It’s always great to see Fran Lebowitz speak anywhere. She was the guest last week on Bill Maher’s personal podcast, Club Random. We ought to keep her point, that “Russia has had the worst form of every kind of government,” in mind for long road ahead.

Speaking of both government and Maher, his latest Real Time editorial observed that “the places where fights break out [in parliament] are the countries where they aren’t sure” whether they’re a real democracy (where we use our words) or an authoritarian regime (where there is only one party line). The kind of behaviour displayed at the recent State of the Union, for example, means the US is stranded in the ambiguous middle and, he argued, headed toward the wrong end of that spectrum.

Maher went on to add that politicians do not have to like each other to get anything done—Hollywood, for example, regularly produces entire movies where the leads won’t so much as look at each other. I think that’s an important point. Politics does need not be totally agreeable to solve problems but it does need to be civil.

I learned from Paul Krugman’s chat with Ezra Klein, on the latter’s eponymous podcast, that the generally acceptable 0-2% inflation target is something of an arbitrary trend set by New Zealand (“The Inflation Story Has Changed Significantly. Paul Krugman Breaks It Down”). Thanks a lot, New Zealand.