Cato Event Podcast

Policymakers on both sides of the aisle have proposed new regimes for small-business beneficial ownership reporting. The aim of such legislation is to eliminate opportunities for money laundering and financial crime. However, the proposals before Congress would place heavy new compliance costs on millions of America’s small businesses while continuing to provide opportunities for bad actors to engage in illicit financial activities. Beneficial ownership reporting would add to an already onerous anti-money-laundering/know-your-customer (AML/ KYC) regulatory burden, cited by community banks as the single most costly financial regulation. Furthermore, international experience with beneficial ownership reporting requirements suggests that it will be difficult to make such requirements work in the United States. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider” (Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996).Those 26 words (and not a member of Congress) invented the internet as we know it. These words protect internet platforms from lawsuits based on user-generated content, allowing them to open their doors to a dizzying variety of sentiment and speech. Absent that sentence, social media platforms would have strong incentives to suppress any speech that might cause them legal woes. Or, in contrast, they might avoid legal liability by not moderating their forums at all, likely rendering them unusable. Jeff Kosseff tells the story of the institutions that flourished as a result of this powerful statute. He introduces us to those who created CDA 230, those who advocated for it, and those who were involved in some of the most prominent cases decided under the law. As section 230 and the platforms it protects face increasing scrutiny, Twenty-Six Words demystifies this little-known yet vital statute. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Until recently, private social media companies have been free to moderate content on their own platforms. But accusations of political bias have caused some to call for government regulation of the efforts social media companies make to moderate content. Some have even suggested that social media entities ought to be nationalized to ensure they operate in the public interest. Is there a role here for government to play, or would government intervention create unintended consequences while simultaneously stifling free speech? These are just some of the questions addressed in John Samples’s recently published policy analysis, “Why the Government Should Not Regulate Content Moderation by Social Media.”Join us on Monday, April 15, to hear from author John Samples and the director of Cato’s project on emerging technologies, Matthew Feeney. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Over the past two decades, Zimbabwe has been in a state of almost constant crisis. The once-prosperous nation now ranks among the poorest and most repressive countries in the world. Is there a way out of this predicament? Barry D. Wood, who recently traveled to Zimbabwe, will describe the current economic and political situation in the country. Steve H. Hanke will discuss steps that Zimbabwe’s government needs to take to achieve macroeconomic stabilization. W. Gyude Moore will explain the failure of African governments to bring Zimbabwe’s authoritarian government to heel and suggest steps that a more enlightened African leadership could take to break the cycle of violence and economic decline in Zimbabwe. Please join us for a discussion of this once promising and now deeply troubled country. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A quarter century ago, the Cato Institute released a revolutionary book, Patient Power: Solving America's Health Care Crisis, by John C. Goodman and Gerald L. Musgrave. Patient Power introduced the United States to a bold and radical way of thinking about health care.When third parties pay medical bills, Goodman and Musgrave wrote, providers come to view third-party payers as their customers, not the patients. As a result, instead of maximizing patient satisfaction, providers deliver care to maximize their revenue given third-party payment formulas. Instead of falling, costs rise. Third-party payment is the reason patients can't talk to their doctors by phone, email, or Skype. It is why patients don't have Uber-type doctor house calls at night and on weekends. Patient Power showed that if people controlled and managed their own health care dollars, the medical marketplace would change radically—almost overnight.Indeed, Patient Power changed the world. Thanks largely to Goodman and Musgrave's work, more than 20 million people are managing their own health care dollars in health savings accounts. A roughly equal number are managing their medical spending through health reimbursement arrangements. And employers are experimenting with giving individuals complete financial control over everything from hip and knee replacements to blood tests.Come hear the authors of Patient Power and other leading scholars discuss the book's impact on health reform and how its insights can still inform the debate. