Very Serious is a weekly conversation with top political commentators, columnists and policymakers, focused on how events in the news relate to major, long-standing controversies in politics, economics and culture. Host Josh Barro is joined by a rotating set of regular guests to work out the ideas behind the arguments on topics serious and not-so-serious. It’s a great conversation across ideological lines that will leave you entertained, enlightened, and maybe even persuaded. www.joshbarro.com
Megan, Ben and I react to Donald Trump’s very long address to Congress, the topic he did not want to talk about for very long (inflation), the tariffs he seems to realize people are skeptical about, and his emerging feud with the Premier of Ontario.
Megan also discusses what she hated most about the speech (it had to do with RFK Jr.) and Ben identifies an emerging vibe shift — Trump, he says, is no longer riding high upon the vibes ...
I'm back again with another talkative podcast for the political center with Mike Pesca, Ben Dreyfuss and Megan McArdle. This week we’re (unsurprisingly) focused on the ongoing actions of DOGE: the firings and freezes that Megan correctly identifies as less a cost-cutting effort than a strategy to punish and diminish institutions that Republicans see as dominated by the left. We also discuss Elon Musk’s family drama, the imminent re...
We’re back again with another podcast with views from (and disagreements within) the center about Elon Musk, who has been the prime mover behind a lot of the news this week— efforts to cull the federal workforce, the (illegal?) pause on grants foreign and domestic, and the apparent shutdown of USAID. Plus: Trump’s sudden announcement (and sudden pause) of big tariffs on Mexico and Canada; venting about the DNC Chair election and ab...
I’m back in your ears this week — testing out an idea. There’s a lot of political chat shows out there aimed at slices of the ideological spectrum, but the middle is underserved. Shouldn’t we have a show to digest the news, hash out some civil disagreements, talk a little bit about how the right and left are screwing things up, and also have a little fun?
Ben Dreyfuss, Megan McArdle, and Mike Pesca join me this week to discuss Trump...
How are state and local governments faring post-COVID? It's a pretty different picture than what we're seeing with the federal budget deficit. States enjoyed generous federal aid and surprisingly strong tax collections during the pandemic. In 2021, state governments were flush — sometimes, they even made responsible choices, making deposits into their pension funds and building up their rainy-day funds to extremely high levels. Oth...
We are back with Peter Suderman’s semi-annual visit to the Very Serious podcast! Getting ready for spring, Peter and I talked about best practices for muddling fresh fruit into cocktails. We talked about Peter’s philosophy of the 41-bottle bar, about his favorite non-alcoholic cocktails, and about why he has no use for vodka. We also talked about “x-tini” cocktails — relics of the bad old days (the 1980s and the 1990s) when bars wo...
We’re back with another episode of the Very Serious podcast, and this episode has a friend of the show: Prof. Jason Furman, who teaches economics at Harvard.
Or, as Jason put it to me, he’s a bit of a foul-weather friend of the show:
Jason: Inflation does fluctuate a bit. Sometimes it looks a little bit better — during those times, you don't have me on your show. Sometimes it looks a little bit worse, and then you desperately call me...
There was no national “Red Wave” in last November’s elections, but there sure was one in New York. Republicans won a clean sweep on Long Island, even washing George Santos into Congress. They lost Asian and Hispanic support in New York City, turning swathes of Brooklyn red and Queens purple. I invited progressive journalist Ross Barkan to talk about what happened in New York, and what Republicans and Democrats across the country ca...
A few weeks back, I wrote about the ethic of homeownership, and how I think it is unlikely to be dislodged from American society. If we’re going to improve our housing policy and ensure more adequate supply, we’re going to have to work with that ethic, not against it. And I think that’s a feasible thing to do. That piece was a response to an article in The Atlantic by Jerusalem Demsas, and I wanted discuss housing issues in more de...
Tim Lee is the author of Full Stack Economics and one of my favorite reads on business and the economy. He’s also a parent to three children under the age of seven, and a major reason he quit his full-time journalism job to go independent — even though he knew it would reduce his income — was so he could maintain a flexible schedule and be more available to attend to the needs of his children. Tim recently wrote about this choice, ...
Retired professional poker player Annie Duke says quitting well — promptly realizing when your efforts aren’t working and redirecting resources to something more likely to be effective — is a badly underrated virtue. In this episode and in her new book Quit, Annie shares good advice and practical strategies to overcome our bias against quitting...
Peter Suderman is back by popular demand to talk about cocktails for fall. We talk about Negroni variations, the right sour drinks for sweater weather, best practices for hot and room-temperature cocktails (yes, that's a thing), and Peter's recipe for homemade Pumpkin Spice Old Fashioneds that contain real pumpkin.
One note: ...
This week's episode of Very Serious contains some un-bleeped profanity.
Have you noticed that advice columns are everywhere now? Have you noticed that most of the questions are fake, and yet you cannot stop reading them? Why? My friend Ben Dreyfuss has been getting into the advice business himself, taking the questions from popular advice columns and offering his own blunter, funnier, better advice. I invited Ben to talk with m...
Remember the Joe Biden and Barack Obama friendship bracelets from the 2020 campaign? That — and the whole Obama-Biden bromance meme — was cringe, and it was also an oversimplification of a much more interesting story. Gabriel Debenedetti, national correspondent for New York magazine, talks with me about their two-decade relationship that has shaped American politics in the 21st century. Gabe's new book (out Tuesday) is called ...
“I think remote work really is a general purpose technology… It's more comparable to electrification. It's more comparable to the invention of the internal combustion engine or automobiles or something like that in the way that it's going to ripple through everything and it's going to have these longstanding big impacts." This week, I talk with Adam Ozimek, an economist whose recent work focuses on the inte...
Lis Smith is a veteran Democratic communications consultant, best known as communications director for the Pete Buttigieg presidential campaign. Her 'more is more' instinct about engaging with the media was an essential component of the strategy to bring Mayor Pete out of nowhere and turn him into a major contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination — much to the irritation of various US senators he leapfrogg...
Nearly five months into Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Western governments have a problem: despite international sanctions and rebukes for Russia's actions, the world's reliance (especially Europe's) on Russian energy is sustaining Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The world is already feeling the effects of the invasion on energy prices, and now Europe has announced it will impose an embargo on Russian oil by th...
A lot of things aren’t working quite like they’re supposed to these days, and air travel is a prime example. Travelers are getting increasingly unreliable airline operations with more flights delayed and canceled, and a more chaotic experience at the airport even when flights go on time — at a moment when fares are very expensive and still rising. And as with so many problems like this, there are multiple reasons for why this is ha...
Financial economist Allison Schrager says you can't have nice things anymore — or at least, you can't have all of them, not in this interest rate environment. After 40 years of falling interest rates, they're sharply rising again, and those higher rates force more discipline on everyone: not just consumers, but businesses and governments, all of which need to confront the higher cost of capital and decide what's...
What happened on January 6 (and in the lead-up to it, with Donald Trump trying to steal the election) was very important. But I have been very bearish on the usefulness of talking to the public more about it — it happened right in front of our faces, it’s not a top priority for persuadable voters, and more time spent marinating on it can simply distract Democrats from more urgent political tasks to hold onto any part of power.
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.
Latino USA is the longest-running news and culture radio program in the U.S. centering Latino stories, hosted by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Maria Hinojosa Every week, the Peabody winning team brings you revealing, in-depth stories about what’s in the hearts and minds of Latinos and their impact on the world. Want to support our independent journalism? Join Futuro+ for exclusive episodes, sneak peaks and behind-the-scenes chisme on Latino USA and all our podcasts. www.futuromediagroup.org/joinplus