J. Bradford DeLong's Blog, page 119

This is exactly the kind of work we at Equitable Growth w...

This is exactly the kind of work we at Equitable Growth want to see carried out by exactly the kind of young people we ought to be financing. Very well done: Ellora Derenoncourt and Claire Montialoux: Minimum Wages and Racial Inequality: "The earnings difference between black and white workers fell dramatically in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This paper shows that the extension of the minimum wage played a critical role in this decline. The 1966 Fair Labor Standards Act extended federal minimum wage coverage to agriculture, restaurants, nursing homes, and other services which were previously uncovered and where nearly a third of black workers were employed...

#noted

The very sharp Barry Eichengreen has a theory of why Dona...

The very sharp Barry Eichengreen has a theory of why Donald Trump wants to put ex-tight money advocate Judy Shelton on the Federal Reserve Board. It is certainly a more plausible and sensible theory of what they are aiming at than any other theory that I have seen put forward. But I fear that it is wrong: understanding a word or deed of the Trump administration from the standpoint that there is a coherent vision of the world from which it is plausible and sensible seems deeply flawed to me:

Barry Eichengreen: Trump���s Cross of Gold: "Shelton is a proponent of fixed exchange rates. Her belief in fixed rates is catnip to an administration that sees currency manipulation as a threat to winning its trade war. Team Trump wants to compress the United States trade deficit and enhance the competitiveness of domestic manufactures by using tariffs to raise the price of imported goods. But a 10% tariff that is offset by a 10% depreciation of foreign currencies against the dollar leaves the relative prices of US imports unchanged.... Thus, the challenge for Team Trump is to get other countries to change their policies to prevent their currencies from moving. That���s what the demand for stable exchange rates and an end to 'currency manipulation' is all about.... But in the absence of a global conference���something that would be anathema to Trump���the way to get there is the same as under the nineteenth-century gold standard.... If the US moves first, 'preemptively' as Shelton puts it, other countries will follow. Behind this presumption, however, lie a number of logical non-sequiturs. First, other countries show little desire to stabilize their exchange rates.... Second, gold is no longer a stable anchor.... Today... the stabilizing capacity of the mining industry is weaker.... Arguments for a gold standard and pegged exchange rates are deeply flawed. But there is a silver lining, as it were: nothing along these lines is going to happen, Governor Shelton or not...

#noted

Ken White (2014): Science Fiction Community Generates Thi...

Ken White (2014): Science Fiction Community Generates This Weekend's Buffoonish Defamation Threat: "Sean P. Fodera is a science fiction writer who works in the publishing industry. He's angry. He started out angry over ongoing upheaval in the science fiction and fantasy literature community. That upheaval is mirrored in the gaming community and skeptic community and other communities with devoted and vocal fanbases. It's a conflict between two groups: a group that thinks the communities have a problem with racism, sexism, and harassment and should take steps to address it, and a group that thinks that the first group is engaged in free-speech-suppressing political correctness and should be resisted. A full description of the dispute would be too lengthy for this post...

...The Daily Dot published a post about this ongoing dispute, and in the course of doing so quoted and linked to some of the angrier things that Fodera said about Mary Robinette Kowal, a science fiction author and officer of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Kowal has spoken out against harassment in the science fiction and fantasy literature community, and SFWA is currently a locus of controversy about such allegations and the official reactions to them. In forum threads on SFF.net, Fodera complained at rather tedious length about Kowal, called her things like "incompetent," said that she agitated him in a manner he compared to how dogs agitate him, and sneered that she was a hypocrite for complaining about sexism given how she sometimes dresses:

I find it very funny and ironic that she would jump on this bandwagon. For a long time, her website featured an array of photos of her in a diaphanous white outfit, posing on a beach. No metal bikinis or such, but they were not innocuous writer headshots either. One of them, with her recumbent on the sand with legs exposed, made her somewhat attractive. I also recall she's fond of wearing tight-fitting gowns and plunging necklines when she attends cons and award ceremonies.

I'll have to add "phony" to "incompetent" and "arrogant" in the mental tags I've assigned her.

Girls give up the right to complain about sexism unless they dress conservatively. It is known.

