Capitalisn't

• How Profit and Politics Hijacked Scientific Inquiry, with John Ioannidis

  Why does a podcast about capitalism want to talk about science?Modern capitalism and science have evolved together since the Enlightenment. Advances in ship building and navigation enabled the Age of Discovery, which opened up new trade routes and markets to European merchants. The invention of the spinning jinny and cotton in the 18th century spurred textile production. The United States’ Department of Defense research and development agency helped create the precursor to the internet. The internet now supports software and media industries worth trillions of dollars. On the flip side, some of America’s greatest capitalists and businesses, including Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Bell Labs, gave us everything from electricity production to the transistor. Neither science nor capitalism can succeed without the other.However, science’s star is now dimming. Part of this is due to political intervention. In the U.S., the federal government has cut funding for scientific research. The Covid-19 pandemic diminished the public’s trust in scientific experts, which social media has exacerbated through misinformation. Restrictions on immigration may further hamper scientific research as some of the world’s brightest minds lose access to funding and state-of-the-art facilities.But so too has capitalism played a hand in science’s struggles. While corporations sponsor a significant portion of funding for scientific research, this funding too often comes with undisclosed conflicts of interest. Or corporate pressure may influence results in other ways.Stanford University professor John Ioannidis is a physician, writer, and one of the world's most-cited scientists. He studies the methodology and sociology of science itself: how the process and standards for empirical research influence findings in ways that some may find inaccurate. His 2005 essay "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False" is one of the most accessed articles in the history of Public Library of Science (PLOS), with more than three million views. Ioannidis joins Bethany and Luigi to discuss the future of the relationship between capitalism and science, how both will have to respond to contemporary politics, and how one even conceptualizes robust measurements of scientific success.Listen:Science for Sale, with David Michaels: Learn how corporate-funded science uses doubt to its patrons' advantage.The Money Behind Ultra-Processed Foods, with Marion Nestle: Examine the role of Big Food in public health.The Capitalisn’t of the U.S. COVID Response: Understand the factors that exacerbated the pandemic’s fallout for the most vulnerable in society.Read:Food for Thought: An excerpt from the second edition of Marion Nestle’s book, Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health.How Conflicts of Interest Shape Trust in Academic Work: What is the impact of various conflicts of interest on readers’ trust in academic research findings? What are the implications for academia and policy?There’s More Bias Than You Think: To protect the integrity of academia, we must also encourage the injection and consideration of new and contradictory unconflicted ideas.Academic Bias Under the Microscope: That scholarship often reflects conscious and unconscious biases has long been an open secret in academia. What are the sources of industry bias in economic and business research, and possible avenues of mitigation?“Doubt is Their Product”: The Difference Between Research and Academic Lobbying:Reflecting on the intersection of academic economics and policymaking – and advice to young scholars.Watch:John Ioannidis’ Keynote at the Stigler Center Antitrust and Competition Conference 2025: Economic Concentration and the Marketplace of IdeasHow Conflicts of Interest Impact the Marketplace of Ideas: WebinarDe-Biasing Academic Research: Panel Discussion at the Stigler Center Antitrust and Competition Conference 2022 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  --------  

  48:10

  --------

  48:10
• Will Privatizing The Mortgage Giants Solve The Housing Crisis?

  This week, the Trump administration announced it would sell around 5% of mortgage giants and government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The sale would begin to reintroduce the two firms to private markets after 17 years of government conservatorship. The decision to re-privatize two of the largest mortgage firms in the world, and a prominent reason why the United States is one of the only countries where people can get 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, will have enormous implications for the U.S. economy, housing market, and the American dream.Fannie Mae was founded during the Great Depression with the idea of making mortgages more widely available to Americans by buying mortgage loans from banks. Freddie Mac came along in 1970 to provide competition and increase liquidity for mortgages. In part, Fannie and Freddie increased liquidity by repackaging their mortgages into mortgage-backed securities and reselling them to investors. In the early 2000s, the subprime mortgage crisis began as smaller, unregulated financial actors started offering risky mortgage loans and likewise repackaged them to investors. When the crisis imploded in 2008, it gutted the market for mortgage-backed securities, and the U.S. government seized Fannie and Freddie to prevent them from collapsing. The government feared that without Freddie and Fannie, many Americans would no longer be able to afford home ownership. Today, Fannie and Freddie still back roughly 50% of all mortgage loans, with other government agencies making up another chunk.The Trump administration’s plans to take these GSEs public again will allow the two firms to raise billions through new stock offerings and shift risk back to the private sector. But the question is, why is the government doing this? Will it help fix the country’s housing crisis—which Trump has reportedly called a national emergency—or will it make matters worse? Bethany and Luigi get together to discuss what it would mean for Fannie and Freddie to go public, who benefits from these developments, and their implications for home loans, the housing market, and the American economy.Also check out Bethany’s book, published in 2015: Shaky Ground: The Strange Saga of the U.S. Mortgage Giants Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  --------  

