The Levy Institute has the working paper What’s Causing Accelerating Inflation: Pandemic or Policy Response?.

We conclude that there is little evidence that excess demand is the problem, although we agree that in the absence of the relief checks, recovery would have been sufficiently slow to minimize inflation pressure. We closely examine the main contributors to rising overall prices and conclude that tighter monetary policy would not be an effective way to reduce price pressures. We also cast doubt on the expectations theory of inflation control. We present evidence that suggests there is currently little danger that higher inflation will become entrenched. If anything, rate hikes now will make it harder for the economy to adjust to current realities. The potential for lots of pain with little gain is great. The best course of action is to tackle problems on the supply side.

BIG by Matt Stoller has the article Judges Behaving Badly: Amazon Antitrust Suit Dismissed.

I thought it was going to be a titanic clash, and it brought critical legal questions into the courts to be hashed out by a jury. Unfortunately, the judge Racine got assigned to this case, Hiram Puig-Lugo, did not agree. Earlier this week, at what looked like a routine scheduling hearing, Puig-Lugo, whose expertise is in family law, shocked everyone involved by dismissing Racine’s Amazon complaint outright. That means the case is over, unless Racine appeals. And how Puig-Lugo dismissed the case was as odd as his choice to do so. For important complaints like this, judges almost always put down in writing their rationale for making decisions at key stages. But Puig-Lugo did not. He simply read from the bench that he didn’t think the claimed conduct violated the law.

This is exactly the kind of behavior that I think most people don’t realize. Has this topic been raised in the confirmation hearings for Ketanji Brown Jackson? This is probably the most significant issue that will come before the Supreme Court, and nobody is even talking about it.

Naked Capitalism has the article Unbeknown to Most, A Financial Revolution Is Coming That Threatens to Radically Transform Everything (And Probably Not for the Better).

Around 90 central banks are either in the process of experimenting with or are already piloting central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). In a world of just over 190 countries that is a large number, but given they include the European Central Bank (ECB) which alone represents 19 Euro Area economies, the actual number of economies involved is well over 100. They include all G20 economies and together represent more than 90% of global GDP.

This article explains Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). Finally, I can see the difference between today’s system and a true CBDC. I often thought that our credit card systems are an unusual privatization of cashless payment. The central bank should be performing the cashless transfer of money without imposing any fee. (Maybe this is more like a debit card than a credit card.)

Instead of leaving the topic as “And Probably Not for the Better”, the next article in the series could be about the safeguards that must be put in place in any legislation that authorized the Fed to provide this service. The Fed should be prevented from meddling in your financial choices (digital currency neutrality). Your financial transactions should be protected by privacy requirements. Any breach of that privacy by other government agencies should require a court order.