J. Bradford DeLong's Blog, page 2074

The Hollowing Out of the U.S. Income Distribution Under the Pressure of Technology

Paul Krugman:

Autor! Autor!: A further note on brains and jobs: the story I told in my whimsical magazine piece bears a clear family resemblance to the influential analysis of Autor, Levy, and Murnane a few years later, which argued that the crucial difference in terms of possible replacement of humans by machines was one of routine versus non-routine, rather than white-collar versus blue-collar, and that computerization was if anything likely to increase demand for some “low-skill” occupations and reduce demand for some traditionally well-paying white-collar jobs. I’d note, by the way, that it increasingly looks as if “medical diagnosis” should be moved from the right column to the left.

And you can actually see this happening in the data.... In the 80s, the higher the skill required for an occupation, the bigger the employment gains. In the 90s, there was “hollowing out”, with the middle-skill occupations losing relative to both ends. And most recently, the hollowing seems to have spread further up the scale.

This is real, and it calls some of our favorite platitudes into question.

"Titus Aurelius Fulvus Boionius Arrius Antoninus" AKA "Antoninus Pius"

Now that is a name.

From Wikipedia I infer that he was born "Titus Aurelius Fulvus" and that the "Arrius Antoninus" was added because after his father's death he was raised by his paternal grandfather Gnaeus Arrius Antoninus.

But where does the "Boionius" come from?

Political Scientists Not Behaving Well Watch...

Guys. Think as hard as you can and say what you think. Don't trim what you say in the hopes of pleasing your paying clients or the politicians you hope will appoint you to high office. It does not work.

And even if it does work, what are you then? You are the Attorney General for Wales:

It's really not worth it.

David Corn and Siddhartha Mahanta in Mother Jones:

From Libya With Love | Mother Jones: In February 2007 Harvard professor Joseph Nye Jr.... sipped tea for three hours with Muammar Qaddafi. Months later, he penned an elegant description of the chat for The New Republic, reporting that Qaddafi had been interested in discussing "direct democracy." Nye noted that "there is no doubt that" the Libyan autocrat:

acts differently on the world stage today than he did in decades past. And the fact that he took so much time to discuss ideas—including soft power—with a visiting professor suggests that he is actively seeking a new strategy.

The article struck a hopeful tone: that there was a new Qaddafi. It also noted that Nye had gone to Libya "at the invitation of the Monitor Group, a consulting company that is helping Libya open itself to the global economy"... [but not that] he [was]... as a paid consultant of the Monitor Group... orking under a $3 million-per-year contract with Libya... "to enhance the profile of Libya and Muammar Qadhafi."... [A] source familiar with the Harvard professor's original submission to the magazine notes, "It took considerable prodding from editors to get him to reluctantly acknowledge the regime's very well-known dark side." And Franklin Foer, then the editor of the magazine, says, "If we had known that he was consulting for a firm paid by the government, we wouldn't have run the piece."...

The two chief goals of the project, according to an internal document describing Monitor's Libya operations, were to produce a makeover for Libya and to introduce Qaddafi "as a thinker and intellectual, independent of his more widely-known and very public persona as the Leader of the Revolution in Libya."... [A] few of the "visitors," as Monitor referred to them, did write mostly positive articles, without revealing they had been part of the Monitor Group's endeavor to clean up Qaddafi. Some might not have even known they had been recruited for an image rehabilitation effort....

Benjamin Barber... took three trips to Libya as a paid consultant to Monitor.... "Did I realize that I was working within an autocratic regime and the odds of making change were low?" Barber remarks. "Yes."... [I]n August 2007, Barber wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post.... In the article—headlined "Gaddafi's Libya: An Ally for America?"—Barber wrote that his one-on-one conversations with Qaddafi had convinced him that the Libyan leader had arranged for their release to show his desire for "a genuine rapprochement with the United States":

Libya under Gaddafi has embarked on a journey that could make it the first Arab state to transition peacefully and without overt Western intervention to a stable, non-autocratic government....

But Barber did not mention in the Post piece that he himself had been a paid consultant for the Monitor Group. Was this an oversight? "I don't think so," Barber says, adding that he assumed he was on the payroll to help Monitor promote reform in Libya, not sell Qaddafi in the United States....

Other intellectuals squired to Libya by Monitor also chronicled their experiences in articles that bolstered the notion—for which there was a true basis at the time—that Qaddafi was heading in a positive direction.... Princeton University professor Andrew Moravcsik....

