Glenn Loury invites guests from the worlds of academia, journalism and public affairs to share insights on economic, political and social issues.
Order Glenn's memoir, LATE ADMISSIONS: CONFESSIONS OF A BLACK CONSERVATIVE. Available here or wherever you get your books: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393881349
0:00 Rajiv’s report from the FIRE conference
3:11 Roland Fryer’s keynote address
13:26 Ta-Nehisi Coates’s humanist universalism
17:25 “Tolstoy is the Tolstoy of the Zulus”
18:50 Rajiv’s reading of Coates’s stand on “apartheid”
31:55 The gap between election forecasting models and prediction markets
36:52 The limits of models and markets
39:59 Rajiv: The markets show us a balance between narratives about the election
44:17 Is one crypto trader manipulating the prediction markets in favor of Trump?
53:12 Rajiv: Prediction markets may have sent early signals about January 6
55:19 Rajiv’s family history with Kamala Harris
57:45 The new prominence of Indian Americans in politics
1:03:07 The axiom of antiessentialism
Recorded October 27, 2024
Links and Readings
Rajiv’s Substack, Imperfect Information
Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
Lara Bazelon’s 2022 Atlantic essay, “The ACLU Has Lost Its Way”
Glenn’s 2021 conversation with Bazelon
Glenn’s 2023 conversation with Erec Smith
Eugene Volokh on the Hamline University-Prophet Muhammad painting controversy
Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book, The Message
Coates’s 2010 Atlantic essay, “The Ghost of Bobby Lee”
Ralph Wiley’s book, Dark Witness: When Black People Should Be Sacrificed (Again)
Last week’s TGS debate about The Messsage
Orlando Patterson’s book, Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study
Glenn’s book, The Anatomy of Racial Inequality
Glenn’s memoir, Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative
Recorded October 27, 2024
Links and Readings
Rajiv’s Substack, Imperfect Information
Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
Lara Bazelon’s 2022 Atlantic essay, “The ACLU Has Lost Its Way”
Glenn’s 2021 conversation with Bazelon
Glenn’s 2023 conversation with Erec Smith
Eugene Volokh on the Hamline University-Prophet Muhammad painting controversy
Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book, The Message
Coates’s 2010 Atlantic essay, “The Ghost of Bobby Lee”
Ralph Wiley’s book, Dark Witness: When Black People Should Be Sacrificed (Again)
Last week’s TGS debate about The Messsage
Orlando Patterson’s book, Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study
Glenn’s book, The Anatomy of Racial Inequality
Glenn’s memoir, Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative
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1:22 The Coates debate continues
3:18 John: Coates is a beautiful writer, but …
5:44 John: … The Message is suffused with incuriosity and simplistic thinking
13:45 Glenn: Coates is talking about humanism and power, not race
18:11 Ground News ad
20:25 Is it “all about whitey”?
22:11 Glenn: Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote this book. What am I doing?
27:40 What kind of historical imagination is at work in The Message?
34:11 Moral clarity or abdication of responsibility?
36:30 Pro-Palestinian writers John considers acceptable
41:54 The next entries in Glenn and John’s book club
42:04 Coates’s now notorious interview on CBS Mornings
48:45 What is the black intellectual’s role today?
52:16 The counterexample of South Africa
Recorded October 19, 2024
Links and Readings
Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book, The Message
Glenn and John’s previous conversation
John’s NYT column, “Ta-Nehisi Coates and the Myth of Black Fragility”
Michael Chabon’s novel, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
Judge Andrew Napolitano on YouTube
Trevor Noah’s conversation with Coates
Ezra Klein’s conversation with Coates
Peter Beinart’s conversation with Coates
David Greenberg’s new book, John Lewis: A Life
Karen and Barbara Fields’s book, Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life
Glenn’s memoir, Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative
James Baldwin’s essay, “Letter from a Region in My Mind”
Order Glenn's memoir, LATE ADMISSIONS: CONFESSIONS OF A BLACK CONSERVATIVE. Available here or wherever you get your books: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393881349
Incogni is your personal data defender, safeguarding you from these digital predators. Use code GLENN at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: http://incogni.com/glenn
1:41 Penn’s sanctions against Amy
7:47 What’s at stake in the charges against Amy?
14:03 The trouble with “hate speech”
17:48 Should we abolish the nation-state?
21:38 The debates that can’t happen in the university
26:44 Ethnonationalism and group differences
33:11 Amy’s defense of maintaining an “Anglo-Protestant” American majority
42:32 Amy’s concerns about Asian migration
47:52 Are immigrants bringing lax attitudes toward property rights with them?
