J. Bradford DeLong's Blog, page 193
April 21, 2019
Sally Albright: @SallyAlbright: "I called it. Bernie ran ...
Sally Albright: @SallyAlbright: "I called it. Bernie ran the exact same scam that lost Jim Wright his Speakership and cost Newt Gingrich $400k in fines, but from campaign donations, not from lobbyists. And sadly, it's legal. Unethical af, but legal: 'Bernie spent $444k of campaign dollars on his own books in 2015...
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Carole Cadwalladr: @carolecadwalla: "Oh wow. This is what...
Carole Cadwalladr: @carolecadwalla: "Oh wow. This is what happened after my talk at #TED2019. This bit is not in the video. @TEDchris invited @facebook to respond. ���We will make time for you,��� he said. Instead, they made an official complaint about what I said. And then: silence...
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Comment of the Day: Eric Lund: "It's not just wrong, it's...
Comment of the Day: Eric Lund: "It's not just wrong, it's a fetish passing for scholarship, and there's far too much of it out there. While I am by no means a classicist, it seems to me that a casual eye on the new books carousel at your university library would rescue from any temptation to indulge this kind of nonsense. Nino Luraghi's Ancient Messenians: Constructions of Ethnicity and Memory (2008) will lead to Hodkinson and Powell, eds. Sparta: New Perspectives, which, even if you are as lazy as a certain blog commentator and content yourself with the Bryn Mawr review up on JSTOR, you would be quickly led to a pdf posted by H. W. Singor https://delong.typepad.com/files/5_041_036.pdf... and to the chastening realisation that the scenario Our Host describes was first laid out by Aristotle in the Politics. This ain't exactly cutting edge revisionism, folks...
...[Singor:] In a stable population with a high death rate for young children and a
correspondingly high birth rate of on average 5.5 children per family it is in
less than 40% of the families that at least one son will survive his father; in
about 25% two or more sons will survive; in slightly less than 25% it is only
one or more daughters that inherit, and in nearly 15% there are no heirs at
all.
Consequently in each generation more than half of all landholdings is
either divided between heirs or assigned to heiresses and their (prospective)
husbands, or to further relations in case the deceased leave no children at
all. So concentration and/or fragmentation of property affect more than
60% of all land lots at the change of one generation to the next.
Hodkinson presents a table showing family composition
distribution in a model population. On the basis of his
figures one can assess the percentage of, for
example, inheritances in which a son receives less than one third of the
parental property at slightly more than 10 percent. In most cases one may
assume that such an inheritance would be insufficient for the heir to keep
up the standard of living of his father; unless he married a bride with
enough land of her own to make up for the deficit the prospects for the heir
being able to sustain his father's status looked grim. Perhaps in half of the
cases, say 5% or a little less, he did not succeed. Even so, a steady outflow
of impoverished heirs in one out of twenty cases must in a stable (!) population have produced...
Singor, it seems, is far too credulous with our sources for the earliest Spartan history. Tantalising revisions of traditional chronologies suggest moving the date of the conquest of Messenia, and the introduction of the Spartan system, to an astonishingly late date, perhaps within the living memory of the parents of the Spartiates who fought at Plataea. This doesn't have much to do with refuting the toxic nonsense that the Spartans were engaged in a eugenics project, but it does suggest that the Spartan system was even less stable than the ancient sources suggest...
#commentoftheday
Michael Nielsen: Six Rules for Rewriting: "Write freely, ...
Michael Nielsen: Six Rules for Rewriting: "Write freely, and then... rewrite.... Six rules that help me recognize the bad bits in my own writing.... Every sentence should grab the reader and propel them forward.... Every paragraph should contain a striking idea.... The most significant ideas should be distilled into the most potent sentences possible.... Use the strongest appropriate verb.... Beware of nominalization: A common way we weaken verbs is by turning them into nouns, and then combining them with weaker verbs.... None of the above rules should be consciously applied while drafting.... Only once you are done should you... rewrite...
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As I understand it, the big difference between Auten and ...
