Milton Friedman, in his book Money Mischief, reported the well-known story of the monetary system of a small island in Micronesia. At the end of the 19th century, the inhabitants used stone wheels as a medium of exchange and as a store of wealth. The colonial government imposed "fees" on disobedient district chiefs by painting black crosses on these stone wheels, thus "confiscating" them. This induced the locals to change their ways and work harder, paving roads they were previously reluctant to pave, in order to have these marks erased and get their wealth back.

While much attention is now paid to personalities of incoming central bankers, far less attention is paid to debating central banks' mandates in light of the unusual fiscal and financial intermediary roles they have been fulfilling since 2008.

The crisis revealed institutional voids that the central banks filled quickly. Such ventures by central banks have been tolerated in the past too: there is nothing new about quantitative easing (QE). The Fed practiced it during the 1940-51 under the Treasury's explicit command, though the technique had no name then.

Last night’s fight between Manny Pacquiao and Brandon Rios interested me from a boxing perspective but its real intrigue was what it suggests might be possible for another man – Floyd Mayweather, Jr.

... This is nothing new – in fact, gambling, centuries ago in Europe, was in the same position that boxing is in today– subsidizing another non-profitable sector.  In their outstanding book A World Of Chance: Betting On Religion, Games, Wall Street, Reuven Brenner, Gabrielle A. Brenner and Aaron Brown write:

As the English Premier League season starts, punters play the odds despite the country's ban on wagers - and millions are taking the risk.

In March 2011, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released The Evolving IP Marketplace: Aligning Patent Notice and Remedies with Competition, its antitrust policy review of the patent marketplace in which it unveiled the term “patent assertion entities” (PAEs) as a substitute for the derisive term “patent trolls.”

In an interview last week, President Barack Obama correctly emphasized both that "upside mobility was part and parcel of who we were as Americans" and also that such mobility has been "eroding over the last 20, 30 years, well before the financial crisis". The question is: What can Washington do to remedy the situation?

-Article by Reuven Brenner

Patent controversies continue to roil the business world. In March, a federal judge slashed by nearly half the $1.05 billion in damages awarded Apple last year in its patent-infringement suit against Samsung. On April 1, India's Supreme Court denied Novartis AG's request, after a seven-year legal battle, to gain patent protection for an updated version of its blockbuster leukemia drug Gleevac. And on April 15, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, challenging Myriad's claim to patent a naturally occurring gene.