Source: EconLog
by Jeffrey Shelton Hummel
“While she recognizes that there is a relationship between the Fed’s target interest rate and the growth rate of the money supply, she has a highly exaggerated view of the Fed’s broader ability to affect market interest rates. She buys into the fallacy, widespread not only among the general public but also among many public-policy pundits, that the Fed has tight control over nearly all market interest rates.” (05/01/26)
Source: Heartland Institute
“Raids, Charges, and Indictments.” (05/01/26)
https://heartland.org/podcasts/raids-charges-and-indictments-in-the-tank-podcast-534/
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“Some people are born with bad hearts, some good. As long as nobody knows which is which it is possible to insure against the risk of having a bad heart. What happens if a genetic test is invented that distinguishes people who are likely to have a heart attack from people who are not?” (05/01/26)
https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/how-knowing-more-can-make-us-worse
Source: Mother Jones
by Sophie Hurwitz
“Amazon’s Web Services cloud-computing platform is more profitable than all the company’s retail operations combined. And AWS sells cloud-computing services to clients throughout the American government, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement: According to Forbes reporting, ICE spent at least $25 million on AWS during the second Trump administration. Amazon Web Services also holds contracts with Palantir, the surveillance-tech company behind much of ICE’s deportation operation. (And Amazon has served as an inspiration for ICE, too: acting ICE director Todd Lyons has said he wants deportations in the US to run ‘like Amazon Prime for human beings.’) That’s part of why, at Monday’s rally, non-union tech workers stood alongside unionized warehouse workers.” (05/01/26)
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/05/amazon-powers-ice-its-workers-arent-happy/
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“Spain has demanded the release of a citizen who was arrested during a raid on a flotilla headed for Gaza and taken to Israel, calling it an abduction. Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares told Catalan radio station RAC1 on Saturday that he was concerned about the ‘illegal detention’ of Saif Abukeshek, and called for him to be ‘released immediately.’ … [Israeli pirates] stormed 22 of the flotilla boats attempting to deliver aid to Gaza while they were in international waters, hundreds of miles from the strip. Drones and communications-jamming technology were used. They [abducted] 175 of those on board and took them to Greece, except for Abukeshek and Avila.” (05/02/26)
Source: Freedom Works
“Kelley Vlahos, Quincy Institute ‘Trump’s Iran War.’” (05/01/26)
https://internetradiopros.com/freedomworks/?name=2026-05-02_zfw05012026.mp3
Source: The Daily Economy
by Richard Morrison
“The zeal of the convert can be a terrifying force to behold. An acolyte convinced of their own prior heresy will often be a more thorough inquisitor than the native-born believer. This dynamic may help explain why It’s on You by Nick Chater and George Loewenstein is so shrill and devoid of self-awareness. Having been leading researchers in behavioral psychology and economics who sought to manipulate individuals into ostensibly healthier and smarter choices — the world of ‘nudge’ theory — they are doing a righteous penance by exposing the flaws of their former discipline.” (05/01/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/after-nudging-the-rise-and-fall-of-a-behavioral-economics-fad/
Source: The Dispatch
“James Comey Indicted, Again.” (05/01/26)
https://thedispatch.com/podcast/dispatch-podcast/james-comey-indicted-again/
Source: Independent Institute
by Alexander Williamn Salter
“Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell held interest rates steady Wednesday for a third time this year, citing inflation running above the central bank’s 2% target. Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank, has also recently warned of ‘higher inflation and lower growth’ this year, citing energy shocks, geopolitical risks, and a high degree of uncertainty. Alberto Musalem, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, cited those same forces as likely to result in ‘persistent above-target inflation throughout 2026,’ which would justify the central bank holding interest rates higher for longer. None of these bank officials have called for raising the inflation target. They don’t have to. The implication is clear: Central banks are preparing the public for a world in which inflation persistently overshoots 2%.” (05/01/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/05/01/the-feds-2-inflation-target-is-no-longer-enough/
Source: Law & Liberty
by Spencer A Klavan
“The media theorist Marshall McLuhan became famous in certain circles for insisting that the real importance of a new tool can be found in ‘the medium — that is, all the side-effects, all the unintended patterns and changes.’ He was anticipated in this by Plato, who had Socrates hint in a story that ‘the person who produces an instrument of technology is not the same as the person who can judge whether it helps or harms those who use it.’ If that’s true, then we would expect to find the architects of AI struggling to predict and control the ends it will be made to serve.” (05/01/26)