As I understand it, the big difference between Auten and Splinter's inequality estimates and those of other researchers are that Auten and Splinter (a) have not harmonized their estimates with the components of the System of National Accounts, (b) assume low-income business owners evade a greater share of the taxes they owe than do high-income business owners, (c) do not assign undistributed pension earnings to their ultimate owners, (d) assume that the corporate tax is largely borne by low-income current retirees, and (e) define the top 1% by summing the incomes of all earners in the family but calculate their earning by dividing income by the number of adults in the family (see PSZ: "Distributional National Accounts: Methods and Estimates for the United States Data Appendix").
I do not, given the random audit studies, understand why they do (b). And I think that (e) is simply wrong. (e) has a big effect on inequality trends because of increasing female paid employment and decreasing marriage rates among the non-rich. Thus at the moment at least I find myself strongly on the side of Piketty, Saez, and Zucman in this disagreement���and not just because two of those three work down the hall from me.
But I do strongly share Auten and Splinter's dissatisfaction with the concept being measured here by the standard estimates. I want to see inequality defined as the lifetime distribution fo economic and social power, and I would very much want to see Piketty, Saez, and Zucman���and others���try to lay out how they think of getting from the income estimates they report to an assessment of the inequality concept we really want to see: Austen Clemens: Progress Toward Consensus on Measuring U.S. Income Inequality: "The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development... the team from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis... Gerald Auten... and David Splinter at the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation... Thomas Piketty... Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman.... All... attempt to quantify changes in income inequality after taxes and transfers...
..The series produced by each of these two teams and includes the after-tax-and-transfer series���transfers being government programs such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance and the Earned Income Tax Credit���produced by the Congressional Budget Office for comparison....
CBO and... Piketty, Saez, and Zucman find very similar trends in the rise of inequality.... The BEA estimates... [are] close to the CBO���s estimate... and Piketty, Saez, and Zucman���s estimate.... In contrast, Auten and Splinter���s data series shows that after accounting for taxes and transfers, incomes fluctuated, but the distribution of that income has been largely consistent since 1960. Their findings are an outlier....
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Mohamed A. El-Erian: Economy: The Missing Elements for a ...
Mohamed A. El-Erian: Economy: The Missing Elements for a Market 'Melt Up': "Stronger global fundamentals need to underpin elevated asset prices, and the Fed must maintain a tricky policy balance as the U.S. continues to outperform advanced countries.... The argument for a melt up (involving a pile on by investors who don't want to be left on the sidelines during a market rise regardless of any change in market fundamentals) essentially extrapolates forward the impact of central bank liquidity support in the context of the notion of investment portfolio underexposure to stocks and the continued proliferation of index products. This is also known as the FOMO, or fear-of-missing-out, effect...
...The most important risks when it comes to the melt-up scenario... have to do with... a slow and uncertain handoff to the stronger global economic fundamentals required to sustainably underpin elevated asset prices; and the tricky policy balance that the Fed faces in the context of a divergent global economy in which the U.S. continues to be the notable outperformer among the advanced countries.... The minutes of the last Open-Market Committee meeting confirmed that the Fed���s policy U-turn was influenced by concern that U.S. growth��and inflation outlooks would be undermined by spillovers from weaker international conditions and volatile financial markets.... The possibility of Fed-induced volatility as central bankers try to guide later this year toward a less accommodating monetary policy than what���s priced into markets. All of this to say that, without a better liquidity-to-fundamental handoff and a more market-savvy Fed, the prospects for a melt-up scenario could well dim through the��year....
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Fairly Recently: Must- and Should-Reads, and Writings... (April 21-2, 2019)
Across the Wide Missouri: Is tonight the Game of Thrones episode when Tony Stark shows up? Asking for a friend...
Jeffrey Adam Sachs: The ���Campus Free Speech Crisis��� Ended Last Year: "The evidence for a chilling effect... is sketchy at best. By contrast, the evidence for a heating effect is quite robust. Many students explain that the only reason they choose to invite controversial speakers to campus is to challenge or provoke their classmates.... Turning Point USA and Young America���s Foundation proudly tout the ability of their speakers to 'trigger' liberal students. In fact, generating student outrage, even to the point of being deplatformed, has become such a badge of honor that some speakers are fabricating deplatforming incidents where none exist...
