Renowned US financial advisor, author, and podcaster David Bahnsen argues the best way to defend human flourishing against dangerous economic thinking is to relearn time-tested economic truths. David talks about his new book There’s No Free Lunch: 250 Economic Truths with show host Gene Tunny. David and Gene also talk about David’s previous books on the crisis of responsibility afflicting our societies, Elizabeth Warren’s economic policies, and investing in a post-crisis world.
You can listen to the conversation using the embedded player below or via Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher, among other podcast apps.
About this episode’s guest – David Bahnsen
David L. Bahnsen is Founder, Managing Partner, and Chief Investment Officer of the Bahnsen Group. He oversees the management of over $3.5 billion in client assets. Prior to launching The Bahnsen Group, he spent eight years as a Managing Director at Morgan Stanley and six years as a Vice President at UBS. He is consistently named as one of the top financial advisors in America by Barron’s, Forbes, and the Financial Times (2016-2021).
Relevant links and a transcript are below.
Links relevant to the conversation
David Bahnsen’s previous books:
Elizabeth Warren: How Her Presidency Would Destroy the Middle Class and the American Dream
The Case for Dividend Growth: Investing in a Post-Crisis World
Crisis of Responsibility: Our Cultural Addiction to Blame and How You Can Cure It
David’s podcasts:
Other relevant links:
The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left by Yuval Levin
Transcript of EP132 – The virtues of the free market w/ David Bahnsen
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 00:01
Coming up on Economics Explored.
David Bahnsen 00:04
There’s no question that whether one accepts my religious assumptions or not, that the free market properly aligns incentives better than the Marxist or central planning, collectivist vision for society that strips away incentives and does not provide the framework for best serving a customer by meeting human needs.
Gene Tunny 00:34
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 based in Brisbane, Australia, and I’m a former Australian Treasury official. This is Episode 132, featuring a conversation with economist and investment manager, David Bahnsen. about his new book, There’s No Free Lunch: 250 Economic Truths. We also talk about his previous books on Elizabeth Warren, his approach to investing, and what he calls the crisis of responsibility.
David is the founder, managing partner, and chief investment officer of the Bahnsen Group, a US national private wealth management firm, with offices in Newport Beach, New York City, Nashville, and Minneapolis, managing over $3.5 billion in client assets. David is consistently named as one of the top financial advisors in America by Barron’s, Forbes, and the Financial Times. He is a frequent guest on Fox News, Fox Business, CNBC and Bloomberg. And he’s a regular contributor to National Review.
Please check out the show notes for links to materials mentioned in this episode, and for any clarifications. One that I know that I need to make relates to the statesman Edmund Burke, who I shifted forward in time by a century. Silly me. You can find the show notes via your podcasting app. And please check out our website, Economics Explored, where I’ll post a transcript of the conversation as soon as I can. That’s economicsexplored.com. If you sign up as an email subscriber, you can download my recent e-book, Top 10 Insights from Economics. Please consider getting on the mailing list. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please either record them in a message via SpeakPipe – see the link in the show notes – or email me via contact@economicsexplored.com. Righto, now for my conversation with David Bahnsen, Thanks to my audio engineer Josh Crotts for his assistance in producing this episode. I hope you enjoy it. David Bahnsen, founder, managing partner and chief investment officer of the Bahnsen Group, welcome to the programme.
David Bahnsen 02:53
Well, good to be with you. Thanks for having me.
Gene Tunny 02:56
Oh, it’s a pleasure, David. I’ve come across your work recently. A mutual acquaintance of ours, Darren Brady Nelson, mentioned you to me and I’ve been reading your great books, There’s No Free Lunch: 250 Economic Truths. You had a book on Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic presidential candidate, how her presidency would destroy the middle class and the American dream. And you’ve got a couple of others. I’m really keen to chat with you about your views on economics. You’re someone who has had a very successful career as an investor. And you credit that partly to your understanding of economics, so yeah, really keen to understand your views on economics as someone who’s really proven the relevance and the importance of economics. First, I’d like to ask, with your book, There’s No Free Lunch: 250 Economic Truths, what was your guiding principle for selecting those economic truths? How did you go about it? And what do you think of the major truths, David?
David Bahnsen 04:01
Well, I tried to divide the book up compartmentally by categories, and I start with the belief that economics is about human beings, and not fundamentally a mathematical science or a political science. And so out of the social realities of mankind, if we’re to understand economics out of that truth, then it forces us to discover or inquire what we believe about mankind. And what we know about the human person can then inform us more about economics, if we believe in the premise that economics is the study of human action.
