Tue, 15 October 2019
In this highly unusual but weirdly compelling episode in the wake of World Mental Health Day, Michael and I discuss how we've dealt with difficult personal struggles. |
Mon, 14 October 2019
User-friendly cryptography has dramatically altered the world by enabling secure communication and commerce via the Internet. But this is only the beginning: by applying cryptography to the control and ownership of digital assets we can return power to the individual and finally build a world where individual sovereignty is feasible. The biggest challenge that remains is to hide the technical complexities from the average user -- and Jameson Lopp joins me today to discuss exactly how that's being done. |
Fri, 11 October 2019
Lindsey Graham and Bill Weld have been accusing Donald Trump (and Barack Obama) of "isolationism." This is such a deranged thing to say that I had to make an episode about it. |
Thu, 10 October 2019
Kevin Gutzman joins me for some historical/constitutional background on impeachment, how strong the case against Trump is, and what is likely to come of Trump's refusal to cooperate. |
Wed, 9 October 2019
The hysteria reached a fever pitch with Trump's recent announcement about American withdrawal from northern Syria. Scott Horton joins me to explain the real situation, and how a satisfactory arrangement might have been reached had the U.S. government not prevented it. |
Tue, 8 October 2019
Gerard Casey joins me to discuss free speech, why we should be absolutists on it, the perils of "hate crime" laws, and much more. |
Mon, 7 October 2019
In this episode I talk a bit about episodes in my own evolution, including the big turning point that red pilled me, how I went from vice president of the Harvard Republicans to (eventually) a libertarian, my first battle with the neocons, and the people the Libertarian Party should appeal to but won't. |
Fri, 4 October 2019
We conclude Dave Smith Week with questions drawn from the Tom Woods Show Elite, which you can join at SupportingListeners.com. How has he navigated a comedy world and a city that are unsympathetic to his views, to say the least? What libertarian positions does he find most challenging to defend? What is the movement's most effective potential strategy? And a lot more. |
Thu, 3 October 2019
The new rule, evidently, is that if you joke about anything our overlords have told us is Not Funny, or if you are found to have said something naughty on Twitter ten years ago, you are to be destroyed and all ties with you are to be cut. Natch, if you're just a warmonger, nothing happens to you at all. Dave Smith joins me to sort this all out. |
Wed, 2 October 2019
Here Dave takes us into the weeds of comedy itself. How to write a joke (more or less), who's on Dave's Mount Rushmore of comedy, who his influences are, and a lot more. Also whether there's a line, in terms of subject matter, that Dave just won't cross when it comes to comedy. Possibly my favorite episode of the week. |
Tue, 1 October 2019
The second episode of Dave Smith Week covers the libertarian movement itself, with Dave's recent Soho Forum debate against Libertarian National Committee chairman Nick Sarwark the springboard for discussion of larger issues. |
Mon, 30 September 2019
Dave Smith went from being a stand-up comedian to being a stand-up comedian who also happens to be one of our most articulate and indispensable voices. We get into Dave's background and turning points in his life. |
Fri, 27 September 2019
Documentary filmmaker Joel Gilbert joins me to discuss his investigative work into the Trayvon Martin case, where it turns out that a serious case of witness fraud was at the heart of the trial. |
Thu, 26 September 2019
Marc Clair, host of the Lions of Liberty podcast, joins me to discuss how we can reach folks outside our orbit, plus some fun podcaster-to-podcaster inside baseball. |
Wed, 25 September 2019
Professor Jeremy Bailey joins me to discuss the evolution of the modern presidency and the way key figures like Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson tried -- and failed or succeeded, which is the question -- to change and expand it. |
Wed, 25 September 2019
This episode is more of an overview of the life and evolution of one of our important thinkers, Paul Gottfried, who holds his Ph.D. in history from Yale. Paul has been an opponent of the neocons from the beginning, and we take the story to the present day. |
Mon, 23 September 2019
Bernie Sanders is proposing a nationwide program of rent control -- because why should landlords be allowed to raise rents arbitrarily? I explain why this is a terrible idea. |
Fri, 20 September 2019
Michael Rectenwald returns to the show to discuss woke capitalism, big tech, the mob mentality, and the suppression of dissident voices. |
Thu, 19 September 2019
