J. Bradford DeLong's Blog, page 16

DeLONGTODAY 2020-10-30: American Republicans Are Bad Economic Managers

Video at: http://delongtoday.com

https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/delongtoday-2020-10-30.pptx

https://www.icloud.com/keynote/0N6bJBYfxAcdZMKxUYEc8q2gQ

https://www.bradford-delong.com/2020/10/2020-10-30-american-republicans-are-bad-economic-managersdelongtoday.html
2020-10-30

Today is an economic-analysis day:

I will start with the large gap between economic performance under Democratic and under Republican presidents, and with Alan Blinder���s and Mark Watson���s puzzlement as to where it comes from

I will then run through the history of what went wrong with Republican economic policy

I will then point out the technocratic idiocies of economic policy under the Trump administration

And I will then set forth my theory of where the performance gap���that American incomes grow 1.8%-points per year faster when Democrats are president than when Republicans are���comes from. Democratic politicians and legislators are willing, at least sometimes, to listen to their economists. Republican politicians and legislators will not even let their economists into the room where it happens until they have agreed that the politicians and legislators are already pursuing great policies.

.#forecasting #economicgrowth #highlighted #politicaleconomy #politics #2020-10-30

Today is an economic-analysis day:

I will start with the large gap between economic performance under Democratic and under Republican presidents, and with Alan Blinder���s and Mark Watson���s puzzlement as to where it comes from

I will then run through the history of what went wrong with Republican economic policy

I will then point out the technocratic idiocies of economic policy under the Trump administration

And I will then set forth my theory of where the performance gap���that American incomes grow 1.8%-points per year faster when Democrats are president than when Republicans are���comes from. Democratic politicians and legislators are willing, at least sometimes, to listen to their economists. Republican politicians and legislators will not even let their economists into the room where it happens until they have agreed that the politicians and legislators are already pursuing great policies.

.#forecasting #economicgrowth #highlighted #politicaleconomy #politics #2020-10-30

Today is an economic-analysis day:

I will start with the large gap between economic performance under Democratic and under Republican presidents, and with Alan Blinder���s and Mark Watson���s puzzlement as to where it comes from

I will then run through the history of what went wrong with Republican economic policy

I will then point out the technocratic idiocies of economic policy under the Trump administration

And I will then set forth my theory of where the performance gap���that American incomes grow 1.8%-points per year faster when Democrats are president than when Republicans are���comes from. Democratic politicians and legislators are willing, at least sometimes, to listen to their economists. Republican politicians and legislators will not even let their economists into the room where it happens until they have agreed that the politicians and legislators are already pursuing great policies.

.#forecasting #economicgrowth #highlighted #politicaleconomy #politics #2020-10-30

Today is an economic-analysis day:

I will start with the large gap between economic performance under Democratic and under Republican presidents, and with Alan Blinder���s and Mark Watson���s puzzlement as to where it comes from

I will then run through the history of what went wrong with Republican economic policy

I will then point out the technocratic idiocies of economic policy under the Trump administration

And I will then set forth my theory of where the performance gap���that American incomes grow 1.8%-points per year faster when Democrats are president than when Republicans are���comes from. Democratic politicians and legislators are willing, at least sometimes, to listen to their economists. Republican politicians and legislators will not even let their economists into the room where it happens until they have agreed that the politicians and legislators are already pursuing great policies.

.#forecasting #economicgrowth #highlighted #politicaleconomy #politics #2020-10-30

Today is an economic-analysis day:

I will start with the large gap between economic performance under Democratic and under Republican presidents, and with Alan Blinder���s and Mark Watson���s puzzlement as to where it comes from

I will then run through the history of what went wrong with Republican economic policy

I will then point out the technocratic idiocies of economic policy under the Trump administration

And I will then set forth my theory of where the performance gap���that American incomes grow 1.8%-points per year faster when Democrats are president than when Republicans are���comes from. Democratic politicians and legislators are willing, at least sometimes, to listen to their economists. Republican politicians and legislators will not even let their economists into the room where it happens until they have agreed that the politicians and legislators are already pursuing great policies.

.#forecasting #economicgrowth #highlighted #politicaleconomy #politics #2020-10-30

Today is an economic-analysis day:

I will start with the large gap between economic performance under Democratic and under Republican presidents, and with Alan Blinder���s and Mark Watson���s puzzlement as to where it comes from

I will then run through the history of what went wrong with Republican economic policy

I will then point out the technocratic idiocies of economic policy under the Trump administration

And I will then set forth my theory of where the performance gap���that American incomes grow 1.8%-points per year faster when Democrats are president than when Republicans are���comes from. Democratic politicians and legislators are willing, at least sometimes, to listen to their economists. Republican politicians and legislators will not even let their economists into the room where it happens until they have agreed that the politicians and legislators are already pursuing great policies.

