Welcome. This is Anastasia Yuglova bringing you the Cato Daily Podcast.

Be sure to log on to our website www. Cato.org for a full archive of our

podcast as well as many other audio offerings.

In Yale Political Science Professor Jacob Hacker's new book, The Great Risk Shift, a decidedly

gloomy picture of terrifying economic instability emerges.

But Brink Lindsay, Vice President for Research at the Cato Institute, isn't buying it.

His recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal argues that increased risk has led to increased

economic dynamism and

incontrovertively better living standards for Americans across the board.

Many Americans are voicing concerns about decreased financial security as a

result of the push toward personal responsibility.

Are these concerns valid?

Well, I'm not sure that many Americans are concerned about declining security as a result

of a push towards personal responsibility.

I think that is a concern of particular left-of-center

policy wonks and ideologues. I think Americans do tend to be concerned about financial security.

Perceptions of insecurity are cyclical, so during boom times people

feel more secured during more economically tenuous times they feel less secure.

There is an overall trend I I think, beyond cycles, but an overall trend over a period of decades

towards a kind of increasing tempo of economic life, more intense competition, more churn in companies in the Fortune 500, more job

churn as layoff rates, at least for certain kinds of workers, have gone up over time.

And that can lead to real feelings of insecurity and that I

...