Change is always difficult, and the Federal Reserve’s attempt to find a better monetary policy framework is no exception. Based on comments by Fed officials at the Hoover Institution conference on Friday, ahead of a confab at the Chicago Fed next month, it seems there may not be a perfect framework, making it difficult to move from the current inflation targeting system.

John Taylor discusses interest rates, Fed policy, and the outlook for the US. Taylor notes he likes the direction the Fed is taking towards a more rules based monetary policy.

Coase’s paper “The Problem of Social Cost” appeared in the October 1960 volume of the Journal of Law and Economics. This brings us, for reasons that we will explain, to the television show Have Gun – Will Travel, which aired from 1957 to 1963. A particular 1958 episode, called “Bitter Wine,” is likely the most Coasean episode of television ever made. Every element of the “Problem of Social Cost” makes an appearance in the episode: the reciprocal nature of externalities, how the initial allocation of property rights matters in a world with transaction costs, and how the legal system can overcome transaction costs to allow for an efficient allocation of rights.

The Milken Institute Global Conference, the annual talkfest for the financial elite at a posh hotel in Beverly Hills, is usually shot through with references to lifting up the downtrodden and making capital work for the common good. This year, however — perhaps brought on by the election of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the increasingly leftist tenor of the 2020 Democratic presidential field — there was also a hint of panic.