When Paul Hayes was arrested in Kentucky for writing a fraudulent check, he faced his third felony charge. At the time, Kentucky had a law in effect known as the Habitual Criminal Act, which imposed a life sentence for any third-time felony conviction. The prosecutor in the case, however, was at liberty to decide whether or not to charge Hayes under the Habitual Criminal Act. He offered Hayes a deal: either plead guilty and accept a five-year sentence, or go to trial and risk life in prison.

The Federal Reserve, responding to concerns about the economy and the stock market, and perhaps to criticisms by President Trump, recently changed course on interest rates by cutting its “benchmark” rate from 2.25 percent to two percent. President Trump responded to the cut in already historically-low rates by attacking the Fed for not committing to future rate cuts.

As long as the pool of real wealth is expanding, easy monetary policy will appear to “work,” and  loose monetary policy is likely to be incorrectly held as generating economic growth.

Once, however, the pool becomes stagnant or starts declining, the “music stops” and no amount of central bank monetary pumping is going to “work.”

In a recent tweet, Philip Kotler, author of the most widely used marketing book in graduate business schools worldwide suggested that the government should be doing much more to reduce inequality.

To quote Kotler:

Centuries ago, those who believed themselves to be harmed by “slanderous” words may have had to take matters into their own hands, perhaps through dueling, or even through just a drunken fist fight with one’s accuser down at the local tavern. Sometimes, these confrontations led to either intentional or accidental death.

Over time, however, courts were tasked with addressing harms allegedly done through this sort of defamation.

After almost twenty years without an execution, the Federal penal system has decided to proceed with a number of executions. NPR reported last month:

U.S. Attorney General William Barr has instructed the Federal Bureau of Prisons to change the federal execution protocol to include capital punishment, the Justice Department said.