Kaddafi may have no desire to surrender power himself—but he has come to see that embracing modernization and globalization is the best way to assure his survival. Thus the historical irony: after three decades of isolation, Libya may be emerging as the West's best hope in the turbulent Middle East.

Asked about his trip to Libya and his relationship with Monitor—and whether he should have disclosed any connection in the Newsweek article—Moravcsik initially refused to comment; a spokeswoman for him said, "He is not available to discuss this issue."...

Anthony Giddens....

As one-party states go, Libya is not especially repressive. Gadafy seems genuinely popular.... Will real progress be possible only when Gadafy leaves the scene? I tend to think the opposite. If he is sincere in wanting change, as I think he is, he could play a role in muting conflict that might otherwise arise as modernisation takes hold.

The article did not mention the Monitor Group.... Giddens did not respond to an email request for comment.... Monitor did not reply to questions from Mother Jones about its intentions in Libya, about its payments to consultants, or about the various articles that were written by the academics it brought to Tripoli. "We do not discuss specifics of our work with any client," the Monitor statement says. "That said, we are deeply distressed and saddened to witness the current tragic events in Libya." The group did not say whether it regretted mounting, on behalf a brutal dictator who proved to be no reformer, a behind-the-scenes PR campaign that snared prominent intellectuals hoping for the best in Libya.

Political Scientists Behaving Badly Watch...

Guys. Think as hard as you can and say what you think. Don't trim what you say in the hopes of pleasing your paying clients or the politicians you hope will appoint you to high office. It does not work.

And even if it does work, what are you then? You are the Attorney General for Wales:

It's really not worth it.

David Corn and Siddhartha Mahanta in Mother Jones:

From Libya With Love | Mother Jones: In February 2007 Harvard professor Joseph Nye Jr.... sipped tea for three hours with Muammar Qaddafi. Months later, he penned an elegant description of the chat for The New Republic, reporting that Qaddafi had been interested in discussing "direct democracy." Nye noted that "there is no doubt that" the Libyan autocrat:

acts differently on the world stage today than he did in decades past. And the fact that he took so much time to discuss ideas—including soft power—with a visiting professor suggests that he is actively seeking a new strategy.

The article struck a hopeful tone: that there was a new Qaddafi. It also noted that Nye had gone to Libya "at the invitation of the Monitor Group, a consulting company that is helping Libya open itself to the global economy."

Nye did not disclose all. He had actually traveled to Tripoli as a paid consultant of the Monitor Group... the firm was working under a $3 million-per-year contract with Libya. Monitor, a Boston-based consulting firm with ties to the Harvard Business School, had been retained, according to internal documents obtained by a Libyan dissident group, not to promote economic development, but "to enhance the profile of Libya and Muammar Qadhafi."...

[A] source familiar with the Harvard professor's original submission to the magazine notes, "It took considerable prodding from editors to get him to reluctantly acknowledge the regime's very well-known dark side." And Franklin Foer, then the editor of the magazine, says, "If we had known that he was consulting for a firm paid by the government, we wouldn't have run the piece."...

The Nye article was but one PR coup the Monitor Group delivered for Qaddafi. But the firm also succeeded on other fronts. The two chief goals of the project, according to an internal document describing Monitor's Libya operations, were to produce a makeover for Libya and to introduce Qaddafi "as a thinker and intellectual, independent of his more widely-known and very public persona as the Leader of the Revolution in Libya."...

[A] few of the "visitors," as Monitor referred to them, did write mostly positive articles, without revealing they had been part of the Monitor Group's endeavor to clean up Qaddafi. Some might not have even known they had been recruited for an image rehabilitation effort....

Benjamin Barber... took three trips to Libya as a paid consultant to Monitor.... "Did I realize that I was working within an autocratic regime and the odds of making change were low?" Barber remarks. "Yes."... [I]n August 2007, Barber wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post.... In the article—headlined "Gaddafi's Libya: An Ally for America?"—Barber wrote that his one-on-one conversations with Qaddafi had convinced him that the Libyan leader had arranged for their release to show his desire for "a genuine rapprochement with the United States":

Libya under Gaddafi has embarked on a journey that could make it the first Arab state to transition peacefully and without overt Western intervention to a stable, non-autocratic government....

