Gene Tunny and Darren Brady Nelson discuss the economic legacy of President Jimmy Carter, highlighting his deregulation efforts, particularly in aviation, which led to increased competition and significant cost savings. They also touch on Carter’s appointment of Paul Volcker as Federal Reserve Chairman, credited with fighting inflation. The conversation shifts to the America Fest conference in Phoenix, where key speakers included Charlie Kirk, Tucker Carlson, and Glenn Beck. They discuss the tensions within the MAGA movement, particularly around immigration policies. Lastly, they explore the intersection of Christian economics and competition, emphasizing its ethical foundations and the potential for a moral case for free markets.
If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for Gene, please email him at contact@economicsexplored.com.
You can listen to the episode via the embedded player below or via podcasting apps including Apple Podcast and Spotify.
Timestamps for EP269
- President Jimmy Carter’s Legacy and Deregulation (0:00)
- Carter’s Economic Policies and Personal Anecdotes (5:16)
- America Fest Conference in Phoenix (14:36)
- Trump’s Speech and MAGA Movement Dynamics (27:46)
- Christian Economics and Competition (36:34)
- Darren’s Critique of Mainstream Economics and Antitrust Regulation (51:22)
- Regulatory Challenges and Natural Monopolies (55:55)
- Final Thoughts and Future Directions (59:26)
Takeaways
- Jimmy Carter’s Deregulation Impact: Carter’s policies in aviation, trucking, and beer production revolutionized U.S. markets, creating long-lasting consumer benefits.
- MAGA’s Immigration Debate: Tensions exist between Bannon’s nationalist stance and Musk’s globalist vision for high-skilled immigration policies.
- The Role of Competition: Darren highlighted the economic and ethical importance of competition, criticizing overreach in antitrust regulations.
Links relevant to the conversation
Mises Institute article “Jimmy Carter’s Legacy Is Much More than Good Deeds Done in His Later Years”:
https://mises.org/mises-wire/jimmy-carters-legacy-much-more-good-deeds-done-his-later-years
The previous episode with Darren:
Great Reset discussion with Darren from 2020:
https://economics-explained.simplecast.com/episodes/the-great-reset
Larry Reed, President Emeritus of FEE, speaking about the Parable of the Vineyard Workers:
Darren’s articles in Concurrences on competition and antitrust (paywalled, alas):
https://www.concurrences.com/en/page/recherche/?recherche=darren+nelson#
Alfred Kahn’s Economics of Regulation:
https://www.amazon.com.au/Economics-Regulation-Principles-Institutions/dp/0262610523
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Transcript: Jimmy Carter the Great Deregulator, AmFest, MAGA & Migration, and Why Competition? w/ Darren Brady Nelson – EP269
N.B. This is a lightly edited version of a transcript originally created using the AI application otter.ai. It may not be 100 percent accurate, but should be pretty close. If you’d like to quote from it, please check the quoted segment in the recording.
Gene Tunny 00:00
Gene, welcome to the Economics Explored podcast, a frank and fearless exploration of important economic issues. I’m your host, Gene Tunny, I’m a professional economist and former Australian Treasury official. The aim of this show is to help you better understand the big economic issues affecting all our lives. We do this by considering the theory evidence and by hearing a wide range of views. I’m delighted that you can join me for this episode. Please check out the show notes for relevant information. Now on to the show. Hello and welcome to the show. It’s Saturday, fourth of January, 2025 here in Brisbane, Australia. However, it’s Friday, the third of January in Milwaukee, in the USA, where my guest is based, and it’s Darren Brady Nelson coming back onto the show. Darren, good to have you back on the program. Thank you.3
Darren Brady Nelson 00:55
Thank you. Am I? Am I now in first place, or is that other?
Gene Tunny 00:58
Yeah? Oh, you’re definitely in first place. I think you’ve been in first place in terms of number of appearances for a long time, so
Darren Brady Nelson 01:08
not in quality, just but quantity. I’ll take.
Gene Tunny 01:12
Very good. Wow, yes, yes. I mean, it’s all about consistency, isn’t it that? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Very good. Well, Darren, thanks for joining me. I wanted to chat with you about a few things. I mean, first we had the news about President Jimmy Carter. He died earlier this week, lived to 100 impressive innings, and you sent me something interesting on Carter being a great deregulator. And I wanted to talk to you about that. I also want to talk about the America fest that you attended. You’re in Phoenix, Arizona. That’s a turning point USA event. And then Doge Trump 2.0 what’s going on there? And finally, there’s an article you wrote recently on why competition. So I want to, want to touch on all of those things to begin with. Can I ask you about President Carter? Now Carter’s seen as well. Often this presidency is seen as an unsuccessful presidency, the presidency of malaise, the presidency before the Reagan administration. You sent an article on Carter being a great deregulator. So there were some positives that came out of the Carter administration. Can you tell us about those, please? Darren,
Darren Brady Nelson 02:30
well, I mean, I always think of two things, and I often even I kind of forgot about, you know, one of them, you know, then the article is about the second thing, which is about deregulation, essentially that, I mean, you think of deregulation in the US, you know, around that time, you probably would have thought, you know, Reagan, obviously, rather than Carter, I guess, you know, Carter would have, you know, certainly had the reputation, and Reagan, I guess, ran on that to some extent of you know, Jimmy Carter being a big government guy. And, you know, and maybe, you know, philosophically, perhaps he ultimately was, but, but the reality is, you know, two things that he did, obviously, was he did start the deregulation process in the US, particularly in transport, I believe, rail, trucking, aviation, and those are huge things, obviously, particularly aviation, you know, that really, I mean, I mean, all of them are, obviously, but I think aviation really is something that, you know, your average american really would have saw the benefits from, you know, maybe rail would have been a little bit more indirect, you know, kind of it might have been part of because they weren’t really deregulating in terms of, like, sort of so much transport, you know, like Amtrak, it would have been more kind of to do with, with freight, and people would have saw some of those benefits. But, you know, would have been kind of a little bit more indirect, same with trucking. You know, trucking would have fed through and, you know, lower prices and better services and all that to consumers, ultimately. But the aviation thing was the thing I think that really stuck out. And, you know, which later came to Australia. And perhaps I’m not, I guess, 100% sure, but you know, Australia usually, often does look to the US to, you know, to get some of its ideas both good and bad. So and the other thing just quickly to mention was that Carter appointed Paul Volcker as the head of the Federal Reserve. And you know, for mine, at least in my lifetime, I think he is by far the best Chairman of the Federal Reserve in terms of being, you know, someone was, you know, a very responsible person of the Federal Reserve, and, you know, having to do what he had to do to, like, try to fight inflation from the 1970s and then, you know, once he did that, to not then just go back to, sort of like, easy money. So sorry, I covered kind of probably more ground in just that introduction than. Than you were looking for. But
Gene Tunny 05:01
good, that’s good. I think it’s a good point about Volcker. I think most economists would agree with you on Paul Volcker, certainly. I mean, Greenspan’s legacy, he’s been his reputation was essentially wrecked by the financial crisis. If it weren’t for that, then he would have been the maestro. I mean, that’s what people were calling him, but, but since the financial crisis, I mean, and he’s seen as the Greenspan put they talk about. And, I mean, Greenspan’s policies are seen as having helped bring about that, that crisis. So I agree with you on Paul Volcker on airlines, I think you’re right. I mean, Australia, we had a two airline policy, and that wasn’t changed until the 1980s so we had the same problems, the restrictions on competition. Now, Carter introduced, it looks like it’s the Airline Deregulation Act in 1978 so that prohibited states from regulating air carrier prices, routes and services. So I think at one time in the states there, I mean, there are rules about how many airlines could compete in a particular market, and it was seen as, oh, this is better for consumers, because then you don’t have all of this terrible competition which is undermining the viability of the airlines. I mean, that’s how they thought, right? You’ve seen, well, you know, you
Darren Brady Nelson 06:19
don’t want the consumer to have too much choice. That’s just, you know, too difficult. Well, isn’t that?
