Majoring in Debt

The midterms are over, and if your phone, mailbox, and TV seem a little quieter, there’s a reason: the most expensive midterm cycle on record just turned off the tap on text blasts, attack ads, and glossy mailers. So where did all those billions actually go? Why would anyone spend that much chasing a political office, and what is a single vote really worth? Nurse your election hangover with Lou and Phil on this week’s Happy Hour Econ.

Every October, a committee in Stockholm crowns the year’s top minds in economics with a medal, a royal handshake, and a very large check, all in the name of the man who invented dynamite. But does the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences still carry the weight it once did? Between laureates honored for formulas only a statistician could love and winners who’ve spent their prestige on political punditry, Phil has some notes. And some names. Save a stool at the bar for this week’s Happy Hour Econ, as Lou and Phil hand out a few awards of their own.

Plant-based burgers were supposed to take over the dinner table. Instead, they’re gathering frost in the freezer aisle while shoppers make a beeline for the brisket and sirloin. So what keeps fake meat on the shelves, and what would actually happen if we all gave up the real thing? Enjoy a tall glass of oat milk with Lou and Phil as they chew on diet trends, crop yields, and the curious case of conspicuous production on this week’s Happy Hour Econ.

Steel is back, baby! At least, that’s the pitch, now that a company plans to build the largest steel mill in U.S. history (in the fields of Iowa) and politicians are already taking a victory lap four years before a single beam rolls off the line. But is this a real industrial comeback, or the latest chapter in a protectionist saga that started before the ink on the Constitution was dry? Lou and Phil find out whether Big Steel’s big promises have any mettle at all on this week’s Happy Hour Econ.

Ah, college. A time for late-night study sessions, questionable roommates, and, of course, finding yourself. But what happens when the bill for all that soul-searching comes due? With new rules set to limit federal loans for degrees that don’t earn enough, Lou and Phil take a hard look at the economics of higher ed: who’s paying the bill, who’s cashing in, and whether a diploma is worth the price. Class is in session at the bar on this week’s Happy Hour Econ. No tuition required.

Last week, Lou and Phil looked at the claim that American capitalism was built on slavery. This week, they turn to what slavery actually cost, both to the enslaved people who were denied any choice in their own work and to a Southern economy that fell far behind the North. Along the way, they look at why the American founding set much of the country on a path to abolition, and why forced labor still persists wherever the rule of law breaks down. Listen to the full episode of Happy Hour Econ with Lou and Phil.

A recent CNN debate put a pointed question before a national audience. Is capitalism bound up with racism and slavery? Slavery predates writing, and it predates capitalism by thousands of years, yet a growing body of scholarship argues that the modern American economy rests on the forced labor of enslaved people. In this week's Happy Hour Econ, Lou and Phil test those claims against the historical record and revisit what the defenders of slavery themselves had to say about free markets.

Nothing says we're doing something quite like a fresh round of economic sanctions. They're cheap, they're popular, and they let politicians look tough without adding much pain at home for Americans. But do they actually work? From Iran to Cuba, with oil tankers quietly dodging the rules in between, Lou and Phil look at who really ends up picking up the tab when a nation gets cut off. Pour something strong and press play on this episode of Happy Hour Econ.

Somewhere between tariffs, resurrected 1930s legislation, and a rebranded Great Lake, the United States decided to start a trade war with its most polite neighbor. Section 338 of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act—yes, that Smoot-Hawley—has been dusted off from the legislative graveyard to justify slapping Canada with tariffs nobody can quite explain the reasoning behind. Lou and Phil sort through the legal mess, the retaliatory liquor store bans, and a history lesson on the one war America actually lost, all while asking who really foots the bill when two friendly countries start slapping tariffs on each other. Pour yourself a drink and settle in for an episode that's equal parts economics lecture and international incident.

Dolly Parton was so beloved that her passing briefly brought the nation together. She was a country music icon and savvy entrepreneur who built a genuine business empire from a childhood spent in a one-room Appalachian cabin. Lou and Phil look at how she held onto her publishing rights when so many artists signed them away, turned a struggling stretch of Tennessee into a tourism powerhouse with Dollywood, and quietly gave away hundreds of millions of books through her Imagination Library. It's a rags-to-riches story that somehow undersells just how much she actually built. Pour one out for Dolly and tune in for Lou and Phil's full toast.