But Barber did not mention in the Post piece that he himself had been a paid consultant for the Monitor Group. Was this an oversight? "I don't think so," Barber says, adding that he assumed he was on the payroll to help Monitor promote reform in Libya, not sell Qaddafi in the United States....

Other intellectuals squired to Libya by Monitor also chronicled their experiences in articles that bolstered the notion—for which there was a true basis at the time—that Qaddafi was heading in a positive direction.... Princeton University professor Andrew Moravcsik....

Kaddafi may have no desire to surrender power himself—but he has come to see that embracing modernization and globalization is the best way to assure his survival. Thus the historical irony: after three decades of isolation, Libya may be emerging as the West's best hope in the turbulent Middle East.

Asked about his trip to Libya and his relationship with Monitor—and whether he should have disclosed any connection in the Newsweek article—Moravcsik initially refused to comment; a spokeswoman for him said, "He is not available to discuss this issue."...

Anthony Giddens....

As one-party states go, Libya is not especially repressive. Gadafy seems genuinely popular.... Will real progress be possible only when Gadafy leaves the scene? I tend to think the opposite. If he is sincere in wanting change, as I think he is, he could play a role in muting conflict that might otherwise arise as modernisation takes hold.

The article did not mention the Monitor Group.... Giddens did not respond to an email request for comment....

Monitor did not reply to questions from Mother Jones about its intentions in Libya, about its payments to consultants, or about the various articles that were written by the academics it brought to Tripoli. "We do not discuss specifics of our work with any client," the Monitor statement says. "That said, we are deeply distressed and saddened to witness the current tragic events in Libya." The group did not say whether it regretted mounting, on behalf a brutal dictator who proved to be no reformer, a behind-the-scenes PR campaign that snared prominent intellectuals hoping for the best in Libya.

Is My Computer Saying: "Your Backups Are Hosed!"?

I think that is what this message means...

DeLong Smackdown Watch: Only Four Good Emperors in Imperial Rome's Antonine Dynasty

Gene O'Grady writes:

China Watch: How Many Good Emperors in a Row Can an Authoritarian System Produce?: I think it's really actually four, since Nerva was an old man only in for a short time, and there seems to be some evidence (contrary to what had to be said later, given the system of adoption) that things were falling apart and Trajan pulled Rome's bacon out of the fire.

Trajan, by the way, would be my nominee for the least known and appreciated great man in European history.

Lucius Cassius Dio Cocceianus:

Cassius Dio — Epitome of Book 68: After Domitian, the Romans appointed Nerva Cocceius emperor. Because of the hatred felt for Domitian, his images, many of which were of silver and many of gold, were melted down; and from this source large amounts of money were obtained. The arches, too, of which a very great number were being erected to this one man, were torn down. 

Nerva also released all who were on trial for maiestas and restored the exiles; moreover, he put to death all the slaves and the freedmen who had conspired against their masters and allowed that class of persons to lodge no complaint whatever against their masters; and no persons were permitted to accuse anybody of maiestas or of adopting the Jewish mode of life. Many of those who had been informed were condemned to death, among others Seras, the philosopher. When, now, no little commotion was occasioned by the fact that everybody was accusing everybody else, Fronto, the consul, is said to have remarked that it was bad to have an emperor under whom nobody was permitted to do anything, but worse to have one under whom everybody was permitted to do everything; and Nerva, on hearing this, ordered that this condition of affairs should cease for the future.

Now Nerva was so old and so feeble in health (he always, for instance, had to vomit up his food) that he was rather weak.

He also forbade the making of gold or silver statues in his honour. To those who had been deprived of their property without cause under Domitian he gave back all that was still to be found in the imperial treasury. To the very poor Romans he granted allotments of land worth 60,000,000 sesterces, putting some senators in charge of their purchase and distribution. When he ran short of funds, he sold much wearing apparel and many vessels of silver and gold, besides furniture, both his own and that which belonged to the imperial residence, and many estates and houses — in fact, everything except what was indispensable. He did not, however, haggle over the price, but in this very matter benefitted many persons. He abolished many sacrifices, many horse-races, and some other spectacles, in an attempt to reduce expenditures as far as possible.

In the senate he took oath that he would not slay any of the senators, and he kept his pledge in spite of plots against himself. Moreover, he did nothing without the advice of the foremost men.

