Last week the Senate confirmed Jerome Powell as Federal Reserve Chairman by a vote of 84-13. This is in contrast to the contentious debates and closer votes over Janet Yellen’s confirmation in 2014 and Ben Bernanke’s confirmation for a second term in 2010. Powell benefited from a perception that the economy’s recovery from the 2007-08 meltdown proves that the Fed is a capable manager of monetary policy. However, the perceptions of economic recovery and Federal Reserve competence are both far from the truth. 

A year after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, analysts and commentators are assessing both his performance in the first year of his presidency as well as the outlook for the remainder of his first term. Entering office as a surprise winner and a political neophyte, many people didn’t know just what to expect from Trump. Would he do what he pledged to do as a candidate, or was his campaign rhetoric just a lot of hot air to bamboozle enough people into voting for him?

This Sunday the New England Patriots will look to defend their title against the Philadelphia Eagles in one of the world’s largest sporting events: the Superbowl. A large part of what fuels football’s incredible popularity is the excitement and brutality of the on-field contact. Yet this contact is not without cost. Widespread concern regarding player health has plagued the NFL for many years.

When Robert Mueller was appointed last May as Special Counsel to investigate Trump, Politico Magazine gushed that “Mueller might just be America’s straightest arrow — a respected, nonpartisan and fiercely apolitical public servant whose only lifetime motivation has been the search for justice.” Most of the subsequent press coverage has shown nary a doubt about Mueller’s purity. But, during his 11 years as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mueller’s agency routinely violated federal law and the Bill of Rights.

There is a central theme in Patrick Deneen’s Why Liberalism Failed which I failed to note in my review of it. Deenen has a radical view of the role of intellectuals in modern history. He says, “The foundations of liberalism were laid by a series of thinkers whose central aim was to disassemble what they concluded were irrational religious and social norms in the pursuit of civil peace that might in turn foster stability and prosperity, and eventually individual liberty of conscience and action.” (p. 24)

“Zoning and prohibition are the twin monstrosities born of the travail and abnormality of the World War.” 

— General P.L. Mitchell, a vocal opponent of zoning in Cincinnati, 1927

In my lonely war on US zoning, I often hear a defense of zoning that goes something like this: “You may not like zoning, but it sure is popular with the American people. After all, every state has approved of zoning and virtually every city in the country has implemented zoning.”

I have a general distrust of police, but while distrust may be healthy, I try to keep my antipathy aimed at the institution of the police, rather than the individuals themselves.

Major international comparisons have long concluded that Americans’ ability to effectively utilize mathematics is inadequate. Such conclusions divide students, parents, teachers and administrators into camps that share little more than blaming others for the problems. However, it is unclear whether all the finger-pointing indicates a real desire to overcome our innumeracy. In fact, we systematically misuse numbers to distort reality because we want to fool ourselves, making our ineptitude no surprise.

What does Larry Fink have against profit? Fink is the CEO of the mega investment firm BlackRock, and in an open letter to CEOs earlier this month he calls for a ramping up of social investing and social management of corporate America.