As a fan of magic myself, I was delighted to learn not only that I had a professional magician among my newsletter subscribers, but also that he managed to fool Penn and Teller on their "Fool Us" television program. Doc Dixon is a libertarian (like Penn and Teller themselves), and that comes through in our discussion, but we also get into the weeds of what it's like performing for Penn and Teller, as well as plenty of inside baseball about the life of a magician. |
Wed, 18 September 2019
Jim Cantrell, co-founder and former CEO of Vector Launch, veteran employee of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Lab and France's CNES, and founding team member of SpaceX and Moon Express, joins me to discuss the future of space exploration (including Mars settlement) and mankind's activities in space, as well as what the private sector can accomplish in space. |
Tue, 17 September 2019
Bestselling author Stephen Kinzer returns to the show to discuss the CIA's research and experiments in mind control. |
Mon, 16 September 2019
Peter Schiff returns to answer listener questions about Trump's economics, navigating the ups and downs of the economy, and a lot more. |
Fri, 13 September 2019
Lew Rockwell returns to discuss yet another Democratic debate. Join us as we slice through the inanities. |
Thu, 12 September 2019
Phil Labonte, the outspoken libertarian frontman of the band All That Remains, joins me to discuss how he became a libertarian, how his views compare to those of other people in his genre, how the Internet has changed the music industry for better and worse, and a lot more. |
Wed, 11 September 2019
Scott Horton joins me to commemorate the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, and respond to the rah-rah "they hate us because we're great" view of why the attacks occurred. |
Tue, 10 September 2019
The left-wing thought-control site ThinkProgress has closed its doors, after many years of policing allowable opinion. Because of my interests I'm aware in particular of their absurd treatment of the Tenth Amendment Center -- which, unlike ThinkProgress, is alive and kicking. And speaking of kicking, let's kick ThinkProgress while it's down. |
Tue, 10 September 2019
I review my refrain about the narrowness of allowable opinion in American (and Western) political discourse: you can argue about the fringes of what the state apparatus should be doing, but no fundamental questions may be raised. Also, at the end of the episode I make note of the latest Twitter casualty, and the absurd grounds on which the person in question was banned. |
Fri, 6 September 2019
David Gornoski has taken what sounds like rather an obscure topic -- the mimetic theory of Rene Girard -- and showing the liberty movement how it helps us understand the state and collective violence. |
Thu, 5 September 2019
By popular demand, Kirk Sorensen joins me to discuss the energy potential of thorium, which can be tapped safely in overwhelming abundance and which solves every problem that troubles environmentalists. |
Wed, 4 September 2019
Comedian Dave Chappelle generated enormous controversy with his recent Netflix special, "Sticks and Stones." Fashionable opinion explained to us that we were to reject this special as "racist" and otherwise insensitive. Comedian Dave Smith joins me to sort it all out. |
Wed, 4 September 2019
Eric Brakey served two terms in the state senate of Maine, and has been a Ron Paul supporter and Tom Woods Show listener for years. He's currently seeking the GOP nomination for U.S. Congress from Maine's second district, where he is winning key endorsements and has an excellent shot at winning. |
Sat, 31 August 2019
Gerry Cramer has been repeatedly ranked as the top affiliate on Clickbank, which in turn has been called the top affiliate network in the United States. His students, for that matter, can frequently be found among Clickbank's top ten affiliates. So you could say the guy has cracked the code. |
Fri, 30 August 2019
Eric July, the politically incorrect libertarian frontman for the metal band Backwordz, joins me for a freewheeling discussion of music, politics, Malcolm X, the SJW takeover of the world of comics, and much more. |
Thu, 29 August 2019
Saifedean Ammous recently debated Professor George Selgin at the Soho Forum on the subject of Bitcoin's suitability to replace existing currencies and challenge central banks. We review that debate in today's episode, and finish with a discussion of Saifedean's latest project. |
Wed, 28 August 2019
Murray Sabrin, a professor of finance at Ramapo College, discusses the damage caused by the Federal Reserve, as well as the various approaches to business cycles taken by different economic schools of thought, and Trump's demands for lower interest rates. |
Tue, 27 August 2019
Are libertarians too quick to argue that "after all, Sweden is really very capitalist, so you can't use it against us"? One author thinks so. This episode looks more closely at the Sweden story to make sense of it from a libertarian perspective. |
