FEEcast

When we celebrate the Fourth of July, what are we truly celebrating? Is it our country’s government and whatever policies it happens to pursue? Or is it the ideals upon which the country was founded? What are those ideals and what has been the American experience that resulted from them? What is the difference between patriotism and nationalism, between society and the state? The FEEcasters explore these questions and more.

Show Notes:

“The Essence of Americanism” by Leonard E. Read

“The True Meaning of Patriotism” by Lawrence W. Reed

“The Herd Mind” by Dan Sanchez

“The State” by Randolph Bourne

A lady the internet has dubbed “Permit Patty” recently called the police to report an 8-year-old entrepreneur for selling water bottles without a permit. Why do so many have such a deeply ingrained permission-based mindset and predilection to tattletale? Is it inculcated in school? The FEEcasters recount some of their own childhood experiences as renegade entrepreneurs. Our permission culture creates many barriers to entry that keep industries stagnant and entry-level workers and entrepreneurs poor. The FEEcast crew discuss many types of entry barriers, from minimum wages to internet sales taxes, plus a recent significant Supreme Court decision on labor unions and worker rights.

Show Notes:

Why "Permit Patty" Called the Cops on an 8-Year-Old Entrepreneur

Schools Have Created a Generation of Permit Pattys and BBQ Beckys

My Childhood as a Renegade Entrepreneur

Without the State, Who Will Handcuff Teens for Selling Water Bottles?

Lemonade Stands Legalized in Utah

Country Time Lemonade Takes a Stand for Child Entrepreneurs

The Internet Sales Taxes Will Hurt Small Businesses and Make Online Shopping More Expensive

The European Union Has Been Spamming Your Inbox… and That’s Not the Worst of It

Supreme Court Strikes Down Mandatory Union Fees for Public Employees

Pixar’s Incredibles 2 recently had the biggest opening of all time for an animated film. In the first Incredibles being super is stigmatized and only mediocrity is acceptable. Is that so different from the real world? Recounting memories from their own childhoods, the FEEcasters discuss some of the ways our culture suppresses excellence in the name of equality.

Show Notes:

How 'Incredibles 2' Is Making Superheroes Great Again

What the Self-Esteem Movement Got Disastrously Wrong

To Defend Civilization We Must First Understand It

FEEcast is thrilled to have TK Coleman as our guest in this special episode recorded at FEEcon 2018. TK is the co-founder and Education Director of Praxis, a company that offers young people an alternative program to college that includes a professional development boot camp and a paid apprenticeship at a startup. TK breaks down many of the ways young people can go beyond credentials and resumes to signal value to potential employers. He also counsels young people to not look to politics and politicians as primary agents of change, but to look to themselves as the predominant creative forces in their own lives.

Show Notes:

Career Common Sense that’s Actually Nonsense (How to Avoid the Conveyor Belt) | Isaac Morehouse

Best Alternative to College: Launch Your Career Now | Dan Sanchez

No, We Are Not Screwed | TK Coleman

Who I’m Voting For | TK Coleman

No, We Are Not Mere Pawns | TK Coleman

FEEcast is honored to have Magatte Wade as our guest in this special episode recorded at FEEcon 2018. Magatte is a Senegalese entrepreneur and the founder of skin is skin. She is also the subject of an upcoming documentary short in FEE’s “How We Thrive” series.

Magatte rejects the casting of the people of her country and continent as helpless charity cases. What Africa needs, she insists, is not handouts or hand-me-downs, but freedom: especially the freedom to lift themselves up through commerce. As she explains to the FEEcast panel, Africans deserve better than perpetual dependence. Like all people, they deserve the dignity of trade, work, and self-reliance, which is the only path toward eradicating poverty instead of merely ameliorating it.

Show Notes:

Made in Mekhe OFFICIAL TRAILER

Magatte Wade: The Power of Entrepreneurship

Local Entrepreneurs, Not Foreign Do-Gooders, Are the True Hope of Africa

Domino’s Pizza is paving over potholes to preserve the cheesy integrity of their pies. Is it just a PR stunt? A sincere gesture of goodwill? Or is it also in their economic interest? Do roads and other “infrastructure” goods need to be provided by the government? Or do private individuals and organizations have incentives to provide such “public goods”? The FEEcast panelists explore these questions and also celebrate the recently completed FEEcon!

Show Notes:

Without Government, Who Will Build the Roads? Domino’s Pizza, Apparently | Brittany Hunter

Freeing the Freeways | Leigh Jenco

National Defense and the Fundamental Problem With "Public Goods"

The Private Provision of Public Goods | Donald J. Boudreaux

Capitalism is a top trending search term. What does it actually mean? Is it an economic system run by capitalists or swayed by consumers? Does it benefit capital at the expense of labor or is it responsible for the rising living standards or workers in industrialized countries? The FEEcast crew discusses this much maligned and much misunderstood term.

Show Notes:

Article: What Is "Capitalism" Anyway?” by Richard Ebeling

Video: “Why Should My Boss Get All the Profits?” by Seamus Coughlin

Article: “Only 53 US Companies Have Been on the Fortune 500 since 1955, Thanks to the Creative Destruction That Fuels Economic Prosperity” by Mark Perry

Video: “As the Rich Get Richer, the Poor Get Richer”

FEEcast welcomes freedom activist Jorge A. Jraissati, a recent émigré to America from Venezuela, which is suffering a horrific economic and humanitarian crisis. In a recent video, HBO’s John Oliver, sitting in a market economy’s lap of luxury, insisted that socialism is not to blame for Venezuela’s plight. But Jraissati, who actually lived through Venezuela’s nightmare, begs to differ. He explains how socialist ideology and big government policies plunged his once-prosperous country into the depths of hunger and chaos.

