV-NnmSusZJ_vCuzKUJ4Ig More Ant on YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/antonydavies Let Us Know What You Think mailto:wordsandnumberspodcast@gmail.co

People - including some economists - are so used to governments establishing currencies that we are unaware that there are alternatives. Money is simply a tool that reduces the frictional costs of trading goods and services and of saving. Markets can evolve money in the same way that they evolve all manner of other solutions to even more complex problems. Prof. Lawrence H. White joins us this week to talk about alternatives to government-created currencies. Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com See More Ant and James! http://www.wordsandnumbers.org Show Your Support for Words & Numbers at Patreon https://www.patreon.com/wordsandnumbers Quick Hits https://ojjdp.ojp.gov/publications/trends-in-youth-arrests.pdf https://observer.com/2022/09/nft-trading-volume-plunges-97-since-january-raising-questions-about-their-future/ Foolishness of the Week https://news.yahoo.com/us-home-prices-now-posting-040100770.html Topic of the Week https://www.amazon.com/Lawrence-H-

Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution lists the things the Federal government is permitted to do. Somewhere in our history, citizens have come to regard the Constitution as a document that outlines what the government is not allowed to do. That’s exactly the opposite of what the Founders intended. Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com See More Ant and James! http://www.wordsandnumbers.org Show Your Support for Words & Numbers at Patreon https://www.patreon.com/wordsandnumbers Quick Hits https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/22/turkey-cuts-interest-rates-again-as-country-struggles-under-inflation.html https://www.thelocal.es/20220923/spain-to-tax-rich-to-offset-inflation-relief-measures/ Join the Conversation Words & Numbers Backstage https://www.facebook.com/groups/130029457649243/ More James at Smoke & Storieshttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjILow4-ZJpBV-NnmSusZJ_vCuzKUJ4Ig More Ant on YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/antonydavies Let Us Know What Y

Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution lists the things the Federal government is permitted to do. Somewhere in our history, citizens have come to regard the Constitution as a document that outlines what the government is not allowed to do. That’s exactly the opposite of what the Founders intended. Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com See More Ant and James! http://www.wordsandnumbers.org Show Your Support for Words & Numbers at Patreon https://www.patreon.com/wordsandnumbers Quick Hits https://www.guntab.com/insights/new-mcc-code-for-gun-stores-is-step-toward-suspicious-transaction-reports/ https://www-wtae-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.wtae.com/amp/article/pennsylvania-alcohol-self-imposed-ban-proposed/41233874 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/08/29/nasa-dart-crash-dart-asteroid-how-to-see/7926449001/   Join the Conversation Words & Numbers Backstage https://www.facebook.com/groups/130029457649243/ More James at Smoke & Stori

The “age of majority” is the age at which a person is considered, legally, an adult. Not only does the age of majority vary by state and over time, it also varies by activity. Someone who is considered an adult for the purpose of voting, may not be for the purpose of drinking. As only adults can exercise their freedoms fully, the question of what constitutes an adult goes to the heart of what it is to be a free person.   Words & Numbers Website https://www.wordsandnumbers.org Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com See More Ant and James! http://www.wordsandnumbers.org Show Your Support for Words & Numbers at Patreon https://www.patreon.com/wordsandnumbers Quick Hits https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/10/guns-credit-card-trackable Foolishness of the Week https://www.cnsnews.com/article/washington/terence-p-jeffrey/americans-spent-more-taxes-2021-food-clothing-and-health-care Topic of the Week https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/age

This episode is an excerpt of an interview we gave with Dr. Anwar Dunbar for his YouTube channel, Big Discussions. Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com See More Ant and James! http://www.wordsandnumbers.org Show Your Support for Words & Numbers at Patreon https://www.patreon.com/wordsandnumbers Carson Collins’ Award-Winning Video on the Minimum Wage  https://www.viddler.com/v/5e4c1764 Quick Hits https://data.oecd.org/emp/hours-worked.htm https://www.sltrib.com/news/nation-world/2022/09/05/prevent-martian-plague-nasa-will/ Foolishness of the Week https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/contact-lenses-might-soon-replace-our-phone-screens-8131768/ Topic of the Week https://bigwordsarepowerful.com https://www.youtube.com/c/BigDiscussions76 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF2pol-wUtQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEkRHqbj0zU   Join the Conversation Words & Numbers Backstage https://www.facebook.com/groups/130029457649243/ More

We discuss two topics in-depth this week: student loan forgiveness and lying to pollsters. There’s an interesting technique for distinguishing between what voters say they believe and what they actually believe, and there’s a recent poll that uses this technique in asking people about their attitudes toward controversial topics. Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com Show Your Support for Words & Numbers at Patreon https://www.patreon.com/wordsandnumbers Quick Hits https://reason.com/2022/08/29/what-americans-think-about-marijuana-in-2022/ Foolishness of the Week https://reason.com/2022/08/25/ben-shapiro-podcast-movement-harm-done-twitter/ Topic of the Week https://static1.squarespace.com/static/59153bc0e6f2e109b2a85cbc/t/62fd07b49271c657d243505d/1660749762686/ Join the Conversation Words & Numbers Backstage https://www.facebook.com/groups/130029457649243/ More James at Smoke & Storieshttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjILow4-ZJpBV-NnmSusZJ_vCu

