J. Bradford DeLong's Blog, page 146

Anne is wrong: the turning point came long, long ago: Ann...

Anne is wrong: the turning point came long, long ago: Anne Applebaum: Conservative Intellectuals Are at a Turning Point: Normalize Trump or Resist Him?: "We have consistently spoken about civic patriotism and not nationalism in the United States.... We are not... held together by ethnic blood ties.... Our imagined community is based on... a more complex, more cerebral national ideal... democracy and justice as opposed to blood and soil.... Those who promote a... nativist definition of America... weaken and divide us, as the president [does].... I have some sympathy [for] the conservative movement[. It] is at a real turning point... decide whether they will continue to normalize Trump, providing him with the intellectual framework to indulge the dangerous impulses on display in Greenville, or whether they will try to create something that gives the Republican Party, at least, some viable alternative once Trumpism fails. If they can bring themselves to abandon the word ���nationalism,��� that will be a good sign...

#noted

Samuel P. Huntington: The Hispanic Challenge: "Unlike pas...

Samuel P. Huntington: The Hispanic Challenge: "Unlike past immigrant groups, Mexicans and other Latinos have not assimilated into mainstream U.S. culture, forming instead their own political and linguistic enclaves���from Los Angeles to Miami���and rejecting the Anglo-Protestant values that built the American dream.... The Hispanization of Miami is without precedent.... The Cuban takeover had major consequences... a Cuban-led, Hispanic city... in which assimilation and Americanization were unnecessary and in some measure undesired..... By 1999, the heads of Miami���s largest bank, largest real estate development company, and largest law firm were all Cuban-born or of Cuban descent... the mayor of Miami and the mayor, police chief, and state attorney of Miami-Dade County, plus two-thirds of Miami���s U.S. Congressional delegation and nearly one half of its state legislators.... Anglos (as well as blacks)... outside minorities that could often be ignored. Unable to communicate with government bureaucrats and discriminated against by store clerks, the Anglos... could accept their subordinat[ion]... assimilate into the Hispanic community... or... leave... their exodus reflected in a popular bumper sticker: 'Will the last American to leave Miami, please bring the flag'...

#noted

Right-wing U. Penn professor Amy Wax brings the racism pu...

Right-wing U. Penn professor Amy Wax brings the racism pure: Joe Patrice: Professor Amy Wax Declares Black Students ���Rarely��� Graduate In The Top Half Of Law School Class: "And have never graduated in the top quarter as far as she can remember: Comedian Cristela Alonzo has this bit about walking through a racist locale and facing shouts of 'Mexicans are lazy' and that 'Mexicans are taking all our jobs', forcing her to wonder 'well, which one is it?' Professor Amy Wax of Penn Law would do well to remember this little life lesson in racist contradiction.... Right after she���s finished explaining how black people would be better off if they understood that they���re better at menial tasks... Wax claims that a black student has never finished in the top quarter of a graduating class Penn Law as far as she can remember and that they 'rarely, rarely' finish in the top half. That prompts.... [Glenn] Loury: 'Do you have a racial diversity mandate for law review appointments at Penn?' [Amy] Wax: 'Yes. Yes.' Loury: 'So you���re telling me that students of color who have served on law review are pretty much in the bottom half of their law classes at Penn?' Wax: '���' Silence. The audience is just treated to long beats of dead air as she rolls her eyes back into her head to access whatever part of the reptilian brain controls explicit bias and scrambles to put together something to justify her wildly unsupported claim...

...That���s when Wax, in desperation, ran face first into the wood chipper: Wax: "I would have to��� What I know��� I mean, I haven���t done a survey, I haven���t done a systematic study��� I���m talking about who gets the honor��� I have a big, I have a class of 89 or 95 students every year. So I see a big chunk of students every year, so I���m going on that because a lot of this data is a closely guarded secret as you can imagine." So I guess the follow-up question is��� which one is it? Did she have absolutely no evidentiary basis for claiming black students ���rarely, rarely��� finish in the top half of their classes at Penn or does she routinely violate blind grading rules? Because it���s one or the other and neither ends well for Wax...