  44:58

  --------

  44:58
• Trump's Great Private Equity Bailout, with Dan Rasmussen

  For decades, private equity has been the darling of pension funds, university endowments, and sovereign wealth funds, promising high returns and low volatility. Now, President Donald Trump has made it possible for everyday investors to get in on the magic with his executive order, "Democratizing Access to Alternative Assets for 401(k) Investors.” The order relieves regulatory burdens that limit the access of defined contribution plans, like 401(k)s, to alternative assets such as private equity (but also cryptocurrency and real estate). The hope is to give American workers access to greater choice, diversification, and potential growth towards a comfortable retirement.But Trump's order comes just as longstanding questions about private equity’s promise of high returns and low risk are coming to the fore. Has the distribution of returns slowed to a trickle? What does data actually say about private equity’s performance, and where is the industry headed? There is also a long standing debate whether private equity is good for society, independent of financial returns.Is private equity actually a ponzi scheme that now threatens the retirements of millions of American workers? To make sense of it all, Luigi and Bethany are joined by Dan Rasmussen, an experienced investor and author who began his career in private equity but has emerged as one of the most prescient critics of the industry. Together, the three of them distill what the state of the industry means for the future welfare of investors, workers, and the American economy as a whole.Bonus: Check out ProMarket’s recent series on the impact of private equity in the health care industry. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  --------  

  54:04

  --------

  54:04
• Should Chatbots Teach Our Children? With Khan Academy CEO Sal Khan

  What is the right way, if there is one at all, to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) technology into our education system? For Sal Khan, CEO of one of the world’s largest nonprofit education technology platforms, the answer is to take a step back and ask: Where can AI best complement current pedagogy? If a problem can be solved by pencil and paper, should we really be using AI instead?Khan joins Bethany and Luigi to discuss his recent book, “Brave New Words: How AI Will Revolutionize Education (And Why That’s a Good Thing),” in which he makes the case for why the education sector will not only survive but thrive in the age of AI. He shares his 17-year journey to build and grow his organization, which now provides over 10,000 videos on everything from integral calculus to art history, reaching more than 170 million registered users in over 20 languages, mostly for free. Together, the three talk about how and where AI can enhance the learning process: how AI has shifted Khan’s philosophy and approach to pedagogy, how it could democratize educational and economic opportunity, and what this all means for traditional modes of learning and instruction in schools and universities. They also discuss concerns about data ownership, Khan’s partnerships with tech companies, and the guardrails he proposes to protect education against the monetization of students’ data and the concentration of benefits to privileged children. Ultimately, he makes the case for why teachers aren’t going anywhere—and leaves aspiring nonprofit and civic leaders with advice on how to build a successful, mission-driven organization.Read a review of Sal Khan’s book on ProMarket, written by Capitalisn’t team member Matt Lucky. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  --------  

  44:38

  --------

  44:38
• Can The Dollar Be Dethroned?, with Ken Rogoff

  Americans are often told that they benefit from the privilege of the dollar serving as the world's currency. A strong dollar makes imports cheaper, facilitates demand for American companies, and is tied to cheap government borrowing. But what happens when this powerful privilege weakens? What does it even mean for the dollar to be “strong” or “weak” as a medium of exchange and investment? Why should Americans care that the dollar serves as the reserve currency for the world’s central banks?In his new book “Our Dollar, Your Problem,” Ken Rogoff, a Harvard professor and former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund, argues that the dollar is past “middle age” and that its global dominance will erode in the coming years. He predicts the dollar will eventually share power with the European Union’s euro and Chinese renminbi in a “tripolar” world.Rogoff joins Bethany and Luigi to discuss why the dollar's shifting dominance matters so much to the United States and what implications this has for the rest of the world’s payment network. He describes how the dollar has come under pressure from multiple directions, both now and in the past. Outside the U.S., these include past and current international challengers, such as the Soviet ruble, the Japanese yen, and the European euro. From within, the current instigators are rising federal debt, increased use of economic sanctions, and growing political dysfunction. The three also discuss if President Donald Trump’s boisterous support for cryptocurrency further undermines the U.S. dollar. Ultimately, they tease out how the dollar has underpinned American economic prowess for the last half century and what the consequences will be for the American economy – and the world at large – if the dollar is dethroned.Read a review of Rogoff’s book by Capitalisn’t team member Matt Lucky in ProMarket: https://www.promarket.org/2025/07/24/what-happens-after-the-dollars-hegemony-ends/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  --------  

  57:42

  --------

  57:42

Flere Forretning podcasts

Trendige Forretning podcasts

Om Capitalisn't

Capitalisn't: Podcasts i samme familie