Do Taxes and Greater Police Funding Reduce Crime?

In a few episodes of Tim Pool's podcast, he's recently mentioned how Trump saved New York by making the city more appealing to the wealthy, thus expanding the tax base, and increased police funding, which in turn reduced crime. While that may be part of the story, I have a tendency to agree with economists who oppose the assumption that greater taxation and police funding cause reduction in crimes.

In my rant, I touch on several subjects that are somewhat related to crime, such as the drug war and alcohol prohibition, and the 2014 study commissioned by the Obama administration to study gun ownership's relation to crime.

Note: I promise, I don't have anything against Tim Pool. I quite like his show and listen to it daily, which also means that he happens to be a major source of topics for me to discuss, whether I agree or disagree.

Inconsistent Property Rights, and Social Media Censorship

I've been seeing some people ask why Republicans are doing nothing about social media censorship, and calling them cowards, or stupid, for leaving it alone. I think that perspective demonstrates a lack of understanding of the Republican application of property rights. It's akin to calling Republicans cowards or stupid for not banning guns after a mass shooting. Or, on the other side of the political spectrum, it's like thinking Democrats are stupid for wanting to legalize the drug or sex trade. All of these are questions of property rights, and because most people apply them inconsistently, they think those who apply them differently than they do are stupid. I wanted to address the inconsistent applications of property rights from the left-wing, right-wing, and moderates, and my frustration with the desire to get people back on to platforms which don't respect your free speech rather than letting companies that do fill that niche.

Automation, Dr. Stone, and Deflation

In this episode I talk a bit about how automation is a good thing, and I relate that to the anime Dr. Stone in order to explain some of it. I also talk a little bit about Antony Sammeroff's debate with Martin Ford on whether robots will cause mass unemployment, and address the point brought about by Martin that deflation would negatively impact loans. 

Here's a link to the debate: https://reason.com/video/will-robots-cause-mass-unemployment-a-soho-forum-debate/

Here's also an interview with Antony on the Tom Woods show regarding his debate: https://tomwoods.com/ep-1574-do-robots-mean-a-future-of-joblessness/

Originally Published 07/07/20

Free Speech Internet Regulations

I talk a bit about pushes for free speech regulations on the internet, and although I might not articulate some of the best arguments for why this might be a bad thing, typically I think that regulations have a lot of unintended consequences that not only either make the problem worse, or create totally new unrelated problems, but that they also usually create barriers to entry within a market that might help to better establish currently existing monopolies.

Originally Published 07/01/20

Private Security

In this episode I talk a bit about the market for private security as an alternative to police. I'm by no means an expert on the subject, and I do a terrible job explaining it in comparison to Bob Murphy, who I'd recommend you give a listen to. Here's an episode from his podcast about the market for private security and how it could replace police:

https://www.bobmurphyshow.com/episodes/ep-124-the-right-way-to-defund-the-police-and-an-eyewitness-account-of-the-capitol-hill-autonomous-zone-chaz/

The bit that I did hope to contribute to the conversation are my arguments against the claim that the poor would have little to no access to private security.

Originally Published 07/01/20

Spring 2020 Anime, Ascendance of a Bookworm, & the 8th Son

In this episode, I talk a bit about some of the anime I watched during the spring 2020 season, now that it's concluded. These aren't "reviews" as I don't feel qualified to offer in depth anime reviews, but I do talk about what anime I enjoyed, or felt were a bit lacking, as well as interesting aspects of the anime Ascendance of a Bookworm, and the 8th Son, from a libertarian perspective.

Originally Published 06/30/20

Tim Pool's Position On Google, and the Irony of Tearing Down Statues

In this episode, I wanted to discuss the strange position Tim Pool seems to take on Google's monopoly, and competition within the search engine market, as well as discuss the strange irony in tearing down statues, and their history.

Originally Published 06/17/20

How We "Pay" and the Keynes/Socialist Parallel

I'd recently shared a video by Tim Pool on Facebook about how people are refusing to work in order to continue receiving unemployment benefits, and my aunt asked "How the hell are we going to pay for this?" In this episode I explain Quantitative Easing, the effects of inflation, and end on how I think we got to this point: by the harmful economic parallel between Keynesianism and Socialism/Communism, a denial of Say's Law, frequent use of the Broken Window Fallacy, and a demand-side view of economics.

This is also my first "scripted" episode. Some of it was scripted and some not, because I'm thinking I might be better able to concisely articulate my ideas by scripting my episodes. 

I might go between scripting episodes and winging it depending upon how much time I have to write a script and the necessity of having one.

Originally Published 05/20/20

Food Wars, Communism, and the Economic Calculation Problem

Because I briefly touched on it in my intro episode, but went on a tangent where I only explained how the Azami Nakiri administration in food wars was NOT communist, I decided I'd explain how it was like communism. I also go off on a bit of a tangent to explain the Economic Calculation Problem, or the Socialist Calculation problem. Also, I realized that in the episode I say that profit margin is revenue minus cost, but that's not correct, that is the profit. I believe that profit margin is the profit divided by the revenue.

Originally Published 04/21/20

Konosuba and Exploitation of Labor/Extraction of Wages

I often hear people talk of exploitation of labor, and extraction of wages. Now, I'm not implying that it is not possible to exploit labor or exctract profits from employee wages, as there may be specific individual cases where that does occur.  In this episode I'll be using the first 2-3 episodes of Konosuba as examples, and I'll be discussing the determination of wages, and how, broadly speaking, it is more likely that your employer is actually increasing the value of your labor, such that it actually commands a higher wage.

Originally Published 04/19/20

Data Caps and Marginal Utility

In this episode I talk a little bit about Comcast's Data Caps, their removal of the caps during the Coronavirus pandemic, the economic theory of marginal utility, and what economic implications we can draw from them.

Originally Published 04/19/20

Introduction

This is simply an introduction episode in which I briefly explain what I hope to do on this podcast. I also go on to talk a bit about S3E7 of Food Wars, and how the new Director of the school is basically instituting a combination of communist and fascist economic policies, yet I don't actually detail how they are communist. I'll probably discuss that in more detail in a later episode.

Originally Published 4/19/20