Among his various laws were those prohibiting the castration of any man, and the marriage by any man of his own niece. When consul he did not hesitate to take as his colleague Virginius Rufus, though this man had often been saluted as emperor. After Rufus' death an inscription was placed on his tomb to the effect that, after conquering Vindex, he had claimed the power, not for himself, but for his country.

Nerva ruled so well that he once remarked: "I have done nothing that would prevent my laying down the imperial office and returning to private life in safety."

When Calpurnius Crassus, a descendant of the famous Crassi, had formed a plot with some others against him, he caused them to sit beside him at a spectacle (they were still ignorant of the fact that they had been informed upon) and gave them swords, ostensibly to inspect and see if they were sharp (as was often done), but really in order to show that he did not care even if he died then and there.

Casperius Aelianus, who had become commander of the Praetorians under him as he had been under Domitian, incited the soldiers to mutiny against him, after having induced them to demand certain persons for execution. Nerva resisted them stoutly, even to the point of baring his collar-bone and presenting to them his throat; but he accomplished nothing, and those whom Aelianus wished were put out of the way.

Nerva, therefore, finding himself held in such contempt by reason of his old age, ascended the Capitol and said in a loud voice: "May good success attend the Roman senate and people and myself. I hereby adopt Marcus Ulpius Nerva Trajan."

Afterwards in the senate he appointed him Caesar and sent a message to him written with his own hand (Trajan was governor of Germany):

May the Danaans by thy shafts requite my tears.

Thus Trajan became Caesar and later emperor, although there were relatives of Nerva living. But Nerva did not esteem family relationship above the safety of the State, nor was he less inclined to adopt Trajan because the latter was a Spaniard instead of an Italian or Italot, inasmuch as no foreigner had previously held the Roman sovereignty; for he believed in looking at a man's ability rather than at his nationality. Soon after this act he passed away, having ruled one year, four months and nine days; his life prior to that time had comprised sixty-five years, ten months and ten days.

Sextus Aurelius Victor[?]:

Roman Emperors - DIR Epitome of Sextus Aurelius Victor: Cocceius Nerva, born at the town Narnia, ruled sixteen months, ten days.

When he had accepted imperium and a rumor quickly arose that Domitian lived and would soon be at hand, he was sufficiently terrified so that, pale and unable to speak, he barely held firm. But, bolstered by assurances received from Parthenius, he was turned to festive blandishments.

When he had been joyfully received by the senate in the senate house, alone from all Arrius Antoninus - a shrewd man and a very close friend of his -, wisely describing the lot of rulers, embraced him and said that he congratulated the senate, people, and provinces, however, in no way Nerva himself, for whom to escape ever-evil principes had been better than, enduring the force of so great a burden, subjections not only to troubles and risks, but also to the assessment of enemies and, equally, of friends, who, since they presume they deserve everything, are bitterer than even enemies themselves, if they do not obtain something.

He exempted whatever had previously accrued to the taxes (called the "burdens"); he relieved afflicted cities; girls and boys born to indigent parents he ordered fed at public expense through the towns of Italy.

Lest he be alarmed by the approach of the malevolent, he was admonished in the following fashion in a comment of Junius Mauricus, a steadfast man: invited to a social gathering, when he had observed that Veiento, who had, indeed, enjoyed consular honor under Domitian, yet who had persecuted many with secret accusations, was present, when among the conversations mention was made of Catullus, a principle calumniator, and Nerva was saying, "What would he be doing now, if he had survived Domitian?", Mauricus said, "He would be dining with us." He was a most learned man and a frequent arbitrator of disputes.

Calpurnius Crassus, who was tempting the minds of the troops with grand promises, having been discovered and having confessed, he removed, along with his wife, to Tarentum, while the senate chided his leniency.

And when Domitian's murderers were being called to execution, he was so consternated that he was unable to keep from vomiting or from a paroxysm of the bowels, but nevertheless he vehemently objected, saying that it was more fitting to die than to befoul the authority of imperium as a result of the authors of the power that he was to acquire having been betrayed.

But the soldiers, with the princeps ignored, slaughtered those they sought, Petronius with a single blow, but Parthenius after his genitals had been torn out and shoved into his mouth, with Casperius bought off by means of huge payoffs, who, more insolent than the savage crime, compelled Nerva to give thanks among the people to the soldiers, since they had killed the most base and wicked of all mortals.

He admitted Trajan to the position of son and to a share of imperium; with him he lived three months.