Wikipedia: Evolution of Nervous Systems
Wikipedia: Apple A12
Joanna Stern: This Was Supposed to Be a Samsung Galaxy Fold Video Review: "Whatever You Do, Don't Peel The Screen.... WSJ's Joanna Stern had big plans to review Samsung's first foldable phone. Then other Samsung phone screens started breaking and she accidentally began to peel off the screen protector that's not really a screen protector. Here's her non-review...
Dietrich Vollrath: Fully Grown: Why a Stagnant Economy Is a Sign of Success https://books.google.com/books?isbn=022666600X
Joanna Stern: Apple���s Faulty MacBook Butterfly Keyboard Explained... With Real Butterflies: "Fly Far Away, Butterfly Keyboard: The third generation of the butterfly keyboard on Apple's Mac laptops was supposed to fix all the problems. But nope. WSJ's Joanna Stern explains why the keyboards on the newest and most expensive MacBooks keep breaking���and the few things you can do about it...
Jill Lepore: Are Robots Competing for Your Job? | The New Yorker: "Probably, but don���t count yourself out...
Sheelah Kolhatkar: Welcoming Our New Robot Overlords: "Once, robots assisted human workers. Now it���s the other way around...
Tia Maria: Carne de Porco a Alentejana
Tia Maria: Favas Guisadas com Chouri��o
Wikipedia: Marmalade
Wikipedia: Easter Vigil: "The original twelve Old Testament readings for the Easter Vigil survive in an ancient manuscript belonging to the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem.... Psalm 117 [118] sung with the response, "This is the day which the Lord has made." Then followed twelve Old Testament readings.... Genesis 1:1--3:24 (the story of creation)... Genesis 22:1-18... (3) Exodus 12:1-24... Jonah 1:1--4:11... Exodus 14:24--15:21... Isaiah 60:1-13... Job 38:2-28... 2 Kings 2:1-22... Jeremiah 31:31-34... Joshua 1:1-9... Ezekiel 37:1-14... (12) Daniel 3:1-29.... In the Roman Rite liturgy, the Easter Vigil consists of four parts: The Service of Light, The Liturgy of the Word, Christian Initiation and the Renewal of Baptismal Vows, Eucharist...
Wikipedia: Dresden Frauenkirche
Wikipedia: John Laurens
Wikipedia: Hercules Mulligan
Wikipedia: Angelica Schuyler Church
Wikipedia: Mary Jane Girls
William Matthew Makeham (1868): On the Theory of Annuities Certain
Spencer Strub: Why it Matters ���Game of Thrones��� Is a Climate-Change Story: "The Cersei Lannister story is a good stand-in for the fossil-fuel-funded congresspeople".... The wildlings are stand-ins for frontline communities impacted by extreme weather... the narrative of displacement and migration.... People make meaning out of the books and the show, and that is not limited by the author���s intentions. I think that this is one of the ways that Game of Thrones��� is mobilized into contemporary political discourse...
David Gardner: Spain���s Open Election Highlights Its Polarisation Problem: "Spain this month faces the most wide-open electoral contest since the restoration of democracy that followed the death of Francisco Franco.... The three parties on the right are competing to prove who can be the most bellicose towards minority nationalisms���the touchstone issue of rightwing populism in Spain rather than immigration...
I will take "the Trumpets are easily-grifted morons" for 2000, Alex: Ed Luce: A Preacher For Trump���s America: Joel Osteen and the Prosperity Gospel: "Lakewood Church���s 60m ���smiling pastor��� holds up worldly success as proof of God���s favour: With a fortune estimated at 60m and a mansion listed on Zillow at 10.7m, Osteen is hardly living like a friar. His suburban Houston home has three elevators, a swimming pool and parking for 20 cars���including his 230,000 Ferrari 458 Italia. 'My dad says, "How can you follow the sixth-richest pastor in the world?"' one of the men said. 'You know what I tell him? ���We don���t want to follow a loser. Osteen should be number one on that list.' Everyone laughed. One or two shouted, 'Hell, yeah' in affirmation���the only time I was to hear the word 'hell'. Another said: 'He didn���t become rich because of our tithes [the practice of giving a 10th of your income to the church]. He became rich because he makes good investments'...
