Videos

Below are a few select videos that I believe are a great introduction to the principles of liberty, free market economics, and the issues we face as a nation. To see more videos please visit my youtube channel by clicking here.

The Philosophy of Liberty – This short animated film graphically illustrates the philosophy of liberty. With this basic understanding, our laws and system of government take on a whole new context.

The Broken Window Fallacy – The broken window fallacy, introduced by Frederic Bastiat, is the justification behind much of our government stimulus spending.

Economic Freedom and Quality of Life – This outstanding short video demonstrates how countries with a high level of economic freedom produce societies with a better quality of life. This relationship is especially true for the poor who benefit the most from economic freedom.

I.O.U.S.A.: One Nation. Under Stress. In Debt. – This must see documentary boldly examines the growing national debt and its consequences for American citizens. Below is the trailer. To watch the complete movie click here. There is also a follow-up movie called I.O.U.S.A. Solutions which can be found here.

Money as Debt – This video is an easy to understand introduction to our fractional reserve banking system and the nature of money. Below is the first 10 minutes but the full video can be found here. There is also a follow-up video called Money as Debt II here.

The Crash Course – The video below is a presentation by Chris Martenson summarizing his Crash Course presentation. The full 3 hour presentation can be found here. The crash course interconnects the economy, energy, and the environment to paint a clear and somewhat scary picture of our world. According to Chris, the next 20 years will be entirely unlike the last 20 years. Find out why.

Stupid in America – This 20/20 story by John Stossel examines our public education system and why it isn’t working. While purist libertarians would get the government entirely out of education, Stossel asks the question, “What if the money to fund education was attached to the kids, instead of the school system.”

Freedom to Fascism – Aaron Russo’s documentary set out to uncover whether the federal income tax was constitutional. What he found was that the rabbit hole was much deeper than he imagined.

Peter Schiff was Right – I believe Peter Schiff is one of the smartest economists in America. He’s certainly one of the best at analyzing and explaining the free market economy in interesting and easy to understand terms. This video is just an introduction to Schiff. It is a compilation of television appearances he made in 2006 and 2007 predicting the crash of the housing bubble. For some of his more in-depth speeches check out my youtube page or for his periodic video blogs visit his youtube channel The Schiff Report.

Jose Pinera Discusses Privatizing Social Security – In 1980, the government pension system in Chile, the equivalent of our Social Security, was bankrupt. Jose Pinera completely transformed the system into one of private accounts. The program has been wildly successful yielding over 9% per year above inflation compounding returns. It should be noted that he did not cut benefits to current retirees, he gave existing workers the choice to stick with the old pension program or opt into the new program, and he made the new program mandatory for workers entering the workforce. For a paper describing the program and its successes click here.

Privatized City? – Most people just assume that certain public functions such as building roads, managing parks and collecting trash need to be handled by the government.  Libertarians believe that private companies competing for business are more efficient and cost effective than government can ever be. The excellent short video below, produced by Reason.tv, shows what can happen when a city eschews public bureaucracies, public unions and defined benefit plans, in favor of lean government and private, free-market solutions.

Minimum Wage, Maximum Stupidity – Like most well intended government policies, the minimum wage hurts the very people it is intended to help. This essay by Peter Schiff succinctly explains why.

More to come…