Category: 3-EconSometimeCommentary

At around 1 a.m. on the morning of November 15, 1994, Captain Prentice "Skip" Strong III woke to a distress call. Skip was the new captain of an oil tanker called the Cherry Valley. He and his crew had been making their way up the coast of Florida that evening when a tropical storm had descended. It had been a rough night of 15 foot waves and 50 mile per hour winds.

The distress call was coming from a tugboat whose engines were failing in the storm. Now adrift, the tugboat was on a dangerous collision course with the shore. The only ship close enough to mount a rescue was the Cherry Valley.

Skip faced a difficult decision. A fully loaded, 688-foot oil tanker is hardly anyone's first choice of a rescue vessel. It is as maneuverable as a school bus on ice. And the Cherry Valley was carrying ten million gallons of heavy fuel oil. A rescue attempt would put them in dangerously shallow water. One wrong move, and they would have an ecological disaster on the order of the Exxon Valdez.

What happened next that night would be dissected and debated for years to come. The actions of Skip and his crew would lead to a surprising discovery, a record-setting lawsuit, and one of the strangest legal battles in maritime history. At the center of it all, an impossible question: How do you put a price tag on doing the right thing?

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On this episode, we’ll hear a book panel discussion on Christopher J. Coyne’s book,In Search of Monsters to Destroy: The Folly of American Empire and the Paths to Peace (Independent Institute, 2023). In his comments, Coyne challenges the notion that the US military is necessary for global order, explaining that without the US as the global police force chaos will not overtake the world, and questions the efficacy and morality of a militaristic, top-down approach to global conflict. Coyne breaks down the history of the American empires into three phases: continental expansion, overseas imperialism, and global hegemony, and describes the features of the present-day American empire and the interventionist mindset. He argues that foreign intervention and the effort to export democracy to other nations by illiberal means can only lead to illiberal ends. A liberal empire is ultimately illiberal. He calls for reimagining our understanding of peace as a community-driven process, emphasizing the role of human imagination in peacemaking. The panel is moderated by Stefanie Haeffele, and they are joined on the panel by:

• William Easterly, Professor of Economics at New York University, Co-director of the NYU Development Research Institute, and author of three books including The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good (2006)
• Ginny Choi, Senior Program Director of Academic & Student Programs, Senior Fellow with the F. A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, and co-author of Do Markets Corrupt Our Morals? (2019)
• Alexandre Christoyannopoulos, PGT Programme Leader and a Reader in Politics and International Relations at Loughborough University, and author or co-editor of five books including Tolstoy's Political Thought: Christian Anarcho-Pacifist Iconoclasm Then and Now (2021)

Christopher Coyne is associate director of the F. A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics and F. A. Harper Professor of Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He is also a Professor of Economics at George Mason University.

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On today's episode, we have three big economic ideas for your consideration – ideas that could potentially improve the economy and make us more efficient.

First, what if we ban left turns on roads? Then, what if we gave every new baby ... a trust fund? And lastly, what if we completely got rid of U.S. congressional districts?

That's all on today's episode.

This show was hosted by Sarah Gonzalez. It was produced by Willa Rubin and Emma Peaslee with help from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Dave Blanchard and engineered by Robert Rodriguez. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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Behind these steamy sequences, there are body doubles, pubic wigs, legal documents, and dedicated choreographers who make sure everyone is comfortable. Zachary Crockett fast-forwards straight to the good parts. 

 

• SOURCES:
  • Alicia Rodis, intimacy coordinator.
  • Matthew Swanlund, founder and principal attorney at Aesthetic Legal.

 

• RESOURCES:
  • "Romance or Nomance? Adolescents Prefer to See Less Sex, More Friendships, Platonic Relationships on Screen," by Elizabeth Kivowitz (UCLA Newsroom, 2023).
  • "You're Not Seeing Things —'Nudity Creep' in Streaming TV Reveals More of Its Stars," by Neda Ulaby (All Things Considered, 2023).
  • "Jennifer Aniston Rejected Offer for an Intimacy Coordinator in Sex Scenes with 'Gentleman' Jon Hamm," by Esther Kang (People, 2023).
  • "How the Sausage Gets Made: Inside Hollywood's Prosthetic Penis Craze," by Emma Fraser (Thrillist, 2022).
  • "The Disturbing Story Behind the Rape Scene in Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris, Explained," by Anna North (Vox, 2018).
  • "Two James Francos. Porn. 1970s New York. The Deuce Could Go So Wrong — but It Doesn't," by Emily St. James (Vox, 2017).
  • "Shooting Film and TV Sex Scenes: What Really Goes On," by Melena Ryzik (The New York Times, 2015).
  • "Sexually Explicit Casting Contract for HBO’s ‘Westworld’ Extras Has SAG-AFTRA Concerned," by Jonathan Handel (The Hollywood Reporter, 2015).

 

• EXTRAS:
  • "Why is Everyone Having Less Sex?" by No Stupid Questions (2023).

After very high inflation, the United States is finally feeling some relief in the form of "disinflation." But, why exactly has inflation slowed down?

Three Planet Money hosts try to answer that question while competing to be the winner of our very own reporting challenge: Econ Battle Zone!

It's economics journalism meets high-stakes reality TV competition! Will our contestants be able to impress our celebrity judges? How will they manage to incorporate their mystery ingredients? Who will take home the championship belt? Tune in for the inaugural episode of...Econ Battle Zone!

