Riches and Power

Imagine a world in which the government has unbounded power, circumscribed by no constitution. This was the reality of things for most of human history, but more recently, in much of the world we have become accustomed to a constitution that limits the power of the government. In the United States, the constitution specifically lists—or enumerates as it is traditionally referred to—powers that the federal government has. These enumerated powers are always subject to ongoing debate, expansion, and contraction.

Imagine a world without economic crashes. A world in which the economy is always up and to the right, forever. That sounds like a great world, but it is also, perhaps, a less vibrant world. A world in which innovations are adopted less readily and new ways of thinking never emerge. Join us as we learn about economic crashes with Professor Harold James of Princeton who recently published a book examining economic crashes throughout history called Seven Crashes.

The China Shock started in earnest in the early 2000s after it entered the World Trade Organization. In those years, the American heartland's manufacturing was gutted as a result of the shockingly fast entry of cheaper Chinese goods into the world stage. That was China Shock 1.0. Why was that shock so impactful, and what is going on during today's China Shock 3.0 to many other countries. Join us for this timely discussion given the ongoing Trump trade war and tariffs.

Imagine a world in which people dying in airplanes wasn’t international headline making news. A world, instead, in which planes crashing was a common, everyday occurrence. A little over 100 years ago, there was an air race that captivated the country as its participants raced from coast to coast, then back again. But this wasn’t a simple race. It was also a concerted effort to usher in the age of aviation. Join us as we learn about one of the pivotal moments in the history of early aviation.

How much do podcast hosts make? What does it take to get your show listened to? Why is podcasting such a great business model? Gary Arndt is a longtime podcast host of Everything Everywhere Daily, one of the most listened to history podcasts on the planet. We had a great discussion about the podcast industry itself. Join us for the ride!

Part 2: Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) rose from obscurity into being the third most popular sport on the planet. How did such a violent, oft-frowned-upon sport become so popular? And how did Dana White come to so dominate the sport via his Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) brand? This is a multi-billion dollar sport that you may not ever have heard much about.

Join us as we explore this fascinating business with Rolling Stone contributor Jack Crosbie, himself an MMA hobbyist. This is part one of a two-part episode.

Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) rose from obscurity into being the third most popular sport on the planet. How did such a violent, oft-frowned-upon sport become so popular? And how did Dana White come to so dominate the sport via his Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) brand? This is a multi-billion dollar sport that you may not ever have heard much about.

Join us as we explore this fascinating business with Rolling Stone contributor Jack Crosbie, himself an MMA hobbyist. This is part one of a two-part episode.

In Part 2 of our conversation with CEO of Rex, Jack Ryan, we talk about an OpEd in the Wall Street Journal he recently published: "What Does HUD Have to Show for the Trillions It’s Spent?"

We dig deep on the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, its staggering spend over the past six decades, and why it has struggled to achieve any of its aims (including driving down the cost of housing).

CEO and Author Jack Ryan recently wrote an op ed in the Wall Street Journal called "What Does HUD Have to Show for the Trillions It’s Spent?" and subtitled: "The U.S. homeownership rate was 64% in 1967, two years after the department opened. Now it’s . . . 64%."

He is an entrepreneur, an expert on housing policy, and a crusader against incumbent housing policy. Join us as a discuss American housing policy and why it has been so ineffectual at achieving its stated aims.

Mr. Ryan founded real estate brokerage Rex and recently published Bringing Adam Smith into th...

Imagine walking down an aisle at Target or Walmart looking for a new coffee maker, but there is just one option. Shelf after shelf of a single brand’s coffee maker. You don’t like it? Too bad. Or, imagine a time before big-box retailers, when you might have to order a coffee maker via a catalog and wait weeks for its delivery. We live in an era of overwhelming choice that is entirely unique from a historical perspective. And, though we all grew up in this paradigm and now take it for granted, consumer choice has origins in one...

Why is America so odd in that its citizens drink huge quantities of refrigerated milk? Other Western countries primarily drink shelf-stable milk that does not need to be refrigerated until opened. How did this happen? What impact does this have on our grocery stores and environmental footprint?

Imagine a world in which you don’t own index funds, but rather own companies directly. You have to know them intimately, and vote on issues affecting the operations of the company. Today, we live in a world in which most of us invest passively, but it hasn’t always been that way. Join us as we explore the world and history of asset managers.

Sahand Moarefy is a corporate attorney, and he is the author of a fantastic, recently-published book called The New Power Brokers: The Rise of Asset Manager Capitalism and the New Economic Order, avai...

Spirit Airlines is one of the most reviled airlines--and brands--in the country. Yet, it also might be the most important airline in the country. Join us as we explore why this hated airline is so important to the U.S. air traveler with writer Scott Nover.

