Show 319 Thomas Sowell. Prager talks to author. Audio MP3

Dennis talks to one of his favorite thinkers, Thomas Sowell, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. A new edition of Sowell's essential book, Applied Economics, has just been released. If every college student read this book, we"d live in a different and better world twenty years from now.

From Thomas Sowell: the tools to understand economic issues — and to see the economic ramifications of public policy proposals

Applied Economics:Thinking Beyond Stage One

by Thomas Sowell  Revised and expanded 2008 edition

So much of our national political debate these days revolves around economic matters -- taxes, health care, even affirmative action and immigration policy -- that it is essential for every informed American to have a working knowledge of economics. In Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One, the renowned conservative economist Thomas Sowell has made it possible for you to grasp quickly and easily the economic elements of key public policies. Better yet, this revised and expanded edition now includes material on the roots of the Crash of 2008, the economics of immigration, and other timely topics.

 With an experienced teacher's knack for making the complex simple, Sowell explains why politicians frequently cheerlead for policies that are bad for the economy; why cities with rent controlled housing usually end up riddled with slums; why medical care costs just keep going up; and much more. He turns his keen eye also to the economics of discrimination and even examines the economic development of nations.

Sowell even explains why Socialist schemes like single-payer health care actually offer much less than meets the eye, and invariably fail. Sowell says that many disastrous public policies would never have been adopted if short-sighted politicians had been willing or able to trace the consequences of implementing them beforehand. In this book, he shows this can be done -- how, in the words of the book's subtitle, to "think beyond stage one."

 Thomas Sowell reveals:

 How government intervention in the housing markets led to the current "subprime" mortgage crisis

 Single-payer health care: why it makes the overall cost of medical care go up -- and its quality go down

 The unrecorded human costs of price-controlled medical care: how they reveal the bankruptcy of the whole idea of socialized medicine

Why New York's ever-increasing corporate taxes are directly to blame for the abandonment of the city by many key corporations -- leaving New York with a diminished corporate tax base

 California's electricity crisis: how blackouts and higher costs for consumers were the inevitable result of the state government's attempt to keep consumer prices low by legal fiat

Central planning: how it drove the Soviet economy into the ground and why it simply doesn't work, despite liberals' continuing fondness for it

 How the economic advantages of a market economy are accompanied by political disadvantages

 Planned economies: how they inevitably turn decent people into criminals

 A free labor market: how it benefits not only the worker but also the economy

 Why the Soviet slave labor system was not as profitable as free labor, even though it accounted for huge sectors of the Soviet Union's economic output

Price controls: why they are usually popular politically despite failing to accomplish what they are instituted to do

 Why a free market is the best antidote to racial prejudice: how discrimination inflicts economic damage not only on those being discriminated against, but on those doing the discrimination

 The outrageous distortions and half-truths purveyed by Ralph Nader and other self-styled "consumer advocates" (and their devastating economic effects)

 Property developers: how they are unfairly demonized by liberal economists and activists immensely important role that geography plays in the economic realities of various places around the globe

 Why cities with rent control laws have higher rents than cities that don't -- and how rent control reduces incentives to build new housing, as well as to maintain existing housing 

How liberals distort and misrepresent statistics about black and white economic performance in order to exaggerate the lingering presence of discrimination in American society

"Sowell is right to preach the superiority of competitive markets to various forms of regulation that backfire with alarming regularity." -- National Review

"Informative and entertaining. . . . Sowell gives example after example of how the foolish policies of politicians have increased the common misery rather than the common good. ... If you are interested in honing your knowledge 'to think beyond stage one,' you will not go wrong by reading Mr. Sowell's new book." -- Washington Times

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 Show 318 Gross National Happiness. The radio program "For Faith & Family talks to Dr. Arthur Brooks.  50 minutes 11MB

From their website- On today's For Faith & Family we welcome Dr. Arthur Brooks to the program. He is a professor of public administration at Syracuse University and the author of Who Really Cares? and Gross National Happiness. Dr. Brooks has spent years researching how people"s values affect their charitable giving, and in turn, how that affects their happiness. We’re glad Dr. Brooks is here to share his results with us today.

