Some of the biggest companies in America are changing what they do with DEI, saying no the Human Rights Commission and the Southern Poverty Law Center, defending fossil fuels, and yes, even defending the profit motive. It sometimes takes more nudging than we want, but today’s podcast gives you an update on how shareholder engagement, not boycott, is yielding great dividends. And then, yielding great dividends.

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The New York Times published a long, redundant, somewhat odd screed from Oren Cass this weekend, bemoaning “financialization” and suggesting that Wall Street has duped everyone, from their investors to their own clients, about what they really do. The wide net of the attack manages to capture exactly no one, and exposes what the anti-market, pro-statism new right fail to grasp about markets. David takes on the piece point by point, and the rebuttal is worth a listen.

Show notes:
Oren Cass NYT piece on financialization
David’s AIER paper on financialization

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When economic analysis and partisan cheerleading get mixed together, one suffers, and the other becomes embarrassing. David dissects Kevin Hassett’s claim that the economy is growing at 7 percent per year, and the dissection is not kind.

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We are living in a time period where humans are spending less time together than ever, and more and more mechanisms in the market are facilitating this. Cultural trends and a host of demographic realities are reinforcing a human isolation that is problematic at best, and catastrophic at worst.

In today’s Capital Record, David addresses the human element of social interaction, and the very nature of things that undergirds this. He laments this social trajectory and recognizes where market forces can serve to accommodate unhealthy trends if human beings stay determined to do unhealthy things. But he suggests that the solution is not in criticizing the natural accommodation of markets but rather in reversing those feedback loops through intentional and deliberate action. Naturally, he finds the state’s role in this to be dubious. Rather, and with some biographical confessions, he suggests that the solution to people being increasingly alone, lonely, and devoid of healthy, human interaction, starts with us.

Show notes:
Derek Thompson on the anti-social century

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We all got a lesson this week in one of the most powerful forces in world history. It is maybe the most important political dynamic on the globe today -- even more powerful than the separation of powers found in the Constitution. Indeed, unlike the latter, market discipline cannot be willed away.

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The limit of a 10 percent interest rate on credit card debt is a perfect storm, an unintended consequence, a territory for bad policy. Since that Friday night announcement of the president, inspired by the Sanders/Warren wing of political ideology, we have now seen support from the president for the Credit Card Competition Act. Here, more nuances abound, and more opportunities for shaking one’s head exist.

In this episode of Capital Record, David:

• Takes on the “credit card fees are usury” argument, some conveniently jump onto.
• Explains who is hurt the most by a government price control on credit card interest.
• Unpacks the Credit Card Competition Act.
• Reminds us of the most important law in economics -- “there’s no free lunch” -- accompanied by the most important question in economics -- “compared to what?”

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The president of the United States has ordered Fannie and Freddie to buy $200 billion of mortgage bonds (in a week where he has said and done a lot of things, some of which he is even allowed to do). On today’s Capital Record, David unpacks what this means, what it doesn’t mean, and why it doesn’t represent any solution to the housing affordability mess in which we find ourselves.

Show Notes:
The Saddest Part of This Recent Economic Lunacy

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On Wednesday, January 7, President Trump sent out two messages via social media: First, that he was “banning institutional ownership of residential real estate.” Later, that he was “outlawing return of capital to shareholders.” The Warren/Sanders/Mamdani wing of the Democratic Party is celebrating. The Reagan/Hayek/Laffer wing of the Republican wing is scratching its head.

Today, David goes back to the utterly incoherent idea that institutions putting investment into residential real estate (all 0.4 percent of the single-family residences this represent) is behind the affordability issues. He reminds listeners what “supply-side” growth means. And he does a quick refresher on capital formation, and how capital is needed to innovate, and that how capital gets treated is somewhat relevant to that process. It’s a plea to remember first principles when it comes to economic policy, and why we have spent a lifetime rejecting this Marxian drivel.

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