Did you see this headline?  Probably not, since it was never written.  However, it has happened.  Not just with GE but with  General Motors, Big Oil and many other American business icons.  Crony Capitalism has replaced the free market.  Business/ government cross breeding has created business mutants which look like business but act like government.  In this episode, Bob is joined by University of Chicago economics professor Luigi Zingales.  Together they discuss “Saving Capitalism From the Capitalists,” which happens to be the title of Dr. Zingales’ recent book and says it all.  Capitalism is being destroyed from within.  We’re losing our entrepreneurial spirit.  American business is too dependent on government and with governmental support comes governmental control.  Is it too late?

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The current budget/deficit/spending fight among the President, the House and the Senate is setting the stage for the election of 2012.  The Jefferson/Adams election contest of 1800 affected the size and reach of the federal government.  2012 will be a rerun, but the stakes are even higher.  What is the current battle really all about?  Money?  Yes, but only to a point.  Please join Bob Zadek and Libertarian economics professor and prolific blogger, as well as frequent media guest Don Boudreaux tomorrow in this episode, when the answer to the key question is demystified.  “Do we look to Modern Europe Government for guidance, or to the Enlightenment? Sarkozy or Locke?”

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How does an environmental Libertarian think?  What are his values? Is a Libertarian’s response to global warming to sweat it out and buy lots of sunscreen?  Hardly.  In fact, only free markets will save the grey wolf, the humpback whale, the snail darter and the spotted owl;  without regulation, without ethanol subsidies, without the EPA, and without Al Gore!  In this episode, Bob joins Dr. Mary Ruwart, a Libertarian who has studied environmental issues for most of her life, to learn why free markets are green markets.

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The talking heads and political pundits are up in arms over the deficit.  Should they raise taxes, reduce spending or both?!   Would cutting entitlements solve the problem?   They’re all missing the point.  The battle today is a battle of monumental importance and it is over nothing less that the direction of our civic life for the next hundred years.  We must redefine the relationship between citizens and government before we can move forward.

When the Founders created this country, they fulfilled their mission of creating a nation that would stand the test of time.  America has lasted much longer than any of the naysayers believed possible.   But now there is stagnation and we need to decide which direction we are going in.  The fight today is about far more than money.  Money is only a code word, a placeholder, for the real issue of individual freedom vs. government domination.  In this episode, Bob is  joined by Dave Shellenberger: radio guest, prolific blogger and Libertarian commentator.  Together they explain these issues in way no other media has even tried to do.

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Fear of crime is so yesterday.  At one time, violent crime was on everyone’s mind but today, money is the big issue.  We are plagued by out of control deficits, powerful public employee union rip-offs, out of control government spending and the expensive failed war on drugs. These issues all come together in this episode as Veronique de Rugy, Senior Research Fellow at George MasonUniversity’s Mercatus Center discusses “Prison Math” with Bob.  American Exceptionalism is at risk because the United States hosts the world’s largest prison population.  Are we truly “the land of the free” or are we all prisoners of our failed prison system?

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California has finally done something right.  Very right!  It is redrawing election district lines in a non-political, non-partisan manner so that candidates can no longer take their election for granted.  Finally, we’ll have competitive elections.  Incumbents hate this, which means Bob loves it.  Will the country follow California’s lead?  In this episode, Bob is joined by Jessica Levinson, Director of Political Reform at the Center for Governmental Studies to discuss this major issue.  Finally voting will be more than an empty gesture.  Votes will count and voters will matter.  Sunrise on democracy.

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Last Sunday, Nick Gillespie was Bob’s special guest.  He is the Editor-In-Chief of Reason.tv and Reason.com.  Reason’s tagline is “Free Minds and Free Markets.”   Nothing says it better.  Bob and Nick discussed the evils of government subsidized art (indeed, the evils of government subsidized anything) and Nick’s new book “The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What’s Wrong with America” which will be published on June 28.  They also put the Republican Presidential candidates through a Libertarian filter to see who makes it through.  Nick is a frequent television guest of John Stossel and Judge Napolitano.

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Bob examines a policy that’s seventy years old, robs from the rich to give to the poor ….. AND the rich! Sounds confusing?  It is!
It’s supported by the middle class but they don’t even benefit. What is it?  Rent control.  A “temporary fix” for a problem that hasn’t existed for over 7 decades. Why do 92% of all economists consider it seriously flawed?  Why do citizens  in San Francisco, Berkeley, Santa Monica and New York support it?  Bob takes a fresh look at the issue from a Libertarian perspective in this encore episode of the show.  Explaining and defending rent control is expert Ken Carlson (ken@caltenantlaw.com), a long-time tenants rights attorney and advocate. If you’re a tenant, a landlord or a free-marketeer, you won’t want to miss this show.

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In this episode, Bob interviewed our first president, George Washington.  Well, not quite. But close.  With great pride and excitement, we welcomed Thomas Fleming, one of our nation’s leading historians, biographer of Washington, Jefferson and Franklin, past President of the Society of American Historians and author of the popular blog “Channeling George Washington”, to our show.  Bob and Tom discussed money and politics, then and now.  What did the Founders intend to be the relationship between the two?  Is money a political pollutant, or its lifeblood?  Tom Fleming shared his lifetime of study to the important and timely issue, and put it all into keen historical perspective.

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