Gene Tunny 06:23
Wasn’t there that scene in The Aviator with, with Alan Alda playing the the rate was he a regulator or a senator, and Alec Baldwin was playing one trip from Pan Am, and they were basically making the case. So this is justifying the regulation of the of the airways, and because they they wanted to crush Howard Hughes, who was trying to compete with them.
Darren Brady Nelson 06:49
Oh, okay, yeah, yeah, seen that movie. Sorry, yeah. Oh, you’d
Gene Tunny 06:52
love it. It’s great film. I mean, DiCaprio is an amazing actor and, yeah, but there’s that, that little, that sort of subplot there about the airline regulation and Alan Alda playing a senator. And I’m pretty sure that’s the avian I put a link in the show notes. It was really good. It’s worth, worth seeing. And I think there are some, sorry, so
Darren Brady Nelson 07:16
I was gonna say one. I forgot to mention the deregulation this. This one might, you know, be something that bit closer to your own heart, perhaps, is, you know, that his deregulation efforts extended to the production of beer making, making the kind of, you know, the particularly the craft beers and all that sort of thing. That industry kind of really grew in the wake of that, which is something I didn’t even realize I knew about the aviation stuff, and that’s really important, obviously, but, you know, it’s interesting that it even extended to things like beer, you know. So,
Gene Tunny 07:48
yeah, well, I mean, that’s important industry for Milwaukee, isn’t it, really, I mean, are you the beer capital of the USA?
Darren Brady Nelson 07:55
Well, they might have been against it because, you know, you know, they like the big, you know, like Miller was here. Miller still is here in Milwaukee. And there were other ones that, you know, have since probably really turned into craft beers, actually, industry interestingly, off these bigger like, there were Schlitz and Old Milwaukee and Pabst and all these other ones that, once upon a time were, you know, quite large beer companies, and, you know, I think they’ve kind of shrunk to become almost, you know, mid tier, possibly even, you know, more competing with the craft beers than they are with like Miller and Budweiser, yeah, yeah. So possibly, maybe walk ins weren’t all that keen on the deregulation, yes, yeah, yeah.
Gene Tunny 08:39
Good point. Okay, well, yeah, it’s an extraordinary legacy, and I’ll put some some links in the show notes, or estimates of how much it saved in terms of air airfares. I mean, airfares, certainly here in Australia, used to be prohibitively expensive, and you’d rarely fly. I mean, it was just so expensive, even in the in the 80s and and so there’s a story that Karen Chester tells she’s a former Treasury official here about how her mother, she couldn’t go visit her, her dying father or in Perth because the of the prohibitive airfares at the time. Just tragic story. And now, in real terms, they’re much cheaper. So many, you know, many poor, many more people flying. That’s the same as in the States. So and Alfred Khan. Was it? Alfred Khan, the economist who was an advisor to Jimmy Carter, who was an important figure in that story, Darren, yeah, I
Darren Brady Nelson 09:39
believe so. And you know, when I’ve, you know, my early days as an economist, you know, out of university, I first started doing sort of competition policy at New South Wales treasury. But then my second job was at the Queensland competition authority, doing, you know, regulation of of infrastructure and all that sort of stuff. And, you know, the, the first kind of textbook. That I kind of read was Alfred Khan’s, you know, he’s got, like, a super thick two volume, you know, sort of book on on the economics of regulation. And Volume Two, I think, was largely devoted to this sort of stuff. You know, a lot of these deregulation, deregulation efforts, particularly, you know, the current administration’s deregulation efforts that. So you know that that’s where I first cut my teeth on regulatory economics and the economics of deregulation as well, sort of thing. So the Queensland competition authority was trying to do kind of both, you know, like be a part of, you know, in, you know, as their name suggests, you know that maybe you help competition and where it can be, you know, sort of introduced or helped along, if you like, that was kind of, you know, their their dual mandate. I think all the kind of Australian state regulators kind of had that, you know, and the ACCC at the federal level now, you know, now they’ve kind of not so much involved in that sort of thing anymore. They kind of straight up regulation rather than being involved in deregulation. But at the time, when I joined the QCA, they were certainly, you know, trying to do that sort of thing as well.
