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On Black Friday, the biggest Holiday shopping day of the year, Ed and I thought it would be fun to review the book, Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn’t Buy Presents for the Holidays, by Joel Waldfogel, published in 2009. Waldfogel estimates that giving gifts nobody wants is a deadweight loss to the economy to the tune of approximately $12 Billion, mostly on credit cards. Money we don’t have to buy things people don’t want. As he writes, when you say to your mother-in-law, “A cribbage board. You shouldn’t have.” Indeed, she shouldn’t have, according to the author. As you prepare to go out and contribute to the expected $77.5B in the Holiday shopping spree, have a listen to a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of giving gifts.

The Beatles are considered the most influential popular music act of the twentieth century, widely recognized for their influence on popular culture. The inability of other bands and artists to imitate their fame has prompted questions such as: How did the Beatles become so successful? What factors contributed to their success? Why did they break up? Ron and Ed will explore these questions and more in their interview with Professor Samuel R. Staley, author of The Beatles and Economics

Drones are among the most exciting and promising new technologies to emerge in the last few decades. Photographers, firefighters, filmmakers, engineers, and retailers have all used drones to improve public safety, innovate, and enhance creativity. Yet drones pose unique regulatory and privacy issues, and lawmakers at the federal and state levels are adopting policies that both ensure the safety of our national airspace and restrict the use of warrantless aerial surveillance. At a time when low-flying drones are affordable and ubiquitous, how useful are the airspace regulations and privacy laws designed for traditional airplanes and helicopters? Is there a way to build a regulatory and legal environment that ensures entrepreneurs and hobbyists can safely use drones while also protecting us from intrusive aerial surveillance?

Ron and Ed welcome back Professor Baruch Lev from NYU Stern Business School. He was last on back in July 2016 and we discussed his book, The End of Accounting and the Path Forward for Investors and Managers. We talk more about that book and his more recent article in Accounting Today, The sad state of accounting standards.

Would you rather pay for healthcare or for better health? For school or education? For groceries or nutrition? A car or transportation? A theater performance or entertainment? In The Ends Game, Marco Bertini describes how some firms are rewriting the rules of commerce: instead of selling the means (their products and services), they adopt innovative revenue models to pursue ends (actual outcomes). Ron and Ed are thrilled to have Marco on the show for what promises to be a stimulating conversation.

Ed and Ron are honored to welcome back Dan Morris, CPA, to the show. He's a master at the value conversation, and implemented Value Pricing back in his firm in 1996. He specializes in cryptocurrencies, wealth management, asset protection, multinational tax structures, tax optimization and much more. An excellent conversationalist, you don't want to miss this episode with one of the most innovative CPAs we know.

Inspired by A. J. Jacobs when he appeared on Russ Robert's great podcast EconTalk, Ron and Ed have each been keeping a One Thing journal for the last few years. In this episode, they will share some of the best One Things.

We miss Free-Rider Friday's, so were it bringing it back, but just this once. We used to do this on the last Friday of every month. Most of our shows are “topic” driven, where we dive deep into one subject. Free-Rider Fridays were designed to be “event” driven, whatever issues are in the news that we (or you) find worthy of commentary. In economics, free riding means reaping the benefits from the actions of others and consequently refusing to bear the full costs of those actions. This means Ed and Ron will free ride off of the news, and each other, with no advanced knowledge of the events either will bring up. It's also a chance to clear out our stacks of stuff!

In Episode 349, Ron and Ed shared their thoughts and concerns about Woke Capitalism. In an email, Dr. Kimberlee Josephson wrote them saying, I just began listening to your podcast and I’m glad to have stumbled upon it! I wanted to reach out about your Woke Capitalism/ESG segment since this is an area I am trying to voice concern over. Well, in this episode we look forward to Kimberlee sharing those concerns with us.

Joining Ron and Ed this week is two-time Guest Joe Woodard. Joe's vision is to transform small businesses through small business advisors. In the service of that vision, he and his team educate, coach, provide resources and build communities for small business advisors, with the overarching goal of empowering them to play a powerful, high-impact advisory role with their clients.