I believe distinctly anthropological truths about mankind, about how he was made, about the characteristics he was made with. And those beliefs serve as a kind of starting point to what I believe about what we consider economics. And so you then go on to certain a priori assumptions that there is scarcity in the world. And economics becomes the study of how humans act around the allocation of scarcity, their scarce resources. And so I’m very convinced that most people are trying to get their economic opinions out of their political beliefs, instead of getting a lot of their political beliefs out of their economic worldview, and particularly in certain policy assumptions. And so the policy beliefs and biases and so forth, I think need to be informed by a coherent economic worldview. And that’s what I’m trying to provide in the book.
And for a lot of people, I think that the book will serve as a reinforcement of things that they instinctively believe, but there may be an impulse to some of these free market assumptions, but not necessarily rooted in a deeper belief system. And that’s what I’m trying to point people back to is those foundational beliefs that can help inform a comprehensive understanding of economics.
Gene Tunny 06:32
Yeah. Look, I found that fascinating. That was something I really found valuable about your book. I mean, you reference great thinkers in economics, such as Adam Smith and Hayek, and Mises. What I really liked was your commentary as well. You’ve got great quotes. And then you’ve also got your commentary. And one of the things you wrote, I found very profound. I want to make sure I fully understand it, because I’m not a deeply religious person. I think I know what you’re saying here. But I want to make sure I understand it. You wrote that, “Our case is not that mankind’s fall is suspended when he transacts in the marketplace, it is that the marketplace best tames are fallen nature. The fallen nature, is this what you’re talking about with understanding where we’re coming from, people fundamentally? But is that a religious concept or is it a psychological concept? Could you explain what you’re driving at in that passage, please, David?
David Bahnsen 07:35
Yeah, it’s entirely religious. It is entirely theological. And yet, I’m perfectly content for someone to interpret it only psychologically. But the underlying teleological meaning of it, the purpose is rooted in a belief that mankind does not come in the world perfect. Mankind comes in a world where they fall in moral nature. And this is, to me, the fundamental divide between most political divisions, philosophical divisions, and I also believe economic, is if we believe that mankind is fundamentally good, and then can be corrupted by injustices amongst race or class or gender, things like that, or those who believe that mankind comes in what we in the Christian tradition refer to as the doctrine of original sin, and that we want institutions, family, communities, church, synagogue, the marketplace, to provide a sort of moral formation, and that mankind cannot become perfected. The great socialist and utopian vision is rooted in a belief that mankind can become perfectible. And this is against my own religious assumption.
But the economic relevance to it is that we are trying to solve for a system of social organisation that recognises certain assumptions. And one of my assumptions is not only the imperfectibility of mankind, but also that mankind is created in a certain way, and that that creation that I am asserting involves mankind’s rationality, their reasonability, that there is both a physical, material, and a spiritual dimension. And so those things end up having significant economic implications, because I reject the belief that our need in forming economic policy is to merely meet the material needs of mankind, to give them some sort of water and food and sustenance and call it a day. I believe that mankind has that material dimension, and that to ignore it is wrong. But I believe that they also have a dignity, that mankind is superior to the animal kingdom, intellectually, morally, their use of rational faculties, their use of self-interest, and their capacity for problem solving. But fundamentally, as moral beings, mankind is capable of doing right or wrong and is accountable for doing right or wrong. This ends up inviting non-material dimension into economic wellbeing.
And so because I believe work is the verb of economics, is a line I use at the end of the book, I reject the Marxian notion that work is dehumanising. I think work is dignifying. But why do I care if mankind is dignified or not, let alone if work as an instrument for doing such? Well, I care because I view mankind as created in the image of God. And that’s a religious belief. That’s a theological belief. And if I didn’t believe that, I would believe something different about economics. And so my rejection of a Darwinian view of economics, my embrace of a Burkean notion that there is a moral dimension to how we cooperate in society, these things are rooted in some of these worldview assumptions that I don’t know how I can escape their religious nature.
Gene Tunny 11:40
Okay. Yeah. Burke, you mean Edmund Burke, the Anglo Irish statesman from the late 19th century?
David Bahnsen 11:50
That’s right. I guess sometimes doing American interviews I take for granted, because I consider Burke America’s foremost political philosopher, but of course globally, his name and reputation would maybe have a different context. But Burke, really known, much like Adam Smith as the Scotsman was a sort of religious or moral philosopher with great economic relevance in classical economics, and Burke was a political philosopher, but again, who brought a sort of moral dimension to his work.