#noted

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1954): Letter to Edgar Newton Eisenhower: Weekend Reading

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1954): Letter to Edgar Newton Eisenhower: "Dear Ed: I think that such answer as I can give to your letter of November first will be arranged in reverse order���at least I shall comment first on your final paragraph. You keep harping on the Constitution; I should like to point out that the meaning of the Constitution is what the Supreme Court says it is. Consequently no powers are exercised by the Federal government except where such exercise is approved by the Supreme Court (lawyers) of the land. I admit that the Supreme Court has in the past made certain decisions in this general field that have been astonishing to me. A recent case in point was the decision in the Phillips case. Others, and older ones, involved 'interstate commerce.' But until some future Supreme Court decision denies the right and responsibility of the Federal government to do certain things, you cannot possibly remove them from the political activities of the Federal government...

...Now it is true that I believe this country is following a dangerous trend when it permits too great a degree of centralization of governmental functions. I oppose this���in some instances the fight is a rather desperate one. But to attain any success it is quite clear that the Federal government cannot avoid or escape responsibilities which the mass of the people firmly believe should be undertaken by it. The political processes of our country are such that if a rule of reason is not applied in this effort, we will lose everything���even to a possible and drastic change in the Constitution. This is what I mean by my constant insistence upon ���moderation��� in government. Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas.4Their number is negligible and they are stupid.

To say, therefore, that in some instances the policies of this Administration have not been radically changed from those of the last is perfectly true.5 Both Administrations levied taxes, both maintained military establishments, customs officials, and so on.

But in all governmental fields of action a combination of purpose, procedure and objectives must be considered if you are to get a true evaluation of the relative merits.

You say that the foreign policy of the two Administrations is the same. I suppose that even the most violent critic would agree that it is well for us to have friends in the world, to encourage them to oppose communism both in its external form and in its internal manifestations, to promote trade in the world that would be mutually profitable between us and our friends (and it must be mutually profitable or it will dry up), and to attempt the promotion of peace in the world, negotiating from a position of moral, intellectual, economic and military strength.

No matter what the party is in power, it must perforce follow a program that is related to these general purposes and aspirations. But the great difference is in how it is done and, particularly, in the results achieved.

A year ago last January we were in imminent danger of losing Iran, and sixty percent of the known oil reserves of the world. ��You may have forgotten this. Lots of people have. But there has been no greater threat that has in recent years overhung the free world. That threat has been largely, if not totally, removed. I could name at least a half dozen other spots of the same character.

This being true, how can anyone be so unaware of what is happening as to say that this Administration has conducted foreign affairs under the same policies as did the former Administration? As a matter of fact, if you will press any individual who brings to you all these strictures and comments, I venture that your experience will be the same as mine. That experience is that these individuals have no idea of what the ���foreign policy��� of the previous Administration was and what the present one is. They have heard certain slogans, such as ���give away programs.��� They have no slightest idea as to what has been the effect of these programs in sustaining American security and prosperity. Moreover, they have no idea whatsoever as to comparative size of them now as compared to even two or three years ago.

You say that these critics also complain about the continuance of ���controls,��� presumably over our economy. There is nothing in your letter that shows such complete ignorance as to what has actually happened as does this term. When we came into office there were Federal controls exercised over prices, wages, rents, as well as over the allocation and use of raw materials. The first thing this Administration did was to set about the elimination of those controls. This it did amid the most dire predictions of disaster, ���run away��� inflation, and so on and so on. We were proved right, but I must say that if the people of the United States do not even remember what took place, one is almost tempted to regret the agony of study, analysis and decision that was then our daily ration.

You also talk about ���bad political advice��� I am getting. I always assumed that lawyers attempted accuracy in their statements. How do you know that I am getting any political advice? Next, if I do get political advice, how do you know that it is not weighted in the direction that you seem to think it should be���although I am tempted at times to believe that you are just thrashing around rather than thinking anything through to a definite conclusion? So how can you say I am getting ���bad��� advice; why don���t you just assume I am stupid, trying to wreck the nation, and leave our Constitution in tatters?

I assure you that you have more reason, based on sixty-four years of contact, to say this than you do to make the bland assumption that I am surrounded by a group of Machiavellian characters who are seeking the downfall of the United States and the ascendancy of socialism and communism in the world. Incidentally, I notice that everybody seems to be a great Constitutionalist until his idea of what the Constitution ought to do is violated���then he suddenly becomes very strong for amendments or some peculiar and individualistic interpretation of his own.