In addition to a general Subscription Economy update, Ed and Ron will discuss what happens when the subscription model collides with a legacy model. There are essentially three ways to a launch a subscription model. What does the empirical report so far on the most optimal approach? Can you have two business models within the same organization? Join us for an in-depth look at these issues.

Over 90% of decision-making is supposedly unconscious and automatic. Behavioral Economics has sought to understand human behavior. It has identified many human biases. It has also come under recent indictment because of fraud in its data reporting and the non-replication of its findings by other academics. Join Ed and Ron for a discussion of some of the more prevalent biases found by, and the criticisms of, behavioral economics.

Ron and Ed welcome David C Baker, the leading authority on positioning, reinventing, and selling firms in the creative and digital space, to the show. David is the author of five books, three of which focus on the central elements of the business of expertise: positioning, financial management, and leadership. David speaks regularly on more than 70 topics relevant to entrepreneurial expertise, from 20 executives to 5,000 live on TV, all over the world. We will speak with him primarily about his book, The Business of Expertise.

How do we protect the consumer from shoddy, fraudulent, or dangerous products and services? There's a long tradition that government must do something, which has led to a proverbial alphabet soup of regulatory bodies: the FDA, CPSC, USDA, and many more. Join Ed and Ron as they explore the legitimate issue of market failure, and also the less recognized government failure.

Three weeks ago, Ron and Ed interviewed Antony Davies co-host of the Word and Numbers podcast. This week they welcome Antony's co-host, political scientist James R. Harrigan. James is the F. A. Hayek Distinguished Fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education and the director of education at the Freedom Center at the University of Arizona. He co-hosts the Words & Numbers podcast and has written for The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and a host of other outlets. Previously, he served as dean of the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani.

In government and political science courses, students are taught the traditional “political/economic spectrum.” It shows Communism on the far left end of the spectrum; moving to the right, then Socialism; then Capitalism; and Fascism is at the far right end of the spectrum. Yet this spectrum is not only misleading, it is false. Join Ed and Ron for a discussion of why that is, and what the real political/economic spectrum actually looks like.

Join Ed, Ron, and VeraSage Senior Fellow, and recidivist guest, Dr. Reginald Lee, as they engage in a round-table discussion about value, pricing, cost accounting, project management, and capacity; and how they all change, and don’t change, in the subscription business model. This is an adaptation of a Bonus Episode from July 14th that ran for approximately 80 minutes, available to our Cost-Plus Subscribers on our Patreon channel (https://www.patreon.com/TSOE).

Ron and Ed will be joined by Professor Antony Davies, associate professor of economics at Duquesne University. He is co-host of the podcast, Words & Numbers with Professor James Harrigan. He is co-inventor on a patent for generating supercomputing power from idle Internet-connected computers, and recipient of a NASA grant for developing statistical techniques for data mining using supercomputers. In other words, he is super smart.

Even though forty-five states permit marijuana, and one-third of Americans live in a location where recreational marijuana use is legal, it is still a controlled substance as a matter of federal law. Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas recently wrote: “Once comprehensive, the Federal Government’s current approach is a half-in, half-out regime that simultaneously tolerates and forbids local use of marijuana. This contradictory and unstable state of affairs strains basic principles of federalism and conceals traps for the unwary.” Including accounting and tax traps. Ken Teasdale, audit partner at Armanino, will help us understand the many complex issues associated with this industry.

Should sustainability be our new standard for investing? According to Larry Fink of BlackRock (more than $7 trillion in assets) the answer is yes. The ESG movement is an investment trend focused on Environmental, Social, and Governance matters in assessing a company’s long-term value. American investors have put more than $20 billion into ESG funds in 2019. Will ESG save the world from climate change, increase social and racial justice, eliminate fossil fuels, etc.? This is a new variant of the prior ideas of Corporate Social Responsibility, Social Responsibility Investing, and the Stakeholder theory of corporations. Is ESG being used to alter the structure of the capital markets? Does it really offer superior returns? This is a complex issue and we can see it manifested in how corporate CEOs are more willing to be involved in politics. Join Ed and Ron to discuss these ideas and see if we should be worried, or just concerned?