Building up the data base we need to understand inequality on a global scale: Facundo Alvaredo, Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman: World Inequality Report 2018: "The World Inequality Report 2018 relies on a cutting-edge methodology to measure income and wealth inequality in a systematic and transparent manner. By developing this report, the World Inequality Lab seeks to fill a democratic gap and to equip various actors of society with the necessary facts to engage in informed public debates on inequality...
Richard Baldwin has a new book and has coined the ugliest word I have ever seen to promote it. It is very interesting, and I think it is largely right. But I think it does have a big problem with the word "globotics": "globalization" and "robots", even robot-enabled globalization and globalization-enabled robots, are two very different processes with very different implications. Squashing them into one makes his argument less coherent than it might have been: Richard Baldwin: The Globotics Upheaval: Globalization, Robotics, and the Future of Work: "A new form of globalization will combine with software robots to disrupt service-sector and professional jobs in the same way automation and trade disrupted manufacturing jobs.... Software robots... pervasive translation that open[s] new opportunities for outsourcing to tele-migrants.... Future jobs will be more human and involve more face-to-face contact since software robots and tele-migrants will do everything else...
Some of us may be intellectually quicker than others. Some of us may have a greater breadth or depth of real or virtual experience than others. But intellectual quickness, depth or breadth of experience, and depth or breadth of virtual experience���none of those make us smart, or wise. Being stupid is a choice. We can all train ourselves not to make that choice: Morgan Housel: Different Kinds of Stupid: "Smart is the ability to solve hard problems, which can be done many ways. Stupid is a tendency to not comprehend easy problems. It���s also is a diversified trait. A few kinds of stupid.... 1. Intelligence creep: Not knowing the boundaries of what you���re good at.... 2. Underestimating the complexity of how past successes were gained in a way that makes you overestimate their repeatability.... 3. Discounting the views of people who aren���t as credentialed as you are.... 4. Not understanding that in the... real world it���s you vs. coworkers, employees, customers, regulators, etc., all of whom need to be persuaded by more than having the right answer.... 5. Closed-system thinking: Underestimating the external consequences of your decisions in a hyperconnected world, or dismissing how quickly those consequences can backfire on you...
Scott Sumner: What Lessons Do Conservatives Need to Learn?: "If the conservative movement were serious about learning from their mistakes in the early 2010s, they���d be looking at the group that provided the most accurate description of what was likely to happen, especially given that this group has a number of people with right-of-center views on economic policy issues.�� They���d be embracing market monetarism and encouraging Trump to nominate David Beckworth to the Fed, not Herman Cain and Steve Moore.�� Don���t hold your breath, as this not about getting to the truth...
#noted #weblogs
Scott Sumner: What Lessons Do Conservatives Need to Learn...
Scott Sumner: What Lessons Do Conservatives Need to Learn?: "If the conservative movement were serious about learning from their mistakes in the early 2010s, they���d be looking at the group that provided the most accurate description of what was likely to happen, especially given that this group has a number of people with right-of-center views on economic policy issues.�� They���d be embracing market monetarism and encouraging Trump to nominate David Beckworth to the Fed, not Herman Cain and Steve Moore.�� Don���t hold your breath, as this not about getting to the truth...
#noted
Some of us may be intellectually quicker than others. Som...
Some of us may be intellectually quicker than others. Some of us may have a greater breadth or depth of real or virtual experience than others. But intellectual quickness, depth or breadth of experience, and depth or breadth of virtual experience���none of those make us smart, or wise. Being stupid is a choice. We can all train ourselves not to make that choice:
Morgan Housel: Different Kinds of Stupid: "Smart is the ability to solve hard problems, which can be done many ways. Stupid is a tendency to not comprehend easy problems. It���s also is a diversified trait. A few kinds of stupid.... 1. Intelligence creep: Not knowing the boundaries of what you���re good at.... 2. Underestimating the complexity of how past successes were gained in a way that makes you overestimate their repeatability.... 3. Discounting the views of people who aren���t as credentialed as you are.... 4. Not understanding that in the... real world it���s you vs. coworkers, employees, customers, regulators, etc., all of whom need to be persuaded by more than having the right answer.... 5. Closed-system thinking: Underestimating the external consequences of your decisions in a hyperconnected world, or dismissing how quickly those consequences can backfire on you...
#noted
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