The Boiling Frog

Seth Rosenblatt and Mark Olbert
The Boiling Frog

Reflections on the intersection of economics, history, politics, psychology, and science

  1. 04/17/2023

    Jimmy Hoppa

    This podcast is all about labor unions – why they exist, their history in the U.S., a brief comparison with unions in other countries, the pros and cons of unions, and the larger political implications of their existence. This is a controversial topic in U.S. politics, with many voters (and most elected officials) falling squarely into the “pro-union” or “anti-union” camp. But as with most issues, the truth is much more nuanced and complicated. Labor unions in the U.S. formed – and largely still exist – because of failures in market capitalism. As discussed in our very first podcast, capitalism is based on a number of principles to ensure resources are most efficiently allocated, but in real life those principles are rarely met. This is particularly pronounced in the labor market, which is fraught with friction and often monopsony employers.

    37 min

  2. 02/17/2023

    Jump for Joy

    Building off the prior podcast on learning from the past, this discussion is all about success and failure. We all know the common wisdom that we all learn more from failure than from success, but of course we don’t strive to fail all of the time!

    29 min

  3. 12/31/2022

    The Toad Not Taken

    We all spend a lot of time thinking about the past, often when we're trying to make a decision in the present. Sometimes that reflection ends up complicating our decision-making. Why is that? And if we want to avoid repeating past mistakes while also not preventing ourselves from taking new paths, what's the proper way to use our knowledge of the past?

    34 min

  4. 12/11/2022

    Polliwog Polymath

    What makes someone an expert? And how is expertise different from intelligence? This podcast is all about expertise, how we acquire it, how do people view others’ expertise, and the notion of expertise transference from one domain to another. We touch on a number of psychological phenomena, including the Dunning-Kruger Effect, which is a cognitive bias whereby people with low ability at a task overestimate that ability.

    34 min

  5. 12/02/2022

    It’s Not Easy Paying Green

    This podcast is the sequel to Greenbacks, where we discussed why we have taxes, the different types of taxes, and the pros and cons of each type. In this podcast, we delve into the evolution of the tax system and look at the debates surrounding the level of tax rates, specifically some of the false choices presented in political discussions. And we delve deeply into one of the most famous “tax revolts” in U.S. history, California’s Proposition 13.

    33 min

  6. 11/21/2022

    Greenbacks

    “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Benjamin Franklin This podcast is the first in a two-part series on taxes. This episode is meant to be an overview of why we have taxes, the landscape of both taxing agencies and taxable agencies, as well as the different types of taxes. (It is recommended that listeners start with The Boiling Frog’s very first podcast on capitalism before listening to this one).

    28 min

  7. 10/29/2022

    Hops and Dreams

    For the tenth episode, your favorite pond dwellers decided to take a break from the normal, big-picture, topic-based discussions and instead shared their personal pet peeves, including both important as well as some silly issues. This twentieth episode is also a diversion from the normal format, but your amphibious friends decided to do the “opposite” of pet peeves – in this case talk about reasons to be hopeful about the future. This was certainly a challenging discussion as previous podcast discussions could lead all of us to be very pessimistic about the fate of American democracy and our planet.

    28 min

  8. 10/15/2022

    Toad to the White House

    This episode is a deep dive into the foundational requirement of a democracy – having elections and voting. Despite the founding (and often touted) principles of American democracy, it is shockingly inconsistent how we implement it. All U.S. citizens do not have an equal voice, the result of structural inequities in the system (e.g., the U.S. Senate), the leveraging of power to maintain power (e.g. Gerrymandering), the influence of money in primarily privately-funded elections, and a stubborn reliance on 18th and 19th century tools to solve 21st century problems.

    40 min
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5
out of 5
7 Ratings

About

Reflections on the intersection of economics, history, politics, psychology, and science

Information

  • Creator
    Seth Rosenblatt and Mark Olbert
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2023
  • Episodes
    26
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © copyright 2022 Seth Rosenblatt and Mark Olbert
  • Show Website
    The Boiling Frog

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