In this episode I am hoping to appeal to the many people awakening to the possibility of a government sponsored Universal Basic Income (UBI) program.  I am not categorically for or against UBI; it is just one means of attaining a desired ends. I am hoping people who have not already made up their mind can be shown that along with the many pros politicians talk about, there are many cons to a policy/ program like this.  I do not think these costs "refute" UBI, but it should make an unbiased judge skeptical of whether or not it will be the right tool for the job.  Since ideas matter, and your ideas are manifested in law by voting for constituents who share those ideas, it is important to make sure we are as informed as possible. UBI has many costs and unintended side effects we should all be aware of before finalizing our decisions and casting them in law. 

An old file, and an old idea I had, to quote at length several passages that were crucial to forming my own understanding of what the "division of labour" is. I have a new script to redo this episode without the long and tedious quotes, so you can expect that soon. This was the first episode of the podcast I ever recorded but felt it wasnt up to snuff because it was far too slow to get moving. In the future I will provide my own summary of important readings and why I care, rather than just quoting straight from the source material. However, I thought it might be useful to someone to hear these quotes if they've never read economics before; and may even inspire someone to continue reading on their own. This is an episode you may want to play at 1.25x or 1.5x speed. 

New style in this episode as I freestyle my thoughts rather than write them all down first. Lots of hmm's and uh's which is something for me to work on. I talk about the cause and effect of economics, the anti-science dogmatism of Keynesianism, global inflation trends as well as history, and the interventionists attempt to create an unending boom. 

Not all arguments are created equally. How does a Humanitarian argue against violence and war? How does a Classical Liberal? Why are these not the same? Besides, who's really pro-war anyways?  Includes passages from Ludwig von Mises': "Liberalism" An argument against socialists, fascists, nazis, militarists, etc. There is some worth I believe in sharing these arguments as the West moves rapidly towards autarky and continues to lose faith in the division of labour. 

A history of human exchange. From Barter: "The armour of Diomede, says Homer, cost only 9 oxen; but that of Glaucus cost a hundred oxen", to the modern money economy and digital banking. How was currency debased then, and how is it done today? + Money assumes private property and a division of labour, so cannot exist in a pure socialist society. I didn't mention it here much, but Lenin's attempts to abolish coinage/money and their inevitable return in the NEP's use of a gold standard are remarkable. Solzhenitsyn has of course written about it, as well as  Nikolai Shmelev & Vladmir Popev's book coming from the economists inside the communist party. They did not themselves stop believing socialism was inevitable.   "Hyperinflation in early Soviet Russia connotes a seven-year period of uncontrollable spiraling inflation in the early Soviet Union, running from the earliest days of the Bolshevik Revolution in November 1917 to the reestablishment of the gold standard with the introduction of the chervonets as part of the New Economic Policy. The inflationary crisis effectively ended in March 1924 with the introduction of the so-called "gold ruble" as the country's standard currency. The early Soviet hyperinflationary period was marked by three successive redenominations of its currency, in which "new rubles" replaced old at the rates of 10,000-to-1 (January 1, 1922), 100-to-1 (January 1, 1923), and 50,000-to-1 (March 7, 1924), respectively." The Soviet Union needed to essentially recreate the entire currency 5 times in 5 years, ending finally in a return to the gold standard, in order to recover from the absolute anarchy and countless human deaths caused by the destruction of the medium of exchange. 

On March 18th 2020 Canadian PM Justin Trudeau announced an $82 billion fiscal stimulus to aid during the current economic downtown. Here I discuss where the money comes from, who it goes to, why we have policies like this in place, and what the effects are likely to be.