Timothy M. Devinney (UTS), Pat Auger (Melbourne), and Rosalind De Sailly (UTS): What Matters to Americans: Social, Economic and Political Values. Katerina Linos and Kimberly Twist (UC-Berkeley): Can the Supreme Court Change Americans' Views? Comparing Experimental and Observational Methods. Science confirms the obvious — Americans are selfish: We're less motivated to do something challenging if it benefits the common good. Happiness means being just rushed enough: The image of the increasingly time-crunched American is wrong — and being less rushed does not always mean being happier. David S. F. Portree on the purpose of the United States. President Obama wants America to be like Germany — what does that really mean? Mount Reagan: Why do Americans name mountains after presidents?

Mehrsa Baradaran (Georgia): Banking and the Social Contract. What does a smart person do at CPAC? Follow Derek Khanna, the GOP wunderkind that the House Republicans were too stupid to keep around. What can we learn from human sacrifice? Eli Dourado wants to know. Christie Aschwanden on the curious lives of the people who feel no fear. The neglected roots of Europe’s slide to authoritarianism: Dear reader, will you please read the following ten quotations and, while so doing, try to imagine who uttered or wrote these words? (and more) Washington's creepiest cartoonist is actually a sweet 73-year-old Texan retiree: Meet Michael McCutcheon, the man who draws everyone he sees on C-SPAN for fun. James Fallows on “false equivalence”: Where it came from. NYU's Arts and Sciences faculty vote no confidence in President John Sexton.


Aysun Ozkose (Karabuk): The Bathing Tradition in Anatolia. From The Weekly Standard, who is Thomas Nagel and why are so many of his fellow academics condemning him? Malcolm Thorndike Nicholson on Hilary Putnam, a philosopher in the age of science. Noam Chomsky talks to John McDermott about Chavez, Obama and the link between activism and academia. John Brennan in grad school: Destroying democracy helps save it. From National Defense, services can't be selfish if military is to succeed, says Air Force planner. What about Rob Portman’s daughter? Irin Carmon on why Republicans' new empathy on gays and immigration won't extend to reproductive rights. End of points: The wine points system might not go as quietly as Robert Parker, Jr. Why politicians pursue austerity policies that never work: Henry Farrell reviews Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea by Mark Blyth.

Georg Erber (DIW Berlin): Towards a New Theory of Value? From the Journal of Australian Political Economy, a special issue on capital against capitalism: New research in Marxist political economy. Enrico C. Perotti (Amsterdam): The Political Economy of Finance. From Renewal, a review essay on histories of debt by James Stafford. John Gray reviews The Locust and the Bee: Predators and Creators in Capitalism’s Future by Geoff Mulgan. From the Roman Empire to our own Gilded Age, inequality moves in cycles — the future looks like a rough ride. Morning Jo(k)e: Joe Scarborough and the Beltway austerians think Nobelist Paul Krugman is a nut — really, Joe? Eric Schliesser on when Larry Summers was just an Imperialist Economist and a footnote to Derrida. Tyler Cowen on the cosmopolitan and civil libertarian core of economics. What happened to Econ 101? Richard C. Longworth wonders.