The issue of income and wealth inequality has gained public awareness recently, becoming an important economic problem in our time. Unfortunately, the quality of the public debate about this topic remains very poor. In this piece, I would like to point out three main shortcomings of the problem at hand.

“Right wing” Jair Bolsonaro has been elected president of Brazil, which extends a significant shift rightward from the days of Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff. In Latin America — and especially Brazil, which is itself distinct from Hispanophone Latin America — “right wing” can mean many things, and it certainly isn’t the same thing as we mean in the US. Laissez-faire economics — even in rhetoric — isn’t necessarily part of the equation.

Interest on the national debt is quickly becoming one of the largest expenses in the national budget. Based on projections from the OMB, it now appears that growth in interest payments on the national debt will be significantly outpacing any other spending category in coming years.

The OMB’s projections show debt-payment outlays growing a startling 70 percent from 2017 to 2020. The sector with the next-highest growth rate is Defense, but that grows by only 20 percent over the same period:

Perhaps Neel Kashkari is angling for the Fed Chair job, should Donald Trump attempt an Eccles palace coup and oust Jerome Powell for his tightening ways. General Mattis may be sending troops to the border to head off the “caravan” enroute from Guatemala (or was it the middle east?), but he can certainly redirect them to Federal Reserve HQ to suppress President Trump’s “biggest risk.”   

President Donald J. Trump has taken on the Federal Reserve (Fed), saying that Fed chairman Jerome H. Powell is threatening US economic growth by further raising interest rates. Mainstream economists, the financial press and even some politicians react with indignation: the president’s comments undermine the Fed’s political independence, potentially endangering the confidence in the US dollar. Such a public reaction is, at first glance, understandable – as mainstream economists have declared the political independence of the central bank a “golden calf” issue.

A European court has ruled that people can be fined and prosecuted in criminal court for saying things about religious figures. Specifically, saying things about the Muslim prophet Mohammad is verboten, and state punishment is appropriate:

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled a woman convicted by an Austrian court of calling the Prophet Mohammed a paedophile did not have her freedom of speech rights infringed.

As an addendum to yesterday’s post in civility in government, and the Era of Consensus, take a look at new data released from Pew on faith in government .

The percentage of those polled who say they trust the government in Washington hasn’t exceeded 25 percent in ten years.

As the U.S. trade deficit has been widening for the fourth month running, markets and business experts appear once again bewildered by the events and unsure how to react to them. On the one hand, they had vehemently opposed the increase in trade tariffs and the trade war that has made headlines this year. But on the other hand, they now find that U.S.

The Washington Examiner thinks that Hillary Clinton is a radical. In his column today, Philip Wegmann correctly points out that Clinton is sending mixed signals when it comes to so-called civility in politics. specifically, Wegmann notes how earlier this month, Clinton wrote: “You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about.” But, this week, Clinton strikes a different tune, saying “we have to do everything we can to bring our country together.”