J. Bradford DeLong's Blog, page 2121
January 15, 2011
Bots Demand a Double Space at the Ends of Sentences!
David Winn Miller:
everyone has a right to their beliefs: [T]hough I don’t get quite as worked up about it, the same sort of thinking motivates my belief in the double space. Sentences deserve to be clearly delineated, but because of the complications of quotation, ellipses, interrogatives and exclamations (among others), there is no reliable punctuation that can be counted on as a terminator for sentences. Single spaces are already spoken for: they separate words. The double space is an elegant and subtle solution.
To operationalize it: I can split any of the paragraphs in this post (as composed, not as rendered) into its constituent sentences with a simple line of Python.... for x in paragraph.split(' '): print repr(x)....
Further disassembly is easy from there. I can’t do that with the degenerate text that Manjoo prefers. As a journalist who makes his living on consumers’ pageviews it’s perhaps understandable that he would deliberately complicate news consumption for his non-human audience. But I hope the rest of us can make our aesthetic decisions a little less selfishly.
I find this convincing...
Four Ten Rules of Strategy
Never fight a land war in Asia.
Never go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line.
**Keep the candlestick away from Col. Mustard when you're in the library.
Never march on Moscow.
A Smith & Wesson beats four aces.
Never bring a knife to a gun fight.
Strategy creates a situation in which not one path but all paths lead to victory.
One of these days in your travels, a guy is going to show you a brand-new deck of cards on which the seal is not yet broken. Then this guy is going to offer to bet you that he can make the jack of spades jump out of this brand-new deck of cards and squirt cider in your ear. But, son, do not accept this bet, because as sure as you stand there, you're going to wind up with an ear full of cider.**
And--most important of all--never, never, never, never try to wage a war of lurk-and-pounce against a race of alien spiders.
Over at tor.com Jo Walton--author of the Best Dragon Novel of All Time and of the Damnedest Version of the Tale of Sir Launcelot du Lac I Have Ever Read and company--are talking about Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky--which may be the Greatest Science Fiction Novel of All Time.
Among other things, they are talking about the clues that Vinge drops as to [spoiler], and whether anybody un-Focused could possibly figure out in advance that [spoiler], [spoiler], and [spoiler]. They have come up with only two clues: "steganography" and "I'm not a machine?"
There is a third, at the start of the kidnapping sequence:
He reached out to Smith, the tremor in his head and arms more pronounced than ever. "There has to be a way to find them. There has to be. I have computers, and the microwave link to Lands Command." All the resources that had served him so well in the past. "I can get them back safely. I know I can."
Smith was very still for a moment. Then she moved close to him, laid on arm across Sherk's shoulders, caressing his fur. her voice was soft and stern, almost like a soldier bracing another about lost comrades. "No, dear. You can only do so much"...
UPDATE: And a fourth: when Sherkaner is talking to Hrunkner about cavorite: "You've found something genuinely new. Why, not even the..."
Erik Hurst on Structural Unemployment
Erik Hurst:
More on Erik Hurst and FT Alphaville on Structural Unemployment « Rortybomb: There was, however, an error in Raghu’s assessment of our work. I am emailing Raghu as well. Raghu reported that we are finding that upwards of 3 percentage points of total U.S. unemployment can be explained by structural forces. That is not what we have found. Preliminary back of the envelop calculations suggest that upwards of 3 percentage points of the unemployment rate in high unemployment rate states like Nevada or Arizona may be due to structural forces – not 3 percentage points of total U.S. unemployment. The amount of total U.S. unemployment explained by structural forces will almost certainly be much less.
Rule of Law
David Roberts:
Is Obama’s EPA trying to implement ‘backdoor cap-and-trade’? Um, no: One conservative talking point that crops up with increasing frequency is that by using EPA to regulate greenhouse gases, Obama is effectively short-circuiting democracy, doing via regulatory fiat what Democrats could not accomplish via legislation. The Tea Party right is calling it "backdoor cap-and-trade." Similar sentiment is reaching even the more reasonable quarters of conservative thought -- James Joyner says it's a "unilateral decision arguably outside the scope of [the president's] Constitutional power" and Conor Friedersdorf cast it as "disregarding separation of powers."...
Just for the record, then, let's put the "backdoor cap-and-trade" myth to rest.
The EPA is under legal obligation to act
The Clean Air Act was passed in 1963. Here's what Section 202(a)(1) says:
[EPA] Administrator shall by regulation prescribe (and from time to time revise) ... standards applicable to the emission of any air pollutant from any class or classes of new motor vehicles or new motor vehicle engines, which in his judgment cause, or contribute to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.