Gene Tunny 12:25
Yes. I’ve been reading this great book, The Great Debate by Yuval Levine or Levin. I’m trying to remember. I might put a link in the show notes as well as links to your books, because Burke, he was involved in that great debate about what’s the goal of politic or what’s the best way to run society, and you don’t want to go and radically transform things, because there might be a reason that your institutions are the way they are in the first place. And so you have to be very careful with meddling.
I just want to chat more about this fallen nature idea. Is this related to the concept of self-interest? The great thing about the market is that it takes advantage of people’s self-interest. There’s a famous quote of Adam Smith, about how we rely on the baker for our meals and on the candlestick maker for the candles, not out of any social concern they have, but out of their concern for their self-interest. I think I’ve butchered that quite. But that’s the basic idea. Is that the idea, so it’s taking advantage of that and getting the incentives right? And if you’re in, say, what you had in the Soviet Union, then all those incentives are the wrong way. To get something for yourself, you don’t necessarily have to create value for another person. And that’s the great thing about the market. It’s that mutual exchange, that you’re creating value for the other person, for them to pay you. That’s roughly on the right track, is it?
David Bahnsen 14:12
Well, I think those things are all very consistent with the assumption, but one of the things that I’m doing from the worldview I’m speaking, which is different than the way Ayn Rand as an objectivist would approach it, and in fact, many secular economists. Secular economists would describe it descriptively, that descriptively one can do better for themselves by serving their customer better. And Adam Smith’s allusion to reference to that self-interest is what they’re referencing. And it’s almost indisputable. It’s the way the world works.
But what I’m adding is the prescriptive, not merely the descriptive, not just that you will do better by serving your neighbour better, but that you ought to serve your neighbour better, and that in so doing, we cultivate more trust in society. Commercial transactions are entirely dependent on trust. And so they’re not merely in micro transactions like the brewer or baker a candlestick maker with a customer. But on a macro level, the greater sense of moral sentiment in the society, which, of course, was Adam Smith’s other book, we couple these two coexisting realities of human nature together, which is mankind rationally working in their own self-interest, providing for their family, and at the same time, their need and requirement to have that sort of moral capacity of service. And so I think that Burke referred to this as enlightened self-interest. And I believe it is the ideal for what I’m after in a framework of economics.
There’s no question that, whether one accepts my religious assumptions or not, that the free market properly aligns incentives better than the Marxist or central planning, collectivist vision for society that strips away incentives, and does not provide the framework for best serving a customer by meeting human needs, providing goods or services that we believe people care about. But I do believe one can make an argument – and I think that this is the straw man that a lot of socialists today are arguing against – that if you don’t care about the moral wellbeing of society in your economic worldview, and that all you’re saying is that pragmatically your wellbeing will be best served the more you serve your neighbour, all we have to do is find a case where that isn’t true, and it would be okay. And most certainly, it sometimes isn’t true, because as long as you can get away with it, cooking the books can help you and hurt your neighbour. And again, you have to be able to get away with it. But a lot of people can get away with fraud, a lot of people can get away with theft.
This Darwinian view that is more driven by the best outcome for oneself, and only relies on serving others as a mere pragmatic supplemental convenience to the process, I think it falls apart in reality, because we apart from that framework that still honours service to others, then one loses the kind of holistic nature that has been the traditional case for free markets. And I would argue more or less that the outcome, that when we look at the great fruits of poverty alleviation and human flourishing that’s come out of free markets, we have never been in need of divorcing that from a moral framework. In fact, it requires a moral and a legal framework, rule of law, enforcement or private property. These are all concepts that have roots in the very 10 commandments of themselves. Coveting what someone else has is sort of the heart of Marxism. And believing in protection of private property is the heart of what we call capitalism. And yet those are moral commandments. Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not covet.
I think that that synthesis between the moral nature of markets and the aspirational vision of society and the self-interest that Adam Smith talks about are entirely consistent, and in fact, not only consistent, but they’re optimised. They work best in conjunction with one another. They each work with one hand tied behind their back apart from the other.
Gene Tunny 19:22
That’s great, David. It’s given me a lot to think about, because maybe I’ve approached economics too much as a technical field, and I need to think more about the philosophy. I really value your thoughts in helping me think more philosophically about it, so that’s great. Okay, we’ll take a short break here for a word from our sponsor.