52:52 Glenn: Immigrants impart dynamism to a culture that’s always been in flux
1:01:13 Glenn and Amy talk about porn
1:07:51 The absence of virtue in political discourse
1:13:05 Amy’s next steps
Recorded October 12, 2024
Links and Readings
Amy’s Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed, “Paying the Price for the Breakdown of the Country’s Bourgeois Culture”
Glenn and Amy’s 2017 conversation, “The Downside to Social Uplift”
Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
Ta-Nehisi Coates’s new book, The Message
William Vogelei’s Claremont Review of Books review of Robert Kagan’s Rebellion: How Antiliberalism Is Tearing America Apart—Again
Coleman Hughes’s book, The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America
Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson’s book, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
Daniel Di Martino’s recent appearance on The Glenn Show
Irving Kristol’s 1971 essay, “Pornography, Obscenity, and the Case for Censorship”
Glenn’s essay, “The Case for Black Patriotism”
1:12 The Vance-Walz debate
4:28 Glenn: Ta-Nehisi Coates’s new book is brilliant
13:16 John and Coates’s ancient beef
15:31 Coates’s “blistering” critique of Zionism
18:22 Ground News ad
20:39 Do you have to solve the problem of “apartheid” in order to criticize it?
33:10 Glenn’s reappraisal of Coates (and John’s bemusement)
34:53 ACTA ad 36:39 Will the race card play for Eric Adams?
42:31 What has Eric Adams accomplished?
43:57 Why John defends Amy Wax
49:17 Glenn: Amy Wax gets to have her opinion
Recorded October 5, 2024
Links and Readings
Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book, The Message
Coleman Hughes’s Free Press review of The Message
Coates’s book, Between the World and Me
Coates’s Atlantic essay, “The Case for Reparations”
Glenn and John’s in-person TGS episode
Andrew Yang’s Newsweek piece, “I Ran against Eric Adams. I Saw This Coming.”
John’s NYT piece, “She Is Outrageous, Demeaning, Dangerous. She Shouldn’t Be Punished.”
Amy Wax’s December 2021 TGS appearance
Wax’s August 2022 TGS appearance
Wax’s March 2024 TGS appearance
Richard Sander’s Stanford Law Review article, “A Systematic Analysis of Affirmative Action in American Law Schools”
Order Glenn's memoir, LATE ADMISSIONS: CONFESSIONS OF A BLACK CONSERVATIVE. Available here or wherever you get your books: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393881349
1:15 Why Daniel immigrated to the US
5:14 What went wrong in Venezuela?
8:45 Daniel: Both the Biden administration and global trends are to blame for the border crisis
11:19 Trump promises to deport record numbers of illegal immigrants. But can he?
13:00 What’s it take to fix immigration? Money.
18:39 The flawed strategy of making immigration into Mexico’s problem
20:48 The bad information and rumors fueling asylum-seekers
23:18 Should residency visa programs prioritize the richest immigrants?
32:13 The labor market consequences of immigration
37:27 Daniel’s large-scale proposals for national immigration policy
43:00 How many unauthorized immigrants are in US right now?
45:23 The political realities of immigration reform44:08 The political realities of immigration reform
Recorded September 23, 2025
Links and Readings
Daniel’s writing for City Journal
Daniel’s report for the Manhattan Institute, “The Lifetime Fiscal Impact of Immigrants”
A couple weeks ago, I did my own solo Q&A session. Now John is back, and I decided to put him in the hot seat. Let’s get into it. Yan Shen asks our opinion of the contretemps between Nancy Mace and Michael Eric Dyson. Stan asks if we’ve seen Matt Walsh’s film, Am I Racist?. Eli, noting the rampant grade inflation at many institutions, asks if we have a way of fixing the problem and wants to know if our own grading standards have changed over the years (here’s the Yascha Mounk post she references). RAO wants to know what we think of alternative education, like home schooling, micro-schools, charter schools, and so on. Jerry Zuriff wants to know why John likes hip-hop. Given that, on average, American girls perform better than American boys in high school, Michael asks if colleges should give preferences to males over females. Or would that run afoul of SFFA v. Harvard? And finally, DG wants to know why John never got interested in sports.
Order Glenn's memoir, LATE ADMISSIONS: CONFESSIONS OF A BLACK CONSERVATIVE. Available here or wherever you get your books: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393881349
1:28 John corrects some Wikipedia-driven misconceptions about his work
4:12 ChatGPT pays homage to Glenn and John
6:41 John: JD Vance actually is what I’m merely accused of being
17:59 Ground News ad 20:08 Are there any true sellouts among black conservatives?
28:32 And what is a sellout, anyway?
36:01 What goes on between Clarence and Ginni Thomas?
40:19 An addition to the book club reading list
42:08 ACTA ad
43:54 Remembering Linda Datcher Loury
49:00 Should having children be the norm?
56:34 Glenn sightings in the wild
57:32 Working without a net
Recorded September 23, 2024
Links and Readings
John’s NYT column, “Why JD Vance Dropped into My Inbox”
JD Vance’s book, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
John’s book, Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America
Randall Kennedy’s book, Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal
David Greenberg’s forthcoming book, John Lewis: A Life
David Lodge’s novel, Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses
Barbara and Karen Fields’s book, Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life
Percival Everett’s novel, James
RF Kuang’s novel, Babel, or the Necessity of Violence
Clint Smith’s Atlantic piece, “George Floyd Was Also a Father”
Order Glenn's memoir, LATE ADMISSIONS: CONFESSIONS OF A BLACK CONSERVATIVE. Available here or wherever you get your books: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393881349
0:14 Larry Kotlikoff for President?