Gene Tunny 11:11
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ll put a link in the shop. It
Darren Brady Nelson 11:15
was the textbook, basically. And that feel,
Gene Tunny 11:19
yeah, yeah. And do you have any memories of the Carter administration? Were you living in the States at the
Darren Brady Nelson 11:24
time? Oh, I was a little kid. And, yeah, but not really, you know, my kind of, you know, Reagan’s. I have stronger memories of Reagan because, you know, I was getting a bit older, so thing as a kid, so starting to remember Reagan more than than Carter. But, yeah, kind of small memories, you know, but you know, as a little kid, you know, peanut farmer or something, you know, and his brother and his brother Billy and his Billy beer, right? You go look that up. Yeah,
Gene Tunny 11:53
I vaguely remember all the bad news, because I think when I was first became conscious of the the news was probably late 70s, early 80s, and the news at that time coming out of, well, I mean, worldwide was just terrible. I mean, and you know, Carter had there was high inflation, wasn’t there, particularly after the revolution in Iran, and then because of, you know, impacts on the oil market, and then the hostage crisis, which just went on with the hostages from the American Embassy in Tehran, which just went on forever. And, I mean, that was, yeah, that was probably
Darren Brady Nelson 12:26
my first memories, along with the peanut farming and the fruitless sort of stuff you know about him, you know, being, you know, from a back his brother being a redneck who liked beer, yeah,
Gene Tunny 12:37
yeah. So, yeah, you’re right, yeah. So it’s interesting. He’s got a mixed record on the economy, good on the micro, but generally people think the macro story under Carter was was was poor and but his post presidential legacy has been extraordinary. Many seems to be much loved. He’s built houses for homeless people. He when He goes on flights, he shakes everyone’s hands. Yeah, it seems just to have a really quality, decent man. So, yes, I think an extraordinary, an extraordinary life
Darren Brady Nelson 13:14
well, and it’s funny that what the article I sent to you was from, you know, the Mises Institute. There’s another one which I could share with you. Won’t be too hard to find. Is there was an article there about, basically, the author was suggesting the last, if you like, you know, intellectual or debate, was actually Carter and Reagan, you know, like, you know, good debate about issues and policy, you know, not this kind of, you know, attacking each other and attacking each other as people and, you know, all that sort of stuff. You know, there was, there was levity, obviously, at times, you know, in the debate, you know, between Reagan and Carter, I think they even had some, at least, that levity carried over into the next election, 1984 with Reagan and trying to remember the film Mondale. That’s right, Carter is vice president. So, yeah, you know, times have changed, obviously, not always for the better in terms of, like, the quality of presidential debates. So, you know. So someone’s making the case. You know, basically the, you know, that was kind of the, the, the high watermark appeal of presidential debates was Reagan and Carter and, you know, in 1980
Gene Tunny 14:32
Yeah, okay, I love to check that out. That’s, that’s probably, that’s probably true, Alrighty, now, Darren, what was America fest? You went to this America fest conference in Phoenix. Can you tell us about that? Please?
Darren Brady Nelson 14:47
Yeah, so I think we talked about it, you know, like my the last time I was on the podcast that I was, you know, the door knocking economist, you know, there’s probably not too many of us like. That I’m guessing so, so that was for, essentially for turning point Turning Point action. It was a strange marriage, and I think I may have explained at the time, you know, between Turning Point action and Elon Musk’s America pack. So, you know, Charlie Kirk runs Turning Point action and turning point USA Turning Point space, kind of using the American parlance as a c4 it’s kind of, you know, more of a think tank type of outfit, although, you know, they do a lot of, sort of, like educating on on university campuses, and now they’ve extended that to sort of high school level as well. Turning Point actions, a straight up. You know, get out the vote for the candidates you like, right? Yeah, that’s a c4 sorry, yeah, I believe that’s, am I getting this wrong? No, but is that the c3 My apologies, my I think I need to drink some more coffee or something, but it’s all right. So, you know, they’re totally different types of organizations, and so anyway. So to make a long story short, all the people who did, you know, helped out on that election were offered the opportunity for, you know, free airfares and free hotel and free admission to America fest, which is put on by, you know, Charlie Kirk’s organization. And so it’s kind of like a, you know, if you’re aware of CPAC, you obviously wear CPAC Australia. CPAC Australia is obviously trying to do what CPAC us does, you know, big conference for not just conservative, just anybody, if you like, on the, you know, the right side of politics, whatever that means, you know, center right, whatever, conservatives, libertarians, including kind of, you know, modern day populists on the right. I mean, populists are in the left and the right. You know, over time. You know, that’s kind of a nebulous description populism, but you know, so in Australia, that would include, obviously, you know, Liberal National Party, folks, but include one nation libertarians, all that. And over here, obviously it’s, it’s Trump and, you know, Reagan conservatives, you know Ron Paul libertarians, whatever. And so America fest. I mean, you know it’s not, it’s basically trying to do what I guess CPAC does. And I don’t know the whole ins and outs on why it started out, they thought they needed this. And, you know, to, I’m not sure if they’re trying to be a rival to CPAC, or just, you know, or maybe if you like the markets big enough, and they wanted just another one, the way they hold it in Phoenix, it’s got a, you know, a more blatant, you know, America First type approach, you know, which is kind of a little bit more in line with, you know, the Make America Great Again movement, mega movement, not to say CPAC, not on board with that, because, you know, they are. I guess, if CPAC is trying to, maybe trying to combine that, but keep the establishment Republicans kind of still around, maybe an America fest is, like, we don’t really care about the establishment Republicans, you know, in fact, we want to push them out the door. So they’re probably a little bit more explicitly, you know, mega Not, not, not exclusively So, but they’re certainly, you know, they’re happy, obviously, probably for libertarian types, you know, like, you know, Ted Cruz is kind of bit of a more of a libertarian type, and, and he spoke, there’s certainly, you know, they’re definitely not for the establishment types and Mitch McConnell’s and and certainly not the Liz Cheney types, right? And certainly not the neoconservative types. So anyway, so that, and they hold it in Phoenix. I’m not sure how many they’ve had, I think they’ve had several or more. So basically, I think they took what was good of CPAC and they’ve added to it. There was certainly more energy. It was actually interesting, a bigger than CPAC in Washington, DC, which is saying something, because that’s pretty big, you know, that’s I’ve ever seen, was CPAC until I saw America fest. So
Gene Tunny 19:01
how many people? You’re talking 1000s of people. Oh, boy, oh, boy.
