Harvard University's search for a new president was the topic of my column this week. Please check it out at Newsmax (here) and the New York Sun (here).

The statement from Amazon, JP Morgan Chase, and Berkshire Hathaway announcing their new joint healthcare venture as "an independent company that is free from profit-making incentives and constraints" made me chuckle.

There's a view that "profit-making incentives" are a problem with American health care. But if Jeff Bezos, Jamie Dimon, and Warren Buffett really think that "profit-making incentives" are so harmful, they've sure chosen odd careers as leaders of for-profit companies. In fact their entire venture is a demonstration of how "profit-making incentives" can actually at least potentially be helpful in health care. Buffett says he wants to "check the rise in health costs." One reason he is motivated to do that is surely that those costs, borne by employers, cut into profits.

Juleanna Glover is someone I have a lot of respect for, but I'm skeptical of her scenarios for a "serious third-party run" in 2020:

Ask your neighbor whether the idea of a Joe Biden-Ben Sasse independent ticket is appealing — with Mr. Biden pledging to serve only four years (to address concerns about his age). Jeff Flake or Bob Corker could be a contender.

Another possibility: a business executive with a record of sound leadership, moral authority and a quick wit: the financier David Rubenstein, Ginni Rometty of IBM or Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, perhaps? How about a centrist Republican governor like Larry Hogan of Maryland, John Kasich of Ohio or Charlie Baker of Massachusetts? And then, of course, there's Oprah.

For years I've been trying to get Michael Bloomberg to run for president along these lines, and I am a happy constituent and fan of Governor Baker's. But I don't see it happening with these people in this cycle. Let's take them one at a time:

My post from the other day about the Oscar-nominated movie "The Post," and the dangers of journalists "trying to force events into the Pentagon Papers-Watergate-Washington Post narrative in cases when the actual true narrative is something quite different," prompted a comment from reader-watchdog-community member-content co-creator Lyle, who got at the important matter of incentives: "pushing scandal into the Watergate mold is how reporters get famous," Lyle wrote, adding, "Woodward and Bernstein were just more or less anonymous reporters before the break in but got famous as a result of their work. Every reporter wants that and the big bucks that come from writing your book about the scandal."

That's exactly how the incentives work. It's hard to think of a journalist who ever got a book deal, or a television contract, or a Pulitzer Prize, or a raise, or a promotion, or a better job at another publication, by saying, "you know what, this story isn't really that big a deal, let's drop it."

The movie "The Post" garnered Oscar nominations this week for Best Picture and Best Actress, reinforcing the movie's narrative of journalists as heroic figures who bravely challenge the government, expose wrongdoing, and report the truth.

I saw the film last weekend and enjoyed it. From the point of view of movie craftsmanship, it's hard to go wrong with the talent combination of Steven Spielberg, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, and John Williams. I particularly loved the pressroom scene and the sound of the newspapers coming off the press, which brought back some fond personal memories from my college days.

Section 340B of the Public Health Service Act was enacted in 1992. It allows certain hospitals access to discounts on billions of dollars worth of drugs. A new article by Sunita Desai and J. Michael McWilliams in the New England Journal of Medicine takes a skeptical look at "unintended consequences" of the program:

The program is explicitly intended to encourage hospitals to dedicate resources generated from the discounts to expanding or improving care for vulnerable populations, particularly those served by safety-net providers. Accordingly, in assessing eligibility, the program favors hospitals that disproportionately serve low-income patients, but it does not require or provide incentives for hospitals to repurpose financial gains to enhance care for underserved patients. Rather, the discounts — which range from 20% to 50% — only strengthen the incentives for hospitals to supply drugs to patients who have generous insurance coverage. The extent to which hospitals support the mission of the program is subject to minimal oversight.

How family factored into the political decision-making of Hillbilly Elegy author J.D. Vance and New York Republican Harry Wilson is the topic of my column this week. Please check the full column out at the New Boston Post here.

When Amazon first announced back in September that it was searching for a site for a second headquarters, I mentioned Boston and Canada as possibilities, but wrote, "if I had to predict or bet, I'd suspect that the company winds up choosing Washington, D.C., Virginia, or Maryland."

Amazon this morning announced its 20-site list of finalists. It includes Boston and Toronto. But three of the 20 sites — Montgomery County, Md.; Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia — are Washington or Washington suburbs.

Apple says it will pay $38 billion in U.S. taxes to bring home cash that it had stashed abroad.

It's an astonishing number, even by the vast standards of Washington spending.

To understand just how much money this is, consider that in 2014 the entire bottom 50% of individual income tax filers paid a total of $37,740,000,000 in federal income taxes, according to the Tax Foundation.

Or consider that as recently as 1947 the entire federal budget outlays were $34.5 billion (in 1947 dollars, but still).

Vice President Pence might want to add an immigrant absorption center to the itinerary for his upcoming trip to Israel, I suggest in my column this week. Please check the column out in full at the New Boston Post (here), Newsmax (here), and the New York Sun (here).

From a transcript of a National Public Radio "Weekend Edition" program in which NPR's Scott Simon interviewed NPR sports correspondent Tom Goldman:

GOLDMAN: Yes. Much different fan base, of course, in New England. There's an expectation of all things great, even though the Patriots have been going through a controversy of late with tales of a rift between head coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady. New England should be fine against the Titans, who have nothing to lose and probably will. Tom Brady is out to prove that 40-year-old quarterbacks can win Super Bowls.

SIMON: But, you know, I read something this week. He and Gisele Bundchen - am I pronouncing that correctly?

GOLDMAN: Very well.

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, as quoted by the New York Times:

"Everyone has different truths," he said. "When you talk about the way I see things, the way you guys see things, the way the writer may see things, the way Coach Belichick may see things, everyone has different truths based on their perspectives."

If I disagree with Brady and try to argue that there's just one truth, and he insists he's right, does it prove his point, or prove mine?

The academic tax law world is abuzz with discussion about how states (or individual taxpayers) may be able to restructure their tax systems in a way that effectively restores the full federal deduction for state and local taxes. For examples, see these two blog posts posts by Daniel Shaviro of NYU law school and this paper by eight tax law professors — Joe Bankman, David Gamage, Jacob Goldin, Daniel Hemel, Darien Shanske, Kirk Stark, Dennis Ventry, and Manoj Viswanathan. As the paper puts it, "it may be possible for states to provide their residents a means of preserving the effects of a state/local tax deduction, at least in part, by granting a charitable tax credit for federally deductible gifts, including gifts to the state or one of its political subdivisions."

A draft paper by Gene Auten of the Treasury Department and David Splinter of the Joint Committee on Taxation finds that income inequality isn't worsening as much as some other economists claim. They conclude:

Law professor Richard Epstein writes in his Hoover Institution column about what he describes as "good news":

Right now, ironically, race relations are, if anything, better than a year ago because we do not have the constant acrimony over the deaths of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown that defined the final period of the Obama administration. It is not too far-fetched to assume that the relative calm in race relations (to which Charlottesville was the dreadful exception) stems in part because of increasing economic opportunities. As the the Wall Street Journal reports, "the unemployment rate for black Americans fell to its lowest rate ever at 6.8%."...Remember, the strongest protection for any worker is not some balky legal regime, but a growing economy that makes the threat to quit credible.