There are several problems here. First, even if we agreed that government (as opposed to private) payments for tree-planting made sense, it doesn’t at all follow that the revenue should come from a carbon tax. In general, raising a dollar of revenue from a tax on carbon content hurts the economy more than raising a dollar from taxing labor or consumption. (My article on the “tax interaction effect” gives the economic intuition behind this point.)

Nayeri’s first work of non-fiction is as stunning and original as its title. Born into a wealthy family in Iran, she sought freedom in the West and confesses intensely lyrical resentments about her status as a refugee, first in a converted countryside hotel in Italy and ultimately to a frustrating childhood in Oklahoma. The opening chapter will hit you like a hammer, forcing you to rethink your outlook on the global waves of migration that grow larger every year. You’ll rethink, no matter what your current view is.

In a recent article titled “Is property inheritance widening the wealth gap?” author James Gordon points out that people in Britain who own houses will often leave them to their adult children and, thus, adult children of Brits with no houses will see a large gap between their wealth and those of their housing-endowed peers.

Stanford (as we explored earlier this week) has become as much a tech incubator as a university — a four-year finishing school for the elite of Silicon Valley. But, of course, there are more worlds than the tech industry, and more reasons than “tech wealth” that the university is consistently named the No. 1 “dream college” for both parents and students. Many paths to fame, fortune, and power run through Stanford — here are just a few.