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Gene Tunny 20:24
Now back to the show. I might move on to your book about Elizabeth Warren. I guess this follows on from some of the points you’ve made. Now, you’ve written that her presidency would destroy the middle class and the American dream. She’s not president, but there’s some of those ideas, they’re out there, and they could be picked up in the future, whether by maybe AOC one day if she ends up very senior position, in a position of power.
One thing that I’m wondering is, how do you think about the balance between market and state? There needs to be some role for government. And there are countries that seem to be doing relatively well with a more interventionist state, such as the Scandinavian countries, Australia to an extent. One major difference between Australia and the United States is that we have what you would call a single-payer health care system. And that is reasonably popular. Well, I think it’s very popular. No opposition party, nowadays they would no longer campaign against it. Once upon a time they did. Political parties would campaign against it. It’s widely accepted. How do you make that balance? And what do you think is so bad about policies just to inject a little bit of what you might call socialism into the system to try and make the political system more stable? How do you think about that?
David Bahnsen 22:02
I haven’t seen an example yet of where a little bit of socialism brings more stability to the political system. I don’t recall there being anything in my Elizabeth Warren book that I would take back or rewrite or don’t still believe. But I confess, it strikes me as a little less relevant because of the implosion of her candidacy, as it pertains to her. But as you say, people like AOC, Bernie Sanders, they’re meeting hard left figures in many other countries besides my own. She just happened to be a failed political candidate that I wrote a book about that became obsolete very quickly, because her candidacy imploded. But there does still seem to be some persistence in the idea of a Green New Deal, a wealth tax, forgiveness of student debt for all. And to the extent these ideas persist in the United States, or in other countries, they remain horrifically bad ideas, even if they’re not connected to the name of Elizabeth Warren anymore.
Now, with that said, when you ask why not just a little bit of socialism to come in and kind of maybe temper things a bit, we hear that expression a lot, to sort of smooth out the rough edges of capitalism. And I love the analogy, because it always sort of implies that capitalism is like a bowl of soup, and it can get a little bit too hot, and if you just add a little cool water on top – and that cool water, in this case, is the loving, all-competent arm of the federal government – then we can cool down the soup a little bit, still get a good warm bowl, and enjoy it and have it feed our appetite, but not scalding hot, burn our mouths. And of course, frameworks of thought and of governance and political and economic philosophies don’t work like a bowl of soup.
I am a Hayekian to the core. Friedrich Hayek told us why that can’t work, that the central planner, whether they’re coming in to do a lot, or whatever it is, a little – I would, by the way, debate the idea that they are ever content to do a little. But even apart from the very reality of slippery slope, there is the knowledge problem. And there is the incentive problem.
The reason why I cannot ask Washington DC to come in and smooth out transactions between me and another economic actor that would freely transact with me in business is that the government has no chance of having the knowledge and the time and place circumstances necessary to be a party in a transaction between me and another person. And the reason why I can’t ask the government to come in and smooth out the rough edges of two free human beings voluntarily transacting with one another is because the government can’t possibly have the incentives. They don’t have skin in the game. They don’t hurt economically if it goes poorly, and they don’t benefit economically if it goes well. It’s none of their damn business.
The government’s intervention on a macro level into the affairs of society must always be limited to its role in protection of private property, settlement of civil disputes, this very rare but nevertheless important function of a civil magistrate. The Warrens and Sanderses and AOCs of the world would have the government take on a role of a central planner. And the Keynesian vision of economics is that the government can play a role on a macro basis in smoothing the difficulties of a business cycle. But of course, my belief is that such interventions not only likely don’t solve the problem they seek to solve, but they inevitably create two new problems. And so the reason for rejection of that vision of government’s role in economic affairs is that I believe that government lacks the knowledge to transact or to have planning jurisdiction over transactions in a free economy.
Gene Tunny 26:36
Fair point. And, yeah, the whole slippery slope thing, potentially there is there is some sort of slippery slope, because the government just keeps ever expanding. And one of the problems we’ve got here in Australia now is that the government’s committed to having what we call a national disability insurance scheme, which is essentially trying to provide a level of care for disabled people, but the definition of that’s expanded a lot and the costs are blowing out. It’s a big challenge. You still got a little bit more time, David, or you got to –
David Bahnsen 27:08
Yeah, I’m okay. Go ahead.
Gene Tunny 27:09
Good one. Excellent. I’d like to ask, you’re also a host of a podcast, Radio Free California, is that right?
David Bahnsen 27:19
That’s one of my podcasts, yes.
Gene Tunny 27:23
Oh, you’ve got another. Great.