Mon, 26 August 2019
The New York Times recently announced its "1619 Project," by which it intends to demonstrate that "nearly everything that has made America exceptional grew out of slavery." Our friend Phil Magness points out that in its economics it relies on now-debunked statistical claims. Also, I discuss the bizarre phenomenon by which the left is now claiming that slavery is a highly efficient system that drives exceptional economic growth. |
Fri, 23 August 2019
Larry Ludlow reports from his own experiences within the government school system. It's pretty brutal, folks. |
Thu, 22 August 2019
John Moody returns to update us on government and its various agencies, and how they affect farmers, your food, and you. |
Wed, 21 August 2019
Gene Epstein returns to discuss People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent, the new book by economist Joseph Stiglitz. It gets the full Epstein treatment. |
Tue, 20 August 2019
Gerard Casey, professor emeritus of philosophy at University College, Dublin, joins me to discuss the philosophy of fascism, which he describes as a form of irrationalism. |
Mon, 19 August 2019
Dan Fishman recently became executive director of the Libertarian Party. He joins me to discuss (among plenty of other things) his political evolution, where he sees the party going, and whether people are naturally libertarian or anti-libertarian. |
Sat, 17 August 2019
Julie Borowski, the popular libertarian content creator, has just released a children's book called Nobody Knows How to Make a Pizza, in which she illustrates how, without a central planner, amazing feats of production that could be carried out (or even fully understood) by no single individual take place. We then discuss the state of the "liberty movement" in 2019. |
Sat, 17 August 2019
Today I am joined by two libertarians: Dr. Michael Edelstein and Dr. David Ramsay Steele. Together they wrote Three Minute Therapy: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life, which applies an easily replicated technique to conquering all sorts of undesirable conditions and behaviors: depression, excessive drinking, procrastination, overeating, and many more. |
Thu, 15 August 2019
Vince Vaughn has scores of Hollywood films to his credit -- from The Lost World: Jurassic Park to Hacksaw Ridge and many in between -- and has been a Ron Paul supporter since the 2008 presidential campaign. He and Tom discuss Hollywood, libertarianism, and American politics. |
Wed, 14 August 2019
Not long ago, the great libertarian foreign policy expert Scott Horton joined me for a full week's worth of episodes. We got some great feedback and a little criticism, so Scott and I decided that replying to critics makes for great episodes, too. So we're talking Syria, Iran, and plenty more in today's episode. |
Tue, 13 August 2019
John Locke tries to rest the legitimacy of government on the consent of the people. But can they really give consent? Locke himself admitted that unanimous consent was impossible, but thought the state could be legitimized anyway. Lysander Spooner thought otherwise: if we as individuals do not consent to an arrangement, it cannot be enforced on us. |
Fri, 9 August 2019
We conclude Brion McClanahan Week with a discussion of a historical topic that fascinates us both: the Russian Revolution. We then clear up some loose ends and bring this week of history to a close. |
Thu, 8 August 2019
Brion McClanahan's podcast tagline is "think locally, act locally." We take a deep dive into what this means, including the federalist/decentralist tradition in America, plus: what about issues that seem to require cooperation beyond the local level? |
Wed, 7 August 2019
Well, here's the question nobody is allowed to ask, since even to ask it is to invite anti-intellectual, third-grade-level responses. But presumably a region that generated Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, James Madison, George Mason, James Monroe, Edgar Allen Poe, Mark Twain, William Faulkner, and Walker Percy might have something to be said for it. So as Brion McClanahan Week continues, we take a look at this question. |
Tue, 6 August 2019
Brion McClanahan Week continues with a look at U.S. presidents we barely hear about (and who tend, naturally, to be the better ones) and how we should evaluate them. |
Mon, 5 August 2019
Brion McClanahan Week on the Tom Woods Show begins with a discussion of this important historian's background, and how he came to abandon the neoconservatism so many of us imbibed in our youth. |
Sat, 3 August 2019
Phil Magness discusses his new book (with Jason Brennan) about the problems with higher education. They aren't talking about ideological conformity, bad as that is. They are discussing other problems, just as deep and pervasive. |
Fri, 2 August 2019
Kyle Mann, editor-in-chief of the brilliant satire site The Babylon Bee, joins me to discuss comedy, politics, social media, and Snopes' hilarious "fact checking" of what is obviously satire. |
