Crazy Rich Uncles

Michael Strain, economist at the American Enterprise Institute, returns to the Remnant today to explore ...

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Michael Strain, economist at the American Enterprise Institute, returns to the Remnant today to explore the strange state of the American economy. Consumer demand for goods has skyrocketed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and supply chain chaos is dominating the headlines. In these unusual times, should conservatives embrace common good capitalism, or does zombie Reaganism still have plenty to offer? For that matter, which industries have been permanently changed by the pandemic? Have our lives actually improved since March 2020? And can even the most devoted Remnant listener tolerate more than 30 minutes of Jonah and Michael rambling about Battlestar Galactica?

Show Notes:

– Michael’s page at AEI

– Michael’s previous Remnant appearance

– Jonah and Scott Lincicome kvetch about the supply chain

– Michael on the need for an economic cooldown

– Michael: “Republicans Battle Over ‘Socialism-Lite’”

– Hungary eyes

– Jonah on how politics destroyed Battlestar Galactica

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Comments (44)
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  1. Avatar photo
    Brian Levy

    Catching up on the pods and just listened to this one. With all that spaceship talk, I can't believe Jonah didn't ask Michael Strain about his upcoming trip on the Blue Origin. (Sorry, yes, I know, Strahan went to space, but that was too easy to resist).

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  2. Avatar photo
    Malaise Muscle Car

    JoGo, we need to sit down over a cigar and discuss the best Battlestar Galactica, the 1978 original. I'm willing to travel to DC.

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  3. TallCon

    Ahh good, this is really why I pay my monthly fee.

    To say that Battlestar Galactica did not have moral ambiguity in its first two seasons is to throw the baby with the broken neck out with the bath water. (I'd forgotten about that part.) It was morally ambiguous as all get out. The difference is that it was ambiguous in ways that still made sense. You recognized human behavior in it. It took the fear and uncertainty of a post 9/11 world and put it in space. Anyone could be a Cylon. Is it right to through a prisoner out of an airlock because he poses a threat to the last few thousand humans? And if it’s wrong should you do it anyway? It was soaked in “What do we have to do to combat an existential threat?” It gave us a president who was more than a little Cheyney and said “Um… What else can we do?”

    When it started it didn’t feel like it had a political point of view. (Well. President Roslin was 43rd in line for the presidency. WINK.) The world felt topsy turvy and the show reflected that. What if 9/11 AND Pearl Harbor were EVEN BIGGER?

    But then 9/11 got a little further in the rear view. The show became kind of a hit. People in the “respectable” media started paying attention. And the writers got uncomfortable with where their questions were leading to. The first episode started with Roslin saying “We need to start having babies!” Two seasons later we have a pro-choice episode. (When humans are down to 40,000 people does a woman still have a right to choose? Ehhhh, probably not. OTOH would pregnant women be treated like royalty? Why didn’t we explore THAT avenue?)

    They got very tired of the paranoid security that came from who could be a Cylon and its parallels to the real world. So they said “Screw it, here are the Final Five.” (Errrgh.)
    Like Jonah said it eventually came down to “There are good people on both sides.”
    The worst part of New Iraq-ica was the premise doesn’t hold up. “Hey, if the roles were reversed, WE would be suicide bombers too!” Against immortal robots that come back after you blow them up and the only people actually dying are your own folk? NO! The reason for suicide bombers in the real world is so the vastly militarily superior force will lose its will and go home! It was stretching “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” past its breaking point.

    But like Strain mentioned it did have the most astonishingly awesome sequence with a Battlestar falling through the sky that still takes my breath away.

    “Holodeck stupid” will have to become part of my vocabulary.

    “No you won’t this is a podcast!” – Solid 8 on the Cooke / Butler scale.

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  4. Lieseandrew

    You should continue your conversation on Andrew Heaton's sci-fi podcast Alienating the Audience.

    Also, agree with you about culture teaching things economics can't. It's a very Russ Roberts point, that things you can quantify get overstudied and things you can't are understudied. My favorite example:

    "Do Scandinavians have relatively good covid outcomes because of policy, or because this joke is funny?"

    https://static.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/4-5ea9bb9e7309e-png__700.jpg

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  5. GregS

    BSG was fantastic until the very end (there was an excellent philosophically consistent ending available right there, but they didn't take it...).
    Jonahs partisanship is actually blinding him here. I don't doubt that the show runners were doing some partisan nonsense - but the show works just fine if you entirely ignore that undercurrent. In fact, it is a wonderful exploration of the ethics of artificial intelligence, just war, religion, and so on.
    A good example of this is the Narnia books- when I first read them in elementary school I had *no idea* they were an allegory for Christianity. They were good. When I figured out they were poorly disguised religious propaganda, it didn't make the books any worse- they were still good!
    So Jonah - put aside your partisan issues and look at the show on its merits. It's fantastic.

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  6. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    As a listener of both the Remnant and Advisory Opinions, I’m enjoying this rivalry.

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  7. Avatar photo
    CynthiaW

    I watched some of Battlestar Galactica. What I find interesting about the concept in a large sense is that we all know from literally every program and movie ever that manufacturing humans or humanoids is going to turn out to be a fecal festival, but the idea won't go away. Maybe it's the drive to hold slaves without admitting that's what you want, or maybe it's because a lot of men deeply want a Stepford wife/concubine/prostitute, but egad.

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  8. Clark Monson

    Great episode. I particularly loved the internecine rivalry at the end with AO. I like AO, although as a non-lawyer I find a fair bit of it eye glazing these days, but Jonah's dig at it as "the least-dented can on the 50%-off shelf" made me laugh out loud. At work. Well done, Jonah.

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  9. Avatar photo
    Bill Dyer (aka Beldar)

    Dr. Strain mentioned telemedicine as something that's likely to continue, post-pandemic recovery, to be vastly more broadly used than it was pre-pandemic.

    I'll add to that, from experience in my day job, that many, many civil courts will continue to hold their routine motions hearings via videoconference. This is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, I can attend court hearings wearing cargo shorts if I'm careful to keep only my coat-and-tie torso in frame, and I'm likewise careful not to use an animated cat-cartoon filter. And I'm cautiously hopeful that a few more judges, on the margins, who'd previously been stingy with their granting of in-person hearings on pretrial matters may grant a few more with the lower burden of Zooming. (Judges have always been allowed to wear cargo shorts under their robes, by the way.)

    On the other hand, though, I've lost the ability to chat up or sound out colleagues and opponents easily in the hallway or side conference room before and after oral hearings. And yes, I suppose I could still try to get them on Zoom from their offices (or home offices), just as I've always been able to pick up a phone. But there are SO many subtle cues involved in the dance of negotiations! And I can recall many, many occasions on which a face-to-face discussion led to a breakthrough agreement, or even a little extension of courtesy, which made things better for clients and counsel alike. So we'll see.

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  10. Pohl

    I’ve only seen S01 and some of S02 of BSG. Spoilers didn’t bother me as it could be years before I get to rest. First season was decent.
    Jonah, have you discussed Picard and Star Trek Discovery? They’re the only Star Treks I’ve enjoyed since TNG ended, and I think you’re a Trekkie if I’m not mistaken.

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