A follow-up to the item here the other day about the Bloomberg news editorial calling for tax increases to balance the federal deficit, while Mr. Bloomberg himself has opposed tax increases to close the city and state deficits and also opposed the editorial's suggestion of raising taxes on the so-called rich: Now Mr. Bloomberg seems to be suggesting tax increases for everyone. The New York Post reports:

Taxes should be increased for everyone -- not just the rich -- to break the logjam in Washington over how to reduce the nation's towering deficit, Mayor Michael Bloomberg declared today.

"The easiest thing to do, the fairest thing to do, is a small percentage on everything," the mayor recommended on his weekly WOR radio show.

Reason.com has an online forum asking respondents "What would you do to improve job growth?" with answers from Amity Shlaes, John Stossel, Deirdre McCloskey, Jeffrey Miron, Don Boudreaux, and many others, including me. What was most striking to me in the answers was the level of disagreement in the libertarian camp, broadly defined, about monetary policy.

On one side is Amity Shlaes, who suggests, "The single thing the U.S. could do to ensure long-term growth, including that of jobs, is to reform our Federal Reserve so that monetary policy is rules-based, not personality-based. Even a return to the gold standard would do, though it is also possible to fashion a monetary regime under which the currency is pegged to a basket of commodities."

The New York Times has a front-page news article under the headline "Protests Force Israel to Confront Wealth Gap." It reports that "a handful of wealthy families" — "the Ofers, the Dankners, the Tshuvas, the Fishmans and others — account for the 10 biggest business groups in the country and together control some 30 percent of the economy." It goes on, "Although Israel's economy is strong, the data on wealth concentration, published by the Bank of Israel, are unsettling...the Bank of Israel study shows that while the United States, Britain and Germany have much less concentration of wealth than Israel, it is not so different from several other democracies. Based on the holdings of the 10 largest business families, Israel is in about the same situation as Switzerland, France and Belgium, and its wealth is far less concentrated than is the case in Sweden."

Harvard economist Edward Glaeser, author of Triumph of the City, has a column up at Bloomberg News about riots:

After riots, there is often an attempt to explain the outburst as the result of large societal forces. The events in the U.K. have been blamed on growing inequality and the current government's austerity program. The disorder in the U.S. in the 1960s was attributed to racism.

But across U.S. cities, there has never been much of a link between unrest and either inequality or poverty. In fact, the riots of the 1960s were actually slightly more common in cities that had more government spending. Riots were significantly less common in the South, where the Jim Crow laws were making their long overdue exit. This isn't to say that many people involved in riots don't have valid grievances, but plenty of people have serious grievances and don't riot.

The two big fights in the Republican presidential debate in Iowa are worth paying attention to, because they represent wider debates that the Republican primary electorate is going to sort out.

The first fight was between Rep. Michele Bachmann and Governor Timothy Pawlenty. He attacked her for not getting results, for, as Senator Santorum put it in his own attack on her, "showmanship, not leadership." Mr. Pawlenty said, making light of Ms. Bachmann's claim to have a titanium spine, "It's not her spine we're worried about, it's her record of results." Ms. Bachmann, for her part, complained that Mr. Pawlenty's vaunted "results" had been achieved at the price of his having "cut a deal with the special interest groups." She criticized him for supporting an individual mandate for health insurance, for supporting a cap-and-trade energy policy, and for proclaiming that the era of small government is over.

Just as President Obama was spending the day touring yet another battery factory, Yang Jian of Automotive News China has an update on how BYD, the Chinese battery-maker in which Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway made a highly touted investment, is moving away from electric vehicles:

BYD has abandoned its false hopes for strong EV sales. Instead the company is investing in its gasoline vehicles and is moving them upscale....

While BYD shakes up its lineup of gasoline cars, it also appears to be reconsidering its investment in EVs.

The company has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to develop plug-in hybrids and EVs. But sales have been pitifully low. In part, that's because China's cities lack charging stations. EVs also remain expensive despite hefty incentives.
Should BYD continue to spend tons of money to build more and better EVs? Or should it devote more resources to its gasoline vehicles?

Seen in front of a restaurant on Chambers St. in Lower Manhattan:

The restaurant owners should have the freedom to price their meals however they choose, so long as they aren't getting any special treatment from the government employees in return for the discount. And I can understand patriotic companies who give discounts to active-duty military personnel or even their families. But those of us who work in the private sector also have the freedom to choose not to patronize businesses that charge higher prices to those of us who earn a living through voluntary transactions rather through the taxing power of government.

