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Watch Michael Weinstein and Joseph Siegle talk about their book The Democracy Advantage: How Democracies Promote Prosperity and Peace. I very much agree with what Leslie Gelb has written about this fascinating book: “It is very rare when you have established experts do a mountainous amount of hard research on a complex new subject. It is rarer still when the subject cuts across the boundaries of foreign policy, economics, and domestic politics. The result is far and away the best book to date making the argument that democracy furthers economic development better than authoritarian rule.”
This is the most impressive, informative and frightening documentary on the last economic crisis – and the next one:
Overdose: The Next Financial Crisis
It is not too late – yet! – and it’s all up to us, but we have to change course.
Well, it already is. Watch this fascinating talk by David Bowen.
Listen to Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji speak at the Cato Institute – from which he received the “Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty 2010” – about the liberation struggle against the theocracy and the great dangers of military intervention.
Political scientist Robert Pape has a clear and simple answer to this question, which will surprise only those who blame Islam. Watch him explain his theory and his latest research on Iraq and Afghanistan at the New America Foundation:
The Rise of Suicide Terrorism
(I couldn’t find the first part, but I don’t believe there is anything of great importance missing.)
Watch a very informative, entertaining and fair debate on the issue,
featuring Dambisa Moyo, Hernando de Soto, Paul Collier and Stephen Lewis – four experts on aid and development, four independent and innovative minds, four people, who really care about the poor…
A Munk Debate: “Is foreign aid to the developing countries doing more harm than good?”
Watch Richard Tren and Donald Roberts from “Africa Fighting Malaria” talk about their book “The Excellent Powder: DDT’s Political and Scientific History” at Reason.TV:
They made fun of Americans, Canadians, Latin Americans, Europeans, Asians and Africans, liberals, conservatives, socialists, environmentalists, feminists, animal rights activists, pacifists and war mongerers, self-centered hippies and snobby yuppies, Michael Jackson and Radiohead, Bush and Obama, George Clooney and Barbra Streisand, Family Guy, the Simpsons and – of course – themselves, fundamentalist Christians, Scientology, arrogant atheists and radical Muslims.
So that makes 29 reasons. What’s the last one?
No one and nothing will ever stop them!
Watch Matthew Hoh, a former Marine Corps Captain in Iraq and Foreign Service Officer in Afghanistan, explain why he resigned in protest over the war in Afghanistan:
Watch historian Stephen Davies explain why mankind has been experiencing the most radical revolution ever in the last two centuries – and why this revolution has only just begun!
Stephen Davies at the Mercatus Center – Locating Ourselves Historically
(Scroll down to find the video).
Yes, they can – and so can every country in the world! Watch Hans Rosling – the funniest statistician ever! – explain his optimism to an Indian audience:
“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” – George Orwell
Don’t miss this frightening documentary!
Yo! Check this sh++ out, my econ-homeys! The battle of the century!
Most people believe that only lunatic lefties are in favour of free migration. Unfortunately, they are very close to the truth. I wish that more moderates, liberals, conservatives and libertarians would speak up against all barriers to immigration. A crazy idea? Watch or listen to this wonderful speech by British economist Nigel Harris, author of Thinking the Unthinkable – The Immigration Myth Exposed, at Gresham College: Refugees, economic migration and the future of the world economy
Most people assume that there are two – and only two – sides in the debate. You either believe that the world is coming to an end unless we drastically cut carbon emissions now or you believe that there is no global warming at all – as if there is only black and white and nothing in between, like in chess.
Patrick Michaels, past president of the American Association of State Climatologists and a member of the IPCC, is just one of many experts who believes that the truth lies somewhere in between the extremes.
Watch or listen to him debate his latest book, Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don’t Want You to Know, at the Cato Institute.
Also watch him talk at the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment of the Committee on Science at the United States House of Representatives.
And don’t miss his op-ed on “climategate” in the Wall Street Journal: How to Manufacture a Climate Consensus – The East Anglia emails are just the tip of the iceberg. I should know.