Darren Brady Nelson 19:05
I think the main hall holds 10,000 but the whole, but the whole, you know, conference area is bigger than that. Still, you know, so still, yeah, I don’t know what the numbers are. And, you know, we could probably find a link that maybe sort of said what those numbers might actually be, and I can share that with you where the audience can look that up. But, you know, the biggest thing I ever seen was CPAC, until I saw America fest, and it kind of reinvigorated me too, because I was, I was kind of getting sick of CPAC To be honest, you know, like not to say it was bad or whatever, I just kind of was getting sick of it. And this kind of, you know, the opening night of America Fest was like, you know, pretty Wow. Okay, you know the three key speakers that, I mean, there was more than three speakers. But I mean Charlie Kirk, like, I mean, I was impressed by Charlie Kirk coming in, but, wow, I was even more impressed by Charlie Kirk seeing him speak on the night. He was kind of the opening speaker and, you know, and then one of the last speakers on the opening night was Tucker Carlson, and I’ve been a big fan of Tucker’s for quite some time. And, you know, he certainly delivered as well. And and on the very last night of the conference, Glenn Beck was also, I thought, an amazing speaker as well. And they had plenty of other amazing speakers. We can talk about some of that, including one of the breakout speakers who talked about Marxism, was was amazing, and he’s an academic, and often academics aren’t very amazing speakers, as you probably have experienced yourself. You know, it’s not an easy thing to be someone who’s like, sound on what they’re talking about well and actually interesting at the same time. And who was that? Oh, boy. I mean, it’s really bad that I forgot the fellow’s name, considering he’s from Hillsdale College. He’s got a, he’s got a, he’s originally from Lebanon, so he’s got sort of, you know, you know, maybe I’m being a bit saying he’s got an Arab sounding name, and that’s probably offensive to Lebanese ago. Wait, we’re not Arabs, you know, but, and I think they’re not Lebanese, they’re kind of like a different sort of people’s group than strictly Arabs are, and then they obviously had that interesting mix of like, you know, kind of a bit over half the country’s Christian, and then slightly under half is Muslim. But I think it was originally from Lebanon, because even after the talk, he was talking to someone from Lebanon. He was speaking, you know, in Lebanese, which I understand, is a different language from Arabic, so um, and it sounds different too. So, but anyway, the interesting thing about him is, like, even though his speech was labeled, you know, Marxism, and you know, that obviously gets people, you know, kind of in to see that it was actually more about Jean Jacques Rousseau. Then it was actually about Karl Marx. Yeah, and I knew a bit about Rousseau, but I didn’t realize the importance of Rousseau to the left and he was making, he said, All Marx did was fill in some of the gaps. Rousseau is a guy who, you know, was really leading the charge on the ideas that were, you know, if you like, stuck with today in the 2020s they’ve come to fruition. Yeah. Well,
Gene Tunny 22:25
one of will Durant’s volumes in his history of civilization, I think, is Rousseau and revolution, after the after the age of Voltaire. And so Rousseau is one of those thinkers is associated with the French Revolution. And, yeah, with I mean, yeah, certainly, the Marxists wanted to have their own revolution whereby they get rid of the bourgeoisie, didn’t they? Whereas the French Revolution was, it was against the the aristocracy at the time. Yes, yeah, interesting. Okay, I’ll have to check out his work. And Donald Trump spoke at that event, didn’t he?
Darren Brady Nelson 23:03
He did, and I was, sadly, I got distracted by a pair of Aussies and and I didn’t. And I can tell you more about that. I didn’t. So I didn’t actually get into the main hall to see, you know, the orange MAN there, and, you know, live. So I had to actually just watch them on the big TV screen. So basically, they set these up similarly in CPAC, you know, they have the big main hall, obviously, all the big there’s lots of razzmatazz and all that. Then there’s like an exhibition hall where a lot of, you know, people just, you know, commercial people offering different services, go, hey, you know, here we’re here. You know, either come buyer service or, you know, think tanks go there and say, Hey, join us, or whatever. And then there’s a media row, which is pretty exciting and interesting. So, you know, you have the TV stations and radio stations and podcasts who do their shows live from, you know, from there. So that’s very interesting, too. So you can sit there as an audience and kind of watch this. And some of them you can will interact with the audience as others, they’re not. You’re just kind of watching them. Yeah. And so, so, yeah. So basically, you know, one of the one of the in the exhibition hall was a so not all the media is actually in media rose. Some of the kind of smaller podcasts are in the exhibition area. So one of them was an Australian podcast couple, and so I kind of came across them. They had an Australian flag up so that obviously. And I’ll get you a link to their, their podcast, you know, for for your for the audience, and,
Gene Tunny 24:39
yeah, what do they cover? Do they do politics or economics? Yeah,
Darren Brady Nelson 24:42
their angle is basically doing American politics, but from an Australian perspective, right? And they, and they come over here for big events like this or, you know, and I think they’re going to stay here roaming around until the inauguration, so they’ll end up in Washington. In DC for the inauguration. And, you know, very, you know, like, very cliche Aussies, they were like, you know, just super friendly and super, you know, and I kind of got to know them, and, you know, ended up having, you know, lunches and stuff for them. And sadly, I was chatting so much that the queue to get in to see Trump, you know, it got cut off. Basically, there was, you know, obviously, once it was full, that’s it, you know, you can’t get, but there’s more people in the overall sort of conference than that can fit into the main hall. Yeah, that’s, I’ve actually been, I went to the, the Milwaukee, um, Trump rally right before the election. So, you know. So, you know, it wasn’t, I feel bad for people who actually, that was their thing. They came there Trump, you know. So I’ve seen Trump another, you know, a number of times in person. So, you know, wasn’t as disappointed sort of thing to not see him in person. But, you know, but some people paid money to get there and they’re not from Phoenix, you know, that would have been kind of a real bummer, so I felt kind of sorry for them. Yeah, and there was a few, I’ve met a few other Australians too. So, you know, that was nice. See, there’s probably a lot more Aussies there than I actually ran into. So yeah, it was, oh, actually one of the Australians I did run into. This was a good story. And I think he’s been living in the US now for quite a number of years. And I don’t know perhaps he’s actually married to an American is there’s a quite a popular Catholic podcast, podcast called
Gene Tunny 26:36
pints with Aquinas. Oh yes, yes. It
Darren Brady Nelson 26:38
runs it as Matt Fred, and he’s an Aussie. Ah, yes, yes. I wanted to the, you know, these breakout sessions on, you know, Catholics and, you know, voting and that, you know, I’m was raised a Catholic, but I’m a Protestant nowadays, but I’m still interested. I’m not an anti Catholic, and I find it interesting. And I just went in there, and I sat at the back. And lo and behold, Matt Fred’s behind me. You notice? You notice my my jewel flag? Yeah, you have that, you know. And I told him the story, you know, Brisbane, blah, blah, blah. And then we had a little bit of a chat. Then he wasn’t an official speaker. He was actually there because his son wanted to be there. He’s got a 17 year old son that’s into all this sort of stuff and but, so we had a little bit of chat then. But then later on the day I went out of the conference, I got a good coffee, because you couldn’t get the greatest coffee in the conference. And you know, at the hipster cafe that I was I was talking about, yeah, to go back in, they said no outside coffees. And I go, Okay, fine. So I went to just go drink my coffee, you know, and he was sitting there smoking a cigar, and Matt, that is, and then I said, Oh, you mind if I sit down with you, and we had a good chat for 20 minutes while I drank my coffee and he smoked his cigar. And, you know, we talked about Australia, we talked about Trump, we talked about Catholicism and Protestantism and all that sort of stuff, and and podcasting, and, yeah, it was, it seems like a good, good bloke. Very
Gene Tunny 28:08
good. Well, as I think I’ve mentioned before, you’ve you have a radar for finding the hipster cafes, Darren, whichever city you’re in, so I’ve benefited from that at times. So very good. Now. Can you tell me? Was there any policy discussion at America fest? Did you get any insight into what could happen in the second Trump administration, particularly around migration? Because it looks like there’s a civil war within Maga at the moment between Steve Bannon, the people, you could say are nationalists or Nativists, versus Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswami, who could be perceived as globalists. Do you have any insights into what’s going to happen? There any any thought, any insights into policy you got from America first?
