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Mike talks with Lawrence Lessig, the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School. Prior to his time at Harvard, Professor Lessig clerked for not one, but two of Mike’s intellectual heroes: Judge Richard Posner and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
Professor Lessig is the author of numerous books on law, commerce, culture, and ideas. His latest, Republic, Lost, Version 2.0, is a revised and expanded version of Republic, Lost, which Mike says is the best introduction to, and analysis of, not only campaign finance, but the fundamental incentives that drive public policy in the United States.
Professor Lessig followed up on Republic, Lost with a major campaign to enact the reforms he believes to be vital to restoring American democracy, including launching a political action committee, giving a number of TED talks, and most notably, running for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president in 2016.
Professor Lessig Recommends
Fifty Shades of Green: High Finance, Political Money, and the U.S. Congress. Thomas Ferguson, Jie Chen, Paul Jorgensen
Citizens Divided: Campaign Finance Reform and the Constitution. Robert C. Post
Unlock Congress. Michael Golden
Follow Lawrence Lessig on Twitter
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This week’s show is sponsored by:
Brooklinen, where listeners get $20 dollars off and free shipping by using promo code tpg at brooklinen.com
Casper, where Politics Guys listeners get $50 dollars toward any mattress purchase by visiting casper.com/tpg
Kenneth Rogoff on Eight Centuries of Financial Folly & The Curse of Cash
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Mike talks with Dr. Kenneth Rogoff, Professor of Economics and Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University. From 2001–2003, Dr. Rogoff was Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund. He’s a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, serves on the Economic Advisory Panel of the New York Federal Reserve, and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences as well as the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
Dr. Rogoff’s books include Foundations of International Macroeconomics, the standard graduate text in the field, This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, and, most recently, The Curse of Cash: How Large-Denomination Bills Aid Crime & Tax Evasion and Constrain Monetary Policy, which just came out in an updated paperback edition.
In this interview, Mike and Dr. Rogoff discuss:
– commonalities in financial crises
– the challenges of analyzing eight centuries of financial data
– whether Dodd-Frank was a step in the right direction
– why stability is inherently destabilizing
– the inevitability of financial crises
– why there are so many $100 bills in circulation
– who benefits from large denomination bills
– recommendations for macroeconomic literacy
– and lots more!
Dr. Rogoff Recommends
– Lords of Finance. Liaquat Ahamed
– Economix. Michael Goodwin
– The Economist
Follow Dr. Rogoff on Twitter
Dr. Rogoff’s Website
Interested in supporting the show and getting even more Politics Guys content? Check out our Insiders program.
Your support of our sponsors helps keep The Politics Guys going. The sponsors of this show are:
Dollar Shave Club, where new members get their 1st month of the Executive Razor with a tube of their Dr. Carver’s Shave Butter for ONLY $5 with FREE shipping. To take advantage of this great deal go to https://www.dollarshaveclub.com/TPG
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Harvard’s Gary King on Gerrymandering, Big Data, & Chinese Social Media Use
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Mike talks to Harvard’s Gary King, author or co-author of over 150 scholarly journal articles, 20 open-source software packages, eight books, and winner of more prizes, awards, and honors than you can shake a stick at. Dr. King is a fellow in eight honorary societies, including the National Academy of Sciences. He is unquestionably one of the preeminent political scientists of the last half century.
His work encompasses a broad range of issues including demographic forecasting, legislative redistricting, Chinese government censorship & social media use, bias in Social Security Administration forecasts, analysis of ‘Big Data’, and numerous publications in the area of what statistics and modeling.
Mike and Dr. King discuss gerrymandering, partisan symmetry, bias in Social Security predictions, how the Chinese government uses social media, and lots more.
– Follow Gary King on Twitter
– Dr. King’s jaw-droppingly impressive page at Harvard
This show is sponsored by Brooklinen.com. Mike is super-picky about bedding, and he thinks Brooklinen’s sheets are the best he’s ever slept under. Brooklinen is so confident that you’ll love their sheets that they offer a risk-free 60-night satisfaction guarantee and a lifetime warranty on all of their sheets and comforters. Politics Guys listeners get $20 off AND free shipping by using promo code tpg at Brooklinen.com.