Finally, I must assure you again that I am delighted to get your own honest criticisms, particularly if you will only take the trouble to lay down the facts on which you reach what seem to me to be some remarkable conclusions. But the mere repetition of aphorisms and political slogans and newspaper headlines leaves me cold. I am sorry you are not going to be at Abilene.6 It would be easier to tell you these things than to write them���except that by this method I hope to make you do a little thinking rather than devote yourself just to the winning of a noisy argument.

As ever...

#weekendreading #politicaleconomy #socialdemocracy

Francis Wilkinson: Gun Safety Takes a Back Seat to Gun Culture and Children Die: Weekend Reading

Francis Wilkinson: Gun Safety Takes a Back Seat to Gun Culture and Children Die: "A mother stored a gun in her car to protect her children. It killed her daughter instead.: On Monday, April 8, Courtney Kelly���s Hyundai Elantra failed. Kelly had just gotten all three kids packed into their car seats in the back. Millie, 6, was on the passenger side. Maddox, 4, was on the driver���s side. Lucas, 2, was strapped in the middle. It was about 5:45 p.m. They were on their way to Maddox���s baseball practice. With the children settled, Kelly was poised to pull out of her driveway on Laurelcrest Lane in Dallas, Georgia. The car wouldn���t start...

...Kelly got out to investigate. She heard the gunshot soon after. The bullet, a Hornaday .380, entered Millie���s right eye at close range and exited the back of her skull. After barreling through Millie���s brain, spreading matter across the back of the car, the bullet still possessed enough force to break the rear window. A spent shell casing was later found on the driveway.

Neighbors, followed by law enforcement officers and emergency medical professionals, rushed to help. Millie was transported by ambulance to a local hospital. She died on April 10.

The following day, Paulding County Sheriff Gary Gulledge announced that no criminal charges would be filed. The decision, posted on the sheriff���s Facebook page, generated some minor controversy. It doesn���t take much for a 4-year-old boy to open an automobile���s console between the two front seats, retrieve a loaded semiautomatic pistol inside, pivot and pull the trigger. Making the child���s task so easy was surely evidence of ���blatant negligence,��� one Facebook commenter said.

Yet the sheriff���s contrary view is hardly uncommon. Given the permanent trauma visited on the family, a penalty well beyond the reach of the law, police and prosecutors are often reluctant to add to an already unbearable burden.

Besides, when you look at the totality of the evidence, including the logic that drives the gun laws of Georgia, and the gun culture that shapes the attitudes and behavior of many citizens, it���s clear that no one was responsible.

A Safe Community: Dallas, Georgia, an exurb of Atlanta, had a population under 12,000 in the 2010 census. It���s been growing rapidly since. Laurelcrest is one of the few streets threading the Park at Cedarcrest, which is near the end of its three-phase development. It features four-bedroom homes with two-and-a-half baths, ranging in price from $250,000 to $300,000. Just downhill from Laurelcrest Lane is the development���s large pool, tennis courts and basketball court for residents and guests.

The Kelly home appeared unoccupied when I visited Dallas in June.

I had telephoned Sergeant Ashley Henson, spokesman for the sheriff���s department,��some weeks before to ask why Courtney Kelly had kept a loaded firearm in her car. ���She just kept it for general safety and security,��� he said. Did deputies specifically ask why she kept the gun? And where? ���The question was asked,��� Henson replied. ���She kept it in the car.���

Detective Kaitlin Huffman of the Paulding Sheriff���s Crimes Against Children Unit filed a report stating that ���There was no criminal intent from the family or the 4-year-old juvenile brother. The family had safety precautions in place at the time of the incident.���

I emailed Henson about that: ���What ���safety precautions��� did the family have ���in place���?���

���I believe what they meant was that the gun was not laying out in the open and that it was secured in the center console,��� he replied.

���How was it ���secured��� in the console?��� I asked.

���What they are saying is that it was inside the console and not laying on the seat or anywhere else in the vehicle.���

Firearm injury is the third-leading��cause of death in the U.S. for children under age 18. Kids are both victims and perpetrators ��� sometimes simultaneously. Since 2015, there have been more than 1,500 shootings by children.

