Viewed from a practical definition of money, the banking system appears to be engaged in a significant monetary inflation. The use of reserve-sweep programs, which started in 1994, has allowed banks to reduce the effective reserve requirement on transaction deposits (demand and other checking deposits), freeing up high-powered money for other purposes. This activity has effectively lowered the reserve ratio of banks.

Tyler Cowen wonders whether we are in a housing bubble.

Housing can be lived in, most buyers have only one home, transaction costs are relatively high, and rarely are homes sold and resold in a matter of days. All those features militate against a housing bubble.

NYT: U.S. to Spend Billions More to Alter Security Systems

Chapter 28 of “The Restaurant at the End of the Universe“ by Douglas Adams addresses the most pressing, fundamental questions of social science: “The major problem — one of the major problems, for there are several — one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to

Freakonomics, by economist Steven Levitt and co-author Stephen Dubner, claims it “Explores the Hidden Side of Everything.” If nothing else, that claim, reinforced by “Prepare to be dazzled” and “the most interesting mind in America” on the front and back covers, not to mention lengthy quotes from an adoring New York Times Magazine article (by the co-author) to start every chapter, qualifies it as the most over-hyped economics book of the year.

Why the state goes to war is not a mystery – at least the general reasons are not mysterious. War is an excuse for spending money on its friends. It can punish enemies that are not going with the program. It intimidates other states tempted to go their own way. It can pave the way for commercial interests linked to the state. The regime that makes and wins a war gets written up in the history books. So the reasons are the same now as in the ancient world: power, money, glory. Why the bourgeoisie back war is another matter.

It’s cheap, compact, durable, and superior in many aspects to online and print publishing. In some circumstances it is the ultimate publishing medium. I’m talking about microfiche, of course. Microfiche are post-card size transparencies with print pages – up to 504 of them – demagnified on to it. They are then inserted into a microfiche reader, which magnifies the decreased image so it can be read. Many libraries have microfiche facilities, but they are becoming more and more disused and hence, many libraries would be happy to give their readers away.

Justice Janice Brown is a justice in the old tradition of actually abiding by the Constitution, and is of a strongly libertarian bent. What follows are a few choice quotes from Janice Brown.