Imagine living in a world without a conception of a past greater than a few hundred or thousand years. A world in which “old” was perhaps not much older than your great, great, great grandfather. How would that change your conception of history, your place in the world, what the future holds? Deep time is a very modern idea whose impact on the development of North America as a locus of world power was profound in many ways. Join us as we explore the idea of deep time.

Imagine a world before North Face, Patagonia, or any other cold-weather gear. A world in which you had to rely only on what you could find in nature. It was in that world that industrial-scale hunting of seals took place because their fur provided fantastic insulation from the elements. It was also in that world that the unbelievable journey of the Nanina took place in which a group of men were abandoned on a remote set of islands. Join us as we learn about the world of 18th century maritime hunting in the recently-published book Left for Dead.

Imagine a world in which you can’t lie because, if you do, you will be found out 100% of the time. We obviously don’t live in this world, but we’ve built machines in an attempt to get closer to that reality. So-called lie detectors—a staple of police procedural dramas—are an attempt to suss out the truth of a testimony using science. But is that science real, or is it more of a reflection of a moment in time in history? Join us as we explore the history of lie detectors. 

Imagine a world in which you love skiing, but the only way to shush down the mountain is to trudge to the top of the mountain with the skis strapped to your back. There are no lift lines, sure, but each run requires an arduous effort to make happen. Conversely, imagine a world in which ski lifts are abundant, but a lift ticket doesn’t cost north of $200 per day at the window. Why and how did the ski business in North America get so expensive and how did it become what some might describe as a duopoly? Join us...

Why did the Cold War end? Every high schooler in the country would likely answer that with some reference to the steely-eyed resolve of John F. Kennedy, or America's overwhelming economic power. But Professor Fritz Bartel of Texas A&M University has a compelling--and very surprising--new theory he put forth in his recent book The Triumph of Broken Promises.

The two largest ride share providers in the United States, Uber and Lyft, have recently said that they will be exiting Minneapolis in May. Minneapolis' city council has passed into law a requirement that the ride share providers pay a (in the companies' view) high minimum hourly wage to their riders. The companies say the wage is unsustainable. The city council says it is necessary to ensure a living wage. Join us as we explore this timely debate with Dave Orrick of the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Imagine a war ravaging your home and everything you know. But this isn’t a normal war, it is, in the eyes of the aggressor, a “small war.” The aggressor perhaps calls it a “peacekeeping mission.” From your perspective, this doesn’t matter one bit. Death is death and violence is violence. Throughout modern history, imperial powers have waged so-called small wars across the globe while resisting calls to define these conflicts as wars. Why are small wars so integral to understanding imperial powers in the modern world, and why is it that these conflicts so frequently garner little notice? Join...

Imagine a world in which your elected leaders may not be removed from office. You go to the polls, you vote, and for whichever leader wins the election, they are handed a mandate and a golden ticket to pilfer the country in whatever way they see fit. In the United States and many other democracies around the globe, even the holder of the highest elected office in the land is still subject to removal via an impeachment process. This final check on power is the last resort when things go wrong.

Imagine a world in which time is not kept by a single authority. If you drive from your hometown to one a few hours away, noon is slightly different and tied to the local experience of when the sun peaks. Time would be less precise, and more driven by the moon, the stars, the sun, and even the behavior of animals. We all live in a world in which time is centrally determined and incredibly accurate and precise. But time was not always that way. Join us as we explore the history of time and its evolution into the...

Join us for a discussion with a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist. Imagine living in a country riven by political discord and strife. One party works to steal the election from the other. Politicians who are, in the eyes of their opposition, wholly unfit for office are running for and winning some of the highest elected positions in the country. This may sound familiar, but it is actually a tale of some of the earliest days of the United States. The characters are not Trump, Biden, or Obama, but rather Adams, Jefferson, and Hamilton. Join us as we explore some...

Imagine a world in which your life is turned upside down by war…. Not just war, but total war. The very land on which you live is destroyed and you are forced to flee, leaving everything behind. Beyond that, the very place you live in is destroyed. Food is scarce, shelter is difficult to find, and fear pervades your life. Though total war is most associated with modern conflicts, its roots go back much further than you may have thought. Join us as we explore environmental warfare.

Imagine living in a country without a written constitution. A country in which laws are subject to whimsy or a powerful person’s interpretation and there is no recourse for an individual who does not like or agree with the outcome of various legal decisions. In the United States, we live in a system subject to a written constitution. The document is—from a historical perspective—unique, and also outlines particular ways in which the highest-level laws of our country can and do function. Today, a near-constant debate rages surrounding whether that document is frozen in time or subject to con...

Imagine traveling across the world. But not on an airplane, not by car, but on your own two feet and on the backs of animals. Now, imagine doing that for two decades. Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant whose travels gained notoriety in his time and whose name survives across the millennia. There is far, far more to the man than just his name. He traveled across the known world and served the Great Khan. Join us as we explore the life and impact of this fascinating man. 

