This week's EconTalk episode was recorded before a live audience at the Cato Institute in conjunction with its Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives. Guest David Beckworth, a Cato adjunct scholar and professor at Western Kentucky University, offered his perspective on the causes of the Great Recession and the Federal Reserve's role in it.

1. What was the Federal Reserve's biggest mistake in its response to the 2008 financial crisis, according to Beckworth? What evidence does he provide for his claim?

Was the Financial Crisis of 2008 caused by a crisis in the housing market? Or did the Federal Reserve turn a garden-variety recession into the Great Recession? David Beckworth of Western Kentucky University talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the Fed's response to the recession that began in December of 2007 and worsened in 2008. Beckworth argues that the Fed failed to respond adequately to the drop in nominal GDP by keeping interest rates too high for too long. Beckworth describes what he thinks the Fed should have done and the lessons we should learn going forward to reduce the severity of future downturns.

When machines make workers more productive do workers wages rise? Does technology destroy jobs across the entire economy? These were two of the key questions EconTalk host Russ Roberts explored this week in his conversation with James Bessen.

As always, we'd like to continue the conversation with you...Let us know your reactions to these questions in the Comments. We love to hear from you.

1. This week, Adidas made news by announcing it was moving production back to Germany from Asia...but using robots. What is the mechanism discussed by Bessen that could cause this to increase jobs elsewhere in the economy?

Are workers being left behind when the economy grows? Is technology making the human workforce obsolete? James Bessen, author of Learning by Doing, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the role of learning on the job in the past and in the present. Bessen argues that during times of technological innovation, it often takes years before workers see higher wages from productivity increases. Bessen stresses the importance of the standardization of education on the job as workers adapt to new technology.

EconTalk host Russ Roberts showed us a very personal challenge this week...As a self-professed hard-core free-trader, this week's guest Leif Wenar had Russ re-examining some of his views. I know this week's episode had quite the same effect on me...So what about you?

If we care about the oppression of people living in oppressive regimes rich with oil, what should we do? Or more precisely, what can we do that would help the people we're hoping to help? Can we escape the "blood oil" ties to tyrannical regimes through government action? Is there a way to avoid blood oil using a bottom-up strategy? Share your thoughts with us in the Comments, and thanks for listening.

1. How is the Oil Curse different from the Resource Curse we've long heard about, or what makes oil a special case, according to Wenar?

2. To what extent is the legislation Wenar advocates to combat blood oil just another form of "fair trade"? (Revisit this 2013 episode with Amrita Narlika to explore the differences between free trade and fair trade.)

Should the United States allow its citizens to buy oil from countries run by bad men? Is this a case where morality trumps the usual case for free trade? Leif Wenar, professor of philosophy at King's College, London and author of Blood Oil, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the morality of buying resources from countries that use the resulting revenue to oppress their citizens. Based on the ideas in his book, Wenar argues that in many cases, importing oil is equivalent to buying stolen goods where the low prices cannot justify the purchase. The conversation discusses the possible outcomes from banning foreign oil from tyrannical regimes along with the resource curse and the case for fair trade.

EconTalk host Russ Roberts shows a pessimistic side this week in his conversation with Pedro Domingos on machine learning. What promise does the future of machinae learning hold? What's the difference between AI and machine learning? Will a Master Algorithm become possible when the best of these schools of machine learning are joined? And more interestingly, will you trust it?

These were just some of the issues touched on in this fascinating conversation, on which we'd like to hear your input as well. Consider some of the questions posed here, and share your response in the Comments. And/or try some of these thought experiments out on your friends...You just never know where a great conversation might take you...

1. We're somewhat accustomed to Russ's optimism about all things technology, but this week was a little different. How would you characterize the nature of Russ' skepticism about the potential for the emergence of a Master Algorithm? To what extent do you share his skepticism?

What is machine learning? How is it transforming our lives and workplaces? What might the future hold? Pedro Domingos of the University of Washington and author of The Master Algorithm talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the present and future of machine learning. Domingos stresses the iterative and ever-improving nature of machine learning. He is fundamentally an optimist about the potential of machine learning with ever-larger amounts of data to transform the human experience.

EconTalk host Russ Roberts welcomed back one of our favorites this week, Arnold Kling. to talk about his forthcoming book, Specialization and Trade: A Reintroduction to Economics. Kling argues that with its reliance on aggregate models, economics today has lost sight of its most important insight, dating back to Adam Smith. Russ ends the conversation with Kling, an MIT trained economist, ruminating on why they have each departed so far from their early training.

1. What does Kling mean when he says that macroeconomics is not an experimental science, but "a bunch of observations?" How does Kling describe his own odyssey as an economist from his days in grad school at MIT? Have you experienced a similar transformation? Tell us about it...

Arnold Kling, economist and author, speaks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about his latest book, Specialization and Trade: A Reintroduction to Economics. Kling argues that macroeconomics ignores the challenges of buyers and sellers working together in the real world of specialization and trade. Instead, most macroeconomic theories struggle to incorporate the differences across workers and products. Kling points the listener toward a different perspective on macroeconomics and the business cycle that focuses on those differences. Kling also lays out related insights on political economy as well as his take on G.A. Cohen's parable of the camping trip.