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Please join us on Monday, April 8, for a special discussion of Michael Tanner's newly published book, The Inclusive Economy: How to Bring Wealth to America's Poor. In it, Tanner sets aside the traditional conservative and liberal responses to poverty and explores a fresh approach to this persistent problem. The result is a compelling blend of social justice and limited government. Following Tanner's presentation, Cato research fellow and director of polling Emily Ekins will discuss her ongoing research on Americans' attitudes toward welfare policy, poverty, and work.Attendees will have access to copies of The Inclusive Economy and an opportunity to discuss the issue of poverty and poverty programs with our distinguished panelists during and immediately after the event. To attend, please register by noon on Friday, April 5. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Of the myriad policy priorities established by the current administration and congressional leadership, the tackling of skyrocketing prescription drug prices may have the best chance of moving through the legislative process over the next two years. Bipartisan proposals to address rising prescription drug prices have been introduced in both the House and the Senate; President Trump identified the issue in his State of the Union address as his next major priority; and Speaker Pelosi’s first speech to the 116th Congress listed it as a top issue for the new Democratic majority.Rising prescription drug prices have major budgetary implications for Medicare in particular. Can the program single-handedly place downward pressure on prices without having a negative effect on the rest of the health care system? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What most frightens the average American? Terrorism. North Korea. Iran. But what if none of those are probable or consequential threats to America? What if the world today is safer, freer, wealthier, healthier, and better educated than ever before? What if the real dangers to Americans are noncommunicable diseases, gun violence, drug overdoses—even hospital infections?In this compelling look at what they call the "Threat Industrial Complex," Michael A. Cohen and Micah Zenko explain why politicians, policy analysts, academics, and journalists are misleading Americans about foreign threats and ignoring more serious national security challenges at home. Cohen and Zenko argue that we should ignore Washington's threat mongering and focus instead on furthering extraordinary global advances in human development and economic and political cooperation.Join us as Zenko and Cohen discuss their book, with additional comments by Sharon Burke of New America. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In recent years, libertarians and progressives have found common cause in their concern that the growth of executive power is far in excess of constitutional limits. Our Constitution gives the president few explicit emergency powers, but presidents have invoked national emergencies as justification for a wide variety of actions. After Watergate, Congress created a framework for regulating this authority, in the 1976 National Emergencies Act. With President Trump’s decision to circumvent Congress and declare a national emergency so that he can construct a wall on the southern border, the propriety of the National Emergencies Act and broader separation of powers issues can no longer be avoided. For example, building the wall would entail seizing private property through eminent domain and reallocating funds that Congress has authorized for other purposes. Has the National Emergencies Act become part of the problem, rather than a solution? Should it be reformed? And how, more broadly, can we still allow presidents to appropriately handle moments of crisis while reining in executive overreach?This event is approved for 1.5 hours of California MCLE credit. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The U.S. government’s current strategy of trying to restrict the supply of opioids for nonmedical uses is not working. While government efforts to reduce the supply has reduced both the amount of legally manufactured prescription opioids and the number of opioid prescriptions, deaths from opioid-related overdoses are nevertheless accelerating. Research shows that the increase is due, in large part, to substitution of illegal heroin and fentanyl for the now harder-to-get prescription opioids. Attempting to reduce overdose deaths by doubling down on this approach will not produce better results. Policymakers can reduce overdose deaths and other harms stemming from nonmedical use of opioids and other dangerous drugs by switching to a policy of harm-reduction. Harm reduction has a success record that prohibition cannot match and involves a range of public health options.Unlike prohibition, harm-reduction strategies begin with the realistic and nonjudgmental premise that there has never been, and will never be, a drug-free society. Akin to the credo of the medical profession — “First, do no harm” — harm reduction seeks to avoid measures that exacerbate the harm that prohibition already inflicts on nonmedical users and seeks to focus on the goal of reducing deaths and the spread of disease from drug use.This conference, featuring clinical and research experts in epidemiology, public health, addiction treatment, and harm reduction, will examine the record of various harm-reduction modalities in the developed world and will consider their potential for ameliorating the problems caused by drug prohibition. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.