* This week’s head scratcher: Bank of America is testing a program to help Black and Latino buyers get mortgages. If you qualify (if you have Black or Brown skin), you can get a zero-down, low-interest-rate loan, with no closing costs. Even if you have bad credit. Libby, my neighbor, likes it. She calls it social justice – “reparations for a history of mortgage discrimination.” Limo Lou doesn’t see it that way. “How is this different from what the banks were doing in the 2000s that caused the 2008 Great Recession?” he asks. I don’t know. What do you think?

* Freakonomics was a great book. And the podcast by that name that Stephen Dubner, its coauthor, produced was great, too. In one of the earliest episodes, Dubner focused on how economists raised their young children. Today, 10 years later, the children are old enough to talk. And they have a lot to say. Listen in here.

* Even if you disagree with their political/social views… you will find some of the marital advice given by this panel of super-smart conservatives edifying and/or amusing.