.#forecasting #economicgrowth #highlighted #politicaleconomy #politics #2020-10-30

Today is an economic-analysis day:

I will start with the large gap between economic performance under Democratic and under Republican presidents, and with Alan Blinder���s and Mark Watson���s puzzlement as to where it comes from

I will then run through the history of what went wrong with Republican economic policy

I will then point out the technocratic idiocies of economic policy under the Trump administration

And I will then set forth my theory of where the performance gap���that American incomes grow 1.8%-points per year faster when Democrats are president than when Republicans are���comes from. Democratic politicians and legislators are willing, at least sometimes, to listen to their economists. Republican politicians and legislators will not even let their economists into the room where it happens until they have agreed that the politicians and legislators are already pursuing great policies.

.#forecasting #economicgrowth #highlighted #politicaleconomy #politics #2020-10-30

Today is an economic-analysis day:

I will start with the large gap between economic performance under Democratic and under Republican presidents, and with Alan Blinder���s and Mark Watson���s puzzlement as to where it comes from

I will then run through the history of what went wrong with Republican economic policy

I will then point out the technocratic idiocies of economic policy under the Trump administration

And I will then set forth my theory of where the performance gap���that American incomes grow 1.8%-points per year faster when Democrats are president than when Republicans are���comes from. Democratic politicians and legislators are willing, at least sometimes, to listen to their economists. Republican politicians and legislators will not even let their economists into the room where it happens until they have agreed that the politicians and legislators are already pursuing great policies.

.#forecasting #economicgrowth #highlighted #politicaleconomy #politics #2020-10-30

Today is an economic-analysis day:

I will start with the large gap between economic performance under Democratic and under Republican presidents, and with Alan Blinder���s and Mark Watson���s puzzlement as to where it comes from

I will then run through the history of what went wrong with Republican economic policy

I will then point out the technocratic idiocies of economic policy under the Trump administration

And I will then set forth my theory of where the performance gap���that American incomes grow 1.8%-points per year faster when Democrats are president than when Republicans are���comes from. Democratic politicians and legislators are willing, at least sometimes, to listen to their economists. Republican politicians and legislators will not even let their economists into the room where it happens until they have agreed that the politicians and legislators are already pursuing great policies.

.#forecasting #economicgrowth #highlighted #politicaleconomy #politics #2020-10-30

Today is an economic-analysis day:

I will start with the large gap between economic performance under Democratic and under Republican presidents, and with Alan Blinder���s and Mark Watson���s puzzlement as to where it comes from

I will then run through the history of what went wrong with Republican economic policy

I will then point out the technocratic idiocies of economic policy under the Trump administration

And I will then set forth my theory of where the performance gap���that American incomes grow 1.8%-points per year faster when Democrats are president than when Republicans are���comes from. Democratic politicians and legislators are willing, at least sometimes, to listen to their economists. Republican politicians and legislators will not even let their economists into the room where it happens until they have agreed that the politicians and legislators are already pursuing great policies.

.#forecasting #economicgrowth #highlighted #politicaleconomy #politics #2020-10-30

Today is an economic-analysis day:

I will start with the large gap between economic performance under Democratic and under Republican presidents, and with Alan Blinder���s and Mark Watson���s puzzlement as to where it comes from

I will then run through the history of what went wrong with Republican economic policy

I will then point out the technocratic idiocies of economic policy under the Trump administration

And I will then set forth my theory of where the performance gap���that American incomes grow 1.8%-points per year faster when Democrats are president than when Republicans are���comes from. Democratic politicians and legislators are willing, at least sometimes, to listen to their economists. Republican politicians and legislators will not even let their economists into the room where it happens until they have agreed that the politicians and legislators are already pursuing great policies.

.#forecasting #economicgrowth #highlighted #politicaleconomy #politics #2020-10-30

Today is an economic-analysis day:

I will start with the large gap between economic performance under Democratic and under Republican presidents, and with Alan Blinder���s and Mark Watson���s puzzlement as to where it comes from

I will then run through the history of what went wrong with Republican economic policy

I will then point out the technocratic idiocies of economic policy under the Trump administration

And I will then set forth my theory of where the performance gap���that American incomes grow 1.8%-points per year faster when Democrats are president than when Republicans are���comes from. Democratic politicians and legislators are willing, at least sometimes, to listen to their economists. Republican politicians and legislators will not even let their economists into the room where it happens until they have agreed that the politicians and legislators are already pursuing great policies.

.#forecasting #economicgrowth #highlighted #politicaleconomy #politics #2020-10-30

Today is an economic-analysis day:

I will start with the large gap between economic performance under Democratic and under Republican presidents, and with Alan Blinder���s and Mark Watson���s puzzlement as to where it comes from

I will then run through the history of what went wrong with Republican economic policy

I will then point out the technocratic idiocies of economic policy under the Trump administration

And I will then set forth my theory of where the performance gap���that American incomes grow 1.8%-points per year faster when Democrats are president than when Republicans are���comes from. Democratic politicians and legislators are willing, at least sometimes, to listen to their economists. Republican politicians and legislators will not even let their economists into the room where it happens until they have agreed that the politicians and legislators are already pursuing great policies.