Anyway, if Fodera was angry before, this coverage made him really angry. How dare someone quote him and link to the full quotes! He penned this threat:

I will note that since I now have the name of the writer, and I can prove that the quotes were edited to change their meaning, I have a very good case for a libel suit. I suppose no one noted that I work in the legal profession within the publishing industry, and have taught college courses on the subject.

BTW, as of now, it looks like the article was "shared" 1,200 times already. That makes each of those sharers a part to the libel, and makes each of them equally culpable in the eyes of the law. I'll speak to my attorney first thing tomorrow.

The Streisand Effect predictably ensued. Multiple people���author John Scalzi, for instance���wrote about Fodera's bumptious legal threat, and the Daily Dot article probably got several orders of magnitude more traffic than it otherwise would have.

Though Fodera works "in the legal profession" and has "taught college courses," he does not appear to have a firm grasp of the subject matter.

First, Fodera thinks that the Daily Dot article is defamatory. It isn't. The article quotes things he wrote on the internet. It links to his original text so that the readers can judge for themselves. Fodera seems to think that the Dot article wrongly paraphrases or selectively quotes him. That's a tendentious and unpersuasive reading. Take, for instance, how the Dot quoted and paraphrased him in his dog analogy:

He calls Kowal, who is a Hugo-award-winning author, "an unperson��� no one you should have heard of." Then he goes on to compare her to an aggressive dog:

���Oh, I know she has no power over me. Still, I get agitated when I think about her. There was a lot of good I could have done for SFWA, and she was a primary factor in my not being able to do it��� In a way, it's like my reaction to dogs��� My brain kept saying 'it's a service dog; they're well-trained; he won't hurt you,' but my body wanted nothing more than to dump my bowels and flee������

But the Dot directly links to Fodera's own words. The Dot description and partial quote is fair and accurate. And the readers can determine that for themselves by following the link.

Is it possible for misquoting someone to constitute defamation? Yes. But the bar is set very high. In Masson v. New Yorker Magazine, the United States Supreme Court examined whether fabricating quotes and attributing them to an interviewee could be defamatory. The court applied the familiar "gist" or "sting" doctrine, saying that misquotes are only "false" for defamation purposes if they materially change the meaning of the quote:

We conclude that a deliberate alteration of the words uttered by a plaintiff does not equate with knowledge of falsity for purposes of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S., at 279-280, and Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., supra, at 342, unless the alteration results in a material change in the meaning conveyed by the statement. The use of quotations to attribute words not in fact spoken bears in a most important way on that inquiry, but it is not dispositive in every case.

Here, the Dot has not materially changed the meaning of Fodera's words. Frankly I don't think they've changed the meaning at all. Moreover, they've linked the words so the reader can review them directly. The Supreme Court's discussion of misquotes was premised in part on the notion that the misquote misleads the reader and gives them no notice that the quote might not be exactly what the speaker said; the Dot's article serves up a way for the reader to read the underlying words if the paraphrase or partial quote interests them. Courts increasingly recognize that linking to one's sources for a challenged statement makes it less likely that it will be treated as defamatory.

Fodera's claim of defamation therefore appears specious.

Second, Fodera appears confident that if the Dot article is defamatory (and it isn't), then anyone who merely links to it is a participant in defamation. That confidence is misplaced; it's not clear whether Fodera is ignorant of the law or merely argumentative about it. While not firmly established in every jurisdiction, the emerging trend is for courts to rule that merely linking to defamatory content does not republish it for defamation purposes. Eric Goldman has good coverage of this issue.

New York, regrettably, has only a mediocre anti-SLAPP statute that wouldn't be of assistance if Fodera is foolish enough to follow up his threats with a lawsuit. But as the sad case of Rakofsky v. The Internet demonstrates, New York judges are still prepared to dismiss frivolous and censorious lawsuits. Moreover, any lawsuit would be an extinction-level event for Fodera's reputation and credibility in the publishing industry, as it ought to be. I would not hesitate to light the Popehat Signal to find pro bono assistance for anyone Fodera menaces.

It's banal to be a trash-talking blowhard on the internet. Fodera could have gotten away with that ��� there are so many blusterers, and so little time to care about them. But Fodera has transformed himself into something else, something more iconic: the big talker who can dish it out but can't take it. Nobody respects that person. Nobody should. Fodera strikes me as a sad and stunted person, lashing out at someone for holding a mirror up to him.