As you can see, the language of the statute is both broad ("any air pollutant") and unambiguous ("shall"). The EPA administrator is given broad latitude to make a judgment on whether a particular motor vehicle pollutant threatens public health; if it does, the administrator must "prescribe standards."... The law is intended... to apply to air pollutants that scientists in 1963 might not yet have been aware of. That is the law of the land. Yet it raises a question: Do greenhouse gases qualify as air pollutants under the Clean Air Act?...
This question was litigated all the way to the Supreme Court, which decided, in 2007's Massachusetts v. EPA, that yes, greenhouse gases qualify as air pollutants under the Clean Air Act....
If greenhouse gases are pollutants, the court said, then the EPA administrator must determine whether they endanger public health. In the case of greenhouse gases, conservative conspiracy theories aside, the only responsible answer to that question is in the affirmative, and that is what EPA scientists concluded in the agency's March 2009 "endangerment finding"... that means the EPA administrator "shall by regulation prescribe (and from time to time revise) ... standards" for them. She is bound to do so by law, and that is what Lisa Jackson is doing. Far from making a "unilateral" decision, she is acting in response to legal obligations imposed by Congress and the courts...
Liveblogging World War II: January 15, 1941
Emperor Haile Selassie returns to Ethiopia.
Mark Thoma on Structural Unemployment
Mark Thoma:
Economist's View: "A Refusal to Take Yes for an Answer": Dear Raghu Rajan:
It is not much of a correction to say I was wrong to assert that structural unemployment for the US is around 3 percent, but now that I've looked again it's around 3 percent. You did correct the misstatement of Erik Hurst's work, but you refuse to correct the faulty misinterpretations that followed from the error. Instead, you have thrown together a few figures, issued a "caution that there are large errors" and reasserted the 3% figure (okay, 2.5 percent this time, but you do say "Perhaps my misstated conclusion from Erik’s work of “up to 3 percentage points” is not terribly off the mark"). Apparently you already know the answer, the unemployment problem is structural not cyclical -- it's not an aggregate demand problem -- and it's simply a matter of using highly unreliable extrapolations to justify the truth you believe is out there.
This is from a slightly different context, but "all the efforts to insist that it can’t be aggregate demand amount to a refusal to take yes for an answer." There are many, many estimates of the degree to which structural unemployment is a problem, e.g. this one from the SF Fed, that do not come to the conclusion you arrive at. This work points a finger at a large cyclical (AD) problem. But instead of citing numbers that have been thoroughly vetted, which I assume you must know about, you rely instead upon your own rough calculations surrounded by warnings about their accuracy, and then say you hope that Hurst's future work will end up supporting what you think must be true ("Erik has promised to come up with careful estimates that should be much more accurate"). That sure does seem like "a refusal to take yes for an answer." Why present your "guesstimates" when better work is available? (To be fair there are a range of estimates, but my reading is that overall they point strongly to the cyclical issue. In any case, citing back of the envelope calculations that support preconceptions while competely ignoring real work that does not is not the way those who are the first to claim economics should be more scientific ought to proceed.)
This wouldn't of much importance if the error simply reflected upon your own reputation. But there are millions of people who still need new jobs, and to the extent that the refusal to acknowledge the demand side of the problem holds back efforts to help these people find jobs, the consequences for them are far from trivial.
We will know that it is time to start worrying about structural unemployment and its consequences when the rate of increase of nominal wages starts rising above the level consistent with our CPI-inflation target of 2% per year. With 1.5%-2% per year of labor productivity growth, that means that we don't start to worry about structural unemployment until we forecast nominal wage increases at a 4% per year pace.
We are not there.
Scott Sumner Does the Lord's Work
If the problem were on the supply side--that we had an excess supply of construction workers--then we would see excess demand for something else. But we don't. Scott Sumner does the Lord's work, and goes through the simple arithmetic:
TheMoneyIllusion: [M]acroeconomics should be all about specialization and trade. Except business cycle theory, which needs a special ad hoc sticky wage/price model. Why? Because the evidence simply doesn’t fit any other approach.... Yes, housing output was low in 2009 and unemployment was high. But is there a causal relationship? I say no. Housing starts peaked in January 2006, and then fell steadily for years:
January 2006 — housing starts = 2.303 million, unemployment = 4.7%
April 2008 — housing starts = 1.008 million, unemployment = 4.9%
October 2009 — housing starts = 527,000, unemployment = 10.1%
So housing starts fall by 1.3 million over 27 months, and unemployment hardly changes. Looks like those construction workers found other jobs, which is what is supposed to happen if the Fed keeps NGDP growing at a slow but steady rate.
Then NGDP plummeted, and housing fell another 480,000. Is this because people didn’t “want” those houses? No. They didn’t want 2.2 million new houses a year.... But they probably do want about a million new houses a year as our population grows by 3 million per year and families average about 3. The reason housing fell far below normal is because the severe fall in NGDP created a deep recession. Unemployed factory and service workers aren’t going to buy new houses.