Brooke Gladstone On The Media
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Mike talks to Brooke Gladstone, co-host and managing editor of WNYC’s On The Media. Ms. Gladstone has won multiple awards for her reporting, including a National Press Club Award and two Peabody Awards. She’s also the author of two books: The Influencing Machine, a media manifesto in graphic form and, most recently, The Trouble With Reality: A Rumination on Moral Panic in Our Time, which came out in May.
Brooke Gladstone’s Recommended News Sources
– Talking Points Memo
– Vox
– Commentary
– The Weekly Standard
– National Review
– The New York Times
– The Washington Post
– National Public Radio
Follow Brooke Gladstone on Twitter
https://twitter.com/OTMBrooke
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Kurt Schlichter Explains How Hillary Clinton is Evil & Listener Mail
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There was so much intense listener response to Mike’s recent interview with Townhall.com columnist Kurt Schlichter, that Mike and Jay decided to devote the first part of this listener mail episode to addressing those responses and explaining why Mr. Schlichter was invited on the show. Mr. Schlichter himself appears in this episode, to explain what he meant when, in the interview, he repeatedly referred to Hillary Clinton as evil.
After that, the Guys answer listener mail, including questions about climate change, reasons for opposition to normalizing relations with Cuba, and their thoughts on a Politics Guys ‘Cheers’ analogy.
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An A+ For Donald Trump
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Kurt’s Recommended Sites
– Townhall
– Instapundit
– American Greatness
– American Thinker
Moneyball for Politics: Sasha Issenberg’s ‘The Victory Lab’
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Mike talks to Sasha Issenberg, a political journalist whose work has appeared in Slate, Washington Monthly, The Atlantic, and lots of other places. He’s a contributor to Bloomberg Politics and the author of multiple books, including the widely praised The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns which Politico called ‘Moneyball for Politics’.
Follow Sasha on Twitter
The Economist’s Ryan Avent on The Wealth of Humans
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Mike talks with Economist senior editor and columnist Ryan Avent, author of The Gated City and, most recently, The Wealth of Humans: Work, Power, and Status in the Twenty-First Century.
In addition to The Economist, Mr. Avent’s work has appeared in outlets such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Republic, the Atlantic, and the Washington Examiner. Prior to coming to The Economist, he worked as an economic consultant and an industry analyst for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He has an economics degree from North Carolina State University, and an Masters of Science in economic history from the London School of Economics.
Mike and Ryan talk about where the jobs are going, who’s at risk, the effects on economic inequality, the social and psychological effects of a largely jobless future, and lots more.
Ryan Avent Recommends
– EconTalk
– FT Alphachat
– The Weeds
– Marginal Revolution University
Follow Ryan Avent on Twitter
Fighting Trump State by State & Mapping Police Violence
Mike talks to Samuel Sinyangwe, co-founder of OurStates, an initiative that connects communities to actionable information and tools to reject the Trump / GOP agenda in every state and protect communities from harm.
Mr. Sinyangwe is a policy analyst and data scientist who also co-founded Mapping Police Violence, which collects and analyzes data on police violence in the United States. He’s been featured on MSNBC, CNN, BBC, LA Times, the Forbes ’30 under 30′ and The Root 100.
– Follow Samuel Sinyangwe on Twitter
Show Links
– Vox.com
– FiveThirtyEight.com
Die-Hard Independent Matthew Dowd on ‘A New Way’
Mike talks to author, ABC News chief political analyst, and die-hard independent Matthew Dowd. Mr. Dowd has extensive experience in politics where he’s worked for candidates and officeholders on both sides of the aisle, including Democrats Dick Gephardt & Lloyd Bentsen and Republicans George W. Bush – on whose campaign he was chief strategist – and Arnold Schwarzenegger. He’s co-author of the bestselling book Applebees America and his latest book, which just came out this spring, is A New Way: Embracing The Paradox as we Lead and Serve. He’s also founded multiple companies, including ListenTo.us, a community of independent minded people sick and tired of gridlock and the lack of common-sense leadership and dedicated to putting the ‘united’ back in United States.
Follow Matthew Dowd on Twitter