A new NBER working paper by Ricardo Reis (unfortunately gated) tackles “Central Bank Design.” I’ve written a little on this myself, and gave a lecture Saturday at Mises University on “Microeconomics of Central Banking” elaborating on my ideas.
Those who still believe the hogwash that the the United States is a two-party, representative democracy should ponder the following. On Wednesday, the amendment to the Defense Appropriations Act of 2014 proposed by libertarian-leaning Rep. Justin Amash (R-Michigan) was narrowly defeated in the House by a vote of 217-205. The amendment would have ended the authority for the unconstitutional, police-state metadata-phone call spy program carried out by the NSA whose existence was leaked by the heroic whistleblower Edward Snowden last month.
Watched Skyfall on a plane the other day. A well-made and entertaining film. Old fogies like me will appreciate the retro Bond touches. But it’s hard to be a libertarian and fully enjoy these sorts of movies, especially in today’s political climate. The surveillance / national security state is glorified every day in the mainstream press; do we need this from Hollywood as well?
From Peter Biskind’s hilarious and irreverent My Lunches with Orson, the edited transcripts of Orson Welles’s conversations with director Henry Jaglom in the mid-1980s:
