In this podcast Russell Roberts, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and EconTalk host, discusses, with Dean Baker of the Center for Economic Policy and Research, the financial crisis. Baker sees the crisis as part of a broader set of phenomena: rising inequality and declining unionization.

Bill Whalen, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution where he studies and writes on current events and political trends, discusses what the Iowa caucus results mean for the winners, the losers, and perhaps Barack Obama.

Kori Schake, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and an associate professor of international security studies at the United States Military Academy, took part in a panel discussion concerning US military ceremonies in Baghdad, which formally ended the war in Iraq. The Iraq War lasted almost nine years, longer than either World War I or World War II. The panel discusses the length of the war, that it was fought by a tiny percentage of Americans, and that it was launched on a premise that proved untrue.

In this podcast Russell Roberts, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and EconTalk host, discusses, with Mike Munger of Duke University, profits. What are profits’ role in allocating resources? How should we feel about the people who earn profits or who take them in ways that may not be earned? How easy is it to discover profitable opportunities? Munger examines these questions through a series of stories, real and fictional, to illuminate the sometimes puzzling nature of profits.