Today’s woke-ism evolved from political correctness of the 1990s. While people have embraced many lessons about inclusion and empathy from the era of political correctness, people appear to be rejecting the woke-ism that tries to insinuate itself into popular culture. Post-covid movies provide a good example. Elite critics are applauding, and audiences are largely rejecting movies that use entertainment to teach woke-ism. Meanwhile, audiences are handing their dollars to movie makers (woke or otherwise) who entertain. Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com Show Your Support for Words & Numbers at Patreon https://www.patreon.com/wordsandnumbers Quick Hits https://www.cato.org/blog/senate-bill-irs-funding-hypocrisy https://nypost.com/2022/08/03/why-irs-80b-expansion-is-a-nightmare-for-small-business/ https://apnews.com/article/inflation-ap-fact-check-congress-government-and-politics-11eae023a3dc3a04584371843234cab7 https://deadline.com/2022/08/cnn-firings

Maybe we’re in a recession, but maybe we’re not. This week, we talk about what a recession is and what it means, practically, for people.   Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com Show Your Support for Words & Numbers at Patreon https://www.patreon.com/wordsandnumbers Quick Hitshttps://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/30/us/columbia-us-news-rankings.html https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2014/08/26/how-northeastern-gamed-the-college-rankings/ https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/liz-cheney-s-political-life-is-likely-ending-and-just-beginning/ar-AA10FNr7 https://theweek.com/liz-cheney/1015866/inside-the-liz-cheney-presidential-run-speculation https://finance.yahoo.com/news/spaghetti-sauce-under-threat-water-124539175.html Foolishness of the Weekhttps://reason.com/2022/08/14/spain-bans-a-c-below-80-degrees-during-record-setting-summer-heat/ Join the Conversation Words & Numbers Backstage https://www.facebook.com/groups/130029457649243/ More James at Smoke & S

The Founders gave strong philosophical arguments for why secession from Great Britain was right and proper. Yet, when the Confederacy tried to secede from the Union, philosophical arguments against secession were few. Clearly, ending slavery was right and proper. And, the question of secession was, practically speaking, answered with the eradication of slavery. But the question of whether it is right and proper for states to secede remains, at least from a philosophical perspective, unaddressed. Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com Show Your Support for Words & Numbers at Patreon https://www.patreon.com/wordsandnumbers Quick Hitshttps://theaviationgeekclub.com/heres-why-producing-thousand-gallons-of-jp-7-fuel-used-in-the-sr-71-blackbird-mach-3-spy-plane-caused-a-nationwide-shortage-of-flit-insecticide/ https://www.fastcompany.com/90775427/amazon-grandma-alexa-evolution-text-to-speech https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/15/inside-the-war-between-t

Part of the reason we make little progress on this topic of guns in this country is that the pro- and anti-gun camps talk past each other. This is fueled by a media that tends to show only one side of the story, causing both sides in the debate to become paranoid - one side comes to think that half the country is looking to disarm them, and the other side comes to think that half the country is blind to gun violence. A recent shooting gives us the opportunity to think about the topic from a more balanced perspective. Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com Show Your Support for Words & Numbers at Patreon https://www.patreon.com/wordsandnumbers Quick Hits and Foolishness of the Weekhttps://abcnews.go.com/US/video/biden-tests-positive-covid-19-paxlovid-87762070 Foolishness of the Week https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/beyonce-offensive-lyric-ableist-slur-spaz-170000669.html Topic of the Week https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/indiana-passer-by-hailed-af

Oddly, there’s not a lot in the news this week. Given what we’ve all been through the past couple of years, that’s likely a good thing. This week, we sit back and take a casual look at inflation, economic growth, entrepreneurs, standardization, and the gig economy. Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com Show Your Support for Words & Numbers at Patreon https://www.patreon.com/wordsandnumbers Quick Hits and Foolishness of the Weekhttps://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GASREGW https://gasprices.aaa.com https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ice-cream-trucks-are-the-latest-target-of-inflation/ar-AAZYTxK Foolishness of the Week https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenny_Bruce#Death_and_posthumous_pardon https://www.npr.org/2022/07/21/1112722821/dave-chappelle-minneapolis-show-canceled Topic of the Week https://www.usacarry.com/40-yards-elisjsha-dicken-landed-shots-mall-shooter/ https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/19/us/eli-dicken-indiana-mall-shooting-bystander/index.html https://ww