Darren Brady Nelson 28:58
Yeah, look, I mean, America first wasn’t, you know, much of a policy oriented conference. And so true CPAC isn’t either it’s a lot of you know, it’s a lot of you know, celebration if something’s happened, or getting people you know, fired up for whatever is coming up. Now, look, I don’t know enough about Steve Bannon positions. I never got the feeling it was a nativist as such, like, you know, the one thing that I know Bannon, ramasami and musk agree on is the illegal immigrations that’s got to stop, right? Yeah, not just stop, but it’s got to be reversed. Basically, we can’t have, you know, and they’ll do it in sensible tears. I believe you’re going to, I’ve seen, you know, gangs and criminals, people who are literally, since they’ve arrived the they haven’t just broken the law to get here. They’ve been breaking laws, you know, inside the country too, and particularly the courageous ones. So they’ll prioritize this, you know, obviously, murders, rapists, etc, etc. You know what? You know they. Might come to a compromise with people who’ve, you know, peace, you know, who are peaceful, and they’ve entered and, and they actually did come here with families, as opposed of just, you know, child traffickers and all that sort of stuff. So look, I understood it was over those, those visas for, like, you know, highly skilled and targeted, yeah, you know, Bannon had a problem with that, is that? Is that? Oh, yes, yes,
Gene Tunny 30:21
yeah. But he was podcast the other day, because the the progressive commentators online are, they’re they’re enjoying this. They see this as a civil war within Maga, because you had Ramaswami come out and say, we need more h 1b, visas. Yeah, they’re the ones that Silicon Valley uses, like high skill, particularly bringing in high skilled Indians to work in Silicon Valley. And he, he writes, he wrote a tweet that was probably, you know, badly. He should have thought twice about it. It didn’t go down well with with Maga, really. He said that, oh, we need all of these people on H, 1b, visas, because Americans are, you know, a lot of Americans are lazy and won’t work hard. They’re not entrepreneurial, not not well educated. And that was just, yeah, that caused a bit of a firestorm. And then Steve Bannon on his show, he said, I will, you know, I’m going to fight for control, or something of the GOP. I don’t know the exact words, but he’s essentially saying, Look, we’re going to take on mask and Ramaswamy. We were here first. Well, he in terms of the Trump, you know, being supporters of Trump, where Maga, we’re not going to let you take over Maga. So I think it’s an interesting conflict there between musk and Ramaswamy, who who have a different outlook from that of a lot of the people in Maga, a lot of the supporters of Trump who see, who wants something different from Trump than what musk and Ramaswamy want?
Darren Brady Nelson 32:07
Yeah, look, I think, in a nutshell, I don’t think there’s going to be any sort of civil war, no. And to be honest, also, Bannon influence is just not anywhere near it was in, you know, 2016 2017 I think you know Ramaswamy is gonna certainly, if he hasn’t, he should really go out there and apologize for those statements. That’s just those are, there’s not, I mean, they’re not only offensive, they’re not even, that’s not completely accurate. Anyway, you know, the US is India as the entrepreneurial hub of the world compared to the US over history. No, there’s no comparison, like a really, Johnny Come Lately, you know, to that world. And obviously there’s some good stuff, and they’ve done some good reforms in India, but this is, you know, pretty recent sort of thing. So it’s not like the country that we look to for great entrepreneurs over the past 50 years. No, so you know. So I don’t think there’ll be a civil war. I think they’ll find a compromise Trump, Trump will, you know, Trump’s a strong leader. He’s going to sort this out. They’ll find something that, you know, not necessarily, that Bannon can live with, but I think something that at least your average mega supporter, it’s probably not like up in arms over these visas. But then, you know, when Swami says what? He says, Yeah, they’re gonna be up in arms about that sort of comment. And, you know, Musk, Musk comes from, you know, kind of a, you know, originally, you know, a Democrat type background, if you like. And he’s kind of become, you know, either he’s become more conservative over time, or he can just say the Democrats have become so out of touch with their previous base. Either way, you know, must not going to, he’s not going to be leaving the camp, and Ramaswamy is not going to be leaving the camp, and even Bannon at the end of the day, even if he doesn’t get what he wants on these visas, it’s not going to be, you know, he’s not going to, sort of, you know, be a constant thorn in the side. I would think, to, you know, President Trump. I think, you know, I think things, the compromises, will be reached. And, you know, maybe this on this issue will be one that they disagree, to disagree on. Basically, there’s bigger fights to be had. I think they’re going to fight. They’ll realize that, right? There’s far bigger fights, which is why they have the musks in their camp and the Tulsi gabbards and RFK juniors and stuff. There’s a bigger enemy to be fought, right? The weft type, globalists, you know, you know, rather than, if you like the musk type, small g globalist, if you, if you, if you like,
Gene Tunny 34:43
wow, okay, yeah. Well, we’ll big difference
Darren Brady Nelson 34:47
between that, because the big G globalists are not like, Oh, I just want to have access to better workers. It’s a far more nefarious globalism than than Musk’s type of globalism,
Gene Tunny 34:59
raw. But okay, well, I think we’ve talked about the great reset in the past, and, you know, whether there’s, whether there’s a conspiracy there or not. I mean, I don’t really think there is a conspiracy of any kind there is, because
Darren Brady Nelson 35:11
you can just go on the weft website, and it actually has a black and white it’s like, it’s not like a conspiracy theory. If it’s like, literally sitting there on their website, you know, like that. It’s not even a theory. It’s this is what they want to do. You know? You can say, like, oh, they don’t really want to do what they just said they want to do. Okay, fine, that’s fine. You can have that position, but it’s literally in black and white and reports, and you can go find it today easily. Yeah, they’ve
Gene Tunny 35:35
definitely said some silly things, right? The whole thing about you will, what is it? You will own nothing, and you will be happy. I mean, that’s just,
Darren Brady Nelson 35:43
I’m talking about statements. They have reports on what their is, you know, like it sets it out, you know, like, you know, you know, when someone says what they say, you know, the default should be able to believe what they said, you know, unless some reason not to.
Gene Tunny 36:00
Yeah. Well, I’ll put a link to our conversation on the great reset. I’ll have to go listen back to that. Yes, okay, well, yeah, look. I mean, I’ve got no idea what, exactly how economic policy will play out under Trump. I mean, I think it’s, it’ll be interesting, because there is that tension there, and we have to see how, what you know, how high the tariffs go up that are imposed on China, that are imposed on other countries, whether Australia gets an exemption. I mean, presumably we will, because of our, our strong relationship with the US. But, yeah, we just have to, have to wait and see about that. Okay, Darren, can you tell us about your article? You wrote an article. Why competition for concurrences journal? Can you tell us about that? Please?