Most importantly, the huge run-up in unemployment did not occur when the big fall in housing construction occurred, but much later, when output in manufacturing and services also plummeted...
Hold tight to this fact: housing construction has now been depressed longer and deeper than it was elevated during the housing boom. By this time next year we will not have any excess overhang of residential capital but rather a substantial deficiency.
Hold tight to this fact: "reallocation" occurs when people are pulled out of unemployment or jobs in which their marginal product is low by opportunities in expanding businesses. "Reallocation" does not occur when people lose their jobs and pile up as unemployed. "Reallocation" occurs not in depressions but in booms.
January 14, 2011
Europe Needs a Functional Lender of Last Resort
Nick Rowe:
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative: The Lender of Last Resort: What Paul Krugman is saying about Ireland and the Eurozone is not wrong. But he keeps missing the most important point. And it's bugging me. Sure, the scale (H/T anne via Mark Thoma) of Ireland's bank guarantees is much bigger than the US's TARP, as a percentage of GDP, and that matters. And sure, the Eurozone is less of an Optimal Currency Area than the US, and that matters too. But the lender of last resort matters more. The US has an effective lender of last resort. The Fed has the political authority to print as many US dollars as are needed. The only effective limits are the risks of inflation and moral hazard. The Eurozone does not have an effective lender of last resort. The individual Eurozone countries do not have their own central banks. The ECB lacks the political authority to print as many Euros as are needed.
Suppose you abolished the US Federal government. So you needed all 50 State governments to agree before the Fed could act as lender of last resort to one of those State governments. And suppose some of those US State governments had as much debt as Greece, or were bailing out their banks like Ireland. Think all 50 State governments would agree on anything? I don't...
Friends Don't Let Friends Support the Republican Party in Any Way
Steve Benen:
The Washington Monthly: THE CONTEXT OF 'ARMED AND DANGEROUS'.... Any discussion of rhetorical excesses from Republican officials invariably includes some standard examples. Near the top of the list is Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), one of Congress' most ridiculous members, who urged her supporters to be "armed and dangerous" in 2009. Paul Krugman noted the phrase in his column this week, generating an angry response from the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto. The Republican writer called the Bachmann anecdote "fraudulent" and accused Krugman of telling a "little lie" in his column. (Taranto added, "Krugman and his colleagues on the Times editorial board are not skilled enough to be effective liars.") Who's right? You can probably guess, but let's set the record straight. Krugman cited Bachmann's quote as an example of "toxic rhetoric" that's "overwhelmingly" generated by the right. Taranto argues that the context of Bachmann's quote is important.
Fair enough. Here's the context for the phrase, published by Taranto himself. (I haven't independently verified the accuracy of Taranto's version -- he cites a blogger I'm unfamiliar with -- but I'm happy to give Taranto the benefit of the doubt.) The subject at hand was Bachmann's concerns about a cap-and-trade proposal in March 2009.
But you can get all the latest information on this event, this .. a must-go-to event with this Chris Horner. People will learn ... it will be fascinating. We met with Chris Horner last week, 20 members of Congress. It takes a lot to wow members of Congress after a while. This wowed them. And I am going to have materials for people when they leave.
I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us, having a revolution every now and then is a good thing, and the people -- we the people -- are going to have to fight back hard if we're not going to lose our country. And I think this has the potential of changing the dynamic of freedom forever in the United States and that's why I want everyone to come out and hear. So go to bachmann.house.gov and you can get all the information." [pauses reflect pauses, not omitted text]
Taranto seems to think this context proves Krugman wrong. I suppose concepts like "toxic rhetoric" are somewhat subjective, but after reading the context, and seeing Bachmann talk about "armed and dangerous" supporters, the prospect of a "revolution," and the possibility of Americans losing their freedom and their country -- all over a proposal that was originally a Republican idea anyway -- I'm comfortable concluding that Krugman isn't the one who's "lying."
Jon Chait responded to Taranto this way:
So wait -- your defense of Bachmann is that, in the context of urging her followers to be 'armed and dangerous,' she immediately proceeded to extol the benefits of armed revolution? This is supposed to be exculpatory? I think it's a perfect example of the right's hysteria directly legitimizing violence.
It's enough to make me wonder if the editors of the Wall Street Journal are skilled enough to be effective liars.
Update: Taranto emails to argue, "What I called a lie is Krugman's characterization of Bachmann's statement as 'eliminationist rhetoric,'" and urges me to run a correction. The problem, of course, is that Krugman didn't characterize Bachmann's statement as "eliminationist rhetoric." The phrase appeared in Krugman's column, but specifically in reference to Bachmann's remarks, the NYT columnist cited "armed and dangerous" as an example of "toxic rhetoric" that's "overwhelmingly" generated by the right, which is precisely what I published above. As such, I'm at a loss as to explain what it is I'm supposed to correct.
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