.#forecasting #economicgrowth #highlighted #politicaleconomy #politics #2020-10-30

Today is an economic-analysis day:

I will start with the large gap between economic performance under Democratic and under Republican presidents, and with Alan Blinder���s and Mark Watson���s puzzlement as to where it comes from

I will then run through the history of what went wrong with Republican economic policy

I will then point out the technocratic idiocies of economic policy under the Trump administration

And I will then set forth my theory of where the performance gap���that American incomes grow 1.8%-points per year faster when Democrats are president than when Republicans are���comes from. Democratic politicians and legislators are willing, at least sometimes, to listen to their economists. Republican politicians and legislators will not even let their economists into the room where it happens until they have agreed that the politicians and legislators are already pursuing great policies.

.#forecasting #economicgrowth #highlighted #politicaleconomy #politics #2020-10-30

Today is an economic-analysis day:

I will start with the large gap between economic performance under Democratic and under Republican presidents, and with Alan Blinder���s and Mark Watson���s puzzlement as to where it comes from

I will then run through the history of what went wrong with Republican economic policy

I will then point out the technocratic idiocies of economic policy under the Trump administration

And I will then set forth my theory of where the performance gap���that American incomes grow 1.8%-points per year faster when Democrats are president than when Republicans are���comes from. Democratic politicians and legislators are willing, at least sometimes, to listen to their economists. Republican politicians and legislators will not even let their economists into the room where it happens until they have agreed that the politicians and legislators are already pursuing great policies.

.#forecasting #economicgrowth #highlighted #politicaleconomy #politics #2020-10-30

Today is an economic-analysis day:

I will start with the large gap between economic performance under Democratic and under Republican presidents, and with Alan Blinder���s and Mark Watson���s puzzlement as to where it comes from

I will then run through the history of what went wrong with Republican economic policy

I will then point out the technocratic idiocies of economic policy under the Trump administration

And I will then set forth my theory of where the performance gap���that American incomes grow 1.8%-points per year faster when Democrats are president than when Republicans are���comes from. Democratic politicians and legislators are willing, at least sometimes, to listen to their economists. Republican politicians and legislators will not even let their economists into the room where it happens until they have agreed that the politicians and legislators are already pursuing great policies.

.#forecasting #economicgrowth #highlighted #politicaleconomy #politics #2020-10-30

The Economic Incompetence of Republican Presidents: Project Syndicate

J. Bradford DeLong: The Economic Incompetence of Republican Presidents https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/democratic-administrations-historically-outperform-on-economy-by-j-bradford-delong-2020-10: In a United States rife with disinformation, one of the most persistent myths is that Republicans are better than Democrats for business and economic growth. In fact, Republicans have consistently under-performed on the economy for almost a century. One hears many strange things nowadays, not least because ���they��� (a complicated term) are flooding the zone with misinformation. Without a shared set of facts upon which to base ethical and policy debates, democracy inevitably breaks down. The system���s virtue lies in its unique ability to elevate and consider a broad range of ideas emanating from society. Ideally, through a good-faith exchange of arguments and a weighing of the alternatives, a majority of voters converges on the best course of action...

https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/delong-project-syndicate-2020-11-01.pdf https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/democratic-administrations-historically-outperform-on-economy-by-j-bradford-delong-2020-10 https://www.icloud.com/pages/0X3WOZxicKKMrstEB66_3N7eA https://www.icloud.com/keynote/0-wFK4esatnHmRMnSxPg-B8Lg https://www.bradford-delong.com/2020/10/the-economic-incompetence-of-republican-presidents-project-syndicate.html���2020-10-30

We hear many strange things today. They���and it is a complicated ���they������are flooding the zone with misinformation. Why? For lots of reasons. But democracy breaks down under a flood of misinformation. Democracies��� excellences spring from its ability to consider ideas from different places in society, and converge on the good ones. But that requires that the flow of information into the public-sphere be reality-based���or at least that there be confrontations in which the people can watch Lincoln debate Douglas and decide who is trustworthy and correct and who is not. And we have lost that.

But we keep on trying. Here Sisyphus. Here rock. Here hill. And, as Camus wrote now long ago, we must imagine Sisyphus happy, with what he meant depending on which of the many possible ways we choose to read the word ���must���.

One piece of misinformation I see more and more these days is that on election day America faces a tradeoff. On the one hand, electing a Democrat means that America will no longer have a government that permanently kidnaps children just because it can. On the other hand, electing a Democrat ���who will be radical and hurt the economy������, as the Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy ���No Republicans Should Ever Stab Trump in the Back��� Noonan puts it, before writing that ���[Biden] should not be going out for ice cream in a mask like John Dillinger on the lam������ and that ���[Kamala Harris] is embarrassing. Apparently you���re not allowed to say these things because she���s a woman���. I will not sweat it, I will be myself���. If you can���t imitate gravity, could you at least try for seriousness?������

So let me give the microphone to economists Alan Blinder and Mark Watson, who write that: ���The superiority of economic performance under Democrats rather than Republicans is nearly ubiquitous: it holds almost regardless of how you define success���. The performance gap��� strains credulity���. 1.8 percentage points [per year]��� from Truman through Obama������ And note that if they went back two more presidents���to Hoover-Roosevelt���the gap would be even bigger: about 3%/year.

Note that in this context Trump was an unusually good president as far as economic performance in his first three years was concerned. In teh first three years of his presidency the economy matched the 2.4%/year growth it achieved in Obama���s second term. Even matching the previous Democrat is something that Trump���s and only Trump���s, of all post-WWII Republican presidencies, has seen.