 Check out their archived shows at http://faithandfamily.com/fff/archive/section/radio

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Show 317 Michael Crichton. States of Fear: Science or Politics? 52 minutes 11.9MB.  Speech given May 6, 2007

Watch this video on Google Video Michael Crichton http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=Michael+Crichton&emb=0&aq=-1&oq=#

 At one time, both the pseudoscientific geocentric notion of the universe (that the Earth lies at the center of the solar system) and eugenics (the racial theory to “purify” the human race) were widely accepted by leaders in science, politics, journalism, and business. Such theories were pushed by powerful interest groups that possessed highly politicized agendas driving government policies and public opinion, until ultimately both theories were disproved. Is environmental debate today, including global warming, bio-technology, and other issues, based on science or politics? Are popular accounts of such issues rooted in science or phantom risks? Are government policies focusing on the trivial while ignoring the real, and in the process wasting limited resources, crippling human innovation to address true dangers, and inviting tyranny? In discussing not just environmental issues but the increasing politicization of science itself, best-selling author Michael Crichton examines the intersection of media, politics, and science, inspiring viewers to challenge old assumptions and to search beneath the surface of issues as they seek to discover the truth. Scientists Bruce Ames (U.C. Berkeley), Sallie Baliunas (Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), William Gray (Colorado State U.), and Oregon State Climatologist George Taylor show how scientific debates have been politicized by appealing to the fears of an uninformed public.

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Show 316 From the “For Faith & Family” broadcasts- In this broadcast we welcome Ben Stein to discuss his latest film documentary, Expelled! No Intelligence Allowed, which has just been released on DVD. Great Documentary. We highly recommend it. To purchase it visit Expelled! No Intelligence Allowed at amazon.

 You may recognize Ben from his regular appearances on the Fox News channel, the late-nineties quiz show “Win Ben Stein’s Money” or the cult-classic 1986 movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. 

In addition to his recognizable on-screen adventures, Ben’s lengthy resume includes time as a poverty lawyer, civil rights activist and White House speech writer. And somewhere during all of that he found time to author 16 books!

 But Ben’s latest film project, Expelled! is the reason for his visit today. It’s a movie that’s ruffling all kinds of feathers in the “bastions” of scientific and academic elite. You won’t want to miss compelling film.

 The second part of this broadcast includes a rather lengthy discussion between Richard Land and Ben Stein about the American Civil Rights Movement. It may be a little “off topic” from the Ben’s latest film, but we’re confident it’s a conversation you’ll enjoy.

49 minutes 11MB

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For the full Transcript of part 1 visit http://faithandfamily.com/documents/pdf/transcripts/landstein-radio.pdf  

Show 315 Dennis Prager talks with frequent Prager Show guest, Allison Armstrong, co-founder of Celebrating Men, Satisfying Women seminars. They discuss importance of sex in a marriage. Originally broadcast on June 4, 2008.

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 Show 314 From the “For Faith & Family” broadcasts- On this broadcast Dr. Richard Land welcomes our special guest, Dr. Larry Schweikart, to the program. Dr. Schweikart is a professor of U.S. History at Dayton Univeristy, and he is here to discuss where many college textbooks get there facts wrong concerning the history of the United States.

24 minutes. 5MB

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Show 313 Nationally-syndicated talk show host Dennis Prager talks to college students about the American Trinity of Life,

Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. This speech took place at Young America"s Foundation’s West Coast Leadership Conference.

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 Show 312 Dennis Prager talks to Joe Eszterhas author of Crossbearer A Memoir of Faith.

Joe Eszterhas has written the screenplays for sixteen films that have made more than a billion dollars at the box office.  Among them areBasic Instinct, Jagged Edge, Flashdance and Showgirls.  A former senior editor at Rolling Stone, he is the author of five previous books—the second, Charlie Simpson's Apocalypse, was nominated for the National Book Award.  The father of seven children, he lives with his wife, Naomi, and their four sons in Bainbridge Township, Ohio.

 Joe Eszterhas grew up in refugee camps and then in America"s back alleys.  He worked as a police reporter, racing the cops to robberies and shootings. He interviewed and wrote about mass murders and serial killers. He wrote dark, sexually graphic, and violent films likeBasic Instinct, Jagged Edge, and Jade.

Eszterhas knew a lot about darkness.  Then, on a hellishly hot day in 2001, desperately battling to survive throat cancer and his addictions to alcohol and cigarettes, Joe Eszterhas found God. Or God found him.

And he came from darkness into light.

Crossbearer is the powerful, poignant, and sometimes wryly humorous account of a streetwise and cynical man’s newfound faith, and of how he discovers God in the most intimate and routine moments of life: a family game of baseball, a child’s photograph of a cloud, a dying mother’s dying roses.

It is also the inspiring story of a man who must overcome his addictions to stay alive—and can’t by himself.  He realizes that he needs the love of his wife, his children, and especially his new friend, God, to do it.

Eszterhas is a master memoirist—his Hollywood Animal was called "powerful and affecting” (The New York Times), “absolutely first-rate” (Los Angeles Times Book Review) and “heartbreaking, funny and outrageous” (Houston Chronicle)—and with Crossbearer he reveals a fresh and completely unexpected new chapter of his life.

With surprising tenderness and a willingness to bare even weaknesses and mistakes, Joe Eszterhas has written a startling personal story about faith, values, family and love.