���These are far more common than people realize,��� said Katherine Hoops, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University. Shootings are also likely to be undercounted. ���Data collection is imperfect at best on fatal injuries,��� Hoops said, ���and on non-fatal injuries it���s abysmal.���

Stories of children shooting themselves or others are sufficiently frequent that they rarely generate lengthy or lasting news coverage outside of a mass attack.

In June, a 2-year-old in Greenville, South Carolina, fished a gun out of his grandmother���s purse and died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. A 5-year-old boy in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, found a gun��and killed himself in the living room. In May, an 11-year-old in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, shot and killed his 9-year-old brother. That same month, a 7-year-old in Spartanburg, South Carolina, took a gun from her father���s gym bag and killed her 4-year-old sister.

���We Are on Our Own���: It���s an eight-mile drive from the Kelly house to the site of another child shooting in the same Georgia town. In 2016, a 3-year-old boy took a Ruger semiautomatic pistol from his father���s backpack and shot himself in the chest. He didn���t survive. No charges were filed.

Journalists, perhaps mimicking law enforcement officials, resist assigning agency to small shooters. Guns are said to have fired ���accidentally��� even when they were fired quite intentionally, albeit by children with no capacity to gauge the consequences. ���The pistol discharged,��� is a typical news media construct when the finger pulling the trigger is small.

���We want to remind everyone to keep their firearms unloaded and secured in an area away from children to ensure that this never happens again,��� Sheriff Gulledge said after Millie Kelly���s death was confirmed.

A locked-up gun deters criminals as well as children. An Atlanta police sergeant told The Trace, ���Most of our criminals, they go out each and every night hunting for guns, and the easiest way to get them is out of people���s cars.���

The cars of Paulding County supply criminals, as well. ���We do have firearms that are stolen out of vehicles,��� Sergeant Henson said. ���We had a rash a little while back where they were hitting fire stations,��� stealing guns from the cars of local firefighters.

Two-thirds of gun owners cite ���protection��� as a major reason for gun possession. Protection from inadvertent shootings, however, is not what many have in mind. Instead, gun purchases and possession are largely driven by fear ��� often of a general nature, the fear of ���a diffuse threat of a dangerous world,��� as one research paper defined it.

With hunting in steady decline and sport-shooting a niche hobby, the gun industry relies on fear to propel sales. Here���s how longtime National Rifle Association leader Wayne LaPierre makes a pitch:

We know, in the world that surrounds us, there are terrorists and home invaders and drug cartels and carjackers and knock-out gamers and rapers, haters, campus killers, airport killers, shopping-mall killers, road-rage killers, and killers who scheme to destroy our country with massive storms of violence against our power grids, or vicious waves of chemicals or disease that could collapse the society that sustains us all. I ask you: Do you trust this government to protect you? We are on our own.

LaPierre delivered this riff in 2014, when the rate of violent crime in the U.S. hit a 45-year low.

Much local television news, which relishes depictions of violence, reinforces the NRA���s theme of chaos. Conservative politicians, tied to the NRA by political partisanship, campaign dollars, ideology and shared culture, have also advanced the NRA���s diagnosis of mayhem. President Donald Trump���s 2017 inaugural address was a dystopian homage to ���American carnage.���

More important, conservative politicians have endorsed the gun industry���s domestic arms race. Georgia has been at the vanguard of the ���guns everywhere��� movement. In recent years, the state legislature has passed numerous laws allowing citizens to be armed at all times ��� not only in automobiles but at church, at school, while shopping, even in bars.

With a readily obtainable weapons-carry license, you can carry a handgun in public in Georgia either concealed or openly. If you���re not a felon or otherwise prohibited person, you need no license at all to keep a gun in your home or automobile, or to carry a rifle, including an AR-15, openly. Proficiency, or even rudimentary knowledge of firearms operations or safety, is not required.

The quest to normalize extreme gun culture, militarize domestic life and amateurize gun possession encourages guns in purses and backpacks and gym bags��and auto consoles. In 2014, an Idaho mother was shot dead in a Walmart by her 2-year-old son, who had pulled the gun from his mother���s purse. Her father-in-law��described the deceased mother as ���not the least bit irresponsible.���

���See My Gun?���: More guns visible in the public square generate demand for more guns for self-protection.