I sent Mr. Fodera an email seeking comment, and asking for responses to some specific questions, but have not heard back as of the time of this writing.

#noted

From the past. Worth highlighting. Why? Because when the ...

From the past. Worth highlighting. Why? Because when the nest recession comes, the usual suspects will once gain start claiming the the should not do anything to shorten or cushion it. And the usual suspects will once again be wrong:

Paul Krugman (2008): Hangover Theorists: "Somehow I missed this: via Steve Levitt, John Cochrane explaining that recessions are good for you.... The basic idea is that a recession, even a depression, is somehow a necessary thing, part of the process of 'adapting the structure of production'. We have to get those people who were pounding nails in Nevada into other places and occupation, which is why unemployment has to be high in the housing bubble states for a while. The trouble... is twofold: 1. It doesn���t explain why there isn���t mass unemployment when bubbles are growing as well as shrinking���why didn���t we need high unemployment elsewhere to get those people into the nail-pounding-in-Nevada business? 2. It doesn���t explain why recessions reduce unemployment across the board, not just in industries that were bloated by a bubble.... The current slump is affecting some non-housing-bubble states as or more severely as the epicenters of the bubble.... Unemployment is up everywhere. And while the centers of the bubble, Florida and California, are high in the rankings, so are Georgia, Alabama, and the Carolinas. So the liquidationists are still with us. According to Brad DeLong, 'Milton Friedman would recall that at the Chicago where he went to graduate school such dangerous nonsense was not taught...' But now, apparently, it is. Update: Not to mention the idea that employment is dropping because workers don���t feel like working...

#noted

Mary Robinette Kowal (2014): Me, as a Useful Representati...

Mary Robinette Kowal (2014): Me, as a Useful Representative Example: "Some people said some not nice things about me in a public space, and the story has been picked up as an example of sexism in part because one of the people saying those things works for my publisher. Silvia Moreno-Garcia has done a good analysis of the sexism in what���s going on, so I���m not going to rehash that. Instead I���m going to talk about how this affects me.... My impulse is to tell you all that I���m fine and that this has no material affect on my life. And that is true. But I also know that I am a useful representative sample of the abuse that happens to other women. I know that there are a ton of women who have received similar messages.... Sexism happens all the time. It���s visible in SFWA because people are actively fighting against it. Too many places, too many women, get this sort of unwelcome attention and commentary about what they were wearing but��no one does anything.��It���s always, 'Laugh about it' or 'Just shrug it off', or 'Ignore it and he���ll go away'. You see how well that last is working? So, I really, truly am fine. But watch what happens to me now that I���m posting. Read the comments when they happen. Note the people who say that because I���m talking about the abuse, I must be begging for attention. Take me as a useful representative example. And know that I am not an isolated case...

#noted


This File: <>

Edit This File: <>

Up a Level: <>

http://fold.cm

Note to Self: Trying (without much success) to gain some ...

Note to Self: Trying (without much success) to gain some intuition with respect to what Gini coefficient mean:

https://nbviewer.jupyter.org/github/braddelong/LS2019/blob/master/2019-09-18-notes-on-gini-coefficients.ipynb

#equitablegrowth #incomeinequality #notetoself

Josiah Ober: The Greeks and the Rational: The Discovery of Practical Reasons

Josiah Ober: The Greeks and the Rational: The Discovery of Practical Reasons: "September 19 Lecture 1. Gyges��� Choice: Rationality and Visibility. September 26 Lecture 2. Glaucon���s Dilemma: Origins of Social Order. Lecture 3. Deioces��� Ultimatum: How to Choose a King. Lecture 4. Cleisthenes��� Wager: Democratic Rationality. Lecture 5. Melos��� Prospects: Rational Domination. Lecture 6. Agamemnon���s Cluelessness: Reason and Eudaimonia...

...After earning his PhD in History at the University of Michigan in 1980, Professor Ober took up positions at Montana State University (1980-1990) and Princeton University (1990-2006) before joining the faculty at Stanford, where he is currently Constantine Mitsotakis Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences, with a joint appointment in Classics and Political Science as well as a courtesy appointment in Philosophy.�� This transdisciplinary position well reflects the ambitious reach of Professor Ober���s scholarship, which ranges from ancient Greece to the contemporary world and across political and economic theory, cultural studies, philosophy, and the history of democratic institutions.

