You think you know why our government in Washington is broken, but you really don't. You think it's broken because politicians curry favor with special interests and activists of the left or right. There's something to that, and it helps explain why these politicians can't find common ground. But this theory misses the root cause. A half century ago, elected officials in Congress and the White House figured out a new system for enacting laws and spending programs—one that lets them take credit f...
Sep 19, 2017•1 hr 23 min
The Cato Institute's Center for Constitutional Studies Presents a Symposium through the Generosity of George M. Yeager Cato's annual Constitution Day symposium marks the day in 1787 that the Constitutional Convention finished drafting the U.S. Constitution. We celebrate that event each year with the release of the new issue of the Cato Supreme Court Review and with a day-long symposium featuring noted scholars discussing the recently concluded Supreme Court term and the important cases coming up...
Sep 18, 2017•56 min
The Cato Institute's Center for Constitutional Studies Presents a Symposium through the Generosity of George M. Yeager Cato's annual Constitution Day symposium marks the day in 1787 that the Constitutional Convention finished drafting the U.S. Constitution. We celebrate that event each year with the release of the new issue of the Cato Supreme Court Review and with a day-long symposium featuring noted scholars discussing the recently concluded Supreme Court term and the important cases coming up...
Sep 18, 2017•1 hr 15 min
The Cato Institute's Center for Constitutional Studies Presents a Symposium through the Generosity of George M. Yeager Cato's annual Constitution Day symposium marks the day in 1787 that the Constitutional Convention finished drafting the U.S. Constitution. We celebrate that event each year with the release of the new issue of the Cato Supreme Court Review and with a day-long symposium featuring noted scholars discussing the recently concluded Supreme Court term and the important cases coming up...
Sep 18, 2017•1 hr 11 min
The Cato Institute's Center for Constitutional Studies Presents a Symposium through the Generosity of George M. Yeager Cato's annual Constitution Day symposium marks the day in 1787 that the Constitutional Convention finished drafting the U.S. Constitution. We celebrate that event each year with the release of the new issue of the Cato Supreme Court Review and with a day-long symposium featuring noted scholars discussing the recently concluded Supreme Court term and the important cases coming up...
Sep 18, 2017•1 hr 13 min
The Cato Institute's Center for Constitutional Studies Presents a Symposium through the Generosity of George M. Yeager Cato's annual Constitution Day symposium marks the day in 1787 that the Constitutional Convention finished drafting the U.S. Constitution. We celebrate that event each year with the release of the new issue of the Cato Supreme Court Review and with a day-long symposium featuring noted scholars discussing the recently concluded Supreme Court term and the important cases coming up...
Sep 18, 2017•1 hr 28 min
What is the state of human freedom and progress around the world? If human well-being is getting better, why do so many people remain pessimistic? Evidence from academic institutions and international organizations shows dramatic improvements in human well-being. These improvements are especially striking in the developing world. Unfortunately, there is often a wide gap between the reality and public perception of human well-being. To make matters worse, the media emphasizes bad news, while igno...
Sep 14, 2017•40 min
During the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, political dictators were not only popular in their own countries, but were also admired by numerous highly educated and idealistic Western intellectuals. The objects of this political hero-worship included Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro and more recently Hugo Chavez, among others. Hollander will discuss the sources of these misjudgments and misperceptions, the specific appeals of particular dictators, and t...
Sep 13, 2017•1 hr 27 min
The legal sale of recreational marijuana remains limited to a handful of states, but 29 states plus the District of Columbia allow the prescription and distribution of medical marijuana. Ten of those states—which represent 115 electoral votes—went for President Trump in the 2016 election. National polling shows that just over half of Americans favor marijuana legalization, but a much larger majority want the federal government to leave marijuana alone in states where it is legal. While candidate...
Sep 12, 2017•38 min
A key question in debates over whether states should implement Obamacare's Medicaid expansion, and whether Congress should repeal Obamacare entirely, is whether government expansions of health insurance coverage improve health, and if so, how much. A new study by Bernard Black and colleagues finds that the uninsured "consume fewer healthcare services, but their health (while alive) does not deteriorate relative to the insured, and, in our central estimates, they do not die significantly faster t...
Sep 06, 2017•1 hr 10 min
Why is Westeros mired in 8,000 years of economic stagnation? Should Daenerys firebomb King's Landing to prevent a longer war? The world of Game of Thrones is teeming with fascinating interactions between institutions, incentives, and power that creates a sweeping geopolitical mega-saga just begging to be theorized. An examination of these issues through the lens of economics, law, international relations, and power politics promises to be both instructive and entertaining. The day after the Seas...
Aug 28, 2017•1 hr 15 min
What are the biggest challenges facing U.S. foreign policy? While much of the current foreign policy debate in Washington and around the world is focused on the Trump administration, policymakers must also look further ahead in order to address potential conflicts and issues that will shape the world in the first half of the 21st century.From the Middle East to Russia to the rise of China, world affairs and the U.S. role in it is constantly changing. Indeed, the world has changed a great deal si...