Darren Brady Nelson 36:49
Yeah. Look, concurrences is essentially kind of an anti trust, you know, well, not just a magazine. It seems to be kind of bit of an association of particularly lawyers, antitrust lawyers, but also maybe other professionals in the field. And I can’t to this day, I can’t even remember how they approached me, but I remember in 2020 they kind of approached me and asked me to write a forward for one of their, you know, sort of their magazine that comes out, and I kind of wrote about anti trust economics, and kind of did a mix of, kind of like, you know, you know, I did kind of, here’s kind of a the mainstream kind of view on on this from an economics perspective, and then here’s kind of the free market perspective. I think the free market perspective is the better one. But anyway, laid it out and and then, you know, they kind of come back to me, you know, here and there to, you know, you know, ask me to write this or that. And earlier in the year, they were planning on doing a book entitled, you know, why competition voices from the antitrust community and beyond. Just to give it a little bit more context, they’re kind of focused on North America and the European Union, but they’re obviously open to kind of, you know, others around the globe as well. And this was going to have, you know, one of these books where, you know, each chapter has, you know, different author. I mean, they can be co authored or whatever, but they’re kind of in different themes. So my, the chapter that I wrote was, you know, basically, I think I entitled it, you know, kind of competition, economics, evidence, policy and ethics. Again, I kind of try to do, you know, a combination of of, kind of, you know, kind of, what’s the mainstream sort of view, and then kind of a free market view. But interesting enough, when I kind of proposed, you know, I thought, oh, you know, like, you know, as a Christian, as I kind of mentioned, I thought, oh, you know, how about kind of, also, because I’ve increasingly become interested in, kind of Christian economics is kind of even a different thing than than you get from the mainstream and the free market kind of way of looking at things. I thought, oh, you know, maybe this is an opportunity to write a little bit also from, you know, what, what is, what is this? You know, what does competition look like, you know, from a Christian economics point of view. So to my surprise, they went, Oh, yeah, that sounds interesting. Go ahead. So, so, you know, kind of, my, my, my chapter is kind of a mix of those three things wrong. Yeah, you know Christian, yeah. Sorry. Go on, I’ve got
Gene Tunny 39:27
to ask you about that. So, how is economics any different for a Christian versus a non Christian? I
Darren Brady Nelson 39:34
mean, well, it’s a complex thing to answer, because a lot of you know, you know, Christian economics is really just economics written by a Christian, right? So, so they kind of throw in some stuff or, you know, but, but interesting enough, there actually is, if you like, an actual proper Christian economics in the sense of, it’s built up from Scripture. It’s built up. From the Bible itself. Usually, you know, the better ones are people who’ve actually also been there are trained economists, you know, either, you know, from a mainstream perspective, or maybe a free market perspective, or maybe a bit of both. So, you know that, you know, so you kind of, kind of get some interesting feedback, you know, kind of from that. So, you know, like, for instance, you know, Gary north, you know, was, was, I believe, you know, trained in the usual kind of mainstream economics. Over time, he kind of became more an Austrian School economist. But then, you know, he also then tried to build up Christian economics, you know, purely from the Bible, as well as someone who was interesting enough, a trained theologian as well. So, you know, the Bible is, just like, you know, amazingly full of economics, you know, surprisingly full of it. And not just you know, like the parables you know, like the parable of it once or something that you know, probably sorry, the parable of the what’s all right, the talents, oh, you know, yeah, give me that one, you know, like, you know, where you know, a master gives you know, three of his servants, you know, he’s going to go away for a while. And he gives you know one, like one, one talent to go and do something with. And then another two talents, another five talents, you know, you know. So that, you know, there’s not just kind of, you know, they’re ultimately not. The main point of all these things is never just purely to make an economic point. Obviously, in the Bible, it was a more obviously theological point to be made. But, you know, it’s interesting to see just how much economics is in there, you know, as a teaching tool. Because, you know, obviously people can, you know, relate to, you know, least kind of economics in their own life, not necessarily, obviously, you know, the way we as economists necessarily think of things, but obviously economics touches everybody’s life. So, you know, I just wanted, you know, I’m certainly very much a, you know, a Padawan learner and not a Jedi in this just as of yet, okay, you know, I’m kind of, but I just thought it was a good opportunity for me to, kind of, like, write something and just, you know, give me the opportunity to learn more about it myself. Because obviously, you learn you know more from doing, you know, from writing and researching, than just, kind of just reading something, right? Yeah. So, you know, it was kind of a good you know. And I thought, you know, ethics is kind of interesting, too. And ethics, particularly, I don’t know, I find kind of secular ethics, kind of wishy washy for the most part, it’s kind of a lot of just like, how do I feel about things, you know? Like, if I’m from the left, I kind of feel these things. And if I’m on the right and not a Christian, I kind of feel these things. So I think, you know, whether you think Christianity or, you know, the is real or not, you know, it’s certainly more black and white than a lot of these kind of secular ethics is right? And as a Christian, I think it’s objective, right? And I think you go off into secular ethics, it’s kind of very subjective. So I thought it was an opportunity to kind of explore bringing, you know, that there’s an ethical element to economics, at least, you know, from a Christian perspective. And there’s not a, you know, there’s not a tension between the two. They’re kind of wrapped up together. They get like property rights is a concept and not just an economic concept, you know, like, Thou shalt not steal, is both economic and ethical at the same time.
Gene Tunny 43:29
Yeah, yeah, okay, okay, I think I see where you’re coming from, just on the parables. Someone you introduced me to, if I remember correctly, was Larry Reed at Foundation for Economic Education. When he was on my show, he talked about the Parable of the Vineyard workers. The vineyard workers,
Darren Brady Nelson 43:48
oh yeah, the martial, martial value, really, isn’t it? Yes,
Gene Tunny 43:52
yeah, where he’s paying them different amounts of money. And I think Jesus says, Oh, that’s okay, if it’s a fair bargain, if they all are better off because of it?
