What Next | Daily News and Analysis - South Park Understands the Assignment

After using a Trump-stand-in during his first administration, South Park has come back from hiatus as vulgar and confrontational as ever, with its aiming firmly fixed on MAGA. Contrary to government sources, the show’s enjoying a renewed cultural relevance in its 27th season.

Guest:  David Mack, contributing writer to Slate.

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Podcast production by Ethan Oberman, Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.


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Audio Mises Wire - Can Econometric Models Fulfill the Role of an Economic Laboratory?

Mainstream economists claim that they can use econometric models to emulate human action and, thus, create an economic laboratory. These models, however, cannot tell us about cause-and-effect, which is vital to understanding praxeology and economic behavior.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/can-econometric-models-fulfill-role-economic-laboratory

What A Day - 80 Years After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, New Nuclear Threats Emerge

President Donald Trump is set to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska this week to discuss a potential end to the war in Ukraine (which Russia started.) To call the meeting ‘high stakes’ would be an understatement — already critics are warning of the potential for a ‘1938 Munich Moment,’ when Britain and France allowed Nazi Germany to take control over a swath then-Czechoslovakia in a bid to preserve peace on the continent. But the parallels to WWII don’t end there. Earlier this month, Trump said nuclear submarines were ‘in the region’ ahead of special envoy Steve Witkoff’s meeting with Putin in Moscow. As we mark 80 years this month since the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, historian Garrett Graff, author of the new book ‘The Devil Reached Toward the Sky,’ joins us to talk about what we learned — and we didn’t learn — in the decades since the U.S. dropped those bombs.

And in headlines: Thousands of people in Israel demonstrated against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to take control of Gaza City, Trump ramped up threats to take federal control of Washington D.C., and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued to remove 13 Democratic state lawmakers from office amid an ongoing fight over redistricting.

Show Notes:

The Indicator from Planet Money - What we’re reading on the beach this summer

It's time for our annual beach reading recs. Today we bring you three books, with a little economic learning to boot. Our recs:

Who is Government? The Untold Story of Public Service by Michael Lewis
El Dorado Drive by Megan Abbott
Algospeak: How Social Media is Transforming the Future of Language by Adam Aleksic

Related episodes:
Beach reading with a side of economics How to beach on a budget
How to beach on a budget

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What Next | Daily News and Analysis - Gutting Our National Parks

From the Statue of Liberty to the Golden Gate Bridge, and places in between like Yellowstone and the site of the Battle of Gettysburg, the National Park Service has been a point of American pride since its inception. And with a small budget and actually generating revenue, even fiscal hawks had no reason to complain. 

So why is the Trump administration cutting their budget? 

Guests:

Jon B. Jarvis,18th director of the National Parks.

Kevin Heatley, former superintendent of Crater Lake National Park, Oregon.  

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Podcast production by Ethan Oberman, Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.


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Audio Mises Wire - Will Jamaica Become a Republic?

Long a constitutional monarchy with ties to Great Britain, many in Jamaica are looking to end the old relationship and become a republic. But is this movement simply a reaction to anti-colonialism, and what kind of constitution would the new republic create? So far, no answers.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/will-jamaica-become-republic

What Next | Daily News and Analysis - TBD | Here Comes the A.I. Music Slop

It’s hard to make money in the music industry. But if you could flood every streamer with hundreds of “original” songs without having to, you know, write or produce it yourself, there’s money there—and less for everyone else. 


Guests: 

Chris Molanphy, host of Slate’s Hit Parade podcast.

Kate Knibbs, senior writer at Wired


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