Hello and welcome to Brokonomics. Now, in this episode, it has occurred to me that I have been

neglecting the full breadth of culture within the Western Canon. And I specifically wanted to do

something this week celebrating black culture and give that the time and attention that it deserved.

And I thought the best way to do that would be to take a look at the Wire, which was a TV

series back from early in 2000s when they looked at the drug trade in Baltimore,

in American City.

It's a good series, so I don't know if you've seen it.

You should have done.

If you haven't, go and watch it, but it's very good.

And it's like, I think it's like five seasons,

and it kind of follows, you know, both the police department, a few civilians, and the drug traffickers and the sort of interplay that goes on between them.

It's a really good TV, quite engaging.

So if you're just looking for something to watch, I think it holds up.

There's a lot of economic lessons that you can

actually draw from it, interestingly. The reason I watched it again is because I went on a

camping holiday with the kids. And the thing with women and kids is they fall asleep really early.

So I had the evenings to myself and I sort of took along the wire and rewatched it.

Fascinating watching it again all these years later for a number of reasons.

One, because it shows how good the 2000s were, even in Baltimore.

Even crime-ridden Baltimore kind of basically worked all the functions and the institutions. They work badly, but they worked,

which is an interesting contrast with today, even in Baltimore. Also, I quite liked it because

obviously the 2000s was, the early 2000s was a great time in human history.

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