Imagine, or perhaps think back, to a Europe in which each country had a different currency. In Germany you bought things with the Deutschmark, but cross the border into France and you’d have to use the French franc, and further still in Spain you’d be buying things with Spanish peseta. Currencies are omnipresent in the modern day and permeate commerce, government, and psychology in equal measures. We value things in a currency with which we have the most familiarity, and gigantic infrastructures have been built up to ensure that currencies are valued and exchanged in real time thro...

Imagine a world in which your country is purchased by a foreigner. Not taken over by a foreign country, mind you, but rather bought and paid for via a purchase contract. While there are many instances of one country invading or occupying another throughout history, the late 1800s saw European powers come to own—at least in their eyes—nearly the entire of Africa. Europeans exploited a strictly legalistic process in order to take possession of, and subsequently exploit an entire continent, with chilling consequences. Join us as we explore contracts, imperialism in Africa, and their effect on the worl...

Imagine a world in which there are no machines. If you need to move something heavy, get from place to place, or pump water, you have limited options including: human power, animal power, and (if you are close to a suitable river) river power. Thanks in large part to Scottish inventor James Watt, the Industrial Revolution was a time of unprecedented technological change in which his Watt steam engine contributed to a blossoming of machine-produced power unlike anything the world had ever seen. Join us as we explore this fascinating man and his life.

A patent grants its owner “the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling” an invention for a specified period of time in return for disclosing the invention to the public. Patents are a foundational piece of intellectual property rights both in the United States and worldwide, and they are both celebrated and criticized for variously enabling or preventing innovation. Join us as we explore patents with Naomi Lamoreaux is the Stanley B. Resor Professor of Economics and History at Yale University.

Imagine living with the fear of catching a disease that could paralyze you for the rest of your life. Generations of people in the United States lived with the fear of polio, and worldwide people still contend with that fear today. The development of the polio vaccine is one of the most renowned achievements in modern medicine, and thanks to its development it is vanishingly rare to see someone in an iron lung in the United States today. Huge amounts of resources went into the defeat of the disease, but today it is making slight inroads back into public...

Imagine a world in which there were zero protections for you as a worker. If you got sick, you could be fired. If you grow too weak or old to work in the mines, you’re fired and there are other workers to take your place. While workers today frequently still find themselves in precarious positions, but many of the protections we can be thankful for today we can ascribe to unions. 

What is the history of labor unions in the U.S., how did they rise to power in the 20th century, and why have they wan...

Imagine traveling before the wheel. Anywhere you wanted to go, you had to either walk, or be wealthy enough to afford an animal such as a horse that could take you there. Travel was slow, fraught with delay, and in the case of a horse, needed constant feeding. Living in a developed, wealthy country, it’s easy to forget that the car isn’t the only way to get around the world. The bicycle is a hidden workhorse of transportation worldwide, and its history is chock full of controversy, innovation, and some zany designs that may make you scratch your...

While we have an abundance of choice as consumers in the United States, in many realms there are increasingly few options in terms of what, and from where, we can buy. Monopolies have existed in North America since the colonial era and, though fought aggressively in the mid-20th century, have reared their head once more in recent decades.

In this episode we have a conversation with author and radio host Thom Hartmann and explore the United States' long history in contending with and regulating monopolies.

Part 2 of a conversation with Professor Louis Hyman of Cornell University.

How did consumer debt in the United States move from general acceptance (covered in part 1), into something that is omnipresent? Beyond that, how did it go from something that was an enabler of success in the mid-20th century to something that eroded wealth over people's lifetime?

Debt as we accept it today is a uniquely modern idea and has not always existed this way.

Consumer debt powers a huge swath of the US economy. The ease with which we are able to access and use debt today is a wholly modern invention. Even a couple hundred years ago, debt was something that could potentially land you in prison and was largely unavailable to the average consumer.

Join us as we explore the evolution of debt from something that was abhorred to something that is a normal part of the everyday consumer's life, with Professor Louis Hyman of Cornell.

Louis Hyman is a historian of work and business at the I...

Imagine walking into an arena, sword in one hand and shield in the other. You are in a kill or be killed situation in which other people--and perhaps wild animals--attack you to the cheers of thousands of Romans. This our most common understanding of the Roman games, from both movies and other art, but is it a fiction?

Kathleen Coleman is one of the world's foremost experts on the Roman games, why they began, and what they were really like. Join us on a fascinating exploration of this important--and, to modern minds, strange--facet of Roman society. You...

Imagine killing a whale. The American whaling industry was one of the largest industries in early America and supported thousands of jobs while also being guilty of killing thousands--if not millions--of whales. We interview author Eric Jay Dolin and learn about how American whaling built fortunes and irrevocably changed the landscape of America's oceans.

Learn more about Eric's writing: https://www.ericjaydolin.com/