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Show 311 National Review Online  3 of 3.  Interviews with 6 book authors. From National Review Online program called Between the Covers (as in Book covers) with John J Miller. Visit the website at http://radio.nationalreview.com/betweenthecovers/  We found over 100 interviews with generally conservative authors.

1. Arthur Brooks on Gross National Happiness

Arthur Brooks, author of Gross National Happiness: Why Happiness Matters for America—and How We Can Get More of It, offers John J. Miller a revelation: “People who call themselves conservative or very conservative are about twice as likely to say they are very happy people, as are those who say they are liberal or very liberal.”

2. Roy Spencer on Climate Confusion

Climatologist Roy Spencer, author of Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians and Misguided Policies that Hurt the Poor, tells John J. Miller that while global warming is real, its causes are not known. “The truth is that we don’t have the right observations, in let’s say the last thirty or forty years, to know whether our most recent warming is natural or manmade.”

3. Jagdish Bhagwati on In Defense of Globalization

John J. Miller asks Jagdish Bhagwati, author of In Defense of Globalization, why globalization even needs a defense. The answer: Large numbers of people believe “globalization is actually setting us back in terms of our social agendas, like women’s issues, democracy, [and] mainstream culture,” while others say it drains us economically, in terms of workers wages, total GDP, and the general welfare.

 4. Stephen Moore on The End of Prosperity

"[T]he bigger problem with the Obama plan is that it raises taxes on the most productive people in the economy.…You can't raise taxes on small businesses and then expect to have small businesses create more jobs," says Stephen Moore, co-author of The End of Prosperity: How Higher Taxes Will Doom the Economy—If We Let It Happen.

5.  Richard Brookhiser on George Washington on Leadership

Richard Brookhiser, NR senior editor and author, most recently, of George Washington on Leadership, describes for John J. Miller the many qualities that made the father of our country such an exceptional leader. Among these was physical stature. Says Brookhiser, “When he does show up [before his troops], he makes an impressive figure. And that sort of momentary first impression is a very important thing.”

6.  M. Stanton Evans on Blacklisted by History

M. Stanton Evans, author of Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America’s Enemies, says inaccuracies infect many of the books on this topic. He tells John J. Miller: “The basic inaccuracy is the suggestion in most of the books that McCarthy was making stuff up; that he was lying. . . . What we now know is that he wasn’t lying. . . . He was correct both as to the larger picture of communist penetration in the government and as to many specific cases [of this].”

Show 309 Interviews with 6 book authors. From National Review Online program called Between the Covers (as in Book covers) with John J Miller. Visit the website at http://radio.nationalreview.com/betweenthecovers/  We found dozens of interviews with generally conservative authors.  

1. Walter E. Williams on Liberty Versus the Tyranny of Socialism

"Socialism is a form of tyranny…we have to recognize…the only way the government can get one American citizen one dollar is to first through intimidation, threats and coercion confiscate that dollar from some other American,” says Walter E. Williams, author of Liberty Versus the Tyranny of Socialism: Controversial Essays.

2.  Brian Anderson on A Manifesto for Media Freedom. 

Speaking of the fairness doctrine, Brian Anderson, co-author of A Manifesto for Media Freedom, says  it's the idea that government can regulate speech for fairness and quality which is truly pernicious and which will result in a completely regulated press.

3.  Iain Murray on The Really Inconvenient Truths

Iain Murray, author of The Really Inconvenient Truths: Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Don"t Want You to Know About — Because They Helped Cause Them, explains for John J. Miller why misinformation is so rife in the environmental movement: "they take a germ of truth and then blow it up out of all proportion; they take a mole hill and they make a mountain.”

 4. Brian Fagan on The Great Warming

Brian Fagan, author of The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations, tells John J. Miller that the warming period of 800-1200 A.D. had its good and bad sides. In Europe, Fagan says, “There was more food. The growing seasons lengthened. You got people growing cereal crops in Norway . . . They were growing wine in central England.” However, “I was shocked to find that over enormous areas of the world, there were prolonged, even epochal, droughts, particularly in the American west and over much of the Pacific.”

5.  Thomas Sowell on Economic Facts and Fallacies

John J. Miller asks Thomas Sowell, author most recently of Economic Facts and Fallacies, if Americans are economically illiterate. Sowell replies, “Oh yes, good heavens, yes. There need to be at least ten more books like this because I'm too old to think about writing them all by myself.”

 6. Dan Perrin on America's Health Care Crisis Solved

Dan Perrin, co-author with J. Patrick Rooney of America"s Health Care Crisis Solved, tells John J. Miller that today’s health-care crisis is one of affordability, and that his book “provides a series of solutions for specific problems that are contributing to this overall health-care inflation.”