Professor Ober is the author of about 85 articles and a very long list of game-changing books, including Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens (Princeton, 1989), which won the Goodwin Award (for ���best book of the year���) of the Society for Classical Studies (formerly American Philological Association); Democracy and Knowledge (Princeton, 2008), which was named ���Best Book in Classics and Ancient History��� by the Association of Academic Publishers, included in The Independent���s ���Best Ten in History��� list, and shortlisted for the Hessell-Titman Prize; The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece (Princeton, 2015), hailed as ���a major restatement of our understanding of Classical Greece��� and ���like no other history of the ancient world���; and most recently Demopolis: Democracy Before Liberalism in Theory and Practice (Cambridge, 2017), based on the Seeley Lectures he delivered at Cambridge in 2015...

#noted #berkeley #moralphilosophy

I never understood why so many people were desperate to i...

I never understood why so many people were desperate to interpret financial crises as things that destroyed firms' abilities to produce rather than things that made people want to hoard their cash. Yes, a numbers of firms are short of cash and need trade credit. But most healthy firms do not:

Felipe Benguria and Alan M. Taylor: After the Panic: Are Financial Crises Demand or Supply Shocks? Evidence from International Trade: "Are financial crises a negative shock to demand or a negative shock to supply?... Arguments for monetary and fiscal stimulus usually interpret such events as demand-side shortfalls. Conversely, arguments for tax cuts and structural reform often proceed from supply-side frictions.... simple small open economy... deleveraging shocks that impose binding credit constraints on households and/or firms.... Household deleveraging shocks are mainly demand shocks, contract imports, leave exports largely unchanged, and depreciate the real exchange rate. Firm deleveraging shocks are mainly supply shocks, contract exports, leave imports largely unchanged, and appreciate the real exchange rate.... Empirical analysis reveals a clear picture: after a financial crisis event we find the dominant pattern to be that imports contract, exports hold steady or even rise, and the real exchange rate depreciates. History shows that, on average, financial crises are very clearly a negative shock to demand...

#noted

I confess that I am a profound skeptic about deep negativ...

I confess that I am a profound skeptic about deep negative nominal interest rates. A slightly higher inflation target and policies to fight the asset price configuration called "secular stagnation" would largely obviate the need, and leave behind a problem easily and straightforwardly dealt with via expansionary fiscal policy. And we really do not know how such an institutional reconfiguration would actually work. Confronted with a choice between known and understood policies that would work, and new ones with unknown side effects and effects that might, I do not undertstand the enthusiasm for the second:

Ruchir Agarwal and Miles Kimball: Enabling Deep Negative Rates to Fight Recessions: A Guide: "we (i) survey approaches to enable deep negative rates... (ii) establish... enabling negative rates while remaining at a minimum distance from the current paper currency policy and minimizing the political costs; (iii) discuss why standard transmission mechanisms... are likely to remain unchanged in deep negative rate territory; and (iv) present communication tools that central banks can use...

#noted

I think Kevin Drum is wrong here: if Trump were merely a ...

I think Kevin Drum is wrong here: if Trump were merely a race-baiter, he could turn it and and off���and would, for tactical effectiveness reasons. He can't turn it off. The Washington Post of course has bigger problems: it's not a "branding crisis":

Kevin Drum: Here���s How Donald Trump Can Fix His Racist Branding Problem: "The Washington Post has a headline today that makes you go hmmm: 'Trump Vexed by Branding Crisis: How to Shed the Label of "Racist".' I think we all have a pretty good idea of how Trump could avoid being called a racist. He could stop saying racist stuff all the time. Easy peasy. For my money, I probably wouldn���t call Trump a racist.... I���d call him a race-baiter... someone who may or may not be personally racist but is perfectly happy to make money or win political office by appealing to racists.... Race-baiters the most dangerous of them all. Fox News is far worse than their viewers and Donald Trump is far worse than his base. Those are the people to fight, not the yahoos who yell 'Send them back!' at Trump rallies. Without Trump, they���d just be sitting at home and occasionally telling off-color jokes to their buddies. It���s only with people like Trump around that they become toxic...

#noted