Blinder and Watson are flummoxed on where this performance gap comes from: greater fixed investment, more consumer optimism and thus spending on durables, fewer unfavorable oil shocks, and perhaps stronger growth abroad. But these can explain less than half of the gap. It is not that Democrats pursue overinflationary policies that borrow growth from the future and move it into the present.

When I first read Blinder and Watson, the oil factor jumped out at me. Both President George Bushes���and also Nixon and Ford���s Secretary of State Henry Kissinger���were deeply confused about whether the U.S. wanted a high or a low price of oil as far as boosting real income growth was concerned. Other presidents grabbed for chances to make or keep oil prices lower.

When we look back at history, it seems that Republican presidents and their administrations have little sense of what economic policies are likely to work. It simply never entered George W. Bush���s mind, or the mind of anyone in his administration, that a financial crisis could be produced by underregulation and would be a bad thing. It simply never entered Ronald Reagan���s mind, or the mind of anyone in his administration, that the big budget deficits they created gave America a choice between seeing investment collapse���slowing growth���or borrowing from abroad and in the process importing lots more manufactures���thus turning the Midwest into a rust belt. And Nixon���s belief that low interest rates plus wage-and-price controls could keep both inflation and unemployment low was hard to fathom either at the time.

Here we can say of Trump that he has played true to type. NAFTA: worst trade deal in American history. TPP: second worst. Add some TPP provisions to NAFTA and call it USMCA, and all of a sudden it makes America great again. A trade war with China: ���good, and easy to win���. But the result has been no change in manufacturing employment, a widened manufacturing trade deficit, U.S. consumers suffering reduced real incomes because they, not China, have paid the tariffs. Why? Because Robert Lighthizer and company had no clue how to plan or fight a trade war.

Republican presidents with their repeated failures to understand how the economy works have been hurting it since at least 1928. There is no tradeoff here.

829 words

.#economicgrowth #highlighted #macro #politicaleconomy #projectsyndicate #2020-10-30

We hear many strange things today. They���and it is a complicated ���they������are flooding the zone with misinformation. Why? For lots of reasons. But democracy breaks down under a flood of misinformation. Democracies��� excellences spring from its ability to consider ideas from different places in society, and converge on the good ones. But that requires that the flow of information into the public-sphere be reality-based���or at least that there be confrontations in which the people can watch Lincoln debate Douglas and decide who is trustworthy and correct and who is not. And we have lost that.

But we keep on trying. Here Sisyphus. Here rock. Here hill. And, as Camus wrote now long ago, we must imagine Sisyphus happy, with what he meant depending on which of the many possible ways we choose to read the word ���must���.

One piece of misinformation I see more and more these days is that on election day America faces a tradeoff. On the one hand, electing a Democrat means that America will no longer have a government that permanently kidnaps children just because it can. On the other hand, electing a Democrat ���who will be radical and hurt the economy������, as the Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy ���No Republicans Should Ever Stab Trump in the Back��� Noonan puts it, before writing that ���[Biden] should not be going out for ice cream in a mask like John Dillinger on the lam������ and that ���[Kamala Harris] is embarrassing. Apparently you���re not allowed to say these things because she���s a woman���. I will not sweat it, I will be myself���. If you can���t imitate gravity, could you at least try for seriousness?������

So let me give the microphone to economists Alan Blinder and Mark Watson, who write that: ���The superiority of economic performance under Democrats rather than Republicans is nearly ubiquitous: it holds almost regardless of how you define success���. The performance gap��� strains credulity���. 1.8 percentage points [per year]��� from Truman through Obama������ And note that if they went back two more presidents���to Hoover-Roosevelt���the gap would be even bigger: about 3%/year.

Note that in this context Trump was an unusually good president as far as economic performance in his first three years was concerned. In teh first three years of his presidency the economy matched the 2.4%/year growth it achieved in Obama���s second term. Even matching the previous Democrat is something that Trump���s and only Trump���s, of all post-WWII Republican presidencies, has seen.

Blinder and Watson are flummoxed on where this performance gap comes from: greater fixed investment, more consumer optimism and thus spending on durables, fewer unfavorable oil shocks, and perhaps stronger growth abroad. But these can explain less than half of the gap. It is not that Democrats pursue overinflationary policies that borrow growth from the future and move it into the present.

When I first read Blinder and Watson, the oil factor jumped out at me. Both President George Bushes���and also Nixon and Ford���s Secretary of State Henry Kissinger���were deeply confused about whether the U.S. wanted a high or a low price of oil as far as boosting real income growth was concerned. Other presidents grabbed for chances to make or keep oil prices lower.

When we look back at history, it seems that Republican presidents and their administrations have little sense of what economic policies are likely to work. It simply never entered George W. Bush���s mind, or the mind of anyone in his administration, that a financial crisis could be produced by underregulation and would be a bad thing. It simply never entered Ronald Reagan���s mind, or the mind of anyone in his administration, that the big budget deficits they created gave America a choice between seeing investment collapse���slowing growth���or borrowing from abroad and in the process importing lots more manufactures���thus turning the Midwest into a rust belt. And Nixon���s belief that low interest rates plus wage-and-price controls could keep both inflation and unemployment low was hard to fathom either at the time.