5:40 Larry’s plan to save social security
9:30 Reincentivizing work, saving, and staying in the US
14:55 Rewriting the story about income and labor
21:08 Why a 10% tariff could amount to a new national sales tax or worse
23:33 Glenn: Trade with other nations is not a zero-sum game
29:15 Taxing billionaires on consumption rather than income
34:43 The price of shame
38:40 Maintaining competitive conditions with universal health insurance
44:49 What’s causing inflation?
52:26 How big of a problem is the national debt?
Recorded September 4, 2024
Links and Readings
Larry’s book, with Philip Moeller and Paul Solman, Getting What’s Yours: The Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security
Larry’s book, with Scott Burns, The Coming Generational Storm: What You Need to Know about America’s Economic Future
Larry’s book, Jimmy Stewart Is Dead: Ending the World's Ongoing Financial Plague with Limited Purpose Banking
Larry’s financial planning program, MaxiFi
Larry’s book, You’re Hired: A Trump Playbook for Fixing America’s Economy
Larry’s book, The Healthcare Fix: Universal Insurance for All Americans
Martyn Clark asks how economists factor idiosyncratic, unpredictable human behavior into their abstract modeling. Young Törless asks Glenn to weigh in on the presidential candidates’ approaches to—or avoidance of—the problem of the national debt. BB asks Glenn which economic theories or concepts haven’t stood the test of time. Stan asks what three policies would make the biggest difference in improving the lives of black people. Eli asks if technological progress and our ever-increasing knowledge about the world may end up being a bad thing for humanity. Luke Englund asks if the conservative movement has compromised too much for the sake of Donald Trump. And finally, therealnewyorker asks what issues I would feel compelled to talk about if racial politics disappeared tomorrow.
Order Glenn's memoir, LATE ADMISSIONS: CONFESSIONS OF A BLACK CONSERVATIVE. Available here or wherever you get your books: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393881349
0:59 Glenn debuts his new studio
2:34 Life after academia
13:02 The challenge of having a lot of time on your hands
18:10 John’s new musical endeavors
20:20 Ground News ad
22:38 John’s forthcoming book, Pronoun Trouble: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words
25:07 Glenn and John form an impromptu book club
29:43 The first class of post-Students for Fair Admissions college freshmen
36:22 Are black students being shut out of the upper echelons of American society?
40:33 The Supreme Court’s “indirect beneficial endowment” to HBCUs
46:42 Glenn: “The wheel is turning” on race politics in America
52:18 ACTA ad
54:26 Plagiarism in Robin DiAngelo’s dissertation
57:02 John: I don’t recognize the world that Danzy Senna and Ketanji Brown Jackson describe, even though I lived in it
1:04:07 Did Thomas Chatterton Williams really say what he said to Danzy Senna?
Recorded September 8, 2024
Links and Readings
The Rest Is History on Apple Podcasts
Preorder John’s forthcoming book, Pronoun Trouble: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words
David Kaiser’s book, States of the Union: A History of the United States through Presidential Addresses, 1789-2023
David Kaiser discusses his book States of the Union on TGS
Sari Nusseibeh’s memoir, Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life
David Greenberg’s forthcoming book, John Lewis: A Life
Danzy Senna’s novel, Colored Television
Percival Everett’s novel, James
Ketanji Brown Jackson’s memoir, Lovely One
John’s book, Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America
Thomas Chatterton Williams’s book, Self-Portrait in Black and White: Unlearning Race
Order Glenn's memoir, LATE ADMISSIONS: CONFESSIONS OF A BLACK CONSERVATIVE. Available here or wherever you get your books: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393881349
0:59 How Harry met Glenn
3:44 Black girls and women are doing relatively well. Why aren’t black boys and men?
11:21 Harry: Some of the barriers are structural, some are cultural
18:20 The crude toolkit for fixing child support
25:15 Black teachers, tutoring, and “high-quality career and tech ed”
31:44 In schools, one size doesn’t fit all
35:22 Three ways to improve employment prospects
39:10 Glenn asks “the Chicago question”
42:09 Discrimination against ex-convicts
50:38 Immigration’s impact on black employment
53:29 Are too many people in prison?
56:07 Harry: Progressives are oblivious to the backlash they generate
Recorded August 20, 2024
Links and Readings
Harry and Richard J. Freeman’s 1986 edited collection, The Black Youth Employment Crisis
Melissa Kearney’s book, The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind
Isabel V. Sawhill’s book, Generation Unbound: Drifting into Sex and Parenthood without Marriage
Douglas Harris’s book, Charter School City: What the End of Traditional Public Schools in New Orleans Means for American Education
Glenn’s paper with Young-Chul Kim, “Rebranding Ex-Convicts”
William Julius Wilson’s book, The Declining Significance of Race: Blacks and Changing American Institutions
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