David Bahnsen 27:25
Capital Record is my podcast focused on free market, economics, defence of free enterprise, defence of capital markets. And I host. It’s a National Review podcast called Capitol Record. But Radio Free California is a more political podcast that focuses on the dysfunctions in the great state of California where I was born and raised and have lived most of the last 48 years.
Gene Tunny 27:53
Yeah. Could I ask, what’s your take on, just how bad are things in California for business at the moment? I’ve chatted about this with Dan Mitchell. And Dan pointed out just how many people and businesses are leaving. Is this something that you’ve thought about, or are you concerned about the policy settings for business in California?
David Bahnsen 28:16
Of course I’m concerned. Anybody who cares about the preservation of one of the largest economic bodies in the world, and obviously the largest economic body within the United States, should be concerned. I hear a lot from the political and economic left that they care about the middle class. Yet it sure seems that they are perfectly happy with a policy framework that hollows out the middle class. And a state like California is case in point, where very wealthy people can live in California quite comfortably, and very poor people might be fans of the welfare state or what have you, but there is a kind of middle ground by which policies, school systems, crime becomes very, very unpleasant. And California seems to me to be ground zero for this laboratory of America, what we call blue state policies. And that’s what our efforts are primarily focused on is exposing the folly of blue state policies. And then as Dan Mitchell and others have well documented, it is leading to an incredible migration of mostly middle-class people out of the state of California to go to more business-friendly environments. And I think it’s a tragedy.
Gene Tunny 29:53
One of your other books is Crisis of Responsibility: Our Cultural Addiction to Blame and How You Can Cure It. Now, what I found great about that book is you had a really interesting take on the financial crisis. I knew the basic facts, but I hadn’t thought about it in that way. But you argued that there was a failure of moral responsibility in a way, when people were simply walking away from houses where they had negative equity, which I found a really interesting take. And am I getting that right? Am I remembering that correctly?
David Bahnsen 30:39
You’re absolutely getting that right. And that, I would argue, was one of many moral failings in the financial crisis. But it was conveniently the one that was entirely ignored in the narrative. Ultimately, the desire for many of us on the right to put blame with the government, with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Federal Reserve, we were willing to look past Main Street’s faults, and the desire of those on the left to blame greed of Wall Street, of the banks, various familiar bad guys in their societal narrative, they were willing to look past the iniquities of Main Street. And I think it was entirely absurd set of stories told us about the financial crisis that chose to ignore Main Street’s culpability. And you reference those with negative equity. There’s simply no question that in the end, the pile on of foreclosures, and what really represented this purging of bad investment, that then had the domino effect into the overly levered credit and financial system. What the initial dominoes were to tipping that over-levered credit system over was the fact that people stopped making house payments when they were upside down on their houses.
And so although I would argue the very first act of moral culpability that led to the crisis was people’s Keeping Up with the Joneses mentality, and irresponsibility, and taking on a commitment they couldn’t keep, the lack of necessary protective equity in their home, dishonesty about their own income documentation. There are a whole lot of things that went into this game that was being played, that many people played well for a lot of years, until the music stopped playing. And when the music stopped playing, this house of cards fell.
And my book was attempting to say, I know what Wall Street did wrong, and I know what the government did wrong. But it is simply untrue that Main Street did nothing wrong, and in fact, that Main Street is a victim of this whole thing. That’s the way the story was being told. And I feel like five years later, my book has done a good job in telling the story that needed to be told about the financial crisis.
Gene Tunny 33:25
What do you see as the solution? Is there a solution? I think you’re right, in that there is a problem that that people are reluctant to take responsibility. I think you’ve you have diagnosed a problem. How do we solve this, David? Is there a solution to it?
David Bahnsen 33:49
Well, I think that the book goes into a whole lot of ideas. If I remember correctly, 10 of them are written to the individual person and sort of micro suggestions for a reaffirmation of personal responsibility, and 10 or macro, more of a policy level. I have a critique of the college student loan system, a critique of how we go about thinking about housing in our society.
Fundamentally, if you’ll allow me to go back to the kind of prior conversation about the religious and moral framework of a society, if people can get away with irresponsibly borrowing to buy a home and then walking away unscathed, if people get away with it without any moral compass, I don’t know why they wouldn’t keep doing it. But my belief is that fundamentally, we need a kind of restoration of basic cultural norms. This was really the whole point of the book, that people should be ashamed of what they did, but it isn’t just that they did it. It’s that they were proud of it, that other people congratulated them. Look how smart you are. You pulled one over on your bank. They could brag about it on Friday night with their friends, rather than being ashamed of the fact that they failed in their responsibility.