Darren Brady Nelson 44:03
No, it was. It was basically, it wasn’t even that. It was just like, well, you agreed to it, you know, like, yeah, exactly. So it was actually, I think they were paying the same amount, but these people came in and worked nowhere near as long hours, or, you know, towards the end of the day, and these other people have been working the whole day, and they’re just getting the same pay, you know, I think that’s
Gene Tunny 44:22
right. Okay, gotcha, yeah,
Darren Brady Nelson 44:26
qualifying it by going, Oh, well, as long as it was fair, you know, like it, you know, some nebulous way, he was basically like, you know, is it not the master’s money to decide what he does with it, right? And if he wants to do this bargain, because he needs more workers to come in. And, you know, it was actually strangely in line with, you know, the whole marginal revolution, you know, right, okay, fascinating. It was kind of like a marginal value,
Gene Tunny 44:53
Okay, interesting. I’ll have to put a link to that episode. I have to go to do it actually, to make sure I know the story. It’s quite embarrassing,
Darren Brady Nelson 45:02
that stuff too. But it was something slightly different. But it was, yeah, it was interesting, because then you often, like, people, you know, go like, well, he, he flipped over the the money changers, you know, sort of thing. Therefore he’s anti, you know, markets and anti exchange. No, that that point was to do with the temple and the Pharisees. You know, Jesus didn’t have a problem with commerce. He didn’t run around knocking over exchange tables everywhere. He had a problem with the way that the Pharisees and others are running the temple and, you know, turning it into a farce, you know, sort of thing totally different. So, yeah, yeah, you know. But the thing so, you know, it just was a great opportunity to throw some, I think Christian economics, to me, actually was even surprising to myself as an economist, was like taking the best of the mainstream and taking the best of the free market and not literally building on it like that, but it actually, I found it actually even more insightful, if you like, than even Austrian economics was, yeah, or, you know, neoclassical economics, you know, it had a lot of, you know, you know, good overlap with them. But it was, you know, yeah, I thought it was really interesting. One thing
Gene Tunny 46:15
I remember from Milton Friedman might have been in freedom. It was, it may have been in free to choose, or Capitalism and Freedom. I can’t remember the exact book, but he talks about how there’s a there’s a moral case for free markets, for competition, as distinct from the, you know, the the efficiency case that economists make for free markets is that the case you’re making, you’re saying there’s actually a moral case as well as an efficiency case, correct?
Darren Brady Nelson 46:42
Yeah. And I think the, you know, the Chicago school or Austrian School eventually get down to a level where it’s, it gets a little bit Sandy, you know, like the base wanted to argue an ethical, moral reason for free markets. Eventually it just runs out at depth, right? And I think, yeah, the Bible takes it to a level, you know, that that’s on a solid foundation, that’s literally on a rock, you know, of course, obviously not everybody’s gonna agree with that, if they not a Christian or even a Jew, who can, because they can also go down to the same you know, a lot of this is in the Old Testament too. You know, the, if you like, the ethical, moral foundation for, for, you know, least, largely free markets. But also found that the Christian economics finds doesn’t have the tension between the individual and the collective like the secular Do you know, like the free markets often go into kind of hyper individualism, and then, you know, the left wing ones go into hyper collectivism, right? Christian economics finds the right balance between those two. You know, really marries the individual and the group together better than the secular economics does.
Gene Tunny 47:57
Interesting. Love to think about this some more. Darren, I mean, I’m not, I can’t see how it would affect the laws of economics or or how we would apply economics in practice, but I could see how it could affect your judgments regarding what is good economic policy. I can see that I’d have to wonder though. I mean, what is it? I mean, is there anything superior about I mean, this, I guess, is a bigger conversation. But like, we can’t leave out the Chinese or the Indians or people in other parts of the world who aren’t Christian, can we? Or aren’t predominantly Chris that aren’t Christian countries. So where are they? I mean, they’ve obviously got economists. They’ve got economics. Economics is relevant to them. How to is this just something you that augments your understanding of economics? Or do you think it’s something that’s
Darren Brady Nelson 48:46
essential? Originally, I thought it was augmenting. I think it’s ultimately essential, and it and, you know, if, if the Christian worldview is correct, as I think it is it the God of Christianity is everybody’s God, right? So, so, and the laws that were set, you know, that God created all the laws of this world, right? Sorry, the the natural laws, which say, and I believe he created the economic laws of this world, right? So, and, and there’s good evidence for that. It’s not just a, you know, just a blanket statement, trust me, like we, you know, we told you it was this. So believe us, you know that that, I mean, we’re obviously going to go into a totally different thing. But the world of, you know, Christian apologetics and evidence, which this Christian economics, kind of also kind of overlaps with, it’s not just like these statements that you know we’re right and you’re wrong. Just trust us. You know, there’s a lot of, you know, natural world evidence for this stuff. So, you know, as a Christian, I argue these laws of economics are, you know, the ones that God himself put in place. And he put them in place for a reason, and they’re not in conflict with ethical sort of. The moral laws that he also put in place, and they applied, all of humanity, and all of humanity is welcome. You know, it’s not a case of like, Hey, this is for us, and that’s for you over there. It’s a totally different story, whether you believe it, and you know, whether you’re, you know, saved and all these sorts of things. But you know, and God’s, you know, in the Old Testament is blessed many people that that weren’t Israel as well. So it was never even like only the Jews get the benefits of this. No, it was something that was meant to benefit all of humanity.
Gene Tunny 50:34
Okay, interesting perspective, Darren. I love to come back to that. I mean, I but, yeah, let’s, let’s, let’s leave that there. I want to know what’s your main argument in your article? What’s the main thesis of your of your piece on for in this wire competition volume?
Darren Brady Nelson 50:56
Yeah. I mean, what you know, basic competition is a good thing. Very good. It’s a good thing economically, like efficiency wise, but it’s also good ethically. That’s, that’s, that’s in a nutshell the argument and I, and I draw from, I think, the best of mainstream economic because I’m not in there. In my antitrust article, I was criticizing mainstream economics, and this one, I was just taking some of the good stuff that I thought, you know, it’s still not in conflict with free markets or Christian economics, and just kind of tying it all together to go, yes, competition is a good thing. Yeah,
Gene Tunny 51:28
why were you critical of mainstream economics in that antitrust article?
Darren Brady Nelson 51:34
Well, we can consider a link to it, but you know, even some of the languages that it uses, it kind of presupposes that competitions, you know, either an unattainable thing, and thus government has to intervene, or it’s, you know, using words like power, you know, like, that’s, you know, like, well, free markets aren’t about power, really. They’re about, you know, voluntary exchanges, you know, they’re not the use of power, right? You know, no one’s forcing you to do anything. So, you know, market power. Look, I can understand it, and I there’s some validity to it. I’m not saying there isn’t a beast that’s kind of like that, but to use the word power is almost kind of misleading. And obviously, you know, like using a benchmark, like perfect competition, that they, on the one hand, acknowledge can never really exist, but at the same time using that to judge actual markets, which is what they all do. The a, Triple C does it. The the Department of Justice does it. They all use the same benchmark to go to then intervene. It’s like, Well, you said that this isn’t possible, that you’re using it as a as an excuse to intervene. That’s why I’m getting and you’ll see that in my antitrust article, which is, you know, available, yeah, so
Gene Tunny 52:50
you against all economic regulation, all antitrust action. Is that the position? Um,
Darren Brady Nelson 52:57
yeah, okay, not sure enough. It’s been misused and abused so much that I think it’s not something you know, and it’s usually political, even in Australia, but it’s more so in the US. It’s usually used against people who actually, really, you know, like, even, you know, the people that they supposed like Standard Oil. Well, okay, fine, Standard Oil, at the time, dominated its market. That’s true. But guess what? Prices were going down and quality and quantities were going up. So why were you intervening? Because even under, supposedly under the anti trust laws, you know, even if you are deemed a monopoly, that’s not good enough, you have to be abusing your monopoly power, and if your prices are going down, you’re not really abusing your monopoly power, yeah, yet, yet, they intervene, right?