Here we can say of Trump that he has played true to type. NAFTA: worst trade deal in American history. TPP: second worst. Add some TPP provisions to NAFTA and call it USMCA, and all of a sudden it makes America great again. A trade war with China: ���good, and easy to win���. But the result has been no change in manufacturing employment, a widened manufacturing trade deficit, U.S. consumers suffering reduced real incomes because they, not China, have paid the tariffs. Why? Because Robert Lighthizer and company had no clue how to plan or fight a trade war.

Republican presidents with their repeated failures to understand how the economy works have been hurting it since at least 1928. There is no tradeoff here.

829 words

.#economicgrowth #highlighted #macro #politicaleconomy #projectsyndicate #2020-10-30

We hear many strange things today. They���and it is a complicated ���they������are flooding the zone with misinformation. Why? For lots of reasons. But democracy breaks down under a flood of misinformation. Democracies��� excellences spring from its ability to consider ideas from different places in society, and converge on the good ones. But that requires that the flow of information into the public-sphere be reality-based���or at least that there be confrontations in which the people can watch Lincoln debate Douglas and decide who is trustworthy and correct and who is not. And we have lost that.

But we keep on trying. Here Sisyphus. Here rock. Here hill. And, as Camus wrote now long ago, we must imagine Sisyphus happy, with what he meant depending on which of the many possible ways we choose to read the word ���must���.

One piece of misinformation I see more and more these days is that on election day America faces a tradeoff. On the one hand, electing a Democrat means that America will no longer have a government that permanently kidnaps children just because it can. On the other hand, electing a Democrat ���who will be radical and hurt the economy������, as the Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy ���No Republicans Should Ever Stab Trump in the Back��� Noonan puts it, before writing that ���[Biden] should not be going out for ice cream in a mask like John Dillinger on the lam������ and that ���[Kamala Harris] is embarrassing. Apparently you���re not allowed to say these things because she���s a woman���. I will not sweat it, I will be myself���. If you can���t imitate gravity, could you at least try for seriousness?������

So let me give the microphone to economists Alan Blinder and Mark Watson, who write that: ���The superiority of economic performance under Democrats rather than Republicans is nearly ubiquitous: it holds almost regardless of how you define success���. The performance gap��� strains credulity���. 1.8 percentage points [per year]��� from Truman through Obama������ And note that if they went back two more presidents���to Hoover-Roosevelt���the gap would be even bigger: about 3%/year.

Note that in this context Trump was an unusually good president as far as economic performance in his first three years was concerned. In teh first three years of his presidency the economy matched the 2.4%/year growth it achieved in Obama���s second term. Even matching the previous Democrat is something that Trump���s and only Trump���s, of all post-WWII Republican presidencies, has seen.

Blinder and Watson are flummoxed on where this performance gap comes from: greater fixed investment, more consumer optimism and thus spending on durables, fewer unfavorable oil shocks, and perhaps stronger growth abroad. But these can explain less than half of the gap. It is not that Democrats pursue overinflationary policies that borrow growth from the future and move it into the present.

When I first read Blinder and Watson, the oil factor jumped out at me. Both President George Bushes���and also Nixon and Ford���s Secretary of State Henry Kissinger���were deeply confused about whether the U.S. wanted a high or a low price of oil as far as boosting real income growth was concerned. Other presidents grabbed for chances to make or keep oil prices lower.

When we look back at history, it seems that Republican presidents and their administrations have little sense of what economic policies are likely to work. It simply never entered George W. Bush���s mind, or the mind of anyone in his administration, that a financial crisis could be produced by underregulation and would be a bad thing. It simply never entered Ronald Reagan���s mind, or the mind of anyone in his administration, that the big budget deficits they created gave America a choice between seeing investment collapse���slowing growth���or borrowing from abroad and in the process importing lots more manufactures���thus turning the Midwest into a rust belt. And Nixon���s belief that low interest rates plus wage-and-price controls could keep both inflation and unemployment low was hard to fathom either at the time.

Here we can say of Trump that he has played true to type. NAFTA: worst trade deal in American history. TPP: second worst. Add some TPP provisions to NAFTA and call it USMCA, and all of a sudden it makes America great again. A trade war with China: ���good, and easy to win���. But the result has been no change in manufacturing employment, a widened manufacturing trade deficit, U.S. consumers suffering reduced real incomes because they, not China, have paid the tariffs. Why? Because Robert Lighthizer and company had no clue how to plan or fight a trade war.

Republican presidents with their repeated failures to understand how the economy works have been hurting it since at least 1928. There is no tradeoff here.

829 words

.#economicgrowth #highlighted #macro #politicaleconomy #projectsyndicate #2020-10-30

We hear many strange things today. They���and it is a complicated ���they������are flooding the zone with misinformation. Why? For lots of reasons. But democracy breaks down under a flood of misinformation. Democracies��� excellences spring from its ability to consider ideas from different places in society, and converge on the good ones. But that requires that the flow of information into the public-sphere be reality-based���or at least that there be confrontations in which the people can watch Lincoln debate Douglas and decide who is trustworthy and correct and who is not. And we have lost that.

