Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Walter Block
“Ideally, there should be no such thing as the Federal Reserve System. The Fed should not have been created in 1913, and should be disbanded right now. End the Fed! This organization is nothing more and nothing less than a central planning bureau for interest rates, employment, and inflation (of late, it has expanded its mandate to include climate change and social equity issues as well). Evidently, we have not yet fully incorporated the lessons about central planning we should have learned as a society from the examples of East and West Germany, North and South Korea. These came as close to a controlled experiment as we are ever likely to find in all of economics, and yet we still continue our merry way in the direction of central planning.” (01/05/26)
“About a month ago, as America’s military presence in the Caribbean ramped up, The New York Times ran a feature on the figures that could imaginably step into the presidency in Nicolás Maduro’s absence. One heading was titled ‘The Moderate: Delcy Rodríguez, Vice President.’ … To Venezuelans who had spent over a decade seeing in her one of Nicolás Maduro’s most ardent and uncompromising acolytes, calling her a ‘moderate’ is an outrage. Here’s a woman who has held all of the most important offices of state — oil minister, minister of foreign affairs, president of the constituent assembly, vice president — and has never allowed any hint of sunlight to appear between her and Maduro.” (01/05/26)
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is reducing the number of vaccines it recommends for children, officials said Monday, a major shift that officials say will bring the U.S. recommendations more similar to those of other developed countries. The move, which is effective immediately, fulfills a longtime goal of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other vaccine skeptics who have questioned the number and benefit of the vaccines children receive. The CDC will now recommend children receive 11 vaccines, rather than the current list of 17, putting it line with the much smaller country of Denmark.” [editor’s note: Right direction, for which RFK/MAHA deserve at least a golf clap – TLK] (01/05/26)
“Google has announced that Gmail will discontinue support for two key features regarding third-party email accounts. Starting in January 2026, the platform will drop support for ‘Gmailify’ and the widely utilized ‘Check mail from other accounts’ feature via POP3 fetching. For over a decade, power users have relied on Gmail not just as an email service, but as a central hub for managing diverse email identities. This upcoming update effectively marks the end of Gmail acting as a web-based email client for external POP3 accounts. The deprecation of Gmailify represents a loss of functionality for users who linked Yahoo, Outlook, or other IMAP accounts to get the ‘Google treatment.’ Gmailify bridged the gap between providers, applying Google’s advanced algorithms to third-party inboxes.” (01/05/26)
“Actual street fights are, thankfully, rather rare in the world. Verbal street fights, sadly, are common. In most cases these fights spring out of an amoral need to preserve status. If you begin to question or diminish ideas which someone feels tied to – from which they gain standing in one way or another – they’re likely to dislike you and/or to verbally attack you. All of us with non-standard opinions have experienced this. So, since non-standard opinions are the path to progress, it’s important that we learn how to deal with these attacks. This will be the first of several posts on this subject, which I sometimes think of as Verbal Judo.” (01/05/26)
“The nation’s health department starting Monday can resume sharing the personal data of certain Medicaid enrollees with deportation officials, according to a federal judge’s ruling, in a blow to states that had sued the administration over privacy concerns. But the judge’s decision, issued last Monday, strictly limits the scope of data from the 22 plaintiff states that can be shared — for now only allowing the agency to hand over basic biographical information about immigrants residing in the United States illegally [sic]. The states’ lawsuit came after an Associated Press report identified the data sharing policy. The ruling from U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco comes after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said it planned to share the data again as part of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.” (01/05/26)
“The Declaration of Independence has a special place in American public discourse. Its stirring rhetoric and ringing message inspire even the most cynical and make it a suitable primer on American political ideals. That said, for many decades, there has been significant, even acrimonious disagreement concerning the Declaration’s nature and role in shaping our public life. Radicals like those behind the 1619 Project dismiss all such documents as mere cover for race-, sex-, or class-based oppression. Those more well-disposed to our constitutional order still debate its basic meaning and influence. Matthew Spalding’s new book, The Making of the American Mind, provides an excellent and admirably disciplined entrée into continuing interpretive issues and the possibility for common ground on such fundamental issues.” (01/05/26)
“The first pill version of the blockbuster GLP-1 weight loss drugs has been launched in the US by Novo Nordisk at a lower cost than jab varieties, accelerating a price war in the sector. The Danish pharmaceutical company said on Monday that its once-a-day Wegovy pill, which received approval from the US regulator just before Christmas, was now available in the country. … the highest doses cost $299 a month. Patients with insurance pay from $25 a month. Matt Weston, a pharmaceutical analyst at UBS, said the price was lower than expected. US list prices for weight-loss jabs are about $1,000 a month or more, although Novo Nordisk started selling its Wegovy injection at $349 a month to cash payers in November.” (01/05/26)