This episode was hosted by Keith Romer, Amanda Aronczyk, Erika Beras, and Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. James Sneed produced this episode with help from Emma Peaslee. The show was edited by Molly Messick, engineered by Cena Loffredo, and fact checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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On today's show, we look at two indicators of the economic disruptions of the war in Gaza and try to trace how far they will reach.

We start in the Red Sea, a crucial link in the global supply chain connecting to the Suez Canal, with around 15% of the world's shipping passing through it. This includes oil tankers and massive container ships transporting everything from microchips to furniture. With Houthi rebels attacking container ships in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, shipping lines are re-routing, adding time and cost to delivery. We look at how ocean shipping is a web more than a chain of links, and try to see which parts of the web can take up more strain as the Red Sea and the Suez Canal become too dangerous to pass.

Then, we'll consider what escalation could mean for the region's most important export: oil. Five steps of escalation each mean a ratcheting up of costs that knock on to other industries, like food. Some prices are likely to rise faster than others, though.

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American golfers lose 300 million balls a year — and all those bad swings are someone else’s business opportunity. Zachary Crockett hits the links.

 

• SOURCES:
  • Todd Hutchinson, president and owner of BallHawker.
  • Lashan Wanigatunga, founder of Two Guys With Balls.

 

• RESOURCES:
  • "BallHawker, Challenge Enterprises Turn Wayward Golf Shots Into Successful Endeavor," Natalie Gilstrap (Clay Today, 2023).
  • "Temecula Golf Ball Diver Nets $100,000 a Year," by Jeff Zevely (CBS8, 2022).
  • "Golf’s Recycled Ball Market is Big Business," by Erik Matuszewski (Link, 2021).
  • "The Inside Story of What the Original Titleist Pro V1 Launch Was Really Like," Andrew Tursky (Golf Digest, 2020).
  • "Head of Golf Ball Retrieval Company Sentenced for Manslaughter After Diving Death at Wales Golf Course," by Alex Myers (Golf Digest, 2017).
  • "Man Dies While Illegally Diving for Golf Balls," by Alex Myers (Golf Digest, 2015).

 

• EXTRAS:
  • "Greg Norman Takes On the P.G.A. Tour," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2023).

When you think of a potato, one state probably comes to mind: Idaho. But for much of American history, Maine was home to the nation's largest potato crop.

That status had changed by the 1970s, with the West growing more and more of the nation's potatoes. But Maine still had one distinct advantage: A privileged position in the commodities market. The New York Mercantile Exchange, one of the largest such marketplaces in the country, exclusively dealt in Maine potatoes. And two deep-pocketed Western potato kingpins weren't happy about it.

So the Westerners waged what's now called the Maine Potato War of 1976. Their battlefield was the futures market: A special type of marketplace, made up of hordes of screaming traders, where potatoes can be bought and sold before they're even planted.

The Westerners did something so bold – and so unexpected – that it brought not only the potato market, but the entire New York commodities exchange, to its knees.

Today on the show, how a war waged through futures contracts influenced the kind of potatoes we eat.

This episode was hosted by Dylan Sloan and Nick Fountain. This episode was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler with help from Emma Peaslee. It was edited by Molly Messick, engineered by Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez, and fact checked by Sierra Juarez. Our executive producer is Alex Goldmark.

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There's this fundamental question in economics that has proven really hard to answer: What's a good way to help people out of poverty? The old-school way was to fund programs that would support very particular things, like buying cows for a village, giving people business training, or building schools.

But over the past few decades, there has been a new idea: Could you help people who don't have money by ... just giving them money? We covered this question in a segment of This American Life that originally ran in 2013. Economists who studied the question found that giving people cash had positive effects on recipients' economic and psychological well-being. Maybe they bought a cow that could earn them money each week. Maybe they could replace their grass roofs with metal roofs that didn't need fixing every so often.

The success of just giving people in poverty cash has spawned a whole set of new questions that economists are now trying to answer. Like, if we do just give money, what's the best way to do that? Do you just give it all at once? Or do you dole it out over time? And it turns out... a huge new study on giving cash was just released and it's got a lot of answers.

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Peter Boettke sits down with Bryan Cheang, discussing unveiling liberalism in Southeast Asia. In this conversation, Bryan begins with discourse on the synthesis of different schools of thought in economic growth and development, stressing the importance of considering the relationship between cultural differences, classical liberalism, and economic development. He points out that in Asia, many countries adopted capitalist practices but remained authoritarian, challenging the notion that capitalism and freedom always go hand in hand. Bryan also argues for a broadening of methodological approaches in economics to include cultural and historical contexts of individuals.

Bryan Cheang is the Assistant Director of the Centre for the Study of Governance & Society. He received his PhD and MA in Political Economy from King’s College London and is a graduate of the National University of Singapore. He has authored three books including Economic Liberalism and the Developmental State: Hong Kong and Singapore’s Post-war Development (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023), Liberalism Unveiled: Forging A New Third Way In Singapore (coauthored with Donovan Choy, World Scientific, 2021) and Free Market Humanitarianism (Ally Press, 2019). Bryan is an alum of the Mercatus Adam Smith Fellowship.

If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.

Virtual Sentiments, our new podcast series from the Hayek Program is now streaming! Subscribe today and listen to season two, now releasing!

Follow the Hayek Program on Twitter: @HayekProgram

Learn more about Academic & Student Programs

Follow the Mercatus Center on Twitter: @mercatus

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