In 2014, frightened parents in Forsyth County, north��of Atlanta, called the police when an armed man showed up at a children���s baseball game. A parent told an Atlanta television station: ���He���s just walking around [saying] ���See my gun? Look, I got a gun and there���s nothing you can do about it.������

When police responded to 911 calls, they informed the parents that the armed man was correct. Under Georgia law, anyone is free to command public space with a gun. The only recourse for targets of intimidation is to arm themselves in turn, with hopes of being able to deploy violence in time to preempt violence. It���s a fraught cycle.

Dallas has had similar experience. ���We had a young man that was carrying a .22 rifle slung on his back at our courthouse, not in the courthouse because that���s a secure area, but in the common areas in front of the courthouse,��� Sergeant Henson recalled during an interview in his office. ���A lot of people were alarmed.���

Google Maps shows eight gun shops within about 20 minutes��� drive of Laurelcrest Lane. At the local Kroger supermarket, patrons occasionally carry firearms openly. An adjacent gun shop shared signage with Just Kiddin, a haircutting ���Salon 4 Kids.���

The linkage of guns and kids is more than happenstance. The NRA has long maintained its Eddie Eagle program to acculturate youth to firearms. In 2013, when a 5-year-old in Kentucky shot his 2-year-old sister dead, the boy did so using his own gun. ���It���s just one of those nightmares,��� a Kentucky state trooper said of the shooting, ���a quick thing that happens when you turn your back.���

To keep firearms out of children���s reach, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that a gun be stored, unloaded, in a locked device. Ammunition should be stored, locked, in a separate device. State laws regulating safe storage or child access vary widely; they are generally lax. Only Massachusetts has a law requiring guns to be secured in a locked container or equipped with a tamper-resistant lock or safety device.

But to counter the most vicious threats ��� road-rage killers, shopping-mall killers, home invaders, rapers and killers who scheme and destroy ��� many gun owners prefer not to lock a gun away where it might prove difficult to access in a moment of existential peril. Instead, the firearm must be perpetually loaded, ready, accessible.

According to a 2014��Pew Research Center survey of 3,243 adults, about one-third of Americans with children younger than 18 have a gun in their household, including 34 percent of families with children under 12. Researchers analyzing a 2015 survey of 3,949 adults concluded that 4.6 million American children live in homes in which at least one firearm is stored loaded and unlocked. Later today, or perhaps early tomorrow, one of them will pull the trigger.

Contesting Fear: By the time Detective Huffman arrived at the Kelly home, Millie was on her way to the hospital accompanied by her father, Andrew. Courtney Kelly, Huffman���s report states, remained at the house. ���She was very distraught, crying, on her knees in the front yard and her clothes were visibly covered in blood,��� Huffman reported.

Shannon Lawhon, a gun safety activist, empathizes with Kelly. ���That mom was trying to protect her kids, and I hurt for her,��� she said. ���You���re kind of told that owning a firearm is going to be an equalizer, right? And keep you safe.���

Lawhon was sitting in her backyard on the outskirts of Athens, Georgia. A stay-at-home mother, she grew up in a gun-owning family in Oklahoma and South Carolina. She owns a gun now. Her brother, she said, is a licensed firearms instructor.

Lawhon joined the gun-safety group Moms Demand Action

���I think when you take that fear out of the picture and you think about it logically, you can realize that the instance of maybe being carjacked or the victim of a home invasion is pretty low,��� she said. ���When you have an unsecured firearm in a car or a home every day, you have a risk every single day. You have a risk every single day.���

A growing body of research supports Lawhon���s emphasis. States with more guns produce more gun violence. Residents of homes with guns are more likely to be a victim of a gun-related tragedy than to prevent one. Even as violent crime in the U.S. has plummeted over the past quarter century, U.S. gun deaths remain a high-volume outlier among peer nations.

���It���s the schizophrenia of America,��� said Frank Eppes, a gun owner and lawyer in Greenville, South Carolina, who has represented parents in child shooting cases. ���The illusion that people have that they are protecting themselves with a loaded gun is just that ��� an illusion.���

It���s an illusion promoted at the highest levels of American government, and throughout Georgia. In the context of her time and place, Courtney Kelly was far from negligent. In fact, she did everything right.

