About this podcast
Succinct economic commentary by Dr. Mark Thornton, senior fellow at the Mises Institute.
Episodes
The newest 20 of 201 episodes
- The West’s Gathering Storm · Episode 201Fresh from the Tenth Madrid Conference on Austrian Economics, Mark Thornton reflects on the enthusiasm for free-market ideas. He then examines mounting government debt, European…
- We Needed Higher Oil Prices · Episode 199On this episode of Minor Issues, Mark Thornton makes the counterintuitive case that higher oil prices early in the Persian Gulf conflict might have reduced the economic damage…
- The Empire Has No Clothes · Episode 199Mark Thornton examines the collapse of trust in Washington as government debt, monetary inflation, and foreign wars undermine America's standing at home and abroad. Drawing on…
- Violent Populism · Episode 198Mark Thornton examines the rise of political violence in America, drawing on Robert Pape’s Our Own Worst Enemies and its warning that political violence has become increasingly…
- Market Coiling · Episode 197Mark Thornton examines whether the precious metals market is coiling after last year’s push, this year’s correction, and months of volatility driven by war news, Fed policy, the…
- Debt, War, and the Tangled Web · Episode 196Mark Thornton opens with Sir Walter Scott’s famous “tangled web” line, using John Law’s Mississippi Bubble and Richard Cantillon’s response to frame today’s financial disorder…
- Will AI Bonds Doom Humanity? · Episode 195Mark Thornton opens with a recap of inflation, commodity prices, interest rates, and stagnant real wages before turning to “bubble bonds”: the explosion of borrowing by AI…
- Whistling Past the Graveyard · Episode 194Mark Thornton follows up on last week’s episode by arguing that the Trump administration, Chairman Warsh, and Secretary Bessent are using short-term maneuvers to hide long-term…
- Market Theater, Gold, and the AI Bubble · Episode 193Mark Thornton opens by tracing the Soros-linked circle of Scott Bessent, Stanley Druckenmiller, and Kevin Warsh, arguing that Treasury and Fed officials are using currency moves…
- Printability Matters · Episode 192Mark Thornton opens with a warning from Jackson Hole: the Fed’s public mandate is a cover story. Its real job is to serve the big banks and the state by keeping deficits, debt…
- Austrian Economics, Gold, and the Fed’s Confidence Game · Episode 191Mark Thornton opens with an interview from the Rothbard Graduate Seminar on what makes Austrian economics distinct, why the Mises Institute matters, and how Böhm-Bawerk, Mises…
- Government Intervention and Economic Inequality · Episode 185Mark Thornton revisits his Mises University lecture on government intervention and economic inequality, arguing that intervention does not merely shrink the economic pie: it…
- Republican Party Displacement · Episode 185Mark Thornton returns to Rothbard’s idea of major party realignment, arguing that ideology—not interest-group politics alone—drives long-term political change. He applies that…
- Gold, Socialism, and the Crisis of the Dollar · Episode 185Mark Thornton opens this triple-header episode with a live Radio Rothbard appearance from Mises University, joining Ryan McMaken to discuss inflation, the K-shaped economy, asset…
- Stocks, Manure, Gold, and Socialism: Markets and Bad Ideas · Episode 185Mark Thornton opens with an update on the “Stocks versus Manure” prediction contest, where agricultural stocks are beating the S&P 500 year to date. He then joins Maggie Lake on…
- Major Party Realignment · Episode 185Mark Thornton looks at the growing strength of democratic socialism inside the Democratic Party and asks whether the United States may be entering another era of major party…
- The Dupes of War: Mises on Statism, Propaganda, and Foreign Conflict · Episode 185On the latest episode of Minor Issues, Mark Thornton examines the “dupes of war”—citizens trained by government, schools, and historians to accept false stories about the causes…
- The Vine That Ate the South: Government Solutions vs. Market Solutions · Episode 184Mark Thornton delays part three of his series on American government in favor of something lighter for the 250th: the story of kudzu, the vine that ate the South. Japanese…
- Politics as Power: Elites, Inflation, and the Austrian Answer · Episode 183Mark Thornton opens this episode of Minor Issues by tracing how politics shifted from the classical ideal of justice and community order into a Machiavellian struggle for power…
- The Fed’s New Face, Same Old Game · Episode 181Mark Thornton examines Kevin Warsh’s first Fed meeting and argues that despite the tough rhetoric, nothing fundamental has changed. The Federal Reserve still exists to keep…