But we keep on trying. Here Sisyphus. Here rock. Here hill. And, as Camus wrote now long ago, we must imagine Sisyphus happy, with what he meant depending on which of the many possible ways we choose to read the word ���must���.

One piece of misinformation I see more and more these days is that on election day America faces a tradeoff. On the one hand, electing a Democrat means that America will no longer have a government that permanently kidnaps children just because it can. On the other hand, electing a Democrat ���who will be radical and hurt the economy������, as the Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy ���No Republicans Should Ever Stab Trump in the Back��� Noonan puts it, before writing that ���[Biden] should not be going out for ice cream in a mask like John Dillinger on the lam������ and that ���[Kamala Harris] is embarrassing. Apparently you���re not allowed to say these things because she���s a woman���. I will not sweat it, I will be myself���. If you can���t imitate gravity, could you at least try for seriousness?������

So let me give the microphone to economists Alan Blinder and Mark Watson, who write that: ���The superiority of economic performance under Democrats rather than Republicans is nearly ubiquitous: it holds almost regardless of how you define success���. The performance gap��� strains credulity���. 1.8 percentage points [per year]��� from Truman through Obama������ And note that if they went back two more presidents���to Hoover-Roosevelt���the gap would be even bigger: about 3%/year.

Note that in this context Trump was an unusually good president as far as economic performance in his first three years was concerned. In teh first three years of his presidency the economy matched the 2.4%/year growth it achieved in Obama���s second term. Even matching the previous Democrat is something that Trump���s and only Trump���s, of all post-WWII Republican presidencies, has seen.

Blinder and Watson are flummoxed on where this performance gap comes from: greater fixed investment, more consumer optimism and thus spending on durables, fewer unfavorable oil shocks, and perhaps stronger growth abroad. But these can explain less than half of the gap. It is not that Democrats pursue overinflationary policies that borrow growth from the future and move it into the present.

When I first read Blinder and Watson, the oil factor jumped out at me. Both President George Bushes���and also Nixon and Ford���s Secretary of State Henry Kissinger���were deeply confused about whether the U.S. wanted a high or a low price of oil as far as boosting real income growth was concerned. Other presidents grabbed for chances to make or keep oil prices lower.

When we look back at history, it seems that Republican presidents and their administrations have little sense of what economic policies are likely to work. It simply never entered George W. Bush���s mind, or the mind of anyone in his administration, that a financial crisis could be produced by underregulation and would be a bad thing. It simply never entered Ronald Reagan���s mind, or the mind of anyone in his administration, that the big budget deficits they created gave America a choice between seeing investment collapse���slowing growth���or borrowing from abroad and in the process importing lots more manufactures���thus turning the Midwest into a rust belt. And Nixon���s belief that low interest rates plus wage-and-price controls could keep both inflation and unemployment low was hard to fathom either at the time.

Here we can say of Trump that he has played true to type. NAFTA: worst trade deal in American history. TPP: second worst. Add some TPP provisions to NAFTA and call it USMCA, and all of a sudden it makes America great again. A trade war with China: ���good, and easy to win���. But the result has been no change in manufacturing employment, a widened manufacturing trade deficit, U.S. consumers suffering reduced real incomes because they, not China, have paid the tariffs. Why? Because Robert Lighthizer and company had no clue how to plan or fight a trade war.

Republican presidents with their repeated failures to understand how the economy works have been hurting it since at least 1928. There is no tradeoff here.

829 words

.#economicgrowth #highlighted #macro #politicaleconomy #projectsyndicate #2020-10-30

Briefly Noted for 2020-10-26

DeLong: COVID Dashboard https://research.stlouisfed.org/dashboard/56322���

* Ulrike Malmendier Stefan Nagel Zhen Yan * The Making Of Hawks And Doves: Inflation Experiences On The Fomc https://www.nber.org/papers/w23228.pdf...

Dan Froomkin: New York Times Nailed for Publishing Republican Propaganda���Yet Again https://www.salon.com/2020/10/23/new-york-times-nailed-for-publishing-republican-propaganda--yet-again/: ���Two supposedly "average" voters in a Times story turn out to be hardcore Republicans. And it's happened before... It raises serious questions about whether Times editors and reporters, rather than actually trying to determine how voters feel, are setting out to find people to mouth the words they need for predetermined story lines that, not coincidentally, echo the Trump campaign's propaganda���

Fox and Briar: Mediterranean Lamb Bowls https://www.foxandbriar.com/mediterranean-lamb-bowls/���

Marc Flandreau: How Vulture Investors Draft Constitutions: North & Weingast 30 Years Later https://us02web.zoom.us/w/86160838299...

George Dangerfield: The Strange Death of Liberal England, 1910-1914 https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/book-dangerfield-strange-death.pdf

Gaius Julius Caesar: The Civil War https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/book-caesar-civil.pdf

Gaius Julius Caesar: The Gallic War https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/book-caesar-gallic-war.pdf

Marcus Tullius Cicero: Letters to Atticus https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/letters-cicero-atticus-i.pdf https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/letters-cicero-atticus-ii.pdf https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/letters-cicero-atticus-iii.pdf

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus: Meditations https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/book-marcus-aurelius-meditations.pdf

Sonam Sheth & Eliza Relman: Former Republican Presidential Candidate Herman Cain Has Died After Being Hospitalized for Coronavirus https://www.businessinsider.com/herman-cain-dies-after-being-hospitalized-for-covid-19-2020-7...

