The 4th of July is a religious holiday, I write in an essay for Time.com that draws on my books about Samuel Adams and John F. Kennedy. Please check the article out here, and have a wonderful Independence Day.

Bill Gates (!) posts two short Bjorn Lomborg videos on saving lives and fighting poverty with fossil fuels.

From the blog of Greg Mankiw, the chairman of the Harvard department of economics:

I have moved to Nantucket for the summer, and the weather here has been too great to spend much time in front of a keyboard. (The three best reasons to be a professor: June, July, and August.)

Professor Mankiw is a remarkably productive superstar and national treasure, and I am glad he is enjoying his summer. But a few more blog posts like that, and federal taxpayers, tuition-paying parents, loan-taking-out students, and alumni donors may start wondering whether they want to sacrifice to subsidize those summers. Senator Grassley, call your office.

Libertarian (or classical liberal) law professor Richard Epstein's column this week makes the case that all nine Supreme Court justices had it wrong when they struck down the Massachusetts law imposing a 35-foot protest-free buffer zone around abortion clinics. The comments on the Hoover Institution web site are pretty hostile and also worth a look if this is an issue that interests you.

Kirsten Powers writes in a USA Today op-ed:

When asked by ABC's George Stephanopoulos about Boehner's claim that the president had exceeded his executive authority, Obama retorted, "I'm not going to apologize for trying to do something while they're doing nothing." He went on to explain that his administrative actions regarding immigration were OK because the GOP wouldn't work with him and "the majority of the American people want immigration reform done."

Notice that the former constitutional law professor did not make a substantive legal case in defense of his executive power grabs. He merely stated that what he did was popular, ergo his extra-constitutional actions are fine. A more reassuring answer would include explaining how his actions are consistent with the Constitution....

Conn Carroll has an essay at Townhall.com called "The Case for Libertarian Populism." Among his suggestions is this:

Republicans should push to make all banks with more than $50 billion in assets ineligible for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation program. Then, either the megabanks would shrink voluntarily or the American people would more likely take their money elsewhere.

About 33 banks meet that "more than $50 billion in assets" test, according to a list of banks by assets.

Add Senator Rand Paul to Senator Charles Grassley on the list of Republicans who have joined President Obama in using the term "fat cats" to refer to those in the financial industry who are pursuing profits. Mr. Paul said in New Hampshire in April that Republicans "cannot be the party of fat cats, rich people, and Wall Street," Bloomberg News reports.

As we said here back when Mr. Grassley used the term:

Regular readers of FutureOfCapitalism.com know we're certainly not averse to criticizing the banks or even certain bankers or ex-bankers. But we'd also submit it would be a good thing for the level of discourse and clarity of public understanding if the term "fat cat" were retired. It just demonizes successful capitalists.

The Supreme Court decision in the Hobby Lobby ObamaCare contraceptives coverage case is the topic of my column this week. Please check it out at Reason (here) and at Newsmax (here).

A Bloomberg News article reports on the tax benefits available to those who move to Puerto Rico from the 50 states:

Under Puerto Rico's new rules, an individual who moves to the island pays no local or federal capital gains tax (capital gains are charged based on your tax home rather than where you earn them) and no local taxes on dividend or interest income for 20 years. Even someone working for a mainland company who is a resident of the island would be exempt from paying U.S. federal taxes on his salary. Moving to the island won't kill all taxes: U.S. citizens still have to pay federal taxes on dividend or interest income from stateside companies.

Fascinating stuff. Alas, Bloomberg has to put it into a tendentious political context: "Tax bills have risen after a 10-year break under President George W. Bush that disproportionately favored the rich."

Senator Marco Rubio gave a big economic policy speech this week in Washington, and it is worth a read. I liked his criticism of the status quo:

instead of adjusting to the realities of this new era, many of our institutions are failing us – and none more so than our federal government.

Instead of attracting jobs to our shores through simplifying taxes and regulations, it imposes higher taxes and more regulations that push investment and innovation to other countries.

Instead of anti-poverty programs that promote work and education so our people can emerge from poverty, we pump more money into programs that have failed us for a half century.

Instead of taking steps to make higher education more available and more affordable, we pour resources into a system that is expensive, inaccessible and is graduating too many people with unemployable degrees.

The dismal negative 2.9% first quarter annualized growth rate the Commerce Department reported this morning underscores what University of Chicago economist John Cochrane, in a recent post about a speech by Lawrence Summers, writes:

While the press talks about recovery, macroeconomists look at output growth and employment and it still looks pretty dismal.GDP fell in the recession, but has not recovered relative to trend. What was a recession is turning into everyone's nightmare, perpetually slow growth.

The Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank criticizes President Obama for playing so much golf:

On June 14, Sunni rebels threatened Baghdad after seizing much of Iraq — and President Obama fearlessly played a round at the Sunnylands Golf Course in Rancho Mirage, Calif.

The next day, the militants posted pictures of their mass execution of Shiite members of Iraq's security forces — and Obama boldly teed off again, at Oracle founder Larry Ellison's Rancho Mirage estate.

Renewal notices went out this afternoon to FutureOfCapitalism subscribers who are up for renewal. Thanks to those who have already responded by renewing, and to those who have become paying members for the first time. As a reminder to those who have yet to renew or those who have yet to become paying members, this community could not exist without the support of the paying members and subscribers who fund the site's operations. Your editor is not ensconced in academia or in a think tank. Advertising and fees for freelance writing cover only a small fraction of the site's operating costs. Your paying memberships send a powerful and valuable signal of support. So if you appreciate the site's content and want it to continue, please join us today.An entry-level subscription is less than $1 a week, and the transaction won't take much of your time at all. The link is here. Thank you.

The New York Review of Books has an article about Amazon.com and Jeff Bezos that is written by Steve Coll. It's an interesting article for a variety of reasons, but one of them is that Mr. Coll, a former managing editor of the Washington Post who is now the dean of the Columbia University school of journalism, uses language that pretty openly signals his left-wing views:

Crucially, as in so many other fields of economic policy, antitrust law has been reshaped in recent decades by the spread of free-market fundamentalism. ...On the right, free-market ideologists built think tanks and long-term legal strategies to defeat business regulation of all kinds and to reduce the scope of antitrust enforcement from its expansive Progressive-era origins.

So if you are on the right, you are an "ideologist" or a "fundamentalist."

My column this week disagrees with the claims by some that the Obama presidency is already "over":

even if President Obama doesn't accomplish another new thing in the next two years, the actions he has already taken make him one of the most consequential presidents ever.

Please check out the column at the New York Sun (here), Reason (here), and Newsmax (here).