Some great conversations made my time in the car much better this week

  1. Steven Teles is one of the most insightful people writing about conservatism and government, from the Federalist Society to the kludgy way government has evolved. He’s a liberal working with libertarians at the Niskanen Center and his latest book with Brink Lindsey is about The Captured Economy. He talks with Steven Heyward on the Power Line Show about his book, the unintended consequences of bipartisan efforts to reinvent government in the 1990s, how the Dartmouth Review led to Donald Trump, and much else with references to so many books you could build a full library.
  2. Reinventing government was about measuring performance. Jerry Muller dives deeper into The Tyranny of Metrics with Russ Roberts on EconTalk. They cover teachers, finance, nonprofits, and the subcult of managerialism as a branch of scientism.
  3. Finally, and fortuitously, Wayfair’s founders talk with Guy Raz on How I Built This about how what started as a website selling racks and stands for televisions and stereos eventually came to encompass a suite of sites selling everything from grandfather clocks to hot plates and even rooster decor (go ahead, Google “rooster decor wayfair”) before becoming a single site selling $5 billion worth of home goods that had oral arguments before the Supreme Court Tuesday. The High Point Furniture Market even gets some time.