Dr Eamonn Butler

In a speech today, the head of the new Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Martin Wheatley, will say that the structure and governance of Libor – the interest rate at which Britain's banks agree to lend to each other – is 'no longer fit for purpose and reform is needed'.

As former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan put it: "There are very few people over the generations who have ideas that are sufficiently original to materially alter the direction of civilization. Milton is one of those very few people."

He was talking about Milton Friedman, Nobel-winning economist, libertarian policy advocate, great communicator and author of the Free to Choose book and TV series – born on this day, exactly a century ago, to Hungarian Jewish immigrant parents in Brooklyn, New York.

I can't decide whether news this weekend, that British ministers are expected to introduce a cap on the amount that individuals pay for care during their lives, is welcome common sense or yet another smash and grab raid by the middle class.

The plan, based on proposals by economist Andrew Dilnot, would be to cap the costs that people in England pay for care at £35,000 over their lifetimes. Pensioners would be expected to insure themselves at that level, then the state would pay any further expenses.

We are saddened to learn of the death of Adam Smith Institute author Dr Barry Bracewell-Milnes.

Bracewell-Milnes was one of the earliest supporters of the Adam Smith Institute in the late 1970s, and became a regular speaker at our conferences and events. A meticulous tax economist – who was for many years economic adviser to the Institute of Directors – he spent much of his life arguing passionately that taxes on capital were counterproductive and damaging.

I've defended bankers pretty robustly over the last few years. The popular view is that their greed and recklessness sunk the whole financial system, taking us with it. Oh yeah? Well, what about the greed and recklessness of the politicians and monetary authorities, who engineered a fake fifteen-year boom built on artificially cheap credit, paper money and government debt? Or the greed and recklessness of the public who saw house prices spiralling upwards and took out 125% mortgages so they could make as much money out of the bubble as possible?

It's Adam Smith's birthday. Well, sort of. His birth was registered at the church in Kirkcaldy, Scotland, on 5 June 1723. So he was probably born around 3 June 1723. But in 1872 the calendar changed and a few days were added, so that works out to 14 June, which is the day we celebrate it here at the Adam Smith Institute.

The Home Secretary, Theresa May, is proposing Tom Winsor as HM Inspector of Constabulary – the regulator of Britain's police service. Naturally, a lot of people are alarmed at this prospect.

I'm looking forward to the release of a couple of interesting books.

One is The Golden Guinea by Michael Nevin, who runs a blog with the same name.

The game now is that everyone sits round the table, staring at Germany until it blinks. Eurozone leaders figure the only way to save the euro is for all 17 member nations to get together and issue 'eurobonds'. There are some big hitters among those who think this is a really good idea – people like the new President of France, Francois Holland, the Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, and the European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.