Monday Boxing: Favourite Finger Edition

Adam Smith, von Mises, Baptists & Bootleggers?!

If it’s Monday, it’s time for the weekly Russ Robertsz podcast. WHAT?! YOU MULTI-CULT ZEN HIPPIE-DIPPIE LEFT-COAST PROGRESSIVE GUYSZ LISTEN TO RUSSELL ROBERTSZ?! WHAT?!

Why not? It’s good. It’s really intelligent free-market discourse. Honest. We are willing to listen to different views as long as there’s no shouting and the conversation is reasonably balanced. Mr. Robertsz is unabashedly laissez-faire, but he’s not mean about it. He doesn’t take on the sort of smugness or false superiority so many of these Small Government proponents take. He has something of a conscience, maybe even a little heart. He doesn’t want to send the less-fortunate to Mars or cook them for dinner or demean them just because they happen to be in the 99 percent. Indeed, Mr. Robertsz is just as critical of the oligarchs who have enriched themselves via the other kind of public redistribution, the one known as Corporate Welfare. If nothing else, he is consistent in his outlook. He is not averse to describing Conservatism these days as hardly Conservative, given that he finds its machinelike lobbying efforts (lobbying industries!?) just as repugnant as those employed by his natural opposites, the Unions, the Trial Lawyers, etc. Overarchingly, Mr. Robertsz is against government subsidies of any kind, from welfare to big-Agri to Wall Street bankers. To him, for the big guys to have been bailed out was not really Capitalism; it was a rigged form of it in which the goalposts were moved in the middle of the play and Schumpeter’s gale was not allowed to drown the SuperDream Team™ of Master-of-the-Universe-All-Stars® that had somehow fallen behind.

You may not agree with him, but at least you can listen to what he and his guests have to say without wanting to turn off the radio. He has Leftist guests on sometimes too, but he does not insult or belittle them. That in itself is refreshing. And thanks to him, we get introduced to some interesting thinkers who are not overly politicized: Gary Taubes and Nassim Taleb come quickly to mind.

There’s screamers on Both Sides. Lots. See Breitbart v. Huffington, MSNBCCCP v. Fox. After all, this is The Age of Loud & Publicly Expressed Outrage & Aggrievement. We’re all victims now, or so they want us to be. Mr. Russ Robertsz will calmly cure you of that condition every Monday.

(All right, all right ya Progressive-loversz! We admit that every Thursday we also pull down Lewis Lapham’s interview podcast. Admittedly, Mr. Lapham is on his best behaviour in his podcasts, airing none of the Socialist fulminations he was famous for publishing in Harper’s. Happy now? Is that fair enough for you? He had to partner with Bloomberg for this, so you know they won’t tolerate too much Centralization.)

Robertsz: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/econtalk/id135066958?mt=2
Lapham: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bloomberg-presents-lewis-lapham/id277975407?mt=2

There’s dozens of others. Perhaps we also shall share these with you down the line, paying them out slowly.

Finger
Race 3: #1A Christopher’s Joy (early) – #4 Here Comes Vinny (final)
Race 4: #1A Our Brave Warrior (early) / #1 Bay Park Boy (final) – #4 That&rsuo;s for Sure (uncoupled final)
Race 5: #9 Jade Glory Again – #7 Go for Two
Race 6: #3 Valuable Lady – #6 Double Prime
Race 8: #5 Untapped Secret – #2 One Smart Farrah

Thank you. Best wishes. Please join us again tomorrow for the other weekly minor hit, “Tuesday Sniping”. Until such time, it’s goodbye. So long.