Spouting Off, November 5, 2021
Spouting Off with Karen Kataline
Leading wealth advisor David Bahnsen, author of the new book There’s No Free Lunch: 250 Economic Truths. Free enterprise has lifted billions of people out of abject poverty all over the world and provided a higher quality of life than has ever been thought possible. But a growing case is forming in public opinion against free markets. Whether you call it socialism or progressive leftism, people are turning away from the forces of freedom and social cooperation that made the last two hundred years of prosperity possible, and embracing a system that deprives human beings of their dignity. This system is impoverishing whole societies both financially and spiritually. David Bahnsen will share with your listeners the time-tested economic truths that will defend the cause of human flourishing against a current onslaught of dangerous economic thinking. For more information, please visit: http://NoFreeLunchEconomics.com
In an interview, David will talk about:
- Human flourishing is the aim of economics for those who understand economics
- Human Action -- economists who do not see the reality of humans acting as the base of economic activity don’t understand the field. The human person as the core of “household management of resources” is foundational to understanding everything.
- Covetousness & Class Envy -- we are acknowledging the spiritual nature of economics. Class envy passes for economic theory far too often, and diagnosing the spiritual malady that creates it will at least allow people to be intellectually honest about where certain ideas are derived.
- A Knowledge Problem --What remains unforgivable in modern economics is not a disagreement with the knowledge problem; it is that so many most certainly agree with it, and yet discard it all the time in matters of application.
- When teaching that Self-Interest is intrinsically evil, we will ruin civilization. And if we teach that our own self-interest is all there is to economics, we will ruin civilization.
- Government Spending & Debt is presented as the primary issue of our day. To understand the economic dynamics of debt, one must understand the economic ramifications of the size of government.
- Virtue, Discipline and Individual Responsibility matters so much to our study because the size of government is inversely related to the self-government of the people.
- Price Discovery leads to a vigorous and unrelenting campaign to defend price discovery, versus the complacent willingness to distort prices that we constantly see today.
- A Defense of Free Trade, properly understood, is really a condemnation of Crony Capitalism.
- Crony Capitalism -- the belief in free trade leads to a defensible defense of freedom in setting prices, including the price of labor.
- Minimum Wage laws are but one social application of economic theory, but they are ground zero in the subject of free exchange and price discovery.
David Bahnsen contends that there are two leading trends in economics right now that must be resisted. One is the mystifying movement towards greater collectivism as a means of improving the needs of the under-privileged. It is a futile and dangerous effort, but one that can do great damage as it is embraced. The other is a sort of apathy or complacency about sound economics from those who know better. This apathy would be forgivable if economics were merely math, merely formulaic, merely academic. But it is the well-being of humanity on the line, and our recent amnesia of what the stakes are in this debate runs the risk of doing great harm to civilization.
About David L. Bahnsen:
David L. Bahnsen is the founder, Managing Partner, and Chief Investment Officer of The Bahnsen Group, a national private wealth management firm with offices in Newport Beach, New York City, and Minneapolis managing over $3.2 billion in client assets. David is consistently named as one of the top financial advisors in America by Barron’s, Forbes, and the Financial Times. He is a frequent guest on CNBC, Bloomberg, and Fox Business and is a regular contributor to National Review. He hosts the widely-acclaimed podcast, Capital Record, and frequently lectures on economics, finance, and ethics. David is passionate about opposition to crony capitalism and has lectured and written for years about the need for pro-growth economic policy. Every part of his political worldview stems from a desire to see greater freedom as a catalyst to greater human flourishing. He and his wife of twenty years, Joleen, split time between New York City and Newport Beach, CA, and have three children.
Spouting Off
...because, you're better off, when you're Spouting Off!
Karen is well-informed and opinionated, but she also believes that protecting others’ rights to free speech protects our own.
Topics range from the timely to the timeless, but always includes a healthy dose of debate and discussion.
Karen has a healthy sense of humor and a nose for news. She stays on top of the topics people are talking about and often brings you stories you may not have heard. Whatever the subject, Karen usually has an opinion and she welcomes yours too!
If you can’t stand a little rabble-rousing or even some passionate disagreement, you may want to listen with caution. But if you just love mixing it up about the hottest issues of the day, tune in. You might have your mind changed or even change someone else’s!
