For most of my life, twice a week everyone would get free newspapers that ran stories but that existed to sell ads.

That’s the business model of all current search-engine businesses. Their customers aren’t us, their customers are their advertisers.

Current search engines work the way they do because Google saw an opportunity to create new technology, got there first and best, and sells ads. No current search engines do the best their technology could do to produce the results that users want.

By “kill,” I don’t mean murder. For this to work, you need to execute him for some “crime” and as the result of some “legal” process. 

And by “Bill Gates,” I don’t mean him, as any sufficiently-wealthy and high-profile victim will do.

The Power of Capitalism: A Journey through Recent History across Five Continents
By Rainer Zitelmann
LID Publishing, 2018
xiv + 233 pages

Events in Ukraine are happening very fast, and if I tried to predict what will happen there, my prediction would soon be overtaken by events. But one thing is certain. We need to understand the background of the crisis, and we also need to remember the basic principles that should guide American policy.

To understand the background, the best guide is Stephen Cohen, a world-renowned authority on both the Bolsheviks and contemporary Russia. He pointed out in November 2019:

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was met with unprecedented economic sanctions by the United States and its allies in order to cripple Russia’s capacity to wage war. Never before in post–World War II history has an economy of Russia’s size been reprimanded with such force.

Governor Lael Brainard gave an eloquently titled speech on April 5 called Variation in the Inflation Experiences of Households. The speech centers around the “heterogeneity of experienced inflation,” or the understanding that individuals experience currency debasement in a variety of ways.