Georgia requires testing and licensing of all drivers, and the federal government requires safety car seats for small children. Kelly was in full compliance. She was similarly in compliance with all state firearms laws. Georgia requires no testing, permitting, safeguards or paperwork to keep a loaded semiautomatic pistol in a car. It does not require firearms to be stored safely, nor does it necessarily penalize an adult who stores a firearm where a child subsequently gains access to it.

Republican State Representative Rick Jasperse, the author of Georgia���s 2014 ���guns everywhere��� bill, who has an A+ rating from the NRA, explained the need for his law in language less ghoulish than LaPierre���s. But his message is the same. ���We live in a dangerous world,��� he said, ���and while I cannot begin to explain the reasons someone might seek to take the life of another, I want wholeheartedly that Georgians, should they choose to take responsibility for the safety of themselves and their families, [to] have that option.���

Courtney Kelly chose to take responsibility for the safety of herself and her family. She behaved in a way that state leaders not only condoned, but encouraged.

And what was any such mother to do under the circumstances? Had she taken the gun with her when she got out of the car, what was she to do with it? Open the hood with one hand while holding the gun in the other? Hardly practical, or safe.

Should she have put the gun down on the driveway? The whole point of the gun is to ward off home invaders, drug cartels, carjackers and the rest, who could approach from anywhere, at any time. Small children, too, can scuttle out of cars and find things on the ground.

Perhaps she could���ve holstered the gun when she got out, to keep it close as she worked on her car in her driveway. But if you click the right internet link, here, you can watch a video of a boy sneak up on a man and steal the gun right out of his holster, while he���s working on his car, in his driveway.

In any case, Kelly had three kids under the age of 7. How many times does a mother want to take a gun in and out of a console, waving the tantalizing, forbidden object before eager eyes in the back seat? Better out of sight, out of mind, no?

Harried parents sometimes get distracted, momentarily lose focus. Yet neither Georgia laws, nor the gun culture that inspires them, can accommodate such ordinary human lapses without inviting tragedy.

A mother sought to protect her family with a readily accessible gun. A little boy, fascinated by the pistol, seized an opportunity to grab it. The pistol, a Taurus PT-738, performed its function flawlessly. Variously described as ���micro��� or ���ultralight,��� it weighs just 10.2 ounces and extends only 5.25 inches in length, enabling a small child to grasp, point and shoot with deadly accuracy. The Hornady .380 bullet delivered on its manufacturer���s promise to produce ���controlled expansion and large, deep wound cavities��� in the 6-year-old target.

The tragedy was linear. Gun logic often is not.

#weekendreading #orangehariedbaboons

Barry Eichengreen does not appear pleased with Facebook's...

Barry Eichengreen does not appear pleased with Facebook's non-blockchain blockchain called Libra. As I have said, it looks like a second-order grift. There might be real value there���competing with visa and the others is a worthwhile task. But calling it "blockchain"? And calling it "blockchain" when it isn't? There do appear to be several levels here at which Facebook is not on the level. And that makes one wonder about the value to society of the project:

Barry Eichengreen: Questions on Facebook's Libra: "In light of my Washington Post op-ed on Libra, I thought I might pose some questions about this new blogpost from Facebook���s David Marcus https://www.facebook.com/notes/david-marcus/libra-2-weeks-in/10158616513819148/ on the same subject: Still no details on what will ensure that Libra continuously trades at par vis-��-vis the underlying basket? Is the idea that Libra will function like an ETF (which won���t work) or like a currency board (which will be incredibly expensive)? Will the members of the Libra Association have the power to decide later to hypothecate the underlying assets? If this is against the rules, what prevents them from changing the rules?... Would Osama Bin Landen have been able to operate a wallet on his own? Would his wallet have had to first be approved by the members of the Libra Association? On what basis can regulators be confident that those members have the information to make a reliable determination? You write that you will have 'proper know-your-customer practices'. What information will you collect from your customers to make this determination? How will you collect it? Ensure its confidentiality?...