Thu, 1 August 2019
Today Tho Bishop and I review the second night of the second round of Democratic presidential debates (the July 31, 2019 debate, to be exact). Plenty of dull talking points, to be sure, but enough zingers to make this episode fun. |
Wed, 31 July 2019
Last night there was yet another Democratic presidential debate, and the great Lew Rockwell and I watched it so you didn't have to. Winners, losers, and insanity all covered in detail. |
Tue, 30 July 2019
Ben Powell returns to the show to discuss his new book with Bob Lawson, in which the two economists visit various unfree places around the world and share their observations. (It turns out that alcohol, and usually beer, is often a good indicator of degrees of freedom.) In this episode we get a glimpse inside Cuba, Venezuela, Russia, and (a genuine success story) Georgia. |
Sat, 27 July 2019
Most of my listeners will be familiar with Praxis, the program that gets young people internships, and their first job, with a business that matches their interests. Clark Davis, a Tom Woods Show listener, learned about Praxis through me, and did his own apprenticeship at the E-Commerce Business School. Today he works for them full time, helping people break into e-commerce as a nice side income source or even as a full-time living. |
Fri, 26 July 2019
We wrap up Scott Horton week with a full overview of the humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen, what the true story behind it is, and precisely why the U.S. regime chose to take sides. |
Thu, 25 July 2019
Maybe you favor nonintervention, but are you sure you know all the ins and outs of the situation in Syria in recent years? The great Scott Horton cuts through the propaganda to get to the real story. |
Wed, 24 July 2019
Our discussion with Scott Horton about the War on Terror continues today with coverage of Iraq. You think you know the story: the creeps deceived us about WMDs. There's so much more to the Iraq disaster than that, and Scott gives us all the details. |
Tue, 23 July 2019
![]() Day two of Scott Horton Week takes us to Somalia, and Scott's discussion of how this of all countries came to find itself in the crosshairs of the U.S. War on Terror. we also discussed the humanitarian catastrophe in that country, and the role the U.S. played in worsening it. |
Mon, 22 July 2019
The great Scott Horton joins us for a tour of half a dozen countries with an update on the status of the War on Terror in each. |
Fri, 19 July 2019
In 2002 the University of Missouri accepted a multi-million dollar bequest whose stipulation was that it hire professors working within the tradition of the Austrian School of economics. It has recently been discovered that of course it did no such thing. Its efforts to cover its tracks are actually laughable. This is a fun one. |
Thu, 18 July 2019
In 1979, as the Iranian Revolution was under way, Jimmy Carter called the 1953 ouster of Iranian prime minister "ancient history." But it wasn't. It poisoned Iranian-American relations through the late 1970s and indeed has continued to do so to this day. Hunt Tooley joins me to discuss this overlooked piece of history. |
Wed, 17 July 2019
Keynesians like to pretend that they're impartial scientists, following the evidence wherever it leads. We, meanwhile, are portrayed as too blinded by ideology to be worth listening to. So today I run through some very challenging episodes for Keynesians to explain, and we see who the real scientists are. |
Tue, 16 July 2019
The prolific and sorely underrated Connor Boyack, president of the Libertas Institute, is back with still more important work. For years libertarians have wrung their hands about the lack of materials for younger people, particularly in economics. How to convey these important ideas to kids? Connor actually did something about it. In fact, since our last conversation Connor has made three substantial contributions to our movement. Don't miss them. They are exactly what we needed, but which we lacked the ambition to do. |
Mon, 15 July 2019
This episode covers Anglo-American politics between the world wars, and includes coverage of Winston Churchill, including libertarian and conservative critiques. |
Fri, 12 July 2019
I get into detail about the lead-up to the crisis of 2008, the problems the federal government and the Federal Reserve caused, and why explanations other than the free-market one fail. This episode is drawn from my appearance on the Cash Flow Connections podcast. |
Wed, 10 July 2019
It's been 100 years since the signing of the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I. That treaty had a profound impact -- entirely for ill -- on the course of the twentieth century. Historian Hunt Tooley joins me to assess the damage. |
Tue, 9 July 2019