Bloomberg News has an article reporting, "The Chinese government, along with philanthropy and tuition, will pay for the New York University campus slated to open in Shanghai in 2013, the school's president, John Sexton, said." When the New York Times reported plans for the new campus back in March it made no mention of the Chinese government funding.

Yesterday, in an editorial headlined, "Half-Measures From the Fed," a New York Times editorial faulted the Federal Reserve for not doing more to debase the dollar. Said the Times, "The focus on combating inflation at a time when the economy is clearly not overheating and when oil prices are retreating is akin to Washington's fixation on spending cuts when the economy is weak. Both are a fundamental misreading of what the economy needs....the Fed could take modest steps, like shifting its portfolio toward bonds with longer maturities, which would help to keep long-term rates low and nudge investors into riskier investments. It could reduce the interest it pays on the banks' huge reserves or even tax the reserves to try to encourage more lending. It could also resume buying Treasuries or other securities to provide additional monetary stimulus. A more aggressive strategy would be letting inflation rise above the Fed's comfort level of 2 percent or so to, say, 4 percent. That could help the economy by easing the repayment of debt."

From a Yahoo! News/Reuters "special report" on hedge fund manager John Paulson:

Paulson did much to open the doors. He made his funds - in most cases just the Advantage funds - available to wealthy customers of Wall Street brokerages and small investment advisory firms.

These distribution channels, or "platforms" in hedge-fund jargon, are a cheaper way for wealthy individual investors to access Paulson. The manager normally has a $10 million investment requirement. But for as little as $100,000, an investor with several million dollars in assets can put money into a Paulson fund through these brokerage firms.

An increasing number of hedge funds, like D.E. Shaw & Co., Israel Englander's Millennium Management and Daniel Loeb's Third Point, are available to wealthy clients of UBS, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America's Merrill Lynch. But few funds are on as many of these platforms as Paulson.

Well, they couldn't have picked a much better moment for another Republican presidential debate. Tomorrow at 9 p.m. eastern on Fox News, with Washington Examiner participation.

All the complaining about the downgrade of America's debt rating by Standard & Poor's is a good time for a reminder that in many important ways these ratings agencies are (or at least were) creatures of the government. The Wall Street Journal has two articles today bearing on the point, one referring to "a provision in last year's Dodd-Frank financial overhaul that requires U.S. financial regulators to purge references to ratings from their rules" and a second referring to that more conditionally: "Dodd-Frank also requires U.S. regulators to purge references to ratings by one of the 10 SEC-approved firms from their rules. If approved, the move might encourage bond issuers to seek ratings from smaller firms and prod investors to pay more attention to them." The second article also reports, "Pension plans, mutual funds and other large investors often have mandates to buy securities with ratings from one or more of the 10 firms registered with the SEC."

Thomas Sowell's support of the Boehner debt ceiling deal was mentioned here, so it's also worth mentioning his latest view on the issue:

Just a week before the budget deal was made at the eleventh hour, it looked like the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives had scored a victory by getting the President and the Congressional Democrats to give up the idea of raising the tax rates -- and to cut spending instead. But now that the details are coming out, that "victory" looks very temporary, if not illusory.

The price of getting that deal has been having the Republicans agree to sitting on a special bipartisan Congressional committee that will either come to an agreement on spending cuts before Thanksgiving or have the budgets of both the Defense Department and Medicare cut drastically.

Today's Wall Street Journal has an article under the headline "Fund Stars Fallen: Berkowitz and Miller Stumble in Market Malaise" that begins:

Well-known mutual-fund investors Bruce Berkowitz and Bill Miller enjoyed winning streaks that lasted years. But they have been among those whacked in the current downturn.

The $13.4 billion Fairholme Fund lost about 18% in August through Monday, including a nearly 9% drop on Monday. That compares with a 14% decline in that time for similar large-value funds, according to Morningstar Inc. data. The fund likely rebounded some Tuesday....Managed by Mr. Berkowitz, Fairholme won praise for protecting shareholders during the 2008-09 bear market, thanks to a decision to hold a stockpile of cash. At the time, Mr. Berkowitz avoided most financial stocks, arguing it was impossible to understand their businesses. He won further plaudits for snapping up corporate debt on the cheap during the crisis and riding it back to big profits during the rebound.

USA Today has coverage of yesterday's election in Wisconsin, where Republicans held their Senate majority:

"Clearly if Republicans can beat back this recall initiative, all over the country the message will be that in a purple state like Wisconsin … it is possible to take on the unions," said John McAdams, a political science professor at Marquette University. "That's going to echo around the country."