For something over a year now, I’ve been enjoying the EconTalk podcast, something which Blackadder of Vox Nova turned me on to. EconTalk is a weekly, one hour podcast put out by the Library of Economics and Liberty. It’s hosted by Dr. Russ Roberts, a professor of economics at George Mason University and regular National Public Radio commentator on economics, and the format is usually one of Prof. Roberts interviewing an economist about his/her recent book, or about an topic of current interest. And generally it succeeds in pursuing that fascinating middle ground of being accessible to the general listener while not shying away from discussing highly technical/academic topics.
I was inspired to post on them at this point because this week’s podcast was of a different format than usual, consisting of an extended interview of Prof. Roberts by a journalist on the difference between wealth and income, and what it means to say that we have “become much less wealthy” over the course of the recession of the last 6-9 months. Roberts also discusses the inexact nature of economics as a science and how the uncertainties of interpreting data play into policy debates.
Other podcasts which might be of particular interest to our readers because they deal with intersections of economics and moral issues would be:
George Srour on Education, African Schools, and Building Tomorrow — an interview with the founder of a non-profit responsible for building schools in Uganda where he discusses the importance of setting up the right kind of incentives in order to make aid to the third world work.
Mike Munger on Fair Trade and Free Trade.
And two competing takes on how the problems at the root of global poverty:
I can’t recommend the EconTalk podcasts highly enough. They usually provide a great overview on a given subject, and the conversational format (and emphasis on the more human side of economics) make them much more enjoyable than your typical economics lecture or text.
Surprising that in all the litany of names provided herein, one does not actually find Thomas Sowell amongst the mentioned.
He’s been on too, to talk about his book Economic Facts and Fallacies.
They even had Milton Friedman on twice before his death.
DarwinCatholic,
Much obliged!
Just listened to the Sowell podcast. Always liked him, good stuff.
Thanks for the tip.
Query: My computer crashed this week. Have I just lost everything that I had in iTunes, e.g., content, purchased songs, podcast subscriptions? Is there a way to restore the content to iTunes from my iPod? (My apologies for the digression.)
– That stinks. Sorry to hear about it.
– If you purchased stuff from iTunes, you should be able to re-download it from the iTunes store.
– There are some programs out there which will rip everything off an iPod. I haven’t used one, but I know they exist. (At least, I’ve heard of them for Macs, and I would assume they exist for PCs as well.)
– Also, if you pay to have someone rescue your hard drive, that might also help. But that can be very expensive. (Are we talking a hard drive crash here or some other kind of problem?)
A crash, but I think it’s toast. Everything on the iPod is intact. Presuming I buy a new computer, can’t I just “synch” the iPod with a fresh imprint/download of iTunes?
Rich,
When you hook up an iPod to your computer it should tell you if there is purchased material on the iPod that’s not on the computer and ask you whether you want to transfer your purchases. Just say yes and everything should be fine.