Fed chair Jerome Powell has pivoted to warn of the dangers of weak inflation. //

The fear of higher inflation may feel like more of a risk, because it's more recent in consumers' memory. By contrast, the last deflationary period in the U.S. was in the 1930s.

But "deflation is more painful for the economy and for individuals than inflation," Nathan Sheets, a former Fed official and current economist at PGIM, tells Axios.

"When you're in a period of deflation, what it's doing is it's sucking down the power of prices. Wages are falling and prices are falling. A deflationary environment tends to transfer resources from debtors to creditors," says Sheets.

As part of my collection of pro-and-con libertarian humor, I’ve shared some images of “Libertarian Jesus.”

There’s another perspective, of course. Many mainline protestant denominations have very statist political agendas, and there’s a “liberation theology” strain of Catholicism.

Some of these people even might argue that Jesus was a socialist. Back in 2009, I shared some excerpts from a skeptical column by Cal Thomas on this topic. Today, let’s take a deeper look.

In a video for Prager University, Larry Reed looks at the Bible to determine whether Jesus was a socialist.

I’m certainly not an expert on theology, but I definitely liked Larry’s point about the warning against envy in the 10 Commandments.

After all, “Thou shall not covet” certainly seems inconsistent with class-warfare policy.

Let’s see what others have written on this topic.

Yesterday’s column weighed in on the debate whether Jesus was a socialist.

Like Cal Thomas, I don’t think the Bible supports coercive redistribution by government.

Today, let’s look at the same issue, but from a humorous perspective.

For those on the other side of the debate, Socialist Jesus has a very efficient mechanism to collect alms for the poor.

Can you tell which is which? I can’t. We had a sales team for a few years, then we didn’t. Can you tell when we made the switch? I can’t.

It doesn’t matter how amazing your product is, or how fast you ship features. The market you’re in will determine most of your growth. For better or worse, Gumroad grew at roughly the same rate almost every month because that’s how quickly the market determined we would grow. //

I am now more focused on creating value than capturing it. I still want to have as large an impact as possible, but I don’t need to create it directly or capture it in the form of revenue and valuation.

Startups have been founded by former Gumroad employees, and dozens more companies have been massively improved by recruiting our alumni. On top of that, our product ideas, like our credit card form and inline-checkout experience, have proliferated across the web, making it a better place for everyone — including those that have never used Gumroad.

While Gumroad, Inc. may be small, our impact is large. There is, of course, the $178,000,000 we have sent to creators. But then there’s the impact of the impact, the opportunities that those creators have taken to create new opportunities for others.

For years, my only metric of success was building a billion-dollar company. Now, I realize that was a terrible goal. It’s completely arbitrary and doesn’t accurately reflect impact.

I’m not making an excuse or pretending that I didn’t fail. I’m not pretending that failure feels good. //

I failed, but I also succeeded at many other things. Gumroad turned $10 million of investor capital into $178 million (and counting) for creators. Without a fundraising goal coming up, we’re simply focused on building the best product we can for our customers. On top of all that, I’m happy creating value beyond our revenue-generating product (like these words you’re reading). //

I consider myself “successful” now. Not exactly in the way I intended, though I think what I’m doing now counts.Wealth can be a measure of being able to improve the well-being of those around you, as seems to be the case for someone like Bill Gates, who has invested heavily in philanthropy. But it’s not the only way to measure success, nor is it the best one.

The single currency was first planned to be introduced in 2003 but the launch has been postponed several times; in 2005, 2010 and 2014.

It is possible, although ambitious, that some countries will meet the current criteria for the 2020 deadline - the primary four being:

• A budget deficit of not more than 3%
• An average annual inflation rate of less than 10%
• Central Bank financing of budget deficits should be no more than 10% of the previous year's tax revenue
• Gross external reserves worth at least three months of imports must be available

These criteria, along with two other secondary ones, are due to be assessed by Ecowas by the end of 2019.

