Happy New Year from Pioneer Institute

This week on The Learning Curve, Gurcharan Das, author, public intellectual, and former CEO of Procter & Gamble India, discusses the rise of India since independence to become a thriving, incredibly diverse nation of 1.4 billion people—the world's largest free-market democracy.

Joe Selvaggi talks with Pacific Legal Foundation senior attorney Oliver Dunford about his work on Leachco v. Consumer Product Safety Commission, a case challenging the constitutionality of an executive agency structure (CPSC), in which leadership is beyond presidential removal, which uses its product safety mandate to ban products with no independent recourse for producers.

Joe Selvaggi talks with reporter and author of six climate policy books Robert Bryce about his investigation into the statements made by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commissioner about the safety of gas cooking and the origins of the movement that assert that such appliances could be and should be banned.

Joe Selvaggi talks with Pioneer Institute’s senior fellow Dr. Bill Smith about the changes to drug pricing laws included in the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act provisions and discuss who wins and loses as drug companies announce their response to new law.

This week on The Learning Curve, Cara and Gerard talk with Kevin Chavous, president of Stride K12, Inc. and a former member of the Council of the District of Columbia, on the growing movement toward school choice in education. Chavous discusses recent Supreme Court rulings and the expansion of school choice programs, education savings accounts, and vouchers.

We at Pioneer Institute mourn the loss of Tom Birmingham even as we are thankful for having had the opportunity to get to know this kind and brilliant man when in office and later, when he spent several years as Pioneer’s distinguished senior fellow in education.

Host Joe Selvaggi talks with Cato Institute research fellow Colin Grabow about the failure of the Jones Act, a law that sought to protect the U.S. shipbuilding and merchant marine capacity. They examine its downstream effects on inflation, supply chain fragility, and energy access that directly affect every American.

This week on “The Learning Curve," co-hosts Cara Candal and Gerard Robinson talk with Dr. Richard Vedder, Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute and Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Economics at Ohio University. He shares analysis on the macro impact of COVID on the U.S. labor market, and the long-term economic prospects of American college students. He reviews insights from his recent book, "Restoring the Promise: Higher Education in America."

Professor Roosevelt Montás, Director of the Freedom and Citizenship Program at Columbia University, and author of Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation, shares his immigrant story and what inspired his appreciation for the Great Books tradition.