Points of Public Interest

1. Why Limiting Itemized Deductions (Still) Makes Sense - My former professor, Diane Lim Rogers, offers her support for a proposal to limit itemized deductions to a 15 percent rate. This policy will simultaneously increase the progressive nature of income taxes, substantially reduce total tax expenditures and raise revenue.
2. The Fed Is Misleading Congress About Europe - Warren Mosler, a founding member of Modern Monetary Theory, argues that the Fed’s dollar swap lines are unsecured lending and should therefore be the responsibility of Congress.
3. Philip Pilkington: Is QE/ZIRP Killing Demand? - Pilkington describes the counterproductive efforts of Fed policy. Milton Friedman also believed ZIRP (zero interest rate policy) would restrict demand as I outlined in Deflationary Monetary Policy.
4. The Liberalism of Classical Liberalism - Peter Boettke tries to correct some typical misrepresentations of classical liberalism with a good dose of historical background.
5. Show Me the Daylight 'twixt Sanction and Tariff - Samuel Wilson considers recent trade sanctions against Iran and China, and why the two are viewed in different lights by Americans.
6. The Future of Economics - Steve Keen, a leading post-Keynesian, makes a case for incorporating disequilibrium, dynamic modeling and emergent properties into the core of future economics.
7. The European Crisis Deepen - Peter Boone and Simon Johnson, former IMF Chief, explain why current optimism is likely unwarranted and how the realistic end may include a break-up of the Eurozone.

Points of Public Interest

1. Money, credit and inflation - Sean Corrigan explains the difference between money and credit, highlighting the different nature of banks and individuals in creating credit. An often forgotten aspect of our current monetary system is that individual banks can create credit (which can turn into money) irrespective of Fed or Treasury policy. This unique ability generates the potential for inflationary and deflationary forces in the money supply outside of the federal government’s control.
2. Death by Wealth Tax - Richard Epstein argues against the proposal for a wealth tax on assets.
3. Trials and Errors: Why Science Is Failing Us - Jonah Lehrer details some failings in medicine stemming from the incorrect, basic “assumption—that understanding a system’s constituent parts means we also understand the causes within the system.” As Lehrer notes, centuries ago David Hume recognized a human desire to view the appearance of causation as an actual fact, rather than “fiction that helps us make sense of facts.” (HT: Russ Roberts)
4. Debt, Deficits, and Modern Monetary Theory - Bill Mitchell, a founding member of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), outlines the difference between MMT and mainstream economics. These differing conceptions about public debts and very important to the public policy battles in the news today. (HT: Neil Wilson)
5. Peter Boettke on Austrian Economics - “Austrians want to talk about things like dispersed knowledge, heterogeneity, uncertainty – not just risk, but real uncertainty – and institutions, how institutions arise to allow us to cope with our ignorance and our uncertainty and to ameliorate the frictions that exist in the world.” Peter Boettke discusses contributions of Austrian economics and five books to read on the subject.