Show Notes:

• Video: One Venezuelan Student’s Heartbreaking Experience with Socialism
• Article: “The Ongoing Implosion of Venezuelan Statism” by Daniel J. Mitchell
• Article: “Socialist Policy Tanked Venezuela's Economy, Not Falling Oil Prices” by Julian Adorney
• Article: “Venezuela’s President Tackles Economic Crisis by Deleting 3 Zeros From its Currency” by Luis Pablo de la Horra
• Article: “Middle-of-the-Road Policy Leads to Socialism” by Ludwig von Mises
• Video: Venezuela: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

Did you know the word “liberalism” used to mean the opposite of what it does now? In this episode, the FEEcast gang discuss how that happened as well as the meanings of the words “progressivism” and “socialism.” They also explore socialism in the real world. What has it done for the countries that came closest to implementing it? Do the Nordic countries (Sweden, Denmark, etc) count as socialist successes? Richard Lorenc, Brittany Hunter, Dan Sanchez, and Anna Jane Parrill discuss these topics and more.

Show Notes:

• “The Epic Triumph of Liberalism and Its Tragic Betrayal” by Dan Sanchez
• “The Swedish Case for Limited Government” by Daniel J. Mitchell
• “Middle-of-the-Road Policy Leads to Socialism”: Chapter 2 in Planning for Freedom by Ludwig von Mises
• https://fee.org/resources/planning-for-freedom/
• https://fee.org/articles/mises-knew-the-true-meaning-of-liberalism/
• https://fee.org/articles/how-believing-in-socialism-can-make-you-miserable/

In this episode, FEEcast has its first guest! We welcome Sean Malone, Director of Media at FEE and creator of the hit YouTube video “What’s Wrong with Wakanda.” Sean and crew discuss what superheroes can teach us about economics, politics, and life itself.

Black Panther’s King T’Challa reigns over a sci fi paradise completely isolated from the rest of the world. But without trade, could a small country rise to prosperity, even if it was rich in a resources as wondrous as the fictional vibranium?

And in Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos wants to solve overpopulation by wiping out half of all life in the universe. Many internet commenters are strangely sympathetic toward the supervillain’s scheme (one writer conceded it was “technically genocide”). But does this betray backward economic reasoning (not to mention some serious ethical problems)?

Explore the economics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with FEEcast!

Show Notes:

• What’s Wrong with Wakanda, FEE on YouTube
• A Lot of People Agree with a Supervillain about Population | FEE.org
• Tons of 'Avengers: Infinity War' Fans Think Thanos Might Be Right, Inverse.com

McDonald’s in North Korea? Chinese dresses in Utah? Are such cross-cultural remixes cause for offense or celebration? Is militarism or trade the best answer to tyranny? Is cultural emulation a form of appropriation or appreciation? These questions and more are considered in this lively discussion with the whole FEEcast gang: Richard Lorenc, Brittany Hunter, Dan Sanchez, and Marianne March.

Show Notes:

• McDonalds on streets of North Korea: Kim Jong-un wants USA to invest in Pyongyang
• Conscience on the Battlefield | Leonard E. Read
• Want Peace? Promote Free Trade | Julian Adorney
• In North Korea, Black Markets Are Saving Lives | Richard Mason
• Venezuela Proves There is No Political Freedom Without Economic Freedom
• Chinese prom dress draws rage, but Utah student said she meant no harm
• Cultural Appropriation Is Love | TJ Brown
• Cultural Appropriation Is Intellectual Property on Stilts | Pierre-Guy Veer
• How Motown Smashed the Cultural Border | Sean Malone
• What's Wrong With Wakanda?

There’s a bomb that keeps ticking but never goes boom: the population bomb. For centuries, pessimists have predicted that population growth will overwhelm the planet’s resources and lead to an ecological armageddon. Yet, time and again, their doomsday prophecies have proven spectacularly wrong. Not only does the human race keep growing, but living standards keep going up, not down. Why do they keep underestimating humanity? They don’t understand that our ultimate resource is not anything in the ground. So what is it? Watch this episode of FEEcast to find out!

The Foundation for Economic Education proudly presents the inaugural episode of our new weekly show FEEcast, a lively and intelligent exploration of today’s most interesting stories and issues through the clarifying lens of economic thinking. In this episode, Richard Lorenc, Brittany Hunter, Dan Sanchez, and Marianne March discuss taxes (IRS.gov had a tax day meltdown!), wealth (#IdLikeToBeRichEnoughTo is trending on Twitter), and what made human prosperity, after millions of years of stagnation, skyrocket in recent history.

Links from this episode:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/irs-payment-site-fails-on-tax-day-but-you-still-have-to-pay/ar-AAvYXBI?ocid=spartandhp
https://twitter.com/hashtag/IdLikeToBeRichEnoughTo?src=tren
https://fee.org/articles/you-are-richer-than-john-d-rockefeller/
https://fee.org/articles/the-maddison-project-reveals-humanitys-remarkable-economic-progress-in-a-single-chart/
http://oll.libertyfund.org/quote/436