Economics 101, Live From Tulsa! | Interview: Douglas Holtz-Eakin

It may disappoint frequent Remnant listeners to learn that most episodes are not recorded in a speakeasy. In fact, recording a Remnant is one of the few occasions that can draw Jonah Goldberg away from such establishments. Nonetheless, listeners will be pleased that on this occasion Jonah is joined in a speakeasy by none other than economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin. They talk about GDP, inflation, federal stakes in private companies, Friedrich Hayek, the knowledge problem, Social Security, the federal budget, K-12 education, one-party governance, political transparency, business leadership, The Wealth of Nations, and the microcosm/macrocosm distinction. Show Notes: The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Want to see more of The Dispatch in Google search? Add Us as a Preferred Source Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief and co-founder of The Dispatch, based in Washington, D.C. Prior to that, enormous lizards roamed the Earth. More immediately prior to that, Jonah spent two decades at National Review, where he was a senior editor, among other things. He is also a bestselling author, longtime columnist for the Los Angeles Times, commentator for CNN, and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. When he is not writing the G-File or hosting The Remnant podcast, he finds real joy in family time, attending to his dogs and cat, and blaming Steve Hayes for various things. The podcast transcription below was generated using artificial intelligence and may include occasional errors or misspellings. Music 0:00 [drum music] Oh. [drum music] Music 0:14 Ladies and gentlemen, uh, Music 0:16 can I please have your attention? Daniel Diggins. [crowd cheering] Jonah Goldberg 0:27 Greetings, dear listeners. This is Jonah Goldberg, host of the Remnant Podcast, brought to you by The Dispatch and Dispatch Media. I'm recording this on, this little bit, on October 20th, because I decided in the fullness of my wisdom, and then by being reminded by Victoria to actually do it, that we probably need a new intro to today's episode, which is my conversation in Tulsa with Douglas Holtz-Eakin about the economy, about the future of the right and economics, and, and a whole bunch of other things. And we took some questions from the audience. It was a fun episode to do, and I'm grateful to Doug for it, and I'm grateful to the guys from Aspen for putting it all together. Um, and here we go. I'm gonna release the dogs on the people at the bar in a second. It's a little hypocritical, 'cause that would be me if I were here. Very happy to be doing this with the, um, you know, with the help of the Aspen Institute and the Aspen Ideas Movable Feast, they're calling it now. I don't know. So anyway, uh, we'll, we'll just sort of get started. I, I do want to, um, start with just a true story. Boris Yeltsin, when he became president of the Soviet, of Russia, things were not going great. And he was asked by reporters who met him out front, you know, of his office, and they asked, some reporter asked, "Could you in one word describe the state of the Russian economy?" And Yeltsin thinks for a second and then says, "Good." Jonah Goldberg 1:53 And they all sort of chuckle and whatever, and so the reporter says, "Okay, could you give me two, two words?" Interactive transcripts are available to Premium members. Join to follow along with the audio. Join Now More We Think You’d Like