Show 308 Interviews with 6 book authors. From National Review Online program called Between the Covers (as in Book covers) with John J Miller. Visit the website at http://radio.nationalreview.com/betweenthecovers/ 

We found over 100 interviews with generally conservative authors. 1hour 4 minutes  14.7MB

 1. George C. Herring on From Colony to Superpower: U. S. Foreign Relations Since 1776.  George C. Herring, author of From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations since 1776, tells John J. Miller, "If you look at big picture, I don't believe I exaggerate by calling [U.S. performance in foreign relations] a spectacular record of success."

 2. Bruce Herschensohn on Above Empyrean.  Bruce Herschensohn tells John J. Miller that he wrote Above Empyrean: A Novel of the Final Days of the War Against Islamist Terrorism "as an appeal — a plea that the politician and the voter takes this war as seriously as it is. Winning supersedes everything else.”

 3. Chip Mellor on The Dirty Dozen.  William "Chip” Mellor, co-author with Robert Levy of The Dirty Dozen: How Twelve Supreme Court Cases Radically Expanded Government and Eroded Freedom, tells John J. Miller that the twelve cases chosen “each play a critical and tragic roll in effectively amending the Constitution, to take away what the Founding Fathers intended.”

 4. Thomas Sowell on Applied Economics. Thomas Sowell, author of Applied Economics, 2nd Edition: Thinking Beyond Stage One doesn't think much of the $700 billion economic bailout: “It looked at first as a necessary evil, but as time goes on it looks more and more evil and less and less necessary…once that money has been created it becomes just another pot of the money that politcians can hand out hither and yon as they see fit.”

 5. Burton W. Folsom, Jr. on New Deal or Raw Deal: How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America.  Burton W. Folsom, Jr., author of New Deal or Raw Deal: How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America, tells John J. Miller, “Hardly anybody who writes on the New Deal mentions that Roosevelt raised taxes to the top marginal rate in 1935 to 79%.”

6. John Fund on Stealing Elections. Commenting on the lack of zeal in prosecuting cases of voter fraud, John Fund, author of Stealing Elections, says, “There's an inevitable cry that any time you're preventing voter fraud, you're actually dealing in voter suppression, dealing in trying to reduce the minority vote, and that kind of attack often deters [DAs] from pursuing these cases.”

Show 307 Various selections. 1. Teachers Unions. 2. George Will, Social Security. 3. Dinesh D"Souza  4. Hewitt- Author interview- Scratch Beginnings. 36 minutes 8.45MB

Excerpt 1. Teachers Unions Bankrupting American Education. Audio version of film documentary. To See the video visit: http://www.teachersunionexposed.com/video_release.cfm

Visit Union Facts website at: http://www.unionfacts.com/

Big labor unions have destroyed countless American industries, including the Detroit automakers who are now begging Congress for a bailout. But these unions don't just control factories and assembly lines. Our public education system is a slow-motion car crash, driven by the same union special interests that brought the auto companies to the brink of bankruptcy.

This insightful new video shows how teachers unions protect bad and incompetent teachers, block school reform efforts, and use their members" dues money to support a radical left-wing agenda. Compared to other developed countries, the United States has the worst educational quality per dollar spent on schools, ranking 18th in reading and 28th in math. Millions of American children are being shortchanged by dysfunctional schools, but efforts for education reform are invariably stopped by powerful union interests.

These unions fight tooth and nail against any meaningful change to their comfortable status quo - while students and taxpayers pay the price.

After decades of denial, there is a growing realization around the country that teachers unions’ defense of the status quo cannot continue. A new generation of reformers, including Michelle Rhee, the chief of public schools in Washington DC, are fighting those unions and pushing for renewed accountability and an end to the broken tenure system.

TeachersUnionFacts.com is a project of the non-profit Center for Union Facts. With your support, we can fix our public schools and expel these special interest groups. Your tax-deductible donation will help us show Americans the truth about today’s teachers unions.

Excerpt 2. George Will discussing Social Security.

Excerpt 3. Dinesh D’Souza discussing his book What’s so Great about Christianity.

Excerpt 4. Hugh Hewitt interviews author of Scratch Beginnings. 

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Show 306 Audiobook 9 of 9- Free to Choose. A Personal Statement by Milton Friedman

 Milton Friedman and his wife, Rose, teamed up to write this most convincing and readable guide, which illustrates the crucial link between Adam Smith's capitalism and the free society. They show how freedom has been eroded and prosperity undermined through the rapid growth of governmental agencies, laws, and regulations. While a large central government may have good intentions, the results it produces are lamentable. More than another indictment of government planning and bureaucracy, however, Free to Choose offers several convincing and creative remedies to the world's woes.

 The international bestseller on the extent to which personal freedom has been eroded by government regulations and agencies while personal prosperity has been undermined by government spending and economic controls. 65 minutes 15MB