#noted

Aretha Franklin: Who's Zoomin' Who?: For the Weekend

Aretha Franklin: [Who's Zoomin' Who?(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kEQS...):

#fortheweekend #music

July 19, 2019: Weekly Forecasting Update

The right response to almost all economic data releases is: Next to nothing has changed. We are where we were a year ago: Stable growth at 2% per year with no signs of rising inflation or a rising labor share.

The only significant difference that the Fed has recognized that its hope of normalizing the Fed Funds rate in the foreseeable future is vain, and has now recognized that its confidence over the past six years that we were close to full employment was simply wrong:

Federal Reserve Bank of New York: Nowcasting Report: Jul 19, 2019: "1.4% for 2019:Q2 and 1.9% for 2019:Q3.News from this week's data releases decreased the nowcast for 2019:Q2 by 0.1 percentage point and increased the nowcast for 2019:Q3 by 0.1 percentage point. Negative surprises from housing data accounted for most of the decline for 2019:Q2, while positive surprises from survey data accounted for most of the increase in 2019:Q3...

 

Key Points:

Specifically, it is still the case that:

The Trump-McConnell-Ryan tax cut has been a complete failure at boosting the American economy through increased investment in America.

But it has been a success in making the rich richer and thus America more unequal.
And it delivered a short-term demand-side Keynesian fiscal stimulus to growth that has now ebbed.

U.S. potential economic growth continues to be around 2%/year.
There are still no signs the U.S. has entered that phase of the recovery in which inflation is accelerating.
There are still no signs of interest rate normalization: secular stagnation continues to reign.
There are still no signs the the U.S. is at "overfull employment" in any meaningful sense.

Changes from 1 month ago: The Federal Reserve has���behind the curve���become convinced that it raised interest rates too much in 2018, and is now likely to cut them.

A change from 3 months ago: Trump trade-war tensions are higher.

A change from 6 months ago: Stunning dysfunctionality in the British Conservative Party has put a destructive, hard, no-deal Brexit on the scenario list...

#macro #forecasting #highlighted


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Steve M.: 2020 Strategy: Everyone Should Scorch Earth The...

Steve M.: 2020 Strategy: Everyone Should Scorch Earth The Way Trump Does: "I didn't see this coming, though I probably should have: 'Kellyanne Conway Snaps Back at Reporter: "What���s Your Ethnicity?": When White House reporter Andrew Feinberg posed a question to Kellyanne Conway on Tuesday about the president���s racist tweets against the four congresswomenknown as the ���Squad,��� he found himself taken aback by her response.... Instead of answering that question, Conway asked him, ���What���s your ethnicity?���... Conway still would not answer Feinberg���s question, instead insisting that [the] question was relevant because Trump said ���originally��� from���he didn���t���and going on a rant about how ���a lot of us are sick and tired in this country of America coming last���...'It's not news that Conway would rather kneecap reporters than inform them of the truth. But she hasn't been in the habit of tossing ethnicity into the mix. That's been the president's specialty. That, however, seems to be the Trump team's strategy for 2020: Everyone should become even more like Trump...

...Everyone should scorch earth the way Trump does. Everyone should embrace Trump's obsessions, including his obsession with race. A fair number of Americans voted for Trump in 2016 in the belief that he was putting on an act during the campaign and wouldn't be that bad as president. Unlike the diehards, these voters don't cheer every time Trump does something thuggish. They wish he wouldn't tweet. They wish he wouldn't set out to divide the country...

#noted

Ezra Klein: Trump Was Right, and Justin Amash Was Wrong, ...

Ezra Klein: Trump Was Right, and Justin Amash Was Wrong, About Conservatives: "For most conservatives, whether they were prominent pundits or everyday voters... no contradiction between conservatism and Trumpism.... Conservatism isn���t, for most people, an ideology. It���s a group identity.... Michael Barber and Jeremy Pope.... 'There has never been a president (or any party leader) who shifts back and forth so often between liberal and conservative issue positions'.... If conservatism was an ideology... a stronger attachment to that ideology should provide a stronger mooring against the winds of Trump.... Instead, 'we observe exactly the opposite: strong "conservatives" are the most likely to be partisan loyalists���following Trump in a liberal direction when told of his support for a liberal policy.'... Our political language fails us. The terms we use to describe ideologies are often describing social identities. And what matters to an identity group is whether their group is winning or losing. Trump understood this better than most...

#noted