Interesting blog bits

1. Seamus Hogan asks What do alcohol and electricity have in common? Short answer, crap reports written about them.
2. Daniel Kaplan on The Soccer Theory of Globalization. Last season, when the British soccer team Liverpool FC played Real Madrid, the number of Spanish players in Liverpool’s team outnumbered those playing for Madrid.
3. Tom M on Rawls' Approach to Philosophy. The idea is that the goal of society should be to maximise the wellbeing of the worst off members. This means that inequality is permitted, but only if it makes the worst off better than the counterfactual.
4. James R. Otteson on An Excellent New Book on Adam Smith. Worth a look.
5. Peter Boettke on A Declining Price Level During Times of Great Productivity Gains. The absence of a healthy "deflation" in the prices of consumer goods in a period of such considerable growth in productivity as that of recent years provides the main evidence that the monetary shock has seriously disturbed the economic process.
6. Don Boudreaux on The Perils of Central Banking.
7. Matt Nolan on RBNZ inconsistency. When the hell did the Reserve Bank become a central planner? Their mandate is to control medium term inflation, not to decide how national income should be divided. They should mention risks, but saying that households are incapable of looking after themselves is going too far.