Most Europeans and many Americans think so. But they don’t check the facts. The graph below compares GDP growth since 1991. The U.S. and the U.K. clearly outperformed France and Germany. (Source)
Watch or listen to a very informative and entertaining “Munk”-debate on this important question.
The necon hawks want to cripple the Iranian economy with massive sanctions or even go to war. Most of their opponents prefer to simply ignore the realities in Tehran. Is there a better way? Can we avoid a terrible war without giving in to a brutal theocracy?
Watch and listen to a very informative debate between Jacqueline Shire, a senior analyst at the Institute for Science and International Security and well-known expert on Iran’s nuclear program, and Richard Parker, founder of the American Foreign Policy Project, at Bloggingheads.TV:
Also watch the video of a conference by the Cato Institute on How to Deal with Iran: Options for Today and for the Future
Milton and Rose Friedman founded the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice to fight a public school system, which is run by government bureaucrats, school boards and teachers, and in which students and their parents have almost no way of holding them accountable.
Watch Milton Friedman explain why he believes that all students, but especially those from poor neighborhoods, would benefit from a school voucher system, which would break the government monopoly on education by empowering the parents:
After decades of suffering under brutal Soviet occupation and no less brutal Taliban rule, the people of Afghanistan deserve freedom, dignity and prosperity. We should do all we can to help them build a stable democratic system and a modern market economy. But we need a serious debate about the right means to achieve these goals – and we need it now!
Watch these two equally impressive, informative and important documentaries about war and everday life in the graveyard of empires:
Watch this impressive and uplifting documentary by Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto and the Institute for Liberty and Democracy:
The Mystery of Capital among the Indigenous Peoples of the Amazon
“A documentary of significance with findings from indigenous communities in Alaska, Canada and the Peruvian jungle.”
Watch John Mueller, Professor of Political Science at Ohio State University, talk about his book Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them at the Daily Show or C-Span.
When governments are too small, they aren’t able to secure our basic rights. When they are too big, they become a drag to the economy. But what is the growth-optimising size of government? We are not sure. And the answer of course depends on what exactly government is doing. But most scientific studies have shown it is somewhere between 12% and 30% of GDP. Now another study by the bulgarian Institute for Market Economics comes to the conclusion that it is very likely to be under 25 %. This means that all OECD-governments are far too big. Even the richest societies could be much richer, had they stopped or at least slowed the growth of government in the last decades.
Here you can read the study. And here you can watch a short video about it.
But not the way most environmentalists want us to! Björn Lomborg, founder of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, an organisation which asks scientists to rank the world’s major problems and the possible solutions to them, has now asked dozens of experts and economists – among them three nobel laureates – to find a scientific answer to the question: “How can we best reduce suffering from global warming?” I will only say this much about the final results of their research: They are very likely to surprise you!
Watch Bjorn Lomborg explain the latest findings at Reason.TV
Watch Swedish writer Johan Norberg talk about his very accesible new book, Financial Fiasco: How America’s Infatuation with Homeownership and Easy Money Created the Economic Crisis, at the Cato Institute:
Cato Institute Book Forum – Financial Fiasco
ANNA J. SCHWARTZ, COAUTHOR, A MONETARY HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES:
“You don’t have to be an economist to gain a clear understanding of the diverse forces that produced the financial fiasco that Johan Norberg describes: lax monetary policy by the Federal Reserve System, overpromotion of homeownership by the government and government agencies, and transformation of the mortgage loan industry into an issuer of securities backed by a pool of mortgages of varying quality.”
Listen to two great and independent minds, Christopher Hitchens and Russ Roberts, talk about why Orwells Anti-Totalitarianism still matters.
Watch Larry Diamond, co-director of the International Forum for Democratic Studies and founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy, explain why he believes it can at the New York Democracy Forum:
Larry Diamond – “Can the Whole World Become Democratic?”
The Human Rights Revolution Platform 