According to conventional wisdom, one of the prerequisites for a civilized society is a system of government enforced licensing of numerous occupations.

Licensing laws establish the standards (e.g. educational) to be met before people are legally permitted to sell specified services. The government says the safety and wellbeing of consumers impels it to enact these laws, which ensure the superior quality of various products and services purchased by consumers, as compared to what would be available in the absence of such laws.

In a story that could only happen in 2018, septuagenarian Bernie Sanders took to twitter to agree with someone called Cardi B – who my teenage daughter tells me is a popular singer – about the importance of strengthening Social Security.

Sanders claimed that Social Security enables seniors to “retire with the dignity they deserve,” while Ms. B praised FDR for its creation.

It’s dead. No, not the Internet. Net neutrality. After months of legal challenges, public backlash, and Democrats trying to overturn it, the repeal of net neutrality has finally been completed. You can now count to three and wait for the likes of John Oliver and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to hysterically declare – yet again – that the internet is coming to an end and that the only webpage you will access for free is DonaldJTrump.com.

Whatever our faults, it can never be said that libertarians need to read more. I’ve never known a group of people to consume such large doses of dense and dismally boring literature than the liberty community. However, I sometimes get the impression that our literary excursions rarely deviate from our own literature. This is understandable, of course. With tireless scholars like Murray Rothbard among the ranks of liberty writers, our reading list never ends.

In the Austrian view, every individual is seen as employing the resources or means at his disposal in order to secure various ends. The use of resources is not done haphazardly but in accordance with an individual’s priorities. The individual ranks various ends or goals that he wants to attain. 

It now looks like California voters will have the chance to vote on whether or not the state ought to be split up into three pieces. The Los AngelesTimes reports :

If a majority of voters who cast ballots agree, a long and contentious process would begin for three separate states to take the place of California, with one primarily centered around Los Angeles and the other two divvying up the counties to the north and south.

Since Hayek’s time, monetary policy, particularly in America, has evolved away from targeting production and discouraging savings by suppressing interest rates, towards encouraging consumption through expanding consumer finance. American consumers are living beyond their means and have commonly depleted all their liquid savings. But given the variations in the cost of consumer finance (between 0% car loans and 20% credit card and overdraft rates), consumers are generally insensitive to changes in interest rates.

Today Jerome Powell announced another .25% increase in the Federal funds rate, bringing it to a range between 1.75% and 2%. In a corresponding move, interest paid on excess reserves by on 20 basis points, rather than 25. This is a small but significant change to Fed policy, a reaction to the Federal funds rate moving steadily towards the Fed’s upper target range in recent months. 

The Justice Department Inspector General is expected to release on Thursday its report on alleged FBI misconduct during the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump supporters and opponents are already pre-spinning the report to vindicate or undercut the president. Unfortunately, the report will not consider fundamental question of whether the FBI’s vast power and secrecy is compatible with American democracy.

Demand for financial engineers rises and falls with asset inflation. So there is nothing odd about these professionals now enjoying a good market for their services. But why is Big Tech such a large recruiter?