Cato Event Podcast

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In the United States and around the world, medical treatment has traditionally been segregated along state lines. Recently, new technology has made the provision of medical care online (telemedicine) a possibility, and consumers could benefit greatly from this development. However, state and national regulations often interfere with online medical care when it crosses borders. Can these regulations be adjusted to allow interstate and international trade?What policy concerns might arise in relation to online medical services that might require continued government involvement? Are there constitutional issues at stake? For example, do government restrictions on doctors offering medical advice online constitute an abridgement of free speech? Join us for a discussion of these issues. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Because of an aging population and poorly designed entitlement programs, the burden of federal spending is projected to increase dramatically over the next few decades. Some lawmakers have proposed versions of a balanced budget amendment to avert this future fiscal crisis, but evidence strongly suggests that spending caps are the most effective way to address the problem. The Cato Institute has brought together three experts to talk about the world’s most successful spending caps. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

According to Washington elites, revolutions in information, transport, and weapons technologies have shrunk the world, leaving the United States and its allies more vulnerable than ever to violent threats like terrorism or cyberwar. As a result, they practice responses driven by fear: theories of falling dominoes, hysteria in place of sober debate, and an embrace of preemptive war to tame a chaotic world. Patrick Porter pushes back against the decades-old globalist fad, arguing that technology has not overcome distance, and that the world has changed less than threat inflators suggest. He concludes by noting the disastrous policies the globalists have produced and by pointing the way toward a more sensible and restrained strategy. Please join us for a discussion of this timely and iconoclastic book. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The death of Freddie Gray while in police custody has started a wide-ranging debate about policing and poverty in American cities. Does Congress need to spend more money on jobs programs and police body cameras? Should the Department of Justice sue the City of Baltimore for a pattern and practice of civil rights violations? Are better policy options available? Please join us for a discussion of these questions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Despite many predictions to the contrary, the British Conservative Party, led by Prime Minister Cameron, secured a majority in the House of Commons in this month’s general election. The Liberal Democrats, who joined the Conservatives in government in 2010, and the Labour Party both suffered losses. In Scotland, nationalists took all but three of Scotland’s 59 seats.The Conservative victory raises a host of questions related to the future of freedom in the United Kingdom. Speaking the day after the election Cameron said that his government would deliver a referendum on the UK’s membership in the European Union, which will undoubtedly prompt debate on the merits of the free movement of goods and people. Cameron also said that his government will devolve powers to Northern Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, a commitment that will spur on discussion about localism and the role of central government. Despite winning a majority, the Conservatives will have to defend their economic plan, which will be strongly opposed by left-wing parties in the House of Commons.Mark Littlewood, the director-general of the London-based Institute of Economic Affairs, will join Cato scholars and Iain Murray, vice president for strategy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, for a discussion on the outcome of the election and what it means for the state of freedom in the UK. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Since 2008, oil production has more than doubled and natural gas production is up about 24 percent, according to the Energy Information Agency. Advances in technology have driven this remarkable achievement. Three major techniques that have revolutionized both onshore and offshore oil and gas production are directional drilling, horizontal drilling, and hydraulic fracturing, also known as "fracking." In addition, offshore drilling in a record 10,500 feet of water — and then through thousands of feet of sediment below the seafloor — has been made possible by radical new advances in offshore platform technology tied in with global positioning software. These advances in technology have required considerable capital investment that would have been less likely in a nation constrained by a cap-and-trade or carbon-tax system. Please join us for an informed look at recent successes in energy production and their implications for public policy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The recent financial crisis led to sweeping reforms that inspired countless references to the New Deal. Comparable to the New Deal in both scope and scale, the 2,300-page Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 also shared with New Deal reforms the assumption that the cause of the crisis was misbehavior by securities market participants, exacerbated by lax regulatory oversight. With Wasting a Crisis, Paul G. Mahoney shows that this narrative is formulated by political actors hoping to deflect blame from prior policy errors. Mahoney moves beyond this received wisdom, showing that lax regulation was not a substantial cause of the Great Depression. As new regulations were formed around this narrative, not only were the majority largely ineffective, they were also often counterproductive, consolidating market share in the hands of leading financial firms. An overview of 21st-century securities reforms from the same analytic perspective, including Dodd-Frank and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, shows a similar pattern and suggests that they too may offer little benefit to investors and some measurable harm. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Debates over economic interdependence and war are centuries old. Liberals have argued that interdependence creates interests on both sides of dyads that help prevent war. Realists have argued that the “high politics” of war and peace are rarely driven by the “low politics” of commerce. Dale Copeland’s new book offers a more supple, less categorical judgment. According to Copeland, leaders’ expectations of the future trade environment determine how economic interdependence influences the prospects of war and peace. Please join us for a discussion with other leading scholars on the subject—one that carries heavy implications for the future of U.S.-China relations, in particular. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 2005, Congress gave states three years to begin issuing driver’s licenses according to national identification card standards. The REAL ID Act sought to coerce states into using machine-readable technology with federally defined data elements in their cards, capturing digital images of identity-source documents, and providing other states electronic access to information contained in their motor vehicle databases. Confronted by this unfunded domestic surveillance mandate, state leaders across the country instigated the “REAL ID Rebellion” in 2006.The Department of Homeland Security has never made good on the REAL ID law’s threat that Transportation Security Administration agents would refuse airport access to travelers from recalcitrant states. But the threat remains, and many states are inching toward putting their residents into the national ID system.Please join us for a discussion of the prospects for the U.S. national ID law 10 years along, and its incursion on the common law treatment of names. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.