One of the problems is inconsistency: countries could, for example, meet the criteria next year, and then fall behind the following year.

In 2016, only one country, Liberia, met all the six conditions, and no single criterion was met by all the countries.

Economist Martial Belinga, author of Liberate Africa From Monetary Slavery, says 2020 is a symbolic goal.

If the goal is to boost trade, some analysts are sceptical that a single currency is key.

"We struggle in Nigeria alone to get produce from the north to Lagos, and to other southern parts where it can be consumed," said Sanyade Okoli, head of Alpha African Advisory.

"If goods can't move freely, how can we even talk about a single currency? she asked. "We need to address poor infrastructure, bureaucracy - the lower-hanging fruits first".

For Mr Belinga, the real impediment to trade in the region is not the lack of a single currency but that countries don't have much to trade.

"West African countries must transform their economies, with diversification and added value industries," he says.

"That's the real solution to face external shocks and volatility."

Currently, most countries rely on commodities whose prices are regulated on international markets.

New research from Science: "Civic honesty around the globe":

Abstract: Civic honesty is essential to social capital and economic development, but is often in conflict with material self-interest. We examine the trade-off between honesty and self-interest using field experiments in 355 cities spanning 40 countries around the globe. We turned in over 17,000 lost wallets with varying amounts of money at public and private institutions, and measured whether recipients contacted the owner to return the wallets. In virtually all countries citizens were more likely to return wallets that contained more money. Both non-experts and professional economists were unable to predict this result. Additional data suggest our main findings can be explained by a combination of altruistic concerns and an aversion to viewing oneself as a thief, which increase with the material benefits of dishonesty.

I am surprised, too.

The human brain can’t contend with the vastness of online shopping. //

The global-manufacturing apparatus now has the capacity to churn out near-endless stuff. The industry’s output has ballooned 75 percent since 2007 to $35 trillion, according to one analysis, and millions of livelihoods depend on its continued growth. //

But in the arms race to sell as many sandwich bags or beach towels as possible, a problem has become clear: Variety isn’t infinitely valuable. //

For a relatively new class of consumer-products start-ups, there’s another method entirely. Instead of making sense of a sea of existing stuff, these companies claim to disrupt stuff as Americans know it. Casper (mattresses), Glossier (makeup), Away (suitcases), and many others have sprouted up to offer consumers freedom from choice: The companies have a few aesthetically pleasing and supposedly highly functional options, usually at mid-range prices. They’re selling nice things, but maybe more importantly, they’re selling a confidence in those things, and an ability to opt out of the stuff rat race. //

The presence of so much stuff in America might be more valuable if it were more evenly distributed, but stuff’s creators tend to focus their energy on those who already have plenty. As options have expanded for people with disposable income, the opportunity to buy even basic things such as fresh food or quality diapers has contracted for much of America’s lower classes. //

There may be no way to opt out of stuff by buying into the right thing.

Jet Airways, like many other global and domestic carriers that have folded in the past few years, missed the opportunity to cut costs when the going was easy, especially when jet fuel prices fell to multiyear lows in 2015-2016. Boosted by rare profits around that time, the airline kept its focus on expansion rather than consolidation or restructuring.

Jet Airways' strategy is reflective of a fundamental problem across the aviation industry where airlines wait until the times are tough to reduce costs and more than often fail to do so.

"One of the lessons is that even if growth rates of markets and of the airline are spectacular, an essential focus should be on the bottom line, Peter Morris, chief economist at aviation consultancy Ascend by Cirium, told DW. "In only two years did Jet show a profit… So no matter what its traffic growth rate was, it should have concentrated on achieving and maintaining profitability."

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world, according to the 2019 Forbes billionaires' list released this week. With an estimated fortune of $131bn (£99bn) he is the wealthiest man in modern history.

But he is by no means the richest man of all time.

That title belongs to Mansa Musa, the 14th Century West African ruler who was so rich his generous handouts wrecked an entire country's economy.