The indefatigable Scott Horton, the great libertarian foreign-policy expert, just reached a truly amazing milestone: his five thousandth interview. We look back over 20+ years of Scott's work -- and in so doing, review the course of U.S. foreign policy during these critical years. |
Mon, 8 July 2019
Carla Gericke, past president of the Free State Project, joins me for an update from New Hampshire and to discuss some important local issues that affect many communities. She has been at the forefront of a campaign against surveillance cameras, as well as securing the release of a list of bad cops -- a list that a major state official is trying to keep suppressed. |
Fri, 5 July 2019
James Otteson is the author of an excellent new book: Honorable Business: A Framework for Business in a Just and Humane Society. He discusses the purpose of business, outlines a sound approach to business ethics, and contends that contrary to popular prejudice, business can play an important role in building a just and humane society. So I ask him, as devil's advocate: can there be a genuine code of business ethics in a market economy? Wouldn't the most unscrupulous earn the highest profits and displace more ethical firms? And as for business firms and "treating people the right way," as Otteson titles one of his chapters, what about businesses whose closures decimate a whole town? Plenty to discuss in this important episode! |
Wed, 3 July 2019
You can't just go out and buy shaving cream anymore; you'd better know the company's stance on fashionable issues, lest people attack you for conniving at oppression. It's part of the left's fantasy of politicizing all of life. |
Tue, 2 July 2019
Justin Raimondo, who died last week, had been the soul of Antiwar.com since its creation in 1995, and wrote over 3,000 columns during his tenure. The great libertarian foreign-policy expert Scott Horton joins me to discuss Justin's life, work, and views. |
Mon, 1 July 2019
I talk to Mike Maharrey about the arguments we often hear from some religious folks, on both left and right, against the market economy. (We answer these arguments, of course.) This episode is taken from my appearance on Mike's Godarchy podcast.) |
Sat, 29 June 2019
The June 27, 2019 Democratic presidential debate featured more familiar names, and was much more vicious. We review the winners and losers (in terms of prospects; in terms of ideas they were all losers, obviously), and what's likely ahead. |
Thu, 27 June 2019
It's that time again, folks. The debate analysis episodes I did with Lew back in 2015 and 2016 were among my most downloaded ever. We're doing it again for the Democratic debates, starting with this episode, covering the debate from June 26. Plenty of inanities to unpack here! |
Wed, 26 June 2019
Maj Toure, founder of Black Guns Matter, is running for Philadelphia City Council on a pro-gun, libertarian message he says is making inroads with the public. He knows all the arguments inside and out. It's safe to say the City Council has never encountered anyone like him. We discuss his background, how the gun issue became important to him, why he's running as a Libertarian, what his influences are, how he answers anti-gun propagandists, and more. |
Tue, 25 June 2019
Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne manages to get pretty much every aspect of American economic history wrong as he lectures us on the wickedness of laissez-faire. Peter Klein joins me for the smash. |
Mon, 24 June 2019
That's what Current Affairs editor Nathan J. Robinson says. How well do his arguments hold up? I scrutinize them in this solo episode. |
Sat, 22 June 2019
The chairman of the Libertarian National Committee recently linked to what has to be one of the most preposterous articles I have ever read, alleging Russian involvement in the Ron Paul 2008 presidential campaign. The Ron Paul Institute, for its part, has been accused of whitewashing the records of dictators and turning a blind eye to injustices abroad. Institute executive director Daniel McAdams joins me to address all this. |
Fri, 21 June 2019
Gary Chartier has written an excellent book on business ethics that situates one's life in the market within an overall framework of human flourishing. He covers a variety of controversial topics with great skill, and in such a way as to be most persuasive to people unfamiliar with our ideas. In this episode we discuss what it means to live a good life, and then proceed to issues like property, advertising, boycotts, corporate social responsibility, labor and workplace issues, and more. |
Thu, 20 June 2019
Two great Michaels join me today: Michael Boldin, founder and executive director of the Tenth Amendment Center, and Michael Heise, founder of the Mises Caucus of the Libertarian Party. We get updates from both Michaels, I ask them what it's like to engage in this kind of activism in the age of Trump, and they discuss how the two of them are collaborating in fruitful ways in support of worthy state-level initiatives. Fun! |
Wed, 19 June 2019