Aug 18, 2017•48 min
North Korea remains a vexing, high-stakes puzzle. With so little known about the “hermit kingdom” leadership, how should the United States respond to North Korea’s growing nuclear capabilities? Doug Bandow provides his insights after a rare visit to the isolated nation. Join us for a live discussion about the North Korea problem. Send your questions and join the conversation with #CatoConnects . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Aug 15, 2017•33 min
From Cato University 2017: Summer Seminar on Political Economy Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jul 29, 2017•1 hr 8 min
From Cato University 2017: Summer Seminar on Political Economy Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jul 28, 2017•13 min
Public choice has emerged to explain behavior in both markets and politics. To what extent do voters and consumers behave rationally, and how can a science largely germinated in the study of market exchange help to explain politics? From Cato University 2017: Summer Seminar on Political Economy Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jul 28, 2017•1 hr 6 min
Most of the order in human life wasn't consciously foreseen, designed, or imposed; it just grew. Free societies include many islands of conscious planning, but the overall order of a free society isn't planned. Organizations have purposes, but society has no one purpose. From Cato University 2017: Summer Seminar on Political Economy Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jul 28, 2017•1 hr 13 min
Modern widespread prosperity is made possible by respect for individual freedom — to think, to plan, to challenge old ways of doing things, to introduce new products and services, to be enterprising. How are liberty and shared prosperity closely connected? From Cato University 2017: Summer Seminar on Political Economy Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jul 27, 2017•52 min
One of the most potent and controversial tools in the American intelligence community’s arsenal is set to lapse at the end of this year. Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 allows the government to intercept the communications of foreign targets as they cross U.S. soil—including conversations with American citizens. Spy agencies claim it’s a vital weapon against terrorists and should not only be reauthorized but also made permanent. Civil libertarians, however, worry that the law’s in...
Jul 27, 2017•52 min
One of the fundamental historical arguments for traditional public schooling is that compulsory common schools are necessary for a stable democratic society. Horace Mann, the father of American public schooling, argued that common schools would force children from diverse backgrounds, religions, and races to interact with one another and receive instruction on proper virtues. Other people, however, believe that allowing parents to choose the schools they think best for their children could impro...
Jul 26, 2017•1 hr 30 min
Thomas Jefferson famously wrote that the earth belongs to the living. His letter to James Madison is often quoted for the proposition that we should not be bound to the “dead hand of the past,” suggesting that the Constitution should instead be interpreted as a living, breathing document. Less well known is Madison’s response, in which he said that the Constitution forms a debt against the living, who take the benefit of it. This debt, Madison claimed, could only be discharged by a kind of origi...
Jul 24, 2017•1 hr 3 min
One basis of modern medicine is that low doses of many chemicals are beneficial, while higher ones are toxic. And yet a great disparity has evolved with the regulation of many entities — including carcinogens, ionizing radiation, and toxics. Their regulation is based on the notion that that a single molecule or photon is as capable of inducing cancer as the billionth one. How has this disparity happened — with low, beneficial doses being treated and regulated the same way as higher ones? What is...
Jul 20, 2017•1 hr 33 min
Political communication can be described as the use of three separate “languages”: progressive, conservative and libertarian. Each serves to reinforce the validity of the positions of its constituent members while at the same time maligning the views of their opponents.By identifying and understanding the language that each group employs, we can discuss politics while minimizing miscommunication, break down barriers to real connection, and create space for a less fractious exchange of ideas.Join...
Jul 17, 2017•59 min
Ayn Rand’s first novel, We the Living, is a captivating story set in 1920s Russia about students trapped in a communist state. As Rand said, “ We the Living is not a story about Soviet Russia in 1925. It is a story about Dictatorship, any dictatorship, anywhere, at any time.” With new authoritarian challenges to liberal democracy arising throughout the Western world, its ideas are as timely as ever. The theatrical company Austin Shakespeare will present a staged reading from The Unconquered , Ra...
Jul 11, 2017•33 min
“Discrimination” has a terrible connotation — excluding or treating people differently for ultimately superficial reasons — and fear that choice programs would allow schools to discriminate in admissions has been widespread. But is “discrimination” always and inescapably wrong? Could it reflect a school’s capabilities or sense of mission? Join us for a very open discussion — including opinions from the audience — of this highly sensitive issue. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more inf...
Jun 29, 2017•1 hr 28 min
According to a recent New York Times analysis, drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death among Americans under age 50. Driving this trend, which shows no sign of abatement, is a surge in opioid-related overdoses. These types of deaths have occurred with such frequency that Maryland, Florida, and now Arizona, have declared medical states of emergencyWhat to do? Solutions range from requiring more federal intervention in the practice of medicine, increasing punishing actions on heroin prod...
Jun 28, 2017•44 min
The Democracy Fund Voter Study Group , a new research collaboration of nearly two dozen analysts and scholars from across the political spectrum, recently released new data and analysis exploring voter perceptions before and after the 2016 election.During the intense political division of the 2016 presidential campaign, the Voter Study Group began collaborating across ideological lines to examine the underlying values and opinions that influence voter decision-making. The expert group commission...
Jun 20, 2017•37 min
Following stunning losses by the once hegemonic African National Congress in 2016 local elections, Herman Mashaba, a successful businessman and politician from the opposition Democratic Alliance, became mayor of Johannesburg—South Africa’s economic powerhouse. Over the course of last year, Mashaba started to tackle widespread corruption as well as failing delivery of public services in the city. In addition to speaking about the state of Johannesburg, Mashaba will offer his thoughts on economic ...
Jun 16, 2017•1 hr 31 min
While there is an ongoing debate about what caused the 2008 financial crisis, there is little disagreement that the housing market was at the heart of the problem. In the years since the crisis, Congress passed a massive new piece of legislation, the Dodd-Frank Act, and federal financial regulators have been actively issuing new regulations. But what about the government-sponsored housing enterprises, known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? What was their role in the crisis, and what has been done ...
Jun 15, 2017•1 hr 30 min
This is an exclusive opportunity for Cato Sponsors to interact with Peter and discuss topics of interest—from policy research to the organization’s operations to Peter’s own involvement with Cato and the broader liberty movement. He looks forward to taking your questions and engaging in a thought-provoking discussion. The 40th Anniversary e-Briefing Series offers Cato Sponsors a special online-only opportunity to directly engage with Cato’s leadership and scholars as the Institute commemorates t...
Jun 13, 2017•50 min