 

 

George Borjas (2016): EJMR https://web.archive.org/web/20160701000601/https://gborjas.org/2016/06/30/a-rant-on-peer-review/: ���Janet Currie��� takes an even easier approach��to dismiss EJMR: sexism.��I personally find��the forum refreshing. There���s still hope for mankind when many of the posts written by a bunch of over-educated young social scientists illustrate��a throwing off of the shackles of political correctness and��reflect mundane concerns��that more normal human beings share: prestige, sex, money, landing a job, sex, professional misconduct, gossip, sex, and putting down ���reg monkeys������ https://twitter.com/delong/status/750084264335544320

Women���s Untold Stories https://www.myscience.org/news/wire/berkeley_s_campus_community_explores_women_s_untold_stories-2020-berkeley: ���In the 1970s, Berkeley economics professor Laura D���Andrea Tyson would endure derogatory treatment for being a woman... was told not to wear "tight jeans" while teaching, because it would make the "boys crazy." "There was a way in which my failure to recognize that economics was a male-dominated discipline for a long time really helped me," Tyson said in an interview with Berkeley���s economics department. "... But when I realized that there were likely to be very few women in my program, and that there were very few well-known women in economics, I started to have my doubts������

.#brieflynoted #noted #2020-10-26

8.2.0. WWII & Cold War Intro Video: Econ 115

https://share.mmhmm.app/d76c99fa29734fa2a9b2445ede510ba6

8.2.0. WWII & Cold War Intro Video: Econ 115

https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/econ-115-8.2.0-wwii-%26-cold-war-video-intro-10.0.pptx

https://www.icloud.com/keynote/0LhfMB65IaKYZYESYgmuUqZhA

https://www.bradford-delong.com/2020/10/820-wwii-cold-war-intro-video-econ-115.html

10:00 :: 1100 words

2020-10-25

.#berkeley #coldwar #highlighted #slouchingtowardsutopia #wwii #2020-10-25

8.1. WWII & Cold War Readings: Econ 115

https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/econ-115-8.1-wwii-%26-cold-war-readings-note.pptx

https://www.icloud.com/keynote/0SeHtO2Tno7Vf_ddUMm0dhAaw

2020-10-19

8.1. WWII & Cold War Readings: Econ 115

Required Readings Note:

There are no required readings outside of the DeLong chapters this week.

 

(Very) Optional Readings Note:

Only if you have lots of spare time���and if you want to procrastinate on your other tasks���do I recommend that you read this optional reading: 15 pages from the end of Marc Bloch (1940): Strange Defeat: A Statement of Evidence Written in 1940.

In this passage, Bloch attempts to grapple with the fact that in 1940 the upper-middle class of France���the people who ran and staffed France���s controlling organizations, private, and public���did not understand and were in fact filled with a combination of fear and contempt for the working-class mass population of France. Right-wing politicians had sought to preserve the unequal property order of France by painting left-wing politicians and their supporters, especially those who made up the Popular Front headed by Judeo-French Leon Blum, as decadent, lazy, and untrustworthy���un-French. Why? How else can you hold on to power when your economic policy is to block reforms that would benefit the overwhelming majority at a cost of taxing the rich more.

Thus when the middle- and working-class males of military age in France were gathered into the army, the army���s leaders did not trust the soldiers to do their job. Bloch thinks that this underpinned an unwillingness on the part of the army command structure���from generals down to lieutenants���to ask and lead the soldiers to fight to the utmost.

Bloch may be wrong here. Of the 2 million soldiers committed to the front-line French forces, 300,000 were killed or wounded in the six weeks of war before the French surrender. That is a casualty rate of 0.35%/day. (The Nazi front-line armies of 2.5 million suffered 150,000 killed or wounded in those six weeks.) The French in 1940 were outmaneuvered and outfought���but so was everybody the first time they ran into the Nazi army. It is not clear that they were unwilling to try to fight, or unwilling to risk themselves and die.

But he may be right. And it is certainly true that the French right had waged a ���culture war������the rich trying to secure their position against economic reforms and high progressive taxes by breaking the country in two along sociological lines, in the hope that enough not-rich people would vote for right-wing candidates to allow them to maintain power.

 

 

Marc Bloch (6 July 1886���16 June 1944) was a French historian specializing in medieval history. Born in Lyon to an Alsatian Jewish family, Bloch was raised in Paris, educated at the ��cole Normale Sup��rieure, and served during World War I as an officer, When World War II began, at the age of 54 he volunteered for the army and became the fuel czar for the French 1st Army, positioned on the far left of the French battleline. After the French defeat in 1940, he simply took off his army uniform, put back on his professor clothes, and resumed teaching medieval history.

