Americans are having fewer and fewer babies.  In fact, we are not having enough babies simply to replace ourselves.  The total fertility rate has been declining for seven years and last year represented the biggest drop in recent history. There are so many factors involved–cultural and economic–and we explore them in this podcast.  Perhaps, more important is the impact that these declines have on a nation over time. Lyman Stone, a specialist in population change at the American Enterprise Institute, takes us through causes and effects in a way that will have you thinking about this issue in a new light.  Whether your interest is in the decline in teen pregnancies or why women are waiting so long to have their first child, or the technology involved in the process, this podcast will illuminate these issues for you.

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While this podcast has done a number of episodes on the financial crisis over a decade ago, because its effects are still felt on our politics today, none of our previous episodes explained the crisis in such global terms as the one you will hear today.  Adam Tooze, author of ‘Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World’, will expand greatly on your understanding of how this meltdown was going on simultaneously throughout a world entangled in its financial covenants and relationships. Shocking to many will be the understanding that it was our Federal Reserve that saved many European banks, including their central banks.  This could have been much worse than the Great Depression. However, because of the extraordinary measures taken by the United States, akin to a military strategy credited to Colin Powell, many of its worst impacts were blunted. Given that Ben Bernancke, head of the Fed at the time, was a scholar of the Depression, perhaps it’s not surprising that he would not allow America to sleepwalk through this crisis as we had in the previous century.

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The impact of the opioid epidemic in America has twin tentacles in the legal dispensing of prescription painkillers and the the cheap and illegal flow of heroin, as well as synthetics, like fentanyl, into this country.  Underlying the use of these drugs is a country awash in emotional pain, often many years in the making. It’s a sad chapter in American history and it’s compounded by a flawed system that criminalizes addiction, pushes the big bucks agenda of the pharmaceutical companies and leaves many with unenviable choices as to recovery options, if they are available at all.  Ryan Hampton, author of ‘American Fix’, a leading recovery advocate and former White House staffer, with his own personal story of addiction, takes us through this labyrinth in a personal and wrenching way. Given the staggering numbers affected directly or indirectly by the scourge, he believes the millions involved are becoming a major political force in the 2020 election.

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 America, the country, has amassed more debt than any nation in history.  How that reality isn’t cause for screaming front pages headlines daily is something of a mystery, except for the ‘full faith and confidence’ the world has in the creativity of the American economy to grow over time and correct its imbalance.  How else can you explain why other countries continue to buy our debt, when we’re already so debt-ridden? We ponder with budget expert, James Capretta, of the American Enterprise Institute, how long this can go on before all Americans, particularly those receiving entitlement benefits, can expect them to be stable in the face of the growing pressure on the federal budget. The numbers generated by the Congressional Budget Office are staggering and the projections going forward grow more dire with each passing year.  We ring the alarm bell on this episode.

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 Vaccines have literally erased some diseases from the face of the earth, but in most cases they can reoccur if populations ignore the concept of ‘herd immunity’ and begin to doubt their value.  It turns out that the very success of these immunizations makes it harder to see their value to some–‘what me worry’? And in a year when the outbreak of the measles has been seen in various American communities, the voices questioning vaccines, given their own booster by the viral spread of social media, grow louder.  Karen Ernst, executive director of Voices for Vaccines, joins us to spread the gospel of vaccines and to take on the many myths surrounding their necessity and effectiveness. Inoculate yourself against the voodoo science masquerading as truth in this fact free era in America.

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As our society has gotten angrier and more frustrated, our music has reflected that as the soundtrack of our discontent.  Researchers have analyzed lyrics in best selling songs from the 1950’s to 2016 and found that expressions of anger and sadness have increased, while words about joy have dropped.  The study analyzed the lyrics of more than 6,000 songs from the Billboard Hot 100 in each year. Study co-author, Lior Shamir, of the Lawrence Technological University in Michigan, tells us that the dour mood conveyed in song reflects more on those of us who consume the music than those who are making it.  We trace music through the years to see what they learned about how what’s going on in society ends us on our car radios and speakers. And what it’s telling us about this moment in time. It’s a pretty sad song, indeed.

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The concept of a jury of our peers is one of the most sacrosanct in our American system of justice.  Yet, it’s astonishing how few trials ever get to a jury in the first place. And when they do, you may be rocked by what you learn about the process of deliberation in the jury room–it’s opaque and never revealed.  (And don’t you wonder, what kind of discussion really went on in there?) Drury Sherrod, a co-founder of a jury research firm specializing in trial strategy and jury selection, lifts the veil on the process in this podcast and in his new book, ‘The Jury Crisis’.  Are juries really finders of fact and arbiters of justice or led blindly into jury rooms with reams of complicated testimony delivered by lawyers and judges in a hopeless quest to make sense of it? The verdict will be apparent as you listen.

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The decline in brick and mortar retail stores is a real trend that threatens a lot in the way of jobs which are dependent upon this sector, but also the great memories of what a joy we experienced getting to know  shopkeepers in our downtown’s, for example,who influenced our thinking about fashion, books, music and all other pleasures. The demise is not only driven by Amazon, though clearly it is a factor in all of this. Mark Pilkington, author of ‘Retail Therapy: Why the Retail Industry is Broken-And What Can Be Done to Fix It’ lays out the many issues that have brought us to a point where even in Manhattan’s Golden Triangle there are serious levels of story vacancies. And the impacts are massive of real estate, restaurants and suppliers.  We take a deep divide into the issue, with some corrective actions which the industry needs to take to revive itself.

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One third of all the land in America is public. Protected?  Well, that’s another question altogether. In his book, ‘Grand Canyon For Sale’, Stephen Nash makes a compelling case that it is less so than we might suspect or want.  As his fulsome description of the beauty, majesty and awe inspiring sweep of this natural landscape and our other national parks will captivate you, his stark warnings about the political and natural threats to them will anger you and, perhaps, rouse you to action.  He will walk us through the rocky terrain of greedy private interests, aided and abetted by their willing supplicants in government, to sell off these lands, starve them of the support they need and leave us understanding the threats to ‘America’s best idea’. And they are many.  Get to these places soon as climate change’s gnawing reminders are paying particular havoc to our national parks. If you’re like most Americans, this issue is distressing. Absorb what’s in this podcast and call your Congressional representative.

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You do get the feeling that America’s coming apart, don’t you?  In political terms, we either talk past each other or, in this period, don’t talk to each other at all.  So, how did we get here and is there any way to repair the divide? Julian Zelizer, our guest on this podcast and a Princeton professor and frequent commentator on CNN, explores this question, along with his co-author, Kevin Kruse, in their book ‘Fault Lines: A History of the United States Since 1974’.  This phenomenon, many years in the making, cuts across political, economic, racial and sexual lines and is often set against a backdrop of red and blue. And even though they trace much of this back to the disillusionment in the aftermath of Watergate, you have to look to the political and cultural chaos of the 1960’s as to where questions about the ‘establishment’ really began to rage.  No sooner had LBJ’s ‘Great Society’ initiatives begun than Richard Nixon picked up the mantle of a ‘Southern Strategy’ to exacerbate resentments against them. And we’ve been off the races ever since, with the most colorful characters in this national bloodletting coming from the conservative side of the political spectrum. Can we ever crawl back from the political ledge? Listen in.

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