It's Tuesday, November the 9th, and welcome back to Goodfellons, a Hoover Institution

broadcast examining social, economic, political, and geopolitical concerns.

I'm Bill Whalen. I'm a Hoover Distinguished Policy Fellow. I'll be your moderator today.

That means I got a ringside seat to a great conversation featuring three decidedly wise men. That'd be the historian Neil Ferguson, the economist John Cochran, and the geostrategist slash hopeless optimist, Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster.

And we have a special guest for you today. Joining us via Zoom is Tyler Cowan, Professor of Economics at

George Mason University and the Center for the Study of Public Choice. Tyler runs a terrific blog.

It's called The Marginal Revolution, and he's a very talented podcaster. Podcast is called

Conversations with Tyler. I recommend you subscribe to both. Tyler Cowan, welcome to Goodfellows.

Thank you for having me. Hello. So Tyler, in the course

of doing a little homework on you, that's what moderators get to do. We get to learn more about our

guests and maybe our guests know. I discovered that among other things, you are what I would call

a foodie. And I hope that's not an insult to you, but you run a blog on of all things,

ethnic food in Washington, D.C. I'm always curious about the attraction to food because I've

always thought, Tyler, there's sort of two schools of thought when it comes to eating. There are people

for whom food is a process, people for whom food is experience. Are you in that letter camp? And if

so, what is the attraction? Food is a way to learn about immigration, to learn about history,

to learn about chemistry, to learn about market competition, and most

of all to learn about Northern Virginia.

But you called my dining guide, Washington, D.C. guide.

The best restaurants are in the suburbs, which are lower tax, more commercial, lower rent,

more competitive, and because they have better schools, have attracted more talent.

So it's a way to keep in touch with what I call reality and to cut across class lines. The people you get to know, talking to

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