Government And Business

The Debt Dialogues [Episode 52]: Margaret Malewski on Value Creation

The Debt Dialogues is a weekly podcast that aims to educate young people about the welfare state and how it will affect their future. In this episode, I interview Margaret Malewski, the executive director of STRIVE Clubs, a nationwide student organization inspired by Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism. Topics covered include STRIVE’s mission and its upcoming conference on the morality of value creation and trade.
Government And Business

The Debt Dialogues [Episode 50]: Yaron Brook on Finance (Part 3)

The Debt Dialogues is a weekly podcast that aims to educate young people about the welfare state and how it will affect their future. In this episode, the third of a three-part interview, I talk to ARI’s executive director, Yaron Brook, about the financial industry — one of the chief targets of the attacks on economic inequality. Topics include: the myth of financial deregulation, why the Federal Reserve should be abolished and the vital need for a moral defense of finance.
Government And Business

The Debt Dialogues [Episode 49]: Yaron Brook on Finance (Part 2)

The Debt Dialogues is a weekly podcast that aims to educate young people about the welfare state and how it will affect their future. In this episode, the second of a three-part interview, I talk to ARI’s executive director, Yaron Brook, about the financial industry — one of the chief targets of the attacks on economic inequality. Topics include: the productive contribution of hedge funds, why finance is a top target of the inequality alarmists and the causes of the 2008 Financial Crisis.
Government And Business

The Debt Dialogues [Episode 48]: Yaron Brook on Finance (Part 1)

The Debt Dialogues is a weekly podcast that aims to educate young people about the welfare state and how it will affect their future. In this episode, the first of a three-part interview, I talk to ARI’s executive director Yaron Brook about the financial industry — one of the chief targets of the attacks on economic inequality. Topics include: the productive role of finance, the meaning of “capital” and why finance is so reviled.
Government And Business

The Debt Dialogues [Episode 47]: R.J. Renza, Jr., on Social Security

The Debt Dialogues is a weekly podcast that aims to educate young people about the welfare state and how it will affect their future. In this episode, I interview R.J. Renza, Jr., author of How Are You Not Angry Yet? How Social Security is Destroying the Futures, Finances and Hopes of Generations X, Y and Z and How We Can Put an End To It, on the vital need to end Social Security. Topics covered include: the true cost of Social Security, what young people really think about the program and how to convince people that Social Security should be abolished.
Government And Business

The Debt Dialogues [Episode 46]: Lawrence W. Reed on Myths of Progressivism

The Debt Dialogues is a weekly podcast that aims to educate young people about the welfare state and how it will affect their future. In this episode, I interview Lawrence W. Reed, president of the Foundation for Economic Education, on his new book Excuse Me, Professor: Challenging the Myths of Progressivism. Topics covered include: the inherent conflict between economic equality and political equality, how the minimum wage actually hurts the people it is supposed to help, why government spending doesn’t lead to prosperity and how to effectively defend capitalism.
Government And Business

The Debt Dialogues [Episode 45]: Walter Williams on Race and Education

The Debt Dialogues is a weekly podcast that aims to educate young people about the welfare state and how it will affect their future. In this episode, I interview Walter Williams, George Mason University economist and nationally syndicated columnist, on his new book American Contempt for Liberty. Topics covered include: the state of American education, free speech on college campuses, whether the welfare state has helped or hurt black Americans, the notion of “white privilege” and the “Black Lives Matter” movement.
Government And Business

The Debt Dialogues [Episode 44]: Peter Schwartz on Paternalism

The Debt Dialogues is a weekly podcast that aims to educate young people about the welfare state and how it will affect their future. In this episode, I interview ARI distinguished fellow Peter Schwartz on paternalism, altruism, and the welfare state. Topics include: The key flaw in paternalist arguments for the welfare state; the relationship between paternalism and altruism; what’s wrong with studies that allegedly prove that human beings are inherently irrational.
Government And Business

The Debt Dialogues [Episode 43]: Peter Ferrara on Entitlement Reform

The Debt Dialogues is a weekly podcast that aims to educate young people about the welfare state and how it will affect their future. In this episode, I interview Peter Ferrara, senior fellow for entitlement and budget policy at The Heartland Institute, on how to address the entitlement crisis. Topics include: why Social Security and Medicare are not sustainable; the importance of coming up with concrete proposals for reining in entitlements; Peter Ferrera’s proposals for reforming Social Security and the health care system.

Further Reading

Ayn Rand | 1957
For the New Intellectual

The Moral Meaning of Capitalism

An industrialist who works for nothing but his own profit guiltlessly proclaims his refusal to be sacrificed for the “public good.”
View Article
Ayn Rand | 1961
The Virtue of Selfishness

The Objectivist Ethics

What is morality? Why does man need it? — and how the answers to these questions give rise to an ethics of rational self-interest.
View Article