Two years later he joined the French Resistance. Wikipedia quotes fellow Resistance fighter George Altman: ���resistance fighter Georges Altman, who ���later told how he knew Bloch as, although originally ���a man, made for the creative silence of gentle study, with a cabinet full of books��� was now ���running from street to street, deciphering secret letters in some Lyonaisse Resistance garret���������

He was arrested by the Vichy police in March 1944 and handed over to the local Nazi Gestapo, then under the command of Klaus Barbie, ���The Butcher of Lyons���. He was tortured. A week after the beginning of the Anglo-American invasion of France he was shot by the Gestapo. Again, Wikipedia: ���According to Lyon, Bloch spent his last moments comforting a 16-year-old beside him who was worried that the bullets might hurt. Bloch fell first, reputedly shouting ���Vive la France��� before being shot���.

Besides Strange Defeat, the only other book of Bloch���s that I have read with any great attention is his 1939 Feudal Society, which is still well worth reading as a sketch of how European society in the central middle ages ���worked���, at least in the lands between the rivers Loire and Rhine (and, paradoxically, in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem of the 1100s, to which the system was transplanted after the First Crusade).

 

Required Readings:
https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/slouching-12-wwii-%23tceh.pdf
https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/slouching-15-cold-war-%23tceh.pdf

 

(Very) Optional Readings:
https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/book-bloch-strange-defeat-selections.pdf

.#berkeley #coldwar #highlighted #slouchingtowardsutopia #strategy #wwii #2020-10-23

COVID-19 U.S. Macroeconomic Dashboard

https://research.stlouisfed.org/dashboard/56322

.#coronavirus #forecasting #macro #2020-10-23

DeLongToday 2020-10-23: Assessing the Speed of U.S. Relative Decline

Video at: http://delongtoday.com

https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/delongtoday-2020-10-23.pptx

https://www.icloud.com/keynote/0HswGhv7jKY3tBhwvoawH16iQ

2020-10-23

One of the biggest facts over the past fifteen years has been the stunning speed of American relative economic decline, far outstripping the example 120 years ago of British relative economic decline in the face of American and German challenges in the years before World War I.

I will first ask you to cast your mind back 15 years, to the days when America was riding high and its relative future looked very very bright indeed. I will then review the four big shocks that have hit us since then. Last, I will attempt to assess the impact of the Covid shock on the economy, both in the short run, over the next year or so that the plague is likely to continue to rage, and then over the longer run as or perhaps if the division of labor and productivity reknits itself.

The bottom line, I think, is that historians rating in 2050 or 2100 are likely to write of the era 2005-2025 as one of truly rapid historic relative decline, even more rapid then Britain's 1890 to 1910 episode of relative decline a century and a quarter ago.

Yes, I know. My wife tells me these would be more effective if I were upbeat. I am trying. It is hard.

.#highlighted #economicgrowth #ninevahandtyre #politicaleconomy #politics #relativedecline #2020-10-23

Davies: Lying for Money Book Talk���Noted

https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/davies-lying-book-talk-2020-10-16.pptx

https://www.icloud.com/keynote/0Y-8YsQfbZm3XA4JhpDYJ_4PA

Brown University: Rhodes Center for International Economics & Finance https://watson.brown.edu/events/2020/book-talk-dan-davies-lying-money-how-legendary-frauds-reveal-workings-our-world: 'Friday, October 16, 2020 12 p.m. ��� 1 p.m edt: Most white-collar crime works is by manipulating institutional psychology... creating something that looks as much as possible like a normal set of transactions. The drama comes later, when it all unwinds.... There are only so many ways you can con someone out of what���s theirs. In Lying for Money, veteran regulatory economist and market analyst Dan Davies tells the story of fraud through a genealogy of financial malfeasance, including: the Great Salad Oil swindle, the Pigeon King International fraud, the fictional British colony of Poyais in South America, the Boston Ladies��� Deposit Company, the Portuguese Banknote Affair, Theranos, and the Bre-X scam. Davies... shows how all frauds, current and historical, belong to one of four categories ("long firm," counterfeiting, control fraud, and market crimes) and operate on the same basic principles. The only elements that change are the victims, the scammers, and the terminology. Davies has years of experience picking the bones out of some of the most famous frauds of the modern age. Now he reveals the big picture that emerges from their labyrinths of deceit and explains how fraud has shaped the entire development of the modern world economy.

.#noted #2020-10-23

Modeling Humanity's Economic Growth Watersheds: Econ 115: Problem Set 2

https://nbviewer.jupyter.org/github/braddelong/econ-115-f-2020-assignments/blob/master/ps02.ipynb

https://www.bradford-delong.com/2020/10/modeling-humanitys-economic-growth-watersheds-econ-115-problem-set-2.html

.#berkeley #datascience #math #teaching #tceh #2020-10-01

The Unequal World: Has Resource Access Had an Important Role to Play?: Econ 115: Problem Set 3

https://nbviewer.jupyter.org/github/braddelong/econ-115-f-2020-assignments/blob/master/ps03.ipynb

https://www.bradford-delong.com/2020/10/the-unequal-world-has-resource-access-had-an-important-role-to-play-econ-115-problem-set-3.html

.#berkeley #datascience #math #teaching #tceh #2020-10-08