The American Compass Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Policy in Brief: Pro-Worker Bankruptcy Reform Jan 23, 2023

Show notes

On this episode of Policy in Brief, Oren Cass and Chris Griswold take a look at the damage done to workers and local communities when businesses go bankrupt. Jobs are destroyed, wages are reduced, and local tax bases are devastated. When financial markets push firms to assume excessive risk in pursuit of higher rewards, workers and communities are left holding the bag.

Oren and Chris propose a series of reforms to the bankruptcy code that would prioritize workers and small businesses in the event of a corporate collapse. The goal: better align risk and reward by increasing the potential costs of bankruptcy and risky financial strategies, promoting more responsible investor behavior.
Further Reading:

American Compass policy brief: Pro-Worker Bankruptcy Reform
Employee Costs of Corporate Bankruptcy (John Graham, Hyunseob Kim, Si Li, & Jiaping Qiu; Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago)
Confronting Coin-Flip Capitalism (Oren Cass, American Compass)
A Guide to Private Equity (American Compass)
Foreign Investors Have Been Big U.S. Stock Buyers (Deborah D’Souza, Investopedia)
Private Equity: Overvalued and Overrated? (Daniel Rasmussen, American Affairs)

Policy in Brief: A Monthly Family Benefit Dec 07, 2022

Show notes

In the spirit of the holidays, this episode of Policy in Brief focuses on the family and what public policy can do to support this vital institution. American Compass executive director Oren Cass and policy director Chris Griswold are joined by special guest and research director Wells King for this discussion of a monthly family benefit, as conceived in our Family Income Supplemental Credit (Fisc) proposal.
Further Reading:

American Compass policy brief: A Monthly Family Benefit
The Family Income Supplemental Credit (Oren Cass & Wells King, American Compass)
Americans Support a Generous Child Benefit Tied to Work (American Compass)
The Family Security Act 2.0 (Sen. Mitt Romney, Sen. Richard Burr, & Sen. Steve Daines)
Romney Revamps His Family Security Act (Patrick T. Brown, Ethics & Public Policy Center)

Policy in Brief: Financing Higher Education Nov 16, 2022

Show notes

On this episode of Policy in Brief, Oren Cass and Chris Griswold discuss how we should finance higher education in the U.S. Instead of simply offering blanket student debt forgiveness, they explore how to rethink financing from the ground up. Their proposals include treating student debt like all other debt so it can be discharged in bankruptcy, and putting colleges and universities directly on the hook for their graduates' future success.
Further Reading:

American Compass policy briefs: Student Debt Relief the Old-Fashioned Way and Self-Financing by Colleges
The Banality of Student Loans (Oren Cass, American Compass)
A Guide to College-for-All (American Compass)
The False Promise of Good Jobs (Oren Cass & Richard Oyeniran, American Compass)
Colleges Should Only Succeed When Students Do (Mike Reeser, Texas State Technical College)

Policy in Brief: Worker-Run Benefits Nov 03, 2022

Show notes

On this episode of Policy in Brief, Oren Cass is joined as always by American Compass policy director Chris Griswold to discuss a proposal to allow workers to administer their own employee benefits through organizations they control. This would be an American version of the Ghent system, a successful European model that improves benefit provision because it's more accountable than either government or employers.
Further Reading:
American Compass policy brief: Worker-Run Benefits
A Better Bargain: Worker Solidarity and Mutual Support (Wells King, American Compass)
Not What They Bargained For: A Survey of American Workers (American Compass)

Policy in Brief: Balancing U.S. Trade Oct 19, 2022

Show notes

On this episode of Policy in Brief, Oren Cass is joined by American Compass policy director Chris Griswold to discuss how U.S. trade fell so far out of balance—and some ideas for how to rebalance it. They explore three key ideas: the global tariff, the import certificate, and the market access charge. All three use market forces to bring trade into balance and help fix the decades-long erosion of American industry and innovation.
Further Reading:
American Compass policy briefs: The Global Tariff, The Import Certificate, and The Market Access Charge
Regaining Our Balance(American Compass)
Searching for Capitalism in the Wreckage of Globalization (Oren Cass, American Compass)
Where's the Growth? (American Compass)
Here’s How I Would Solve the Trade Problem (Warren Buffett, Fortune)
Robert Lighthizer on the need for tariffs to reduce America’s trade deficit (The Economist)
Why the Market Access Charge is Necessary to Fix Trade Imbalances (John R. Hansen, Coalition for a Prosperous America)

Policy in Brief: Online Age Verification Sep 28, 2022

Show notes

On this episode of Policy in Brief, Oren Cass is joined by American Compass policy director Chris Griswold to discuss a proposal to create an online age-verification system to keep kids safe online. They discuss how the current system leaves children unprotected, potential privacy concerns, and why the public sector needs to step in to help parents protect their kids online.
Further reading:
Lost in the Super Market (American Compass)
Protecting Children from Social Media (Chris Griswold, National Affairs)
How Changing One Law Could Protect Kids From Social Media (Yuval Levin, The New York Times)
The Dangerous Experiment on Teen Girls (Jonathan Haidt, The Atlantic)
Kids Online Safety Act

Policy in Brief: The Workforce Training Grant Sep 12, 2022

Show notes

On the inaugural episode of Policy in Brief, American Compass executive director Oren Cass is joined by policy director Chris Griswold to discuss the Workforce Training Grant, a proposal to create a meaningful alternative pathway to college for the majority of young Americans who are being left behind by the current "college-for-all" model. They discuss the failings of our current system, how a program connecting trainees with employers would work, and the bill recently introduced by Senator Cotton that was modeled off of this proposal.
Further reading:
The Workforce Training Grant Policy Brief (American Compass)
The full Workforce Training Grant white paper (American Compass)
Rebuilding from the College Catastrophe Starts Here (Oren Cass, American Compass)
American Workforce Act (Sen. Tom Cotton)
What Republicans Should Do if They Win Big This Fall (Oren Cass and Chris Griswold, New York Times)
After Student-Debt Relief, America Must Move Beyond 'College for All' (Wells King, Newsweek)

Critics Corner with Michael Strain Feb 23, 2022

Show notes

In this episode, Michael Strain joins Oren in the Critics Corner to discuss what he calls "grievance-onomics," the reasons we should or should not have confidence in corporations pursuing their own profits will act in ways that benefit the American people, and policy implications on issues ranging from trade and investment to education and immigration. Michael is the director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

Critics Corner with Vinnie Vernuccio Oct 07, 2021

Show notes

In this episode, Vinnie Vernuccio joins Oren in the Critics Corner to discuss issues with labor policy today, debating whether American workers would benefit more from collective action or individual flexibility. Vinnie is the president of the Institute for the American Worker and a senior fellow at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

Critics Corner with Jon Hartley Aug 11, 2021

Show notes

On this episode of Critics Corner, Oren is joined by Jon Hartley, a visiting fellow at the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity and a former senior policy advisor to the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee. They discuss the purpose of finance, the value it creates, the places it can go wrong, as well as the pros and cons of various policy responses—including some they actually agree on.

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