It was he who, with his voice rising in anger as he shouted out very many things against someone by the name Regulus, was seized by a sweat. When it abated, the excessive shivering of his body revealed the beginnings of a fever, nor much later did he end his life in his sixty-third year of age.

His body, as formerly that of Augustus, was conveyed with honor by the senate and buried in the tomb of Augustus. On the day on which he died, there was an eclipse of the sun.

Andrew Samwick: Costs of the Infrastructure Deficit

AS:

Costs of the Infrastructure Deficit | Capital Gains and Games: From the New America Foundation this week comes a brief report on the efficiency losses of America's outmoded infrastructure.  The costs approach $200 billion per year, with sitting in traffic making up over half that total.  An excerpt:

Congestion has worsened as the expansion of the highway system has failed to keep pace with usage.  Since 1980, mileage of U.S. highways increased 4.5% while the number of passenger cars increased 12.7% and the number of trucks increased 56.4%.  As a result, the amount of time wasted has increased dramatically over the past few decades rising from 14 hours per driver in 1982 to 34 hours in 2009.  The cost of these delays has increased from $24 billion in 1982 to $115 billion in 2009 dollars.  Congestion has also slowed truck freight.  Truckers experience 243 million hours of bottleneck delay annually at a cost of $32.15 per hour, in addition to general traffic delay. Given that oil prices have increased dramatically in recent years, and are likely to remain elevated, the cost of congestion and poor infrastructure are rising.

The growth in truck freight on the roads is really remarkable.  I would be surprised if it weren't more efficient to move that freight by rail, even at the cost of displacing people from the rail system.

China Watch: How Many Good Emperors in a Row Can an Authoritarian System Produce?

The record is five, in the Roman Empire in the second century: Marcus Cocceius Nerva, Marcus Ulpius Traianus, Publius Ælius Hadrianus, Titus Aurelius Fulvus Boionius Arrius Antoninus, and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.

Geoff Dyer on the Beijing Succession:

FT.com / FT Magazine - Who will be China’s next leaders?: Next year, China will start a leadership transition, which will give the country a new president in place of Hu Jintao, who is also the head of the party and the military, and a new premier to replace Wen Jiabao, who runs the day-to-day business of the government. In 2007, a key party meeting in effect chose the next leadership team, when Xi -Jinping (pronounced Shee Jin-ping) and Li Keqiang (pronounced Lee Ke-chiang) were both promoted to the country’s top body, the nine-man Politburo Standing Committee. Xi, now aged 57, became vice--president and 55-year-old Li one of four vice-premiers (the most senior, with responsibility for the economy, climate change, health and the environment), giving both five years to play understudy to their bosses.

The names of the next leaders may already be pencilled in, but the easiest way for them to sabotage their promotion would be to start ­discussing bold ideas now. Instead, they have to spend five years in a form of political purdah, going out of their way to avoid controversial topics. As a result, little is known of their views about many of the big issues that China faces – how to keep the economic boom going, how to manage ties with the US and, perhaps most important of all, whether the Communist party should maintain its iron grip on the country’s political system. Politics in China is often expressed through coded gestures, rather than bold statements, which makes their visits to the family home of Hu Yaobang so symbolic. Were China’s next leaders behaving as dutiful party members, paying respect to a senior comrade in a system that values displays of loyalty, or are they secret liberal sympathisers who are waiting for the right moment to restart the debate about political reform that died in Tiananmen?

There is always an element of wishful thinking to such discussions. For the past two decades, -western observers and governments have projected these questions on to leadership changes, in the hope of finding the new Chinese Gorbachev figure, one who has yet to appear. Yet this is not just a change in leadership but a shift in generations. The stolid engineers who dominate senior positions in China today will be replaced by a group who -studied law, economics and, in a few cases, journalism, and who came of age during the 1980s, a time when China was assailed by western ideas and influences after the intellectual deep freeze of the Mao years. It will be a new era...

Liveblogging World War II: March 5, 1941

Operation Lustre: British troops board ships in Alexandria for transport to Greece.

DeLong Smackdown Watch: Timing of My Major Analytical Blunders Edition

zrichellez said...

I am sure you have thought of it yourself...especially since economists want perfect foresight and rational expectations (surprises kinda mess with all that)....your self identified surprises have come at intervals of 34,14.5 and 3 years respectively..that means you are perhaps due for your next surprise in 3-4 months. Just in case you want to clear off part of your calendar for introspection, data mining, or hiding wearing a tin foil hat.