Paying back debts that one owes is the hallmark of a civilised person. And I think that we desperately need to restore the kind of traditional value system that would never tolerate someone being a degenerate and being so incapable of basic… I’m not referring to people in extreme hardship. We’ve always had that. We always want ways to help those who have genuinely run into very difficult times. But the notion of just simply being able to run away willy-nilly from things, heads, I win, tails, I don’t lose, this is no way to manage a society.
Gene Tunny 36:04
That’s another great example of a book where you’re thinking… Maybe economists wouldn’t normally think about these issues. I’d recommend that as well. Also, you’ve got a book on the case for dividend growth, and this relates to your investing. And I’ve just started that, but the way I’m interpreting it is you’re emphasising look for stocks with good dividends and don’t necessarily buy into all of the fantasies about you’ve got these stocks which will just grow ridiculous amounts in the future, the big tech stocks. I take it that that’s the general view in that book. Is that fair, David? Is that your philosophy in investing is looking for good earning stocks, good earning companies?
David Bahnsen 36:59
Well, dividends are simply what one is doing with good earnings. There are plenty of companies that don’t pay dividends that have wonderful earnings. But our belief is that not only do you want really good earnings, you want confirmation of the earnings, the legitimacy of them and the repeatability of them, and the growth of them, that is validated through the dividend payment to the shareholder. The dividend payment becomes a mechanical benefit. You’re monetizing your investment risk as you go. If you’re reinvesting those dividends, you’re constantly averaging and compounding your return. If you’re withdrawing the dividend for income, you’re satisfying a cash flow need, so that there are mechanical benefits to dividends. But then fundamentally, they represent proof of the profits and earnings of the company, and a vote from management in their own confidence about the sustainability of those earnings. And so dividends are just as much a benefit as they are a signal. And we want both and. That’s our view of dividend growth investing from a risk-adjusted standpoint, producing a much smoother result for investors over time.
Gene Tunny 38:22
Good stuff. Finally, David, I’d like to ask you about Alex P. Keaton, who you’ve identified as a role model. I remember watching Family Ties in the ‘80s here in Australia, and Alex was certainly someone who was very notable. What was it that you found inspirational, or I guess what did you learn from Alex? What are your thoughts on –
David Bahnsen 38:58
Just as a very young kid, I… Here there was this contrarian character on a sitcom on American television that was focused on ambition, on goals, on patriotism. He had a certain love of America, a love of self-determination. And so there was a lot of comedy associated with it and lightheartedness. And yet, at the same time, he was a character who just sort of had a personality that was similar to my own quirky personality as a young person. It’s many years ago now. It’s true, Alex P. Keaton and that character on Family Ties was a big part of my childhood.
Gene Tunny 39:53
Okay. Very good. Yeah. I think there’s a photo of you on your website as a young lad. You’re dressed as Alex P. Keaton or dressed in that –
David Bahnsen 40:04
This is true. I think I was probably nine or 10 years old. That’s correct.
Gene Tunny 40:09
Very good. Okay, excellent. David, this has been terrific. Are there any final points that you’d like to make, any thoughts on your book? Anything that you think it’d be important for us to take out of it?
David Bahnsen 40:24
I appreciate the time. I appreciate your thoughtful questions. There’s No Free Lunch: 250 Economic Truths, and it’s really intended to give people a little something to think about around the different major categories of economic thought.
Gene Tunny 40:38
Okay, thanks heaps, David, I’ll put links to your website and your books in the show notes. David Bahnsen, managing partner of the Bahnsen Group. Thanks so much for your time. Really appreciate it.
David Bahnsen 40:52
Thanks for having me, Gene. Really enjoyed it.
Gene Tunny 40:55 Okay, that’s the end of this episode of Economics Explored. I hope you enjoyed it. If so, please tell your family and friends and leave a comment or give us a rating on your podcast app. If you have any comments, questions, suggestions, you can feel free to send them to contact@economicsexplored.com and we’ll aim to address them in a future episode. Thanks for listening. Until next week, goodbye.
Credits
Big thanks to EP132 guest David Bahnsen and to the show’s audio engineer Josh Crotts for his assistance in producing the episode.
Please get in touch with any questions, comments and suggestions by emailing us at contact@economicsexplored.com or sending a voice message via https://www.speakpipe.com/economicsexplored. Economics Explored is available via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcast, and other podcasting platforms.