J. Bradford DeLong's Blog, page 2280

Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps? (Context Please Department)

This, from Clive Crook, once again struck me as odd:

Britain should back down over BP: Mr Obama became pointedly less calm. He called for some “ass to kick”, a very Bushian sentiment, and dialled up the invective against BP – which he likes to call by its old name, British Petroleum, to underline the company’s alien perfidy. The US outcry against the company is still building, and the administration, intent on deflecting its critics, has put itself in the vanguard. Criminal...

End of a Sokratic Dialogue at Cafe Strada

Glaukon: So you agree with me that, in the absence of externalities and of increasing returns, a competitive market in equilibrium with an absence of externalities produces the best outcome unless you have a taste for equality?

Thrasymakhos: No. I believe that, in the absence of externalities and increasing returns, a competitive market in equilibrium produces a bad outcome unless you have a complete indifference to fairness.

Adeimantos: But then we are in complete agreement!

...

The Not-So-Peaceable Kingdom: A Drama

I think this has all the Aristotelian unities:

Time: Dawn


Place: Ten yards off of our deck


Dramatis personae: Four full-grown fifteen-poound adult male turkeys and one small thirty-pound bobcat


Stage directions: When are scene opens, the turkeys are arranged in a line abreast, facing the bobcat ten yards away.

Turkeys: Gobble gobble gobble GOBBLE gobble gobble. Gobble! Gobble gobble gobble gobble. Gobble gobble! Gobble gobble gobble GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE!!1! Gobble gobble...

Alan Greenspan: It is Very Regrettable that My Model of the World Is Wrong--and the World Needs to Shape Up...

Paul Krugman:

The Facts Have A Well-Known Keynesian Bias: There are many things to say about Alan Greenspan’s op-ed yesterday, none of them complimentary. But what struck me is the passage highlighted by Tim Fernholz:

Despite the surge in federal debt to the public during the past 18 months—to $8.6 trillion from $5.5 trillion—inflation and long-term interest rates, the typical symptoms of fiscal excess, have remained remarkably subdued. This is regrettable, because it is...

Eleanor Roosevelt Liveblogs World War II: June 19, 1940

Eleanor Roosevelt:

I am sure that many people who, like myself, have lived long periods of time in foreign countries, are feeling heavy-hearted these days because of the sorrow which is engulfing friends in other nations. This taking over of three small countries by Russia may be a case of self-defense, but we used to think ourselves equally well-defended by friendly neighbors. The plight of France, which has been a refuge for so many exiles from other nations, brings up a sad picture...

links for 2010-06-18

Aswad: Don't Turn Around







Aswad: Don't Turn Around







Reactions of the Group 1 elements with water







Stephen Gordon: Worthwhile Canadian Initiative: On the lessons to be learned from the elimination of the Canadian federal deficit in the 1990s

SG: "It would appear that there is a significant constituency in both the US and in Europe agitating for...

Charles de Gaulle Liveblogs World War II: June 18, 1940

Charles de Gaulle: June 18, 1940:

The leaders who, for many years, were at the head of French armies, have formed a government. This government, alleging our armies to be undone, agreed with the enemy to stop fighting. Of course, we were subdued by the mechanical, ground and air forces of the enemy. Infinitely more than their number, it was the tanks, the airplanes, the tactics of the Germans which made us retreat. It was the tanks, the airplanes, the tactics of the Germans that...

Peggy Noonan of WSJ, Dark-Age "Journalist"

Jonathan Chait watches Peggy Noonan, writing from the Age of Ignorance and Superstition:

Noonan Of York: [T:]here is a strong relationship between economic conditions and presidential approval rating.... I mention this because of Peggy Noonan's column today. Now, political pundits tend to be fairly unaware of political science, and prefer to explain events in terms of narrative and broad assertions about the character of politicians and the public that cannot survive empirical...

In the Shadow of the Hoover Institution Tower...

...I am right now drinking shade grown, handpicked, patio sun-dried, super fair trade, organic, single-estate Arabica small-batch roasted coffee plus chuao spicy Maya hot chocolate. I keep glancing over my shoulder, as if death rays shooting from the eyes of an angry ghost of Herbert Hoover will shortly drive this palce away--or at least change how it sells its menu.

Coupa Café is a family business with operations in Meyer Library and in the Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki Environment and...

Microeconomic and Macroeconomic Excess Supply

In our normal, microeconomic world it is not a big deal when excess demand emerges in one market and excess supply emerges in another--it is, in fact, a good thing, because it induces shifts in production that make the structure of what is made correspond more closely to what people want (or perhaps to what the people with money want). There is excess demand in one industry. Sales exceed production, inventories fly off the shelves, and cupboards and supply chains become bare. Producers and...