Gene Tunny 53:48
And I saw in your your article, you had that chart about how all of the the industries that are heavily regulated, their prices have gone up at a faster rate than general prices, than CPI inflation, I think that’s, you know, that’s, that’s certainly something that advocates for regulation need to explain. I mean, the case they’ll make, of course, is that, well, they would have gone up even further if we weren’t regulating. So, you know, what’s the counterfactual? That’s what they’ll that’s what they’ll argue, I suppose, and I
Darren Brady Nelson 54:21
but the thing is, they go up. If you got out of there and you allowed them to go up, and you weren’t getting in the way with all your regulations, they’re good. Someone’s going to come into that market. And I’ll tell you that, you know what? They won’t even do it because, you know, I forgot what that limit. I think it’s limit pricing or something like, you know, we’re monopolists. Are always on the lookout for, oh, if I raise them too much, I’m going to get an entrant, right. So, so, yeah, I don’t know. And the antitrust authorities never go after the regulations that help people monopolize or cartelize their industries. So they basically, they hurt, they make it. They create. It in one hand, not necessarily the antitrust authorities themselves. Government creates these monopolies and cartels and then no pretends to come to the rescue, you know, with the antitrust authority, right?
Gene Tunny 55:10
So you don’t believe in the whole natural monopoly argument, do you? I think we might have chatted about that in
Darren Brady Nelson 55:15
a mainstream economist like Bom will, kind of, you know, kind of heavily question that too, and I believe he’s correct. You know, like, because you know, if you got a natural monopoly, and if you’re you can really produce at a lower cost than two or more others. So what you know, you know, basically the arguments like, so what you know, like, if, but you know, if you can’t, then someone’s going to enter your market unless there’s a, you know, a government created barrier to entry. So even bolmo, you know, mainstream economists recognize that. But even
Gene Tunny 55:50
for water infrastructure or electricity infrastructure, if
Darren Brady Nelson 55:55
you’re a natural monopoly, why do you then, why do you need the regulations that make you a natural monopoly? So you’re not a natural monopoly, you’re a government created monopoly. So monopoly like 99 out of 100 times, right? So, so prove to me that you’re a natural monopoly. Take away the regulations that don’t allow anybody to compete, and then if no one’s competing, then let’s, let’s, you know, then, then the regulator maybe does his thing in that situation. But it never happens that way. They always create the monopoly, or the cartel, and then the regulator comes afterwards. That’s exactly what happened in the US. You know, there was competition in water and sewage, there’s competition in electricity, natural gas, railroads, all the rest. And then some of them couldn’t hack the competition, and they went to get franchise monopolies, and in return for that, you had to have a regulator. Okay, so history is against this concept of net, and they invented the concept decades afterwards, you know. So that’s suspicious in itself, you know. So don’t know. I don’t believe in natural at all, please. Okay,
Gene Tunny 56:55
that’s interesting. That’s good to good to explore these things and and discuss them. One thing I do like about what Lena Khan’s been doing, although she’s getting sacked. I mean, she won’t be appointed. I think Donald Trump will have a different federal trade commission chair. She’s going after the companies that lock you into Subscriptions. Okay? I think that’s a that’s a that’s a really good regulatory action, and Australia is looking at doing that too. The the fact that you sign up to something online, and it’s easy for you to sign up, you give them your and you give them your credit card, but if you want to cancel your subscription, you have to ring someone up. They just make it incredibly difficult to cancel a subscription. And what Lena Khan said is, no, it’s got to be as easy to cancel as it is to sign up. And I think Australia is going to adopt the same thing. I think that is a really good thing to do, because it’s terrible how they do that. And companies which should know better, which should have which should protect their reputation, like the Economist newspaper or magazine in London does that too. I mean, the, you know, the Murdoch papers do it, but okay, probably expect that from them, but for the economists to do it, that’s just disgraceful. So I think that’s actually a good initiative of of the regulatory state, so to speak. If
Darren Brady Nelson 58:23
I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some regulation that made it easy for them to do that in the first place, because that’s usually what happens, usually because, because the regulatory states just constantly building on itself and has all these unintended consequences. You know, just unintended consequences built on unintended consequences, etc, etc, and it’s constantly overriding the common law that would probably would have dealt with that, you know, in a more efficient manner once upon a time, but the common laws been almost just pushed out the door. You know that that would usually not be, you know that would usually break contract law because you didn’t come, you didn’t come to a contract. You know, you can’t just, like, assume I’ve subscribed to your your service, something like that. That’s not how normal contracts work, right? So I would suspect that the, you know, the regulatory states, come to the rescue after it actually created the problem the first place. But I don’t know that for a fact. I’m just those things, having worked around this sort of stuff for 30 years, it’s usually the case, but I can’t say for sure. Well,
Gene Tunny 59:26
I think it’s good to be have that suspicion that you have that as something you certainly want to investigate. I agree there that that’s worth that’s certainly worth considering. Okay, Darren Brodie Nelson, we’ll have to wrap up soon. Any final thoughts, anything you want to come back to to discuss,
Darren Brady Nelson 59:43
oh no, look, you know, appreciate the time, and it’s always fun to kind of, you know, cover, you know, quite different topics. And I imagine, I don’t mean I can’t imagine, there’s too many sort of two economists talking about the kind of variety of stuff that we tend to talk about.
Gene Tunny 1:00:00
Well, I don’t know. I mean, maybe, maybe not, from the angles we talk about them from. I think certainly the the unexpected, the unexpected angles that that we come at things from, I think is, yeah, that that may be that may be unique. Anyway, Darren, it’s always, always a pleasure, and enjoy getting your insights and into what’s happening in the in the US particular. And yeah, well, thanks again for appearing on the show, and look forward to speaking with you in the future. Thank you.
Darren Brady Nelson 1:00:38
Thank you for having me.
Credits
Thanks to the show’s sponsor, Gene’s consultancy business, www.adepteconomics.com.au. Full transcripts are available a few days after the episode is first published at www.economicsexplored.com. Economics Explored is available via Apple Podcasts and other podcasting platforms.