The great Murray Rothbard, known as Mr. Libertarian, was first and foremost an economist, but he brought his characteristic iconoclasm also to the study of history, where he tore through old orthodoxies and regime propaganda to get to the real story of the American past. |
Tue, 18 June 2019
![]() Scott and I discuss the life and work of the heroic William Norman Grigg, who covered stories that would otherwise have remained in obscurity, generally pertaining to various ways -- largely but not exclusively involving the police -- the state ruined people's lives. |
Sat, 15 June 2019
Carey Wedler has been producing libertarian content online for years, but as she first became politically aware, she was a progressive. I love stories like these, so we discuss the various insights she had that led her down our path. |
Fri, 14 June 2019
The heroic Karen Straughan returns to the show to throw cold water on the cartoonish images of an oppressive patriarchy, toxic masculinity, and the usual kit and kaboodle, and finds that feminists, far from advancing equality, can consistently be relied upon to push double standards. |
Thu, 13 June 2019
Jacqueline Isaacs, a contributor to the book Called to Freedom: Why You Can Be Christian and Libertarian, joins me to discuss whether these two systems are compatible. |
Wed, 12 June 2019
Libertarian content creator Liberty Doll joins me to discuss the importance of gun rights, particularly for women, and responds to the most common arguments from the other side. |
Tue, 11 June 2019
(N.b.: some sensitive subject matter.) Ladies of Liberty week begins with Brave the World, as my guest Julia is known to her followers. We talk feminism, family, promiscuity, children, the state, and being an adult. |
Fri, 7 June 2019
Virtually every major news source covered what Tucker Carlson had to say in the monologue of his FOX News program the other day, when he declared Elizabeth Warren's economic plan to be a simple matter of economic patriotism that most Americans would support, and that out-of-touch Republicans, too enamored of libertarianism (!), would do well to heed. David R. Henderson joins me to respond. |
Thu, 6 June 2019
Ben Lewis joins me to discuss the controversial America First Committee, which favored nonintervention in the Second World War (until Pearl Harbor). |
Wed, 5 June 2019
A recent Facebook meme suggested that of course Bernie Sanders' wealth redistribution plans are constitutional -- why, we have the general welfare clause to authorize them! Ugh. Today I go through the (rather extensively documented) original intent of the general welfare, interstate commerce, and "necessary and proper" clauses. |
Tue, 4 June 2019
Last week I received the news that Murray Polner, my co-editor on the book We Who Dared to Say No to War, had died at the age of 91. Murray had been a man of the left, but we thoroughly enjoyed our collaboration on that antiwar volume. In today's episode I cover the ideological diversity of the true antiwar movement. |
Tue, 4 June 2019
The war machine is a tough nut to crack. Trump wanted troops out of this place and that, but they're still there. Who is really making policy? Meanwhile, Mike Pompeo is trying to pretend that George Washington would have supported his foreign policy. It's all in this episode. |
Fri, 31 May 2019
Luis J. Gomez is co-creator of the GaS Digital Network, which features the programs of Tom Woods Show favorites Dave Smith and Michael Malice. He grew up in very rough circumstances, but worked extremely hard from a young age. Now he's built an extraordinary network committed to free speech, and an excellent career as a comedian as well. This is probably one of my favorite episodes. |
Thu, 30 May 2019
Walter Block, Jeff Deist, and I discuss various questions involving (among other things) libertarian strategy: what if anything we can do to advance the ideas we believe in. Plus: the significance of Ludwig von Mises, up-and-comers in the movement, and a lot more. We covered these topics on a panel at the 2019 state convention of the Libertarian Party of Florida (https://www.lpf.org). |
Wed, 29 May 2019
John Bush, a longtime activist I got to know during the Ron Paul presidential campaigns, began selling kratom after having had good results with it himself. Today we discuss kratom: what it is, what it can do, what the FDA thinks about it, what its legal status is, and the challenges associated with its sale. A great discussion! |
Tue, 28 May 2019
Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders are proposing that interest rates on credit cards be capped, as a way of helping the poor. Would such a policy have that effect? I'm joined by Todd Zywicki, a professor of law at Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, and who's an expert on consumer credit, to work through the answer. We also discuss the cronyism that keeps alternative institutions from issuing credit cards. |