Peter G. Peterson's obituary didn't make the front page, not even the front-page "refer box" of capsule summaries in my edition of the print New York Times this morning, which may say more about the editorial judgment of the contemporary New York Times than it does about Peterson's life. His book "The Education of an American Dreamer" was reviewed here at FutureOfCapitalism back in June 2009 and may be of interest again in light of his death.

"Fake News" — and what to do about it — is the topic of both an academic article in a recent issue of Science magazine and my latest column. Does the New York Times coverage of Larry Kudlow qualify as "fake"? Please check the column out at Reason (here), the New York Sun (here), and Newsmax (here).

Don't just take it from me: take it from New York Times Magazine contributing writer Jason Zengerle, writing in the New York Times Sunday book review section: "In the realm of policy, what the Trump administration is doing to America, so far at least, is not as horrible as you feared."

That's a low bar, given how horrible the fears were that were voiced immediately after the election. And it also makes certain assumptions about the Times readership — the "you," in the sentence — presuming that they feared Trump rather than hopefully anticipated his policy changes. Even so, give the Times credit for acknowledging what a lot of its readers (to judge by the "worse than I feared" online comments on the review) can't get themselves to accept.

In light of President Trump's excellent decision to select my fellow New York Sun columnist Larry Kudlow as chairman of the National Economic Council, here's a link to the column I wrote about the book by Kudlow and Brian Domitrovic, JFK and the Reagan Revolution: A Secret History of American Prosperity.

New York Times columnist Bret Stephens writes about President Trump's choice of Mike Pompeo for secretary of State: "he'd be smart to model his behavior on Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, the administration's one undisputed star." As Stephens' Times predecessor William Safire pointed out posthumously on Twitter, Mick Mulvaney and Scott Gottlieb are stars, too.

Lee Smith writes at Tablet:

The press also has an interest in prolonging the Mueller probe. Russiagate is good for business, mesmerizing viewers with a grand political spectacle featuring one of the media's biggest draws for the last several decades—Donald Trump, the boss villain who is now in the White House. Maybe most prominent among the interested media organizations is the paper that has colluded with lawbreakers in publishing the names of US persons whose identities have been illegally leaked by intelligence officials and political operatives—the Washington Post.

David Leonhardt has a New York Times op-ed column about how to eat less added sugar. He writes:

Virtually the only way to eat a healthy amount of sugar is to make a conscious effort. You can think of it as a political act: resisting the sugar industry's attempts to profit off your body. Or you can simply think of it as taking care of yourself.

"Dilbert" cartoonist Scott Adams has so far turned out to be a more accurate analyst of President Trump's handling of North Korea than many elite commentators whose hatred of Trump blinded them to the possibilities. That's the topic of my column this week. Please check out the full column at Newsmax (here) and the New York Sun (here).

A quick follow-up to the post here earlier this week on "Amazon Bank": The New York Times reports:

There are a number of reasons that low-income consumers have been less avid online shoppers, including the fact that many do not have credit cards....Amazon has tried to address some of these obstacles. Amazon Cash, for example, allows people to add money to their Amazon accounts by taking cash to CVS pharmacies, GameStops and other retail locations.

David Brooks writes about what he calls today's "student mobbists":

I'd just ask them to take two courses. The first would be in revolutions — the French, Russian, Chinese and all the other ones that unleashed the passion of the mob in an effort to overthrow oppression — and the way they ALL wound up waist deep in blood.

It's strange that Brooks leaves out the American Revolution, which, while it certainly did entail bloodshed, netted out positively for the world in a way that was substantively different from the three that Brooks does mention. The world "ALL" in all capitals seems to me to neglect that.

"Why Americans Should Give Socialism a Try" is the headline above a column by Washington Post opinion writer Elizabeth Bruenig.

"It's time to give socialism a try," she writes. "I don't think business-as-usual but better is enough to fix what's broken here. I think the problem lies at the root of the thing, with capitalism itself."

She goes on:

both Sullivan's and Mounk's complaints — that Americans appear to be isolated, viciously competitive, suspicious of one another and spiritually shallow; and that we are anxiously looking for some kind of attachment to something real and profound in an age of decreasing trust and regard — seem to be emblematic of capitalism, which encourages and requires fierce individualism, self-interested disregard for the other, and resentment of arrangements into which one deposits more than he or she withdraws. (As a business-savvy friend once remarked: Nobody gets rich off of bilateral transactions where everybody knows what they're doing.)

Amazon's move into the banking business is the topic of an article by Bain & Company consultants Gerard du Toit and Aaron Cheris. They write:

As we've noted here before (and before that, too), sometimes the most informative New York Times coverage of overregulation (not an oxymoron, really) comes in, of all places, the food section.

The latest example comes in a negative Pete Wells review of DaDong, a newly opened New York City outpost of a chain with a reputation as "Beijing's best Peking duck."

Mr. Wells writes, in a review whose headline includes the phrase "lame duck":

President Trump's comment — "hopefully we can do some litigation against the opioid companies" — is the topic of my column this week. Please check it out at the New York Sun (here), Reason (here), and Newsmax (here).

For those complaining that Trump's tariffs are a betrayal of Republican free market traditions, it's worth remembering that Senator Reed Smoot of Utah and Rep. Willis Hawley of Oregon were both Republicans. Jay Foraker of Brown Brothers Harriman has a really nice, long-view historical perspective, headlined, "The Cycles of U.S. Trade Policy," available here. It was published December 4, 2017 but is newly timely and relevant right now.