"Contemporary accounts of Musa's wealth are so breathless that it's almost impossible to get a sense of just how wealthy and powerful he truly was," Rudolph Butch Ware, associate professor of history at the University of California, told the BBC.

Mansa Musa was "richer than anyone could describe", Jacob Davidson wrote about the African king for Money.com in 2015.
The 10 richest men of all time

1. Mansa Musa (1280-1337, king of the Mali empire) wealth incomprehensible
2. Augustus Caesar (63 BC-14 AD, Roman emperor) $4.6tn (£3.5tn)]
3. Zhao Xu (1048-1085, emperor Shenzong of Song in China) wealth incalculable
4. Akbar I (1542-1605, emperor of India's Mughal dynasty) wealth incalculable
5. Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919, Scottish-American industrialist) $372bn
6. John D Rockefeller (1839-1937) American business magnate) $341bn
7. Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov (1868-1918, Tsar of Russia) $300bn
8. Mir Osman Ali Khan ( 1886-1967, Indian royal) $230bn
9. William The Conqueror (1028-1087) $229.5bn
10. Muammar Gaddafi (1942-2011, long-time ruler of Libya) $200bn

///

Note that the only two private citizens on the list (non-royalty or heads of state) were products of the American experiment.

The mid-1990s inception of the private sector Internet – has led to the greatest economic and lifestyle leap forward in the history of humanity.

More than $1 trillion in private investment has taken us from 14K dial-up – to 1GB+ of speed. And hurtling ever upward.

The free speech-free market Xanadu that is the Internet – is entirely the creation of the free market. NOT of government.

Government has in fact been an ongoing, rolling impediment to this mind-boggling progress – not a contributor.

While all of this amazing private sector Internet success has been going on – Leftists have bizarrely insisted these local governments actually try to get into the Internet provider business.

The Case For Municipal Broadband

This paper should be MUCH shorter than it is. Seven words: “There isn’t a case for municipal broadband.”

We Need a Public Option for Broadband

Because the Obamacare public option was so outstanding.

We Need Affordable and Reliable Publicly-Accountable Broadband

Government – affordable and reliable? That’s like saying “We need short and slow NBA basketball players.” Reality is an impediment to the asserted demand.

Government can’t even get it going – because of my Wallet Rule:

If you go out on a Friday night with your wallet, and you go out the following Friday night with my wallet – on which Friday night are you going to have more fun?

Obviously, you’re going to have a whole lot more fun with my wallet – because you don’t care what my wallet looks like at the end of the evening.

Well, government is always on other peoples’ wallets – ours. In gambling parlance – they’re playing with house money.

Government will never spend money as wisely or well as the people who earned it – from whom government takes it.

“The only place in San Francisco still pricing real estate like it’s the 1980s is the city assessor’s office. Its property tax system dates back to the dawn of the floppy disk.

“City employees appraising the market work with software that runs on a dead programming language and can’t be used with a mouse. Assessors are prone to make mistakes when using the vintage software because it can’t display all the basic information for a given property on one screen.

“The staffers have to open and exit several menus to input stuff as simple as addresses. To put it mildly, the setup ‘doesn’t reflect business needs now,’ says the city’s assessor, Carmen Chu.”

This is San Fran-freaking-cisco. The Tech Capital of Planet Earth. The government is awash in hundreds of millions of Silicon Valley tax dollars.

And they are running software, government-wide – from when Ronald Reagan was president. Back when there was still a Soviet Union.

If The Tech Capital of Planet Earth is three-plus decades behind – how do you think the federal government is doing?

Here’s a hint: Frigging terribly. In fact – even worse.

US Government Is Spending Billions on Old Tech that Barely Works, Says Watchdog:

“Three-quarters of the government’s IT budget goes to supporting legacy systems, some of which date back to the 1970s.”
Oh good – four-plus decades behind. Ahh…1970s tech. When Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter were President.