Social Security has become a trillion dollar weight dragging down our economics and politics. On the one hand, according to the Social Security administration itself, the program will be insolvent within a decade. On the other, we can’t shut it down without condemning many elderly to destitution. This week, we talk about a plan that would phase out Social Security, do it without cutting benefits to current retirees, leave future retirees better off, and save the government money. The catch is that the phase-out requires many decades.   Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com Show Your Support for Words & Numbers at Patreon https://www.patreon.com/wordsandnumbers Quick Hits and Foolishness of the Week https://www.hilton.com/en/hotels/snaiohx-hampton-suites-irvine-orange-county-airport/ https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-new-york-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-queens-congress-7e1d71dec55714872f60a4f34d02b7d7 https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/hou

Recently, we talked about polls showing a serious erosion of trust in the branches of government. This week, we focus on the media. It turns out that Americans trust the media about as much as they trust Congress - and it’s amazing how little they trust Congress. Interestingly, there’s a sharp division among party lines.   Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com Show Your Support for Words & Numbers at Patreon https://www.patreon.com/wordsandnumbers Quick Hits and Foolishness of the Week https://www.amazon.com/Alone/dp/B07RYP2QSW https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/outrage-erupts-white-house-calls-013222807.html Foolishness of the Week https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/pregnant-woman-given-hov-ticket-argues-fetus-is-passenger-post-roe/ar-AAZoI2r Topic of the Week https://www.axios.com/2022/07/08/news-republicans-democrats-trust-partisanship Join the Conversation Words & Numbers Backstage https://www.facebook.com/groups/130029457649243/ More James at Smo

No matter what we do to tweak our healthcare system, we seem to end up with the same problems decade after decade. Proponents of socialized medicine say that healthcare is simply too complex of a problem to leave to profit-seeking actors in the marketplace. Proponents of free market medicine say that healthcare is a product like any other product and that much of the complexity that exists is actually due to government regulations themselves. This week, we talk with an economic historian and ask, what happened to healthcare in this country? Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com Show Your Support for Words & Numbers at Patreon https://www.patreon.com/wordsandnumbers Quick Hits and Foolishness of the Week https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/wxn8qx/amtrak-spent-11-years-and-dollar450-million-to-save-acela-riders-100-seconds https://www.railpassengers.org/site/assets/files/3480/1.pdf https://news.gallup.com/poll/394283/confidence-institutions-down-average-ne

Historian Rob McDonald joins us on this Fourth of July week to talk about the events leading up to the founding, and his observation that the Founders thought less that they were declaring independence from Great Britain than that Parliament and the King had effectively declared the colonies independent by failing to fulfill the basic functions of government. Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com Show Your Support for Words & Numbers at Patreon https://www.patreon.com/wordsandnumbers Quick Hits and Foolishness of the Week https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/this-gorgeous-leather-is-made-from-the-hide-of-an-invasive-predatory-fish/ https://www.inversaleathers.com https://www.fb.org/newsroom/cost-of-july-4th-cookout-17-higher-compared-to-year-ago Foolishness of the Week https://www.wsj.com/articles/as-gas-prices-surge-stations-now-hold-up-to-175-of-your-money-when-you-swipe-11656277411 Join the Conversation Words & Numbers Backstage https://www.facebook.com/

For one-hundred years, the United States has been conducting an experiment in unlimited government wherein politicians spend far beyond the government’s means, kicking the fiscal can down the road for future generations to pay. The future has finally arrived and we are that future generation. The inflation we’re experiencing now is the beginning of the price we’ll be paying for a century of unlimited government. Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com Show Your Support for Words & Numbers at Patreon https://www.patreon.com/wordsandnumbers Quick Hits and Foolishness of the Week https://www.wuft.org/news/2022/06/02/gainesville-residents-and-city-officials-gather-to-strategize-how-to-tackle-affordable-housing-issues-in-the-city/ https://www.sightline.org/2014/09/29/zoning-inclusionary-v-exclusionary/ https://dailytravelpill.com/montane-mansion-hong-kong-monster-building/ https://news.yahoo.com/affordable-housing-california-now-routinely-120027201.html   Foolis

Critics of drug laws focus on the costs, both in dollars and lives, of incarcerating people for an act that often hurts no one. Lost in the discussion is the cost of making it harder for people who suffer from chronic pain to obtain drugs they need to function. Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com Show Your Support for Words & Numbers at Patreon https://www.patreon.com/wordsandnumbers Quick Hits and Foolishness of the Week https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-31/yellen-says-i-was-wrong-last-year-on-the-path-of-us-inflation https://www.newscientist.com/article/2322693-damaged-liver-repaired-inside-machine-for-three-days-before-transplant/ Foolishness of the Week https://news.yahoo.com/justin-trudeau-points-u-gun-193328676.html Topic of the Week https://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/crime-pmn/canada-to-temporarily-decriminalize-some-drug-possession-to-tackle-abuse-problem Join the Conversation Words & Numbers Backstage https://www.facebook