The American Compass Podcast

Rohit Chopra, former CFPB director and consumer protection advocate, explains how finance drifted from serving communities. He discusses rising credit card margins, the risks of non-bank lending and data-driven products, and whether novel markets are innovation or extraction. They also examine consolidation, limits on data use in credit, and reform ideas to realign finance with the real economy.

Daniel Kishi, a senior policy advisor who studies immigration and labor policy, discusses shifting enforcement from border actions to workplace accountability. He explains why targeting employers can deter illegal hiring. They explore flaws in H-1B rules, how the lottery and low wages skew the program, and use trucking as a case study of enforcement restoring wages and safety.

For decades, Americans were told that success was simple: graduate high school, enroll in a four-year college, and launch a career from there. But as college enrollment has expanded and costs have skyrocketed, the results have become increasingly difficult to justify. Many students never complete a degree, others graduate without meaningful skills, all while the system continues to push young people into a single pathway that often fails to match their talents.Dan Currell, author of The College Question, joins Oren to discuss how the college-for-all approach came to dominate Americans' jump from high school to adulthood. They discuss the incentives that keep the system expanding, the gap between what colleges promise and what many students actually gain, and how cultural expectations push families toward this path even when better options might exist for their children. They close by considering what it would take to rebuild credible alternatives, from technical education and apprenticeships to employer-led training, that could offer young Americans more reliable routes into productive work.Further Reading:“One Big Question: Hands-On Training or a Free Ride on Campus?” Oren Cass, Commonplace

Sean O'Brien, former truck driver and leader of the Teamsters, presses for workers to have real input on AI, training, and protections. Alex Karp, Palantir CEO and tech executive, discusses AI deployment, national security, and tech’s role with labor. They debate who captures AI’s gains, training and tax policies, trust and transparency, and ways to give workers a meaningful seat at the table.

The Supreme Court’s recent decision to limit the president’s use of emergency tariff authority set off a wave of commentary declaring the end of Trump’s trade agenda. But one week later, the reality looks far more complicated than what the chattering class might lead you to think. If IEEPA is off the table, what tools remain? What happens to the deals already struck? And does this ruling mark a retreat from tariff policy, or will the administration simply a shift to firmer legal ground?Mark DiPlacido, senior political economist at American Compass, joins Oren to assess where things stand. They delve into the alternative authorities available to the administration—Sections 232, 301, and 122; what a “balance of payments” means in practice; and how sectoral tariffs on steel, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, and critical minerals might reshape the next phase of trade policy. They also explore what a stable endpoint for Trump’s tariff strategy would actually look like and what Congress would need to do to make a better system of global trade permanent.

For decades, economists, armed with elegant models, powerful data, and firm conclusions about how markets should work, have claimed to be practitioners of a hard science. Yet in an era of financialization, political backlash, and rising skepticism of any “expert” consensus, many Americans are wondering whether the profession has grown too insular, too ideological, or simply too detached from reality.Luigi Zingales, professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and director of the Stigler Center, joins Oren Cass to discuss what’s gone wrong. They explore the hierarchy of and conformity within the field, the temptation to defend models because of the conclusions they produce, and the gap between theoretical assumptions and real-world outcomes. The conversation closes with a look at whether a younger generation of economists is prepared to rethink the orthodoxy, and what it would take for economics to regain both its rigor and its relevance.

A deep dive into how finance shifted from funding production to extracting profit through buyouts, buybacks, and speculation. Discussion of stages of financialization and how gamified finance and apps reshape everyday life. Examination of harms to workers, communities, and social institutions. Debate over whether financial profits equal social value and how to make these issues politically salient.

America’s housing shortage is often framed as a simple supply problem, but building the kinds of homes families actually need has proven far more complicated. While capital continues to flow into large suburban developments and luxury apartment buildings, the market has stopped producing the modest, family-friendly housing that once anchored stable communities and enabled young families to remain in thriving cities.Bobby Fijan, co-founder of the American Housing Corporation, joins Oren to discuss why the “starter home” has largely disappeared and how development incentives, zoning rules, and capital markets have reshaped what gets built. They explore why current housing designs increasingly favor singles and roommates over families, how housing supply shapes family formation, urban vitality, and economic mobility, and how prefab manufacturing and vertically integrated construction start-ups like the American Housing Corporation could help deliver row homes in established neighborhoods and begin to change the culture.

America’s welfare programs have long operated on the assumption that states and nonprofits could responsibly steward federal dollars with minimal oversight. But a series of explosive fraud cases—from California to Mississippi to Minnesota—have exposed just how broken that system has become, with lax oversight and minimal accountability leading to billions of dollars stolen from taxpayers.Shad White, Mississippi’s state auditor and author of Mississippi Swindle, joins Oren to explain how his office uncovered one of the largest welfare scandals in modern history and what it reveals about America’s safety net. They discuss why grant-based welfare programs are uniquely vulnerable to abuse, how federalism often undermines accountability, and how practical reforms like stronger enforcement, clearer metrics, and simpler program design can restore public trust while helping the families who need support most.

The annual gathering of the world’s leadership class at the World Economic Forum in Davos bills itself as high-minded forum for increased global cooperation in the now-struggling old international order. But, in practice, it’s more of a concentrated mass of industry titans flexing with their various status badges, “bilaterals,” and AI slogans all while anxiously refreshing their phones for the latest updates on the Trump administration’s next moves.Filming from his hotel room in the Alps, Oren, our intrepid correspondent in Davos, joins Drew to report what he heard and saw from these often panic-stricken elites. They discuss how the Davos crowd is really reacting to Trump’s approach to alliances and American leadership, why episodes like Greenland trigger outsized panic among our allies, and where legitimate concerns about trust and cooperation get lost in elite groupthink.Further Reading:“